UNTIRTA, a new spirit of idealism

I am currently working in a new state university which is very challenging. Working together with colleagues in English Education Department has made me aware of the importance of "going beyond the miles". We have to run in order to be at the same "state" with outstanding state campuses all over Indonesia especially those universities where English department is highly appreciated by the public. We strive for a better service for our students and hope to guide them into a gate of successful life soon after they leave their classroom in the university. We do need some inputs on how to develop a study program and make it run faster. Readers, if you have any suggestions, please share your ideas to udy_untirta@yahoo.com.

Philosophy in Language Teaching

A. Philosophy of Science and What It Does.
Philosophy of science has been an interesting issue in educational world all over the globe. This is proven by many discussions on it which are mainly aimed at finding out the “real light” upon the term philosophy of science itself. A debate for decades among many experts has also shown that this issue is a challenging one. This is explicitly stated by Rosenberg (2000) who said that philosophy of science is a difficult subject to define. An interesting fact of this is that many people then try to share their ideas in seeking reasonable definitions of the term so called, philosophy of science. In his article, “Philosophy of Science”, Campbell Jones states that the philosophy of science is a reflection on the nature and practices of science aimed at understanding the nature of science, and what distinguishes scientific from other, nonscientific knowledge. This idea, as it reflects, tries to uncover things within the word “science” and possible efforts to cultivate the nature of it and make some points of differences between science and non science category. This definition is supported by other definition which also concerns more on the function of philosophy of science itself, which to some extent, shows how science operates, what the goal of science should be, what relationship science should have with the rest of the society and the differences between science and other activities. Further, another definition sees the philosophical foundations and implication of science including formal, natural and social sciences in understanding the term (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/philosophy). This last definition gives us a wider scope in understanding science which seems to be more comprehensive by showing concerns on some important foundations in three different fields; formal, natural and social sciences. Finally, it could be said that the definitions of the philosophy of science above, give us a light that the nature of philosophical of science is actually meant to find out more about the science itself as an entity; the background, nature and certain activities designed to cultivate the science itself. Dealing with the debate, what we need to do is to put forward logical foundations or layers in defining the term. In other words, as long as a logical foundation is available, we still can have a slot to believe in certain definitions of science.
Historically, the issue of philosophical of science came up in the organization studies and in defining its nature this time being. Hence, dealing with the philosophy of science, it should also be cleared up that the debate on defining the philosophical of science occurs because of different opposing positions or views on seeing the nature of science. Two popular opposing positions are on ontology and epistemology positions. The first is a contest between realism which believes in the entities in the world and antirealism which asserts that entities are not obvious brute facts but are the result of our ideas about them. The second shows a competition of claims from two different sides, positivism which ensures that true knowledge of entities can be obtained through rigorous empirical investigation and antipositivism which believes that truth is a conventional agreement in a community at anytime about what is “true”. Other interesting view, postmodernism shared by Jacques Derrida, Michael Foucault and Jean-Francois Lyotard comes to believe that knowledge is apparently no longer certain but was fragmented, partial and stable. This is rendered as entailing particular set of epistemological and ontological commitments. Bridging those views, critical realism and reflexivity propose ways out. The first one claims that science is not a matter of collection of brute facts but also that appeals to science and reality should not be abandoned altogether. The later, stresses that knowledge is always influenced by personal perceptions and subjective preferences. According to Jones both critical realism and reflexivity or some combination of these two, give some alternative solutions to questions of ontology and epistemology. Seeing those judgments on the nature of science above, it is actually clear that each of them has a different foundation in seeing science in terms of it’s origin. Positivists, for instance, uses an experiment as a way to find out the truth meanwhile antipositvists seem to be more natural by focusing their attention on what is believed to be true by certain group of a people in a certain time. It is therefore reasonable to say that each of the view is actually enriching each other in our effort to find the logic behind a certain phenomenon or something called, science.
Other effort of defining science and make it different from non science is by putting forward some basic concepts of principles. This is a form of response toward the confusion in defining science so far. The main idea of this is that science draws upon evidence from experimentation, logical deduction, rational thought in order to examine the world and individuals that exist within the society. Science, in this sense, is neither natural in its approach nor moral in its purpose. Further, in a fundamental sense, science is a method like observation, empirical testing which demands for a systematic way of analysis. The result of these are results which are falsifiable, that is, able to be tested and proven wrong. Completing this, Georg Wilhelm at al, with his continental philosophical tradition, prefer to say that science is related to a world-historical perspective. Others like Edmund Husserl approaches the science definition from phenomenology perspective and last but not least is the study of power and corruption within the science of madness. This last work has got a significant achievement in uncovering the meaning behind the word S-C-I-E-N-C-E which is, according to him, very complicated to define.
In response to this, some experts like Paul Feyerabend argued that no description of scientific method could possibly be broad enough to encompass all the approaches and methods used by scientists. To his belief, the only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes! His opinion shows his reluctance on the existing of “scientific methods” which, according to him, to broad. Other critique comes from Khun through his book entitled The Structure of Scientific Revolution. According to him, science can be done only as a part of a community, and inherently communal activity. He further claims that the fundamental difference between science and other disciplines is in the way in which the communities function. This comments put its emphasis on the integrated relationship between “science” and community.
Knowing the nature of the philosophy of science above, it can be inferred that understanding and knowing this, as Jones said, will give us a vocabulary for understanding claims about what is true in nature. In other words, using our critical thinking skill, we will be able to see something (say, an issue) behind a reality or an entity.
B. Advantages of Philosophy for Language Teachers
So, what advantages can language teachers get by understanding the philosophy of science, then? The philosophy of science is worth to study including by language teachers in order to help them enhance their analytic skills and problem solving activities that make them extremely effective in their professional life as a teacher in the future. This philosophy encourages any activity of thinking the logic behind something, say, an entity, which will develop their critical thinking skill. This critical thinking development is so demanding in today’s life. It is said that critical thinking is considered as an essential commodity for individual and collective survival in this rapidly expanding info-world (Paul,1990). Consequently, teachers should question what happens around them in order to decide what to believe and to do, say, in their teaching practices to enhance their students’ critical thinking (Lopez, M. G. R, et al, 1998 and Ennis, 1996; Inch, 2006; Kameo, 2006). In short, it could be claimed that studying philosophy of science will enable language teachers to think critically to arrive into a logical and valid conclusion in deciding what to do in their activities as teachers.
C. Teachers and Scholar: Do they need Philosophy?
The philosophy of science concerns with topics like the character and the development of concepts and terms, propositions and hypotheses, arguments and conclusions, the manner in which science explains natural phenomena and predicts natural occurrences; the types of reasoning, scientific method and the implication of scientific methods and models. This concern of philosophy meets the nature of a teacher profession including those teachers of language like English (teachers do need this). Studying philosophy of science, language teachers will find that developing concepts in teaching English is an important asset for their teaching improvement. Learning this philosophy, teachers will be guided into questioning their own teaching practices, materials prepared and so on in order to make them better in terms of professional development. This way of thinking will lead them to be a reflective teacher which is very demanding in order to know what else to develop.
Other practical example of learning this philosophy is on developing concepts and making hypotheses of certain experiments in the classroom. Teachers will see and review their choice of certain methods, for instance, to be used in their teaching practices. They make a hypothesis on a certain method by seeing on whether or not it is effective to be used in a certain condition, and so on. From students’ perspective, teachers who have philosophizing skill (as argued by Barrow and Wood, 1982) will let students express themselves more in the classroom. They can play with their skill of argumentation and sharpen their critical thinking faculty. This will surely bring a positive implication especially on active participation of students for active classroom atmosphere. In their further explanation, Barrow and Wood also believe that teachers who know and have philosophizing skill will be able to know their nature as an educator whose job is to educate. It means that sharing and developing positive values could take place in their teaching.
Referring to the explanation above, it is logical to say that language teachers and even scholar do need to learn this philosophy in order that they know the nature of being an educator as well as a language teacher. As an educator, they will share positive values as believed by the community. Doing this, teachers show students that their life and their development are tightly linked to the community where they live and study. In addition, as a language teacher as well as a scholar, they will know what aspects of language need to explore and learn and know how to explore it for teaching purposes. Furthermore, it gives teachers a space to trace back to the nature of language in order to make it easy to study and to design appropriate materials to teach as well as method to deliver them. In short, studying philosophy of science especially language as a science, teachers will have a slot of time to keep asking questions on their teaching practices as teachers. It is philosophy which helps teachers to understand the nature and their roles as teachers for them to develop as better future language teachers.



Additional References
Barrow, R and Wood, R (1982) An Introduction to Philosophy of Education: Routledge Press.
(http://books.google.co.id/books?id)
[Accessed September 9, 2009]

Bridgman, Percy W. “ON SCIENTIFIC METHOD”
http://idt.net/~nelsonb/bridgman.html
[Accessed September 7, 2009]

Inch, Edward (2006).Critical Thinking and Communication. Pearson Education, Inc.
Kameo, R.M (2006). Critical Thinking in the Classroom. Satya Wacana University Press.
Lopez, m. g. r., a. f. arellado, t. v. blantocas, a. c. v. dequilla, s. f. quimpo and h. roxas. (1998). study & thinking skills in english. iloilo: m. malones printing press.
Rosenberg, Alex (2000)Philosophy of science: A Contemporary Introduction. Routledge Press.

ACTION LOGGING ACTIVITIES IN EFL SPEAKING CLASS
( A Case Study at the Speaking I Class of the English Department, UNTIRTA)


Abstract

This research is focused on exploring the roles of Action Logging activities in an EFL Speaking class at the English Education Department of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University. This research is mainly aimed at portraying the teaching of speaking in which action logging is used to integrate the teaching of speaking and writing skills. The action logging, in this research, refers to any activities students write in their log book; reviewing material, sharing opinions, arguing, peer collaboration, peer assessment, oral presentation and review at the end of the activity. In short, the nature of the action logging here is combining written and oral activities in an EFL speaking class.
This research employs a naturalistic qualitative research method. This method as stated by Bogdan and Bilken (1982) encourages researcher to spend a great deal of time with participants and is immersed in the research setting and the detailed recording of the process occurring in the natural setting provides the basis for understanding the setting, participants, and their interactions. In this sense, the researcher portrays any phenomena occurred during the implementation of action logging in the speaking I class. Further, subjects of the research are students at the Speaking I class at the English Education Department of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University in the year of 2009. Finally, data are collected through document analysis, participant observation and interview.
This research reveals that Action Logging activities in Speaking I class can be a good alternative way to help students improve both their speaking and writing skills elements (macro and micro skills). This proves to us that integrating both speaking and writing is advantageous for students in at least two sides; speaking and writing skills. In terms speaking skill, students are better in the use of appropriate word order patterns, express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms, awareness on pronunciation and use cohesive devices in speaking activities in the classroom. These are implications of mental readiness when they speak in the target language after their drafting activities. Finally, doing this activity, students are also trained to appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written texts according to form and purpose, correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of written, can accurately use pre writing devices, writing with fluency in the first drafts, using paraphrases and synonyms.
Keywords: action logging, micro/macro skills and speaking fluency.

A. Introduction
The issue of integrating skills in language teaching has been an interesting phenomenon for years. This is mainly based on the idea that teaching language skill cannot be isolated from other related skills. Speaking and writing, for example, are two skills which are possible to take place in one-time teaching experience. This means that it is not impossible for the two skills developed at the same time.
In addition to that, in the field of language teaching, English speaking class has been believed as an ideal place for teachers to integrate the two skills teaching all at once. With various activities, in this class, students can do both oral and written activities. This implies that in the teaching of EFL speaking, teachers are encouraged to design as many as possible activities that give students a space to speak and write in the target language. Having these two activities all at once, students might have a wider opportunity to master the language comprehensively.
Being active as a lecturer in the Speaking skill class, the researcher find many things challenging related to the integration of this two skills in order to comprehensively develop students language mastery. The problems faced are commonly caused by the complexity of the two skills themselves. Luoma (2006) says that speaking in a foreign language is very difficult and competence in speaking takes a long time to develop. Further, according to her, the biggest problem students face is to speak in that target language. Consequently, in speaking English, they take a long time to develop it. They must master the sound system of the language, have almost instant access to appropriate vocabulary and be able to put words together intelligibly with minimal hesitation. This idea implicitly states that teaching speaking for teachers should give facilities for students to easily access learning sources. Giving appropriate tasks to be completed outside the class could be a good option.
In addition to speaking skill, in writing context, students usually find difficulties not only in generating and organizing ideas, but also in translating these ideas into readable text. Students, in practicing their writing, still frequently make mistakes in the use of grammar in terms of sentence structures, words choice, ideas development and so on. In response to this type of problem in the context of teaching writing of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), Richards (2001), says that the skills involved in writing are highly complex. Every student of English has to pay attention to higher level of skills of planning and organizing as well as lower level skills of spelling, punctuation, word choice, and so on (macro and micro skill of writing). He further adds that the difficulty even more pronounced if their language proficiency is weak. His statements above show that the complexity of writing English is so obvious, not only knowledge on technical rules but also knowledge on wider contexts or discourse.
An interesting phenomenon is found in speaking I class teaching and learning process at the English Education Department of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University. An effort of integrating the two skills has been conducted in order to help students improve their both speaking and writing skills. The Action Logging activities used in this class, for instance, has gained a significant interest of students to deal with. A preliminary observation on the implementation of this strategy reveals that students are very enthusiastic in their learning process. Referring to that phenomenon, this research will be focused on portraying the role of action logging activities used in Speaking I class, the English Education Department of Sultan Ageng Tirayasa University. To investigate more, the researcher formulates two research questions. Firstly, how is the Action Logging activity administered in the Speaking I class of English Education Department of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University ? Secondly, how is the students’ response/s toward the implementation of this activity? These two questions would be the foundations and frame of the research in finding more information on the action logging activity implementation in the targeted setting.

B. Theoretical Framework
B. 1. The Nature of Speaking
Speaking for English student is a prerequisite subject offered by the department. This is taught as a skill to be mastered by each students of the English Education Department. In other words, every student of English needs to be competent in using the language for various numbers of purposes in an oral mode. Supporting the statement, Hymes in Richard (2000) says that learners of English need to know not only the linguistic knowledge but also the culturally acceptable ways of interacting with others in different situations and relationships. His theory of communicative competence consists of the interaction of grammatical, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistic, and probabilistic language components. This theory was once explored more by Canale and Swain (1980) who proposed theories on communicative competence. According to them, communicative competence includes the following four tenets.
a. Grammatical competence
It is an umbrella concept that includes increasing expertise grammar (morphology, syntax), vocabulary and mechanics. With regard to speaking, the term mechanics refer to basic sounds of letter and syllables, pronunciation of words, intonation and stress.
b. Discourse competence
In addition to grammatical competence above, EFL learners must develop discourse competence, which is concerned with interferential relationships. Here, students need to be familiar with different contexts of situation that decides their style of delivery.
c. Sociolinguistic competence
Knowledge about language alone does not adequately prepare learners for effective and appropriate use of the target language. Understanding the sociolinguistic side of language helps learners know what comments are appropriate, how to ask questions during interaction, and how to respond nonverbally according to the purpose of the talk.
d. Strategic competence
This concerns with the strategy during a progress of conversation like how to start and close a conversation.



The four competences above could be drawn in the following chart.











Communicative Competence Model by Canale and Swain (1980)
B.2. Elements of speaking Skill
The ability to speak fluently in English presupposes not only a knowledge of language features, but also the ability to process information and language “on the spot’ (Harmer, 2000). The following are elements necessary for spoken production :
a. Connected speech. Effective speakers of English need to be able not only to produce the individual phonemes of English but also connected speech sounds like modified, omitted, added or weakened.
b. Expressive devices. Native speakers of English change the pitch and stress of particular parts of utterances, vary volume and speed, and show by other physical and non-verbal means how they are feeling. The use of these devices contributes to the ability to convey meanings.
c. Lexis and grammar. Spontaneous speech is marked by the use of a number of common lexical phrases, especially in the performance of certain language function.
The elements above should be mastered by students of English so that they can produce an oral production in such a natural and good way.

B.3. Defining Writing Skills
Writing, as we know, is a means to communicative, to convey messages, ideas, and feeling through printed word. In line with this statement, Confey (1987:22) said that writing, like speaking is an important means of communication. This definition shows us that there is a close relationship between speaking and writing. In a different point of view, Reid (1993:21) stated that writing, especially in ESL, meant doing grammar exercise answering reading comprehension questions and writing dictation. Writing is seen as one of variety of technique to add interest to a lesson, or as a testing device to diagnose grammar or comprehension errors. Doing this, students are hoped to be more well controlled in practicing their language and make it appropriate to the nature of written language.
In other side, writing has been considered as a complex process which encourages thinking and learning. This is supported by Raimes (1993) who said that writing is a skill in which it expresses the ideas, feeling and thoughts which are arranged in words, sentences, and paragraph by using eyes, hand and brain. Further, Raimes ( 1993) stated that written language generally demands standard forms of grammar, syntax and vocabulary. This standard of a good writing is a good exercise for students to enhance their understanding on linguistics features which are important in both writing and speaking. Thus, having such a good understanding, students can have an opportunity to also use it in their speaking activities where meanings are dependent to grammars. In other words, good writing will possibly support good speaking in terms of grammar use.
B.4. Action Logging
Action Logging in this context is writing activities using a log book. In this log book, they can share their opinion, argue towards something occur during the progress of the class, give constructive criticism toward their writing class practices, collaborative discussion and peer assessment. It is, a kind of journal that is focused on developing students’ ideas into a well-structured organization. Peyton and Reed (2002) said that Action Logging is a form of dialogue journal that facilitate tacit conversation between a teacher and an individual student. From this definition, it can be noted that this form of journal is not only giving students chances to explore their ideas into a piece of paper but also giving them an opportunity to communicate their writing skill mastery in particular and their English mastery in general. In their further explanation about the Action Logging, Peyton and Reed (2002) said that the activity of the Action Logging can give some benefits both for the teacher and the students. Those benefits are as follows:
a. There are increased opportunities for communication between students and teachers.
b. The teacher gains information that can assist in lesson planning.
c. Students have the opportunity to use writing for genuine communication.
d. Students have an additional opportunity for reading.
Those benefits above, in many ways, can be expected to help students to get accustomed to write. Having this activity, they will be able to challenge themselves to jot down their ideas based on the topics distributed by their teachers. Furthermore, as it is stated, they can communicate their level of mastery in writing skill indirectly through their writing. The following is Action Logging activities model used and developed in this research.

Action Plan Writing Peer discussion Re-writing

ORAL PRESENTATION
Classroom Review
Figure 1: Cycle of Action Logging Activities
The cycle above shows that students, in doing action logging activities, can start writing from action plan stage. They start by discussing topics to write in their log book. After that, they will be led for a peer discussion, re writing their draft, have a presentation and review at the end of the meeting.



C. Research Method
This research uses a naturalistic qualitative research method. This method as stated by Bogdan and Bilken (1982) encourages researcher to spend a great deal of time with participants and is immersed in the research setting and the detailed recording of the process occurring in the natural setting provides the basis for understanding the setting, participants, and their interactions. The nature of this research method gives the researcher opportunities to deal with the subjects of the research. In other words, he can portray activities which meet the goal of this research and analyze them.
Subjects of the research are students at the Speaking I class at the English Education Department of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University in the year of 2009. These subjects are selected using purposive sampling. This means that they are selected because the researcher finds that those subjects meet the criteria of the research. Further, the researcher has a lot of time to deal with them in his teaching practice. This condition helps him much in gaining more data. Finally, data of this research are collected through document analysis, participatory observation and in-depth interview.

D. Finding and Discussion
D.1. Action Logging Implementation

The result of this research, in general, reveals that Action Logging activity in Speaking I class is a good alternative strategy to help students improve both their speaking and writing skills elements (macro and micro skills). This occurs because students have more opportunities to explore their learned language both oral and written. Further, having this activity, they can keep exercising their English as the target language not only in the classroom but also outside of it. It can be said, then, that Action Logging activity gives student a space to be more autonomous in their learning process. Such a condition proves to us that students can maximize their learning through a task-based project which, to some extent, advantageous for their language improvement. Hence, integrating both speaking and writing through action logging activity is advantageous for students in terms of, at least, those two skills development. The following table is a list of steps of the action logging activities conducted in the speaking I class of English Education Department, Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University.
Action plan
Starting the action logging activities, teachers and students have an initial discussion on interesting topics to discuss. Students, in this sense, are given opportunities to opine on what they like and do not like about the topics offered. They further have a group discussion and write the topics to be discussed in their personal log book. Teachers, then describe what aspects of writing skills students need to pay attention in writing their first draft. Finishing this step, both of the sides agree on doing an action to do.
Writing
Students in this phase are given a task to describe the topic they have agreed upon. They explore their knowledge on ideas development, sentence structure, vocabularies, diction and other important aspects in writing in this step.
Peer Discussion and Evaluation
Peer discussion is an activity within action logging which invites every students working in a group shares each other about the task they finish: what they find weak and strong in their writing.
Re-writing
Having comments from their peers, every student has to revise (add or omit) some unimportant things in their writing.
Oral Presentation
At the end of this writing process, each students is given opportunities to have an oral presentation on ideas they develop in a form of text.
Classroom Review
Classroom review is given for teacher to “show the right way”. In this part, teacher review all activities students have done. He can give some correction on grammar, pronunciation, and other rules both in speaking and writing. Having this activity, each students can also comments orally toward activities they have completed.

Implementing action logging activities like those mentioned above, students have a lot of opportunities to explore their language knowledge in two modes: written and spoken. By writing continuously, students can raise their writing-awareness which, in this research, is defined as the awareness of using rules of writing appropriately. In addition to that, doing this activity, students are also trained to appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written texts according to form and purpose, correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of written, can accurately use pre writing devices, writing with fluency in the first drafts, using paraphrases and synonyms. The ability to use these aspects would make them at ease in expressing what they have in the mind.
Furthermore, in terms of speaking skill, students are better in the use of appropriate word order patterns, express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms, awareness on pronunciation and use cohesive devices in speaking activities in the classroom. In other words, students are more aware in a real use of language which demands them to be more familiar with those things mentioned. Being familiar with those things, students can naturally talk in a target language. Being natural, in this sense, is also being able to minimize speaking disfluencies such as hesitation, repetition, false starts and fillers words. The following are samples of students’ expressions used in both written and spoken.
Table I: Samples of Students’ Utterances
Spoken Utterances Speaking Skills Aspects
I have a story to tell to every of you. Word patterns
I have my brother finish my job. Particular meaning using causative
Well,, in addition, (mmm) I also like dangdut music. Cohesive devices usage
The table above suggests that students are aware on the importance of “spoken grammar” in their presentation or conversation. They keep on monitoring their utterances during the progress of their conversation or presentation in order to make meanings clearly understood by their interlocutors. The first utterance I have a story to tell to every of you is used by a student in opening her presentation. Using this expression, the student has successfully kept her patterns in such a good order. In the second example, I have my brother finish my job, one student employs a quite “sophisticated” way of saying something in English by using causative model. As it is known, this kind of sentence is rarely used in daily conversation or presentation especially for students in such a low level (semester I). Finally, the use of “in addition” in the last example, one student has successfully kept the utterances linked from one another.
The examples of students’ utterances above indicate that students are getting more aware to control their speech. Students said that through writing they can be more aware in speaking. This statement shares us one thing; writing is about strengthening and tightening their grammar which they can also use in their speaking activities. This is reasonable because in writing they have to employ as good grammar as possible so that the meanings are easily understood. Responding to this fact, one student said that he learned a lot from passages he read before writing in his log book. He did this to find ideas to write and enrich his writing. Through reading, he studied sentence styles, good grammar of writing and various vocabularies with their different forms and function. It is clear, then, that assigning them to write would encourage them to also read texts which enrich their information on things to write. It seems that students have a responsibility to keep learning (say, reading) so that they can do their best in their action logging activities in the classroom of English Speaking skill. In short, action logging is not only drive them to integrate speaking and writing but also other related skill like reading.
Table II: Samples of Students’ Sentences
Written Sentences Writing Skills Aspects
Today, many mice live happily Cultural word
Debate on global warming is nothing but a big joke. Text form and purpose
Global warming is an interesting issue to discuss by all of us. Writing fluency
The second table presents students’ works on writing (a log book). Those examples displayed show that students are good enough in using various ways of saying things in such a different way. The word mice in sentence number one, is a cultural word which, probably, means corruptors or criminals. This is a good indication for the student that language is also about culture and he is, indeed, familiar with that. Understanding this term can be trained through reading and writing. Using that term, the student might have read it before he wrote his writing. The second example is a very persuasive sentence. It is open for debate among readers or at least their friends in the discussion. This shows us that the student is relatively aware of paying attention to the text form and purpose. The last sample is a sentence taken from one student’s first draft. With no mistake found in terms of grammar, it could be said that the student has a relatively good fluency in writing in terms of sentence structure and grammar in general. This knowledge is one of the main “stuffs” in writing a good essay or article. In other words, it can be concluded here that students have got their the first prerequisite in an academic writing; good grammar. Other important aspects are subjects to develop in their future writing or speaking activities.
The two tables above give us a light that action logging activities could be an ideal way to develop both students speaking and writing fluency. Doing these activities, students have many chances to cope with the target language. By keep on using the language both spoken and written, students can explore their “learned language” more. They make a trial and error in using new vocabularies, practicing free writing, getting in touch with cultural words and have an oral presentation that allow them to deal a lot with the language. Thus, the implication of this activity is that students can directly improve the two skills mentioned above.

D.2. Students’ Response towards the Action Logging Activities
Having an interview with a focused group of 30 students in the speaking I class, it is found that Action Logging activities are very helpful for most of them in enhancing both their speaking and writing skills. Action Logging, according to them, provides opportunities to explore their knowledge in macro and micro skills of both speaking and writing. The effect of this is clear that they have a better understanding in the use of those skills in their real language use both oral and written.
In addition to the explanation above, analyzing the data collected from the in-depth interview conducted, it is also found that the action logging activities, in general, in speaking I class, are advantageous and helpful in improving students both speaking and writing skills. The following are a list of advantages of action logging activities in speaking Class derived from students’ statements.
Advantages Students’ Statement
(in percentage)
Giving students more opportunities to deal with English. 80%
Exploring students’ use of vocabularies 75%
Enhancing students understanding on the nature of both spoken and written grammar rules 40%
Developing self-confidence 95%
Raising students’ awareness in controlling their speech 100%
Enhancing cooperative learning among students 100%
Training students’ on self-assessment 70%
Enabling them to be more familiar with linguistics features of English; syntax, semantic, pragmatics, etc 60%

The table above suggests that the implementation of action logging activities in speaking class give two types of advantages; linguistics and non-linguistics. The first one covers the knowledge on vocabularies, sentence structure, semantic and pragmatic meanings. The later, then, deals with motivation and other related learning strategies.
Each percentage shown in the table above represents the same statements said by students. About 25 students interviewed (80%), for example, said that by writing down what they will present, their time to deal with English is becoming more prevalent. This condition is positively correlated with the number of linguistics elements they can master like vocabularies and sentence structures. Having more vocabularies and better understanding on structures, students will be able to explore their oral and written English. Furthermore, students also get other positive implications in terms of cooperative learning and motivation. By discussing their work prior to the presentation, each of them has an opportunity to help each other by working in a group. They clarify each other’s understanding and make sure that they are at the same “zone” of understanding. This usually enhances students’ motivation and self confidence in presenting their ideas in front of the class because each of them feels at the same level of support from their peers. Last but not least is their understanding on the difference nature of both speaking and writing. Having this knowledge in their mind, students will be more aware selecting styles in presenting their ideas; orally or in a written way. Those benefits above, at last, would be very contributive in building students’ power of both speaking and writing (Peyton, 2002).

Conclusion
This research article has discussed some positive implications on action logging activities used in Speaking I class at the English Education Department of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University. It is revealed, in this research, that those activities give students more opportunities to deal with English as the target language. By reading, writing down, discussing and reviewing what to presents, students have a better preparation and positively enhance their self confidence to speak in front of the class. Other interesting finding suggests that students are well trained in using linguistics aspects like vocabulary, diction, semantic and pragmatic meanings in their writing process. Thus, this “good” habit in writing, positively linked to their success in monitoring their speech in presentation session of the speaking class. Students are aware that grammar influences meanings and therefore when they speak they also strictly control their speech as what they do in writing. Finally, action logging activities used in speaking class, has gained a positive response from the students as many of them said that integrating writing and speaking skills like this give them more spaces to explore their use of English.














REFERENCES
Bogdan, Robert C and Biklen .1982. Quallitative Research for Educational: An Introduction toTheory and Methods. Allyin and bacon. Boston

Brown, Douglas (2005). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Sanpransisco Sate University.

Burton-Robert, Noel. 1998. An Introduction to English Syntax. Longman.London and New York.

Coffey. M.Pogemiller. 1987. Communication through Writing. Prentice Hall
Regents. New Jersey.

Harmer, Jeremy. 2002. The Prentice of English language Teaching. Pearson.
Education Limited.

Luoma Sari (2006). Assessing Speaking. Cambridge University Press

Peyton, J.K., and Reed, Leslee. 2002. Dialogue Journal Writing with Nonnative
English Speakers: A Handbook for Teachers.

Reid, M.Joy. 1993. Teaching ESL.Writing. Prentice Hall RegentsNew Jersey.

Richards, Jack.2003. Methodology of Language Teaching: a Compilation.
Cambridge University Press.

Sukirlan, M.2000. Cohesive Devices of Authentic and Simplified Text and The
Implication for language Teaching.Jurnal Bahasa And Sastra.AKSARA.1,2,48.

Sutarsyah, C. 2000. EFL Student’s Reading Problems and Strategies. A Case
Study in English Education Department of State University of Malang. State
University of Malang.
Saraka.1988. From Paragraph to Essay- Concept
and Practice. Department Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan. Direktorat
Jenderal Pendidikan Tinggi. P2LPYK.Jakarta.

DEBATE: A STRATEGIC WAY TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING DEVELOPMENT IN AN EFL CLASS

“to become an advance thinker, challenge yourself beyond what you are used to”

Abstract
In the context of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL), critical thinking is one of the main issues that many teachers so far aspire. Many of them make critical thinking a primary objective of their instruction, although most also do not realize that, to develop as thinkers, students must pass through stages of development in critical thinking (Elder and Paul :2005). In other words, many of them are unaware of the levels of intellectual development that people go through as they improve as thinkers. Further, Elder and Paul believe that significant gains in the intellectual quality of student work will not be achieved except to the degree that teachers recognize that skilled critical thinking develops, only when properly cultivated, and only through predictable stages. Thus critical thinking here is indicated by clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance and logicalness in responding to any cases/problems that teachers provide within teaching and learning process.
In recent years, Debate has been believed as a strategic way to enhance students’ critical thinking. No wonder then, if debate is held in forms of yearly national debating competition like Java Overland Varsities English Debate (JOVED) for universities students and High School Debating Competition (HSDC) for the senior high school students. In an EFL classroom, particularly, speaking class, debate has been a “main menu” that teachers implement as a way to improve students intellectual quality. In addition, through debate, as teachers believe, students can learn how to express ideas systematically, analyze a case and give an evaluation towards a contradictory case.
However, as many teachers of English implement debate in their instruction, as mentioned above, many of them do not know in what level of critical thinkers their students are and which elements of debate can support each stage of critical thinking development of the students.
This writing is aimed at giving a new way of seeing debate as a strategic way to enhance students’ critical thinking and elaborating elements of debate in such a detailed way. Thus, the teachers are expected to select an appropriate element of debate to improve students’ critical thinking development.
Key words: critical thinking, debate, teaching and learning English as EFL


Initial Remark

It is a fact that today, Indonesian citizen have been introduced to a public debate which has long been considered taboo in the middle of our society. The presidential debate for example, has now been a common phenomenon which is believed to be a symbol of democracy as well as a medium to train people in the society to be more critical. This shows a good change in terms of “democracy mindset” of the Indonesian people. In other words, they are getting more open minded and critically think of new innovations including those which involve national issues.
In a context of education, Critical Thinking (CT) has been an important aim not only in Western countries but also other countries all over the globe including Indonesia. Many lecturers and teachers both in university and school levels adjust materials and teaching methods that can drive their students to think critically. For those teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL), Critical Thinking has been a special concern because they often use materials containing communication pattern and cultural ideas of English-speaking culture their students have to understand and evaluate (Kameo, 2007). Integrating teaching critical thinking in an EFL class is therefore very important in order to help students learn objectively from those materials given.
Thus, in general, students as critical thinkers are indicated by their ability to distinguish facts from opinion, respects and understands other people’s point of view, interpret and evaluate new ideas, justify their decisions, and yes, even improve their language and presentation skills.
So, how is the way to create students as critical thinkers? And, at the same time, those students can improve their language and presentation skills? To answer the two questions, Debate, then, believed by many English teachers as a strategic way to enhance students’ critical thinking. This teaching method offers teachers ways to enhance the students’ critical thinking through the elements within the debate itself. In a case building for instance, students are asked to discuss a certain case and find a good solution with logical reasons and evidences collaboratively. Further, they present the ideas and convince others that what they say are logical and therefore, deserves to be accepted.
However, promoting Debate as a method used in a classroom is not an easy matter. This happens due to the fact that both debate and critical thinking, for many “conventional teachers” are regarded as “not” part of our culture. This paper has been prepared to elaborate some important tenets in debating as a way to enhance students’ critical thinking, as well as, some “conventional” believes and values in our culture that, might be, hinder the effort of promoting debate in classroom activities.

Debate in an EFL Class
For a language learning like in an EFL class, debate has been regarded as an excellent activity because it engages students in a variety of cognitive and linguistics activities. The students, through a debating activity, train themselves as critical thinkers by analyzing a certain case or defending a certain opinion they believe to be true. The development of arguments within debating activity encourages critical thinking because it consistently demands the questioning, examining and restructuring of knowledge according to the law of validity warrant.
In addition to providing meaningful listening, speaking and writing practice, debate is also highly effective for developing argumentation skills for persuasive speech and writing. Krieger (2005) said that “ with practice, many students show obvious progress in their ability to express and defend ideas in debate and they often quickly recognize the flaws in each arguments” . A further reason why debating seems to be very important is that debate can be an educational tool for learning analytic thinking skills and forcing self-conscious reflection on the validity of one’s ideas.
Beside those reasons, in a detailed elaboration, debate gives students many advantages as written below:
 Debating allows the act of speaking in public in a confident and persuasive manner to become second nature
 It teaches students how to construct and explain arguments and how to think quickly on your feet whilst defending them
 It teaches students how to listen carefully to what others say and structure their ideas in your head
 It keeps students up to date with current issues and the reasoning process behind many decisions made in public affairs
 It gives students opportunities to use analytical- critical thinking and public speaking skills to the fullest skills which are very useful in everyday life
 It allows students to travel widely across the world and meet interesting people;)
In summary, it can be said that the use of debate in an EFL class enhances not only students’ critical thinking but also their language mastery (English). In addition, they can also improve their presentation skill in public in a confident and persuasive manner.
Why Critical Thinking?
Learning how to think instead of learning what to think is an ideal concept to be implemented in a modern classroom. Learning how to think, in many ways, involves critical thinking activities like analyzing and evaluating a certain fact or situation. Here, students are encouraged to use their understanding and knowledge to justify something, right or wrong, with logical reasons and evidences.
In a classroom, students with a good critical thinking will have a sense of curiosity, able to assesses statements and arguments, uses evidence skillfully and impartially, admit a lack of understanding or information, organizes thoughts and articulates them concisely and coherently, distinguishers between logically valid and invalid inferences and attempts to anticipate the probable consequences of alternatives actions.
One of the most famous contributors to the development of critical thinking is Robert Ennis; his definition, which has gained wide currency in the field, is: Critical thinking is reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do (Norris and Ennis in Fisher 2007). This definition of focuses Critical Thinking as a reflective process before one decides what to do or to believe. Further Schaferesman (1991) defines Critical Thinking as follows:
Critical Thinking is the practice of processing the information in the most skillful, accurate, and rigorous manner possible, in such a way that it leads to the most reliable, logical, and trustworthy conclusions. It is a correct thinking in the pursuit of relevant and reliable knowledge about the world. Critical Thinking also covers the ability to distinguish between fact and opinion; ask questions; make detailed observations; uncover assumptions and define.

The definitions suggest that Critical Thinking is meant to a better decision. It trains people to think in such a systematic way in order to reach a logical and trustworthy conclusion. In other word, the ability to think critically means the ability to decide logical decisions.
In his further explanation, Schaferesman (1991) says that Critical Thinking is a subject to develop. This means that the ability to think critically is not gifted, it is a subject to develop through series of practice and training. He then divides Critical Thinking into several stages such as the unreflective, challenged, beginning, practicing and advance thinkers. Explanation on each stage can be seen in the following table:


Stages of Critical Thinkers
Table 2: Stages of Critical Thinkers’ Development
Stages Characteristics


Stage one: The Unreflective Thinker
The unreflective thinker is indicated by their unawareness in determining role that thinking is playing in their lives and of the many ways that problems in thinking are causing problems in their lives.


Stage two: The Challenged Thinker
Thinkers move to the “challenged” stage when they become initially aware of the determining role that thinking is playing in their lives, and of the fact that problems in their thinking are causing them serious and significant problems.


Stage three: The Beginning Thinker
Taking up the challenge to begin to take explicit command of their thinking across multiple domains of their lives. Thinkers at this stage recognize that they have basic problems in their thinking and make initial attempts to better understand how they can take charge of and improve it.


Stage four: The Practicing Thinker
Thinkers at this stage have a sense of the habits they need to develop to take charge of their thinking. They not only recognize that problems exist in their thinking, but they also recognize the need to attack these problems globally and systematically.

Stage Five: The Advanced Thinker
Advanced thinkers not only actively analyze their thinking in all the significant domains of their lives, but also have significant insight into problems at deeper levels of thought.


Referring to those stages of critical thinking above, it is necessary then for teachers to really know every stage of critical thinking itself. Teachers’ knowledge on this will help them to design appropriate materials and methods to be given in the classroom.

How to Implement Debate in an EFL class
To start to give debate as a method in helping students improve their critical thinking, it is important for teachers to know their students’ level of critical thinking at the outset. Their level of it brings an implication to the choice of debating element given as well as topics to debate. As it is known, within debate, there are some pre debating activities such as brainstorming and case building done by students in groups. The following is an example of how, in a simple way, debate is given in phases in an EFL class.:
Approaching the topic-- Here the debaters learn about the topic, examine it for potential controversies, and consider its terms. In this phase, teachers are encouraged to find out appropriate up to date topics or issues which are familiar to the students.
Researching the topic-- Here the debaters read to gain more information about the topic, and also to review the debates the topic has already engendered;
Preparing to debate-- Here the debaters practice critiquing, formulating, and responding to arguments.
Debating -- In this step, students practice their debating skill. They work in group of three. Each group will be adjusted into one side affirmative or negative (Pro and Con)
Reflection Here the debaters review the arguments and counter-arguments that arose in the course of the debate. They may re-engage the debate, to pursue new ideas and new strategies. And they may step back from the topic and consider what has been brought to light about the topic by the debate. This phase also reflect on their presentation skill (manner) as well as the use of language. When it is possible, teachers can also review some grammatical mistakes students made during the progress of debate.


How Debate Helps Cultivating Students’ Critical Thinking?
In a wider context, debate helps to cultivate students’ critical thinking in steps. Referring to what Bloom says about level of thinking, students through debate can have lots of information as well as chance to clarify them. As a result they can be well trained as future critical thinkers that can at least learn independently long after they leave universities or schools classroom. The following table shows us benefits of each sub activities within the debate in improving students’ critical thinking.
Activities Thinking Skills Elaboration
Case Building Knowledge
Comprehension
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation These five elements are applied in a case building. Students as debaters are demanded to build a reasonable case which is supported by logical reasons. To be able to formulate those reasonable reasons/arguments students need to have knowledge on the case, really comprehend the nature of the case, analyze and evaluate it.
Argumentation (POI) Knowledge
Comprehension
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation Just like case building activity, the argumentation also encourage students to think critically toward the case or topic to argue.
Rebuttal Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation In rebuttal, students as debater need to analyze the arguments of the other side of the house (opponent) and evaluate those arguments.
Recap/summary Analysis
Evaluation In recapping their arguments, students will have to analyze and evaluate all the arguments in order to make a systematic and reasonable conclusion.

Conclusion
Dealing with debate as a way to enhance critical thinking is not a taboo one. It is not about western and eastern culture but about improving academic life to critical thinking advancement. Thus, our academic life culture should not regard debate as disruptive but should objectively views this method as a strategic way to vary the ways that so far we use to enhance our students’ critical thinking, language mastery and presentation skill.
References
______(1999). Debating Tutorial: An Outline for Debating Competition. ICT, Universitas Indonesia-Jakarta
Fisher, Alec (2007). Critical Thinking: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press.
Kameo, R.M (2006). Critical Thinking in the Classroom. Satya Wacana University Press.
Krieger, D (2005). Teaching Debate to ESL Students. University of Nagasaki-Japan
Schafersman, DS (1991) An Introduction to Critical Thinking. An Article (http://www.critical-thinking.com)

Intercultural communication

Cultivating Students’ Intercultural Communication Skill
(Going Global through EFL Classes)

Abstracts
Intercultural communication seems to be an interesting phenomenon in this globalization era. Understanding among people of different cultural backgrounds will enable to help people interact each other without any barriers. To have this, the role of language class like English both as an EFL and ESL is very crucial in our today’s life. The globalization era has driven many people to sharpen their communication skill in order to be able to compete in this very competitive era. English language class is then becoming so urgent to be focused on intercultural communication skill improvement in order to support a wider mutual relationship and cooperation among different people from multicultural and nations background.
In response to such a situation, trend in English teaching has been shifted from the focus on form teaching approach such as Audiolingualism to a more communicative ability in real-life situations and shifted to adopt the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). The CLT, as we know, is focused to highlight learners’ communicative competence (Hymes, 1972), which is defined as learners’ ability to efficiently express what they mean in the target language and successfully achieve communications in real-life situations (Lightbown & Spada, 1999; Power, 2003). In order to do so, learners not only need to acquire the linguistic but pragmatic knowledge of the target language (Hedgcock, 2002). It is suggested that competence, both linguistic and pragmatic, is the knowledge developed and acquired through exposure and use (Kasper, 1997). In other words, without sufficient exposure needed for learners to notice and acquire the language input and chances to use the knowledge, communicative competence is not likely to be promoted (Chen, 2008).
This writing will be focused on the discussion of efforts on raising intercultural communication skill in EFL classes in order that they can effectively communicate in the target language. This writing will also be focused on describing various activities in an EFL class to raise students’ intercultural communication skill.
Key words: Intercultural communication, Communicative Language Teaching.









Defining Intercultural Communication
In this globalization era, intercultural communication has been an important coin for people coming from different background of culture to interact each other. This way, advantageous sharing on valuable information like technology development, economic, tourism and so on may possibly to take place. In addition, this intercultural communication could be a key factor to enhance good relationships among them. Such good relationships are much more demanding in today’s life because people all over the globe are facing such a more dynamic progress of life as the implication of globalization itself. Gidden in Biraimah (2005) says “globalization refers to the intensification of worldwide social relation which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa”. This definition of globalization gives us a light that social relation among people coming from different racial backgrounds is a coin to an international relation. In response to this, language classes such as English can play their roles as intercultural knowledge disseminator. The importance of knowledge dissemination itself in the era of globalization is supported by Sen (2002).

Globalization has contributed to the progress of the world, through travel, trade, migration, spread of cultural influences, and dissemination of knowledge, and understanding (including of science and technology). To have stopped globalization would have done irreparable harm to the progress of humanity.

As a language which is internationally used, sharpening people’ intercultural communication through the teaching of English is very possible to take place. This seems to be a good alternative way in helping learners of English as teaching English as a language is one package with the teaching of culture of the native speaker. In other words, teaching culture as well as cross communication in English classes can be an appropriate medium to share values of different culture. Those values are shared in English through many reading passages written in the language as well as through the interactions among its users. It is therefore, English classes have been considered as strategic places to cultivate students’ deep understanding of other culture. This is by no reason that learning a language, as it is known, cannot be separated from learning the culture.
A research study conducted by Kondo (2005) shows that English class can be a place to rise cross cultural understanding among students so that they can wisely respect other people’s culture. According to her, one key factor of all is pragmatic awareness or pragmatic competence in communication. Pragmatic competence in this sense refers to the ability of using expression, words or other communication icons in a right way in a right context and the ability in understanding what is meant in what is said or read. This means that those different icons of communication are much discussed in the context of pragmatic teaching and learning taking place in English classes.
As a potential class for cultural knowledge dissemination, English class should put communication skill both oral and written paramount. However, teaching a good communication itself is not a simple matter, as communication is much influenced by personal background such as belief, habit and other cultural icons which are sometimes very much different. This way, misinterpretation that leads to misunderstanding will possibly occur. Take a look the following examples taken from research conducted by Kondo (2005).
(The drug stores are usually open on Sundays. An English visitor didn’t know that. So, he asked his Indonesian guide. Student I acts as visitor who is a native speaker of English and student 2 acts as an Indonesian)
Student 1: Are the drug stores open on Sunday?
Student 2: Of course.

In Indonesian context, just like in some other countries in Asia, the word “Of Course” is used to show an enthusiasm on something. In that context, the word Of Course means “Yes”. It quite contrasts to the native speaker’s understanding in that context. The use of the word Of Course in that context can be impolite as it implicitly shows that the native speaker is ignorant or stupid (Thomas in Lin, 2005). So, in this case, student 2 fails to have a cooperative communication.
The pragmatic failure according to Thomas in Lin (2005) is the inability to understand what is meant by what is said. This means that listeners need to find out any meaning both implicitly and explicitly stated based on the context of situation where the utterances are said. This pragmatic failure can also be caused by the infelicitous style, improver expressions and improver habit (Zain, 1997).
Initial study conducted by the researcher highlights problems faced by many students at their first year at the English Department. Many of them fail to acquire communicative competence in terms of speaking based on cultural contexts of the target language and culture. It is therefore, maximizing the teaching of intercultural pragmatic could be a good alternative way to develop one’s intercultural communication skill. The importance of understanding other people culture through cross cultural understanding, intercultural pragmatic awareness in the classroom is expected to share its contribution to enhance students’ mutual understanding. This research study is mainly aimed at describing sources of students’ intercultural communication failure as well as possible efforts to enhance students’ intercultural communication skill.
A. Speaking in EFL Class
Harmer (2000) says that the goal of teaching speaking skills in an EFL class is communicative efficiency. This means that students should be able to make themselves understood, using their current proficiency to help themselves communicate each other. They should try to avoid confusion in the message due to faulty pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, and to observe the social and cultural rules that apply in each communication situation.
To help students develop communicative efficiency in speaking, instructors can use a balanced activities approach that combines language input, structured output, and communicative output.
Language input comes in the form of teacher talk, listening activities, reading passages, and the language heard and read outside of class. It gives learners the material they need to begin producing language themselves. Thus, language input can be both content oriented or form oriented.
• Content-oriented input focuses on information, whether it is a simple weather report or an extended lecture on an academic topic. Content-oriented input may also include descriptions of learning strategies and examples of their use.
• Form-oriented input focuses on ways of using the language: guidance from the teacher or another source on vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar (linguistic competence); appropriate things to say in specific contexts (discourse competence); expectations for rate of speech, pause length, turn-taking, and other social aspects of language use (sociolinguistic competence); and explicit instruction in phrases to use to ask for clarification and repair miscommunication (strategic competence).
In the presentation part of a lesson, an instructor combines content-oriented and form-oriented input. The amount of input that is actually provided in the target language depends on students' listening proficiency and also on the situation. For students at lower levels, or in situations where a quick explanation on a grammar topic is needed, an explanation in English may be more appropriate than one in the target language.
Structured output focuses on correct form. In structured output, students may have options for responses, but all of the options require them to use the specific form or structure that the teacher has just introduced.
Structured output is designed to make learners comfortable producing specific language items recently introduced, sometimes in combination with previously learned items. Instructors often use structured output exercises as a transition between the presentation stage and the practice stage of a lesson plan. textbook exercises also often make good structured output practice activities.
In communicative output, the learners' main purpose is to complete a task, such as obtaining information, developing a travel plan, or creating a video. To complete the task, they may use the language that the instructor has just presented, but they also may draw on any other vocabulary, grammar, and communication strategies that they know. In communicative output activities, the criterion of success is whether the learner gets the message across. Accuracy is not a consideration unless the lack of it interferes with the message.
In everyday communication, spoken exchanges take place because there is some sort of information gap between the participants. Communicative output activities involve a similar real information gap. In order to complete the task, students must reduce or eliminate the information gap. In these activities, language is a tool, not an end in itself.
In a balanced activities approach, the teacher uses a variety of activities from these different categories of input and output. Learners at all proficiency levels, including beginners, benefit from this variety; it is more motivating, and it is also more likely to result in effective language learning.
B. Cross-cultural Communication in EFL Class
Acquiring communicative competence in the target language is essential for EFL learners to gain a reasonable level of English proficiency and to communicate appropriately with others within cultural contexts of the target language and culture. Suggestion is then called for the teachers to enhance learners’ target language communicative competence by integrating culture into the language syllabus. The integration is based on the belief that language and culture are interconnected. Language cannot be taught without culture and similarly, language cannot be taught without language. By so doing, learners are not only able to communicate with accurate forms in the target language but also able to act and react appropriately when confronted with actions, attitudes, and expectations of representatives of foreign culture.


C. Language, Culture and Cross-Cultural Awareness
C. 1. Language: English as Lingua Franca
In this globalization era, meeting and dealing with English-speaking people from all around the world commonly and even frequently happens either in personal or working life. This condition accordingly requires people whose language is not English to learn, to master English and even to acquire communicative competence in the target language. This phenomenon shows that English has been a Lingua Franca for many people all over the globe.
For EFL learners, attaining communicative competence in the target language is essential in order for them not only to be able to perform in a good form of the target language but also act appropriately (Alptekin, 2002).
However, a variety of communicative characteristics underlying “what and how to act and react” in the target language is commonly different from those in the EFL learners’ own culture. Therefore, the EFL language users need to know the culture that lies behind language. In another word, language and culture are interrelated. In line with interrelatedness, some language theorists believe that culture and language cannot be thought in isolation of each other (Fleet:58). Furthermore, Kramsch, as cited by Hinkel, also argues that second and foreign language learners unavoidably become learners of the second language culture because a language cannot be learned without an understanding of the cultural context in which it used (1999: 6).
Based on interconnectedness between language and culture, integrating language and culture into the language syllabus is offered for teachers to enhance target language communicative competence in the EFL learners (Alptekin, 2002). One of many ways of integrating culture in the language syllabus is by raising students’ cross-cultural awareness. Fleet believes that such cultural awareness raising is necessarily needed in order to build up learners’ intercultural communicative competence and subsequently for them to gain successful intercultural communication.
C.2. Culture
Culture, according to Halverson (1985) as cited by Moran, is viewed as civilization, the great achievements of people as reflected in their history, social institutions, works of arts, architecture, music and literature. Additionally, he defines culture as the customs, traditions or practices that people carry out as part of their everyday life. Based on those definitions, some important elements can be drawn as follows:
a. Products : literature, folklore, art, music, artifacts.
b. Ideas : beliefs, values and institutions
c. Behaviors : customs, habits, dress, food, leisure
C.3. Cultural and Cross-cultural Awareness
Cultural awareness is the quality of being aware of the effect of culturally influenced-behaviour toward language use and communication (Tomalin and Stempleski, 1993). Cross cultural awareness (in which learners have) is then the quality of understanding or being aware of the existence of a number of different cultures and kinds of culture and of their significance in all types of human communication, in private and working life. Such a number of diverse cultures, according to Hung-tseng, also include variety of ideas and practices found in human societies around the world. Furthermore, he urges that cross-cultural awareness is not only about being aware of the variety of ideas and practices but also of how the ideas and practices of one’ sown society might be looked at from viewpoints.
In attempts to develop EFL learners’ cross cultural awareness, language teachers can base their teaching culture on the following goals of instructional goals for teaching culture –based communicative competence quoted from Fantini (1997;25).
1. Goal 1-Interest: the student shows interest about another culture.
2. Goal 2-Who: the students recognizes that role expectations and other social variables such as age, sex, social class, religion, ethnicity and place of residence affect the way speak and behave.
3. Goal 3-What: the students realizes that effective communication requires discovering the culturally conditioned images that are evoked in the minds of people when they think and act.
4. Goal 4-Where and When: the students recognizes that situational variables and convention shape behavior in important ways.
5. Goal 5- Why: the students understands that people generally act the way they do because they are using options their society allows for satisfying basic physical and psychological needs and that cultural patterns are interrelated and tend to support their satisfaction.
6. Goal 6- Exploration: the student can evaluate a generalization about given culture.
Besides those instructional goals above, there are three aspects of cultural awareness that the language teachers can use in attempts to develop EFL learners’ cross-cultural awareness (Tomalin and Stempleski, 1993).
1. Cognitive: this aspect adds learners’ stock of knowledge. In delivering the content of teaching, language teachers can provide information on the “what” of facts and figures, anecdotes and description.
2. Behavioral: this aspects helps learners to learn the do’s and the don’t the new environment. In delivering the content of teaching, language teachers can provide information on the “how” of appropriate behavior in particular situations and rules of address and conduct.
3. Affective: this aspect attempts to change learners’ attitude by developing openness, tolerance, acceptance and awareness. In delivering the content of teaching, language teachers can provide information on the “why” of cultural phenomena, using knowledge of the particular historical development of the target culture.

Interpersonal Meaning Construction in a Talk Show

Interpersonal Meaning Construction in the Oprah Winfrey Talk Show
(Extending the Use of Systemic Functional Linguistics Theories in EFL Classes)

Abstract

This research study explores the variation of interpersonal meanings construction in the Oprah Winfrey talk show. It is focused on how Oprah Winfrey, the host of the program, constructs meanings interpersonally in the progress of her conversations. Using systemic functional grammar, a transcript of Oprah dialogues were analyzed through identification of clause mood structure and speech function. The patterns of mood structures and speech functions, the use of mood elements, like subject, finite, complement, adjuncts and modals were investigated. In analyzing the data, the researchers also explore the use of non verbal communication features by Oprah during her talk. This is used to enrich interpretations towards the data being analyzed. It is therefore the elements like gestures, facial expressions, tone and pitch of voice are part of important source of analysis units.
Results of this study suggest that in her central role as a host of the program, Oprah uses her time asking questions to her guest/s. Oprah uses various ways of digging more information by especially employ those probing and rhetorical questions. The first one is indicated by confirming, clarifying, exploring points and exclamation and the second is done by gaining agreement, cross questioning and reviewing questions. Other interesting finding is the fact that she is also very good at integrating non verbal language features in her talk such as facial expressions and tones in order to make meanings easy to be transferred. By this fact, linguistically, the notion of Functional Grammar on semantic and pragmatic integration is clearly seen.
Keywords: interpersonal meaning and functional grammar.








A. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

For many EFL teachers, natural English speaking in a form of dialogue has always been a source of interesting field to study. The complex settings and meanings within the dialogue have been considered as potential learning sources that can enrich teaching and learning materials of EFL classes. In other words, this natural use of English, with its “spoken grammar variation” could be an alternative material offered by the teachers. This choice of material, as many of us believe, is relevant to the issue of communicative approach which encourages those teachers to provide authentic materials in their teaching practices.
One very potential place to seek for natural English materials in a form of dialogue is television programs which provide lots of variation in terms of forms and functions of spoken English. This kind of dialogue could be found in the Oprah Winfrey Show which has been very popular all around the world as a resourceful talk show program. This program offers both EFL researchers and teachers lots of variations of spoken English which directly show how different meanings for different purposes in a natural communication are constructed.
A research study conducted by Wijayanti (2004) reported that Oprah Winfrey has been very effective in every of her speaking activity. She is able to use language in such a way that leads her interlocutors to give detail answers. By saying yeah with a certain gesture or facial expression, for instance, she can attract her guests to share more detail information of the topic discussed. This fact, linguistically, is interesting to study by especially language teachers because using language effectively, as exemplified by Oprah, will give a wider horizon and understanding on how make and maintain a good communication where by roles exchanges keep going (Thomson, 2004).
The phenomenon above seems to be clear for us that Oprah Winfrey has quite been very successful in building various meanings through her choice of expressions and non verbal language features combination. This kind of language use could be a form of implementation of what Mehrabian (1971) found in his research which reveals that only seven percent of communication comes from spoken words, 38% is from the tone of the voice, and 55% comes from body language. In addition, Ann (2008) says that 95% of a message is conveyed through non verbal actions. She also adds that non verbal cues could completely change the meaning that is taken by receivers of the message. This fact, finally, is also supported by Eddgin (2006) who said that an expression or utterance is a context-bound. These share us a light that the use of the expression will be much influenced by the surrounding context of situations including the paralinguistics features used.
The use of both verbal and non verbal language in such an authentic communication process would be an interesting fact to be more investigated. This fact attracts the researchers to investigate the interpersonal meaning construction to negotiate the social identity and relation made by Oprah Winfrey through her talk show program. The existing of this interpersonal meaning refers to what Halliday believes that there are at least three types of meanings in one strand of text; textual, experiential and interpersonal meanings. Other interesting focus of this study is the fact that Oprah is also one of the best hosts with an excellent use of non verbal language. She can construct interpersonal meaning variations in such a casual way for different purposes by combining them with various uses of paralinguistic features as part of non verbal language. It is therefore, her use of paralinguistic features in constructing meanings would also be an important analysis unit of the study.
In an EFL context, the researchers believe that studying this language use phenomenon would bring many advantageous effects to the improvement of students’ English mastery both oral and written. This study could be a good way of introducing students with numerous facts of variations of using English in a spoken mode. In addition to that, students, in this sense, can explore how meanings are constructed and influenced by different situations for different purposes (Nepomuceno, 2008). Finally, it is also hoped that they have a feel and an idea of the way these resources are used across different contexts.

B. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

B.1. The Notion of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFL)
The discussion on Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) has been very popular in recent years. This is driven by the fact that this notion offers a new perspective of seeing language in terms of its function. Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), as many of us know, is part of a broad social semiotic approach to language called systemic linguistics. The term "systemic" it self refers to the view of language as "a network of systems, or interrelated sets of options for making meaning" (Eggin, 2004, Martin et al, 1997). The term "functional" indicates that the approach is concerned with the contextualized, practical uses to which language is put, as opposed to formal grammar, which focuses on compositional semantics, syntax and word classes such as nouns and verbs.
Further, systemic functional grammar is concerned primarily with the choices the grammar makes available to speakers and writers. These choices relate speakers' and writers' intentions to the concrete forms of a language. Traditionally the "choices" are viewed in terms of either the content or the structure of the language used. In SFG, language is analyzed in three different ways (strata): semantics, phonology, and lexicogrammar. SFG presents a view of language in terms of both structure (grammar) and words (lexis). The term "lexicogrammar" describes this combined approach
In addition to that, in systemic functional linguistics approach, language is viewed as a resource for making not only one meaning at a time, but several strands of meaning simultaneously. The first meaning is called interpersonal meaning which has to do with the speaker’s resources for interacting in the dialogue and for expressing his or her opinions and attitudes. The second one is called ideational. This meaning involves grammatical resources for constructing people’s theories of experience and how people construct reality in ways that seem natural to them. Finally, the last is textual meaning which has to do with the problem of organizing what we have to say with respect to what we have said and what we are going to say and making what we have said releveant to the context in which we are speaking ( Edwards, 2008).

B.2. Text, Context and Culture
The use of language in a form of text is an interesting to study. This is mainly caused by the fact that to study this, we need to go beyond the text itself. In other words, we need to see the surrounding context of situation related to things told or written through the text. This is supported by Eggin (2004) who said that to make a sense of a text, it may not only come just from within the textual environment from the extra-textual context. Thus, the context here also employ culture which is very important in creating meanings through the text.
The word context itself, in functional grammar perspective, is viewed in two different perspectives: from the point of view of the immediate and specific material and social situation in which the text is being used, and from the perspective of the general ‘belief and value system’, or ‘cultural paradigm’, or ‘ideology’ (Miller 2005) in which it functions and with which it is aligned, or not. Those two kinds of contexts could be seen in the following figure:

According Edwards (2008), the Context of Situation includes three components which are Field, Tenor, and Mode. Field, in this sense, concerns with any kind of actions occur and the social nature. In a simple way, it can be called as a topic. Tenor, in addition, sees the interactive roles involved in the text creation (who is taking part, his or her status and discourse role), and Mode refers to the function of language in the organization of the text.
B.3. Non-verbal Communication
Non-verbal communication (body language, paralinguistics) has been a focus of attention for some time in areas such as the refinement of presentation skills, developing social skills, and even as a realistic alternative to the lie-detector test. Relatively little attention, however, has been given in language teaching to non-verbal communication as a complement to spoken language, though recent trends in neuro linguistic programming regarding mirroring and parallel body language have filtered into current research and practice (Atwood, 2007).
In her further explanation, Atwood said that as we communicate with our voices, even when we are not using words, nonverbal speech sounds such as tone, pitch, volume, inflection, rhythm, and rate are important communication elements. When we speak, other people “read” our voices in addition to listening to our words. These nonverbal speech sounds provide subtle but powerful clues into our true feelings and what we really mean. The aspects of spoken communication that do not involve words are commonly called as paralinguistics. It includes factors such as tone of voice, loudness, inflection, and pitch. These may add emphasis or shades of meaning to what people say. The use of tone of voice in creating a meaning of a sentence, for example, will give powerful effect to the listeners. When said in a strong tone of voice, listeners might interpret approval and enthusiasm, but the same words said in hesitant tone of voice might convey disapproval and lack of interest.
In addition to that, nonverbal communication also is bound to culture. In particular, there are differences among cultures and nationalities about the relative value of speech versus silence, the relative value of talk versus action, the social role of small talk or gossip, and the role of animation, rhyme and exaggeration in speech. Because of these differences, the study of verbal and nonverbal communication always must be done within a social or cultural context.


C. RESEARCH METHOD

This research is a content analysis by nature. This kind of research is mainly aimed to examine words or phrases within a wide range of texts (Cohen and Manion, 1984). Doing this, the researchers analyzed a transcript of a conversation between Oprah Winfrey with her guests. Hence, Oprah’s utterances are the main source of data of the study. The chosen transcripts are dialogue between Oprah and her guest named Eckhart Tolle who is an author of a book entitled “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” and Queen Rania Al-Abdullah. The clauses within the transcript are then analyzed through their mood structures which were focused on interrogative and their receptive exchange which is, in this research, more focused on questions.
In order to interpret interpersonal meanings constructed easily, the researchers also make use of video to see the interchange of non verbal language features used by Oprah during her talk in the program. These aspects, in this research, are used as supporting contexts which enable them to interpret meanings better.
D. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Results of this research reveal that many variations of constructing meanings in a casual conversation as that shown in Oprah Winfrey Talk Show. In constructing those interpersonal meanings, to researchers’ analysis, non verbal language has a very potential role in creating those variations of ways in constructing understandable meanings. The use of eye contact, facial expressions and tone, for example, helps to enrich meanings of expressions used during the progress of the talk. This phenomenon is interesting for us to study in detail because some implied purposes might be realized through such a choice of talk or conversation.
Analyzing the data collected, it is found that Oprah uses a number of ways in building interpersonal meanings with her guest as the interlocuter. Other interesting fact is that her ability to combine her utterances or questions with certain non verbal language use like gesture and facial expression. This use of non verbal language seems to be her way in strengthening points she would like to ask, confirming or clarifying to her guest as the information source. Hence, this way of constructing interpersonal meaning seems to be very effective in her attempts to get important information from her guest. In addition, this use of non verbal language also indicates that she is very attractive in expressing what she has in the mind and at the same time, helps her audiences to actively involve during the progress of the program.
Other general finding shows that Oprah Winfrey is very selective in using words. She is able to explore more details of the issues under discussion (this will be more elaborated in the following part of this section). Further, she is very aware of cultural beliefs and shows her enthusiasm as her attempts to attract more attention from both her guest and audiences. This section will give details findings of the research by exploring the identification of clause mood structure and speech function. The first one will be highlighted in the earlier of this section. The second one would be discussed in the following part of this section.
D.1. Mood Structure and Speech Function
Most of utterances used by Oprah are actually questionings interesting facts based on the discussed topics. This is much influenced by her role in the program as the Host whose main job is mediating the audiences and guests as the source of information. What is interesting in her way of questioning is the fact that she makes some of them in a declarative mood structure which according to Thompson (2004) is an interesting phenomenon in a real language use. This phenomenon shows us that to ask a question, Oprah does not use or stick only on interrogative mood structure. She uses another mood (declarative), with a certain tone, as a way to ask for certain information from her interlocutor. In an EFL context, this fact is interesting for both teachers and students of English especially in using English in a spoken mode. They can have a feel that using language is not that strict in form/structure when they are faced into a casual or non formal situation. Thus, understanding this, the two sides, could vary their use of English in such wider contexts of situations with multiple purposes. In short, it could be said that teachers and students of EFL should be aware that there are many variations or alternative ways in saying A which means B. By knowing this, students are hoped to be more motivated in observing and practicing the real use of English in their oral activities.
In addition to that, the other mood structure used by Oprah is interrogative mood structure. Using this mode, it is found that Oprah uses two types of questionings. Those types of questions are probing questions such as confirming, clarifying, exploring points. By confirming, she uses certain word like “really?” to make sure that what she asks is right. Clarifying is used when she ask whether she is in a right position or at the same understanding with her guest as her interlocutor. Finally, exploring points are use when she manages to explore the case using her existing knowledge or information upon the topic being discussed. The following table highlights some examples of probing questions.


Table I. Sample of Probing Questions
Probing Questions Sample of utterance
Extending You were recently here in New York, and as I understand it, you went to Ground Zero with Mayor Giuliani. What was that like?

When this first happened on September 11, I think it came as a shock to so many of us that other people in the world hated us so much. Can you help explain that to us?

What we're trying to do on this show today is to bring about an understanding of what it's like to be Muslim in the world, and what is Islam. I think there's a lot of confusion. You're very westernized, and then we see women wearing the hoods, the burqas and the hijabs. What makes one acceptable, and the other not?

Are you accepted in your country not wearing the scarves?

What does the scarf represent?

What is life like for Muslim women in Jordan?

One of the things that we have been horrified by in the U.S., and I've actually done several shows about here, are honor killings. I know you have campaigned against honor killings, the Jordanian parliament however, as I understand it, has rejected laws that would treat those crimes as seriously as other homicides. Where does that stand now?

Clarifying I've heard you say that as we attempt to fight this war against terrorism, whether it is militarily, diplomatically, through other resources, that this is an opportunity for the United States to perhaps reach out to other disenfranchised countries. Is that true?

So you as an individual choose whether or not you want to be robed or not robed, or wear your head covered or not? That's not imposed upon you by your religion?

Are you a practicing Muslim?

I think we all have a misinterpretation that the women wearing the robes are dominated by men, that the women don't have a voice of their own. Is any part of that true?

So anything that we see that doesn't represent what you're saying is a distortion of Islam, correct?

Evaluating Newsweek magazine reported that there are some Muslim fundamentalists that see you as a threat. They've said, 'She is attacking our ancient values, tearing at our social fabrics as a member of our moderate Muslim brotherhood.' How do you respond to that?

Emotional Do you feel that you represent a large portion of the Arab world in terms of women being progressive, forward-looking, being smart, thinking for themselves?


The table above suggests that each type of question has a special characteristic and purpose. In her utterance like “You were recently here in New York, and as I understand it, you went to Ground Zero with Mayor Giuliani. What was that like? Oprah
extends her question by exploring her knowledge on her guest’ experience. This is done, probably, in order that the guest could have a feel and give more information which is important for her audiences. Doing this, Oprah enriches her way of asking by showing sympathetic facial expressions to show that she really feels what the guest once felt.
In the second type of questioning, Oprah uses her existing knowledge on the topic and confirms this to the speaker. This is meant to evaluate her understanding and at the same time ask for the right information. Other interesting way of asking question is by using emotional question. In the last sample “Do you feel that you represent a large portion of the Arab world in terms of women being progressive, forward-looking, being smart, thinking for themselves? In this kind of question, Oprah tries to uncover what she and her guest probably feels on something, a case or a phenomenon attracts people attention.
Other types of questions are called as rhetorical questions, which are not really questions, but statements given in questions format. The intent of these questions is to engage the guests in thinking and consider what answer they would give if they could. The questions are indicated by gaining agreement, cross questioning, reviewing questions and multiple questions. The first one is used when she invites agreement like saying “ isn’t it?”. The second one is indicated why she asks back questions from her interlocutor. Review questions, then, are used when she repeats what her guest has said previously and multiple questions are used when questions are given where the questions are not expected them to be answered. The following tables highlight some examples of each type of question.
Table II. Sample of Rhetorical Questions
Rhetorical Questions Sample of utterance
gaining agreement So anything that we see that doesn't represent what you're saying is a distortion of Islam, correct?
Right? Right?
cross questioning And why is that? Because?
reviewing questions So you as an individual choose whether or not you want to be robed or not robed, or wear your head covered or not? That's not imposed upon you by your religion?

Multiple Questions What makes one acceptable, and the other not? Are you accepted in your country not wearing the scarves? What does the scarf represent?
D.2. Subject
Most of subjects used in Oprah utterances is pronoun I and You. This use of subjects shows that there is an interactive relationship between one speaker with another. In other words, Oprah and her guest have successfully built a warm relationship by using such an interchange. In addition, Oprah uses the pronoun I to state her personal point of view about the topic being discussed, for example in as I understand it. The use of I, in this sense, is to show her background knowledge of the issue which does not refer to all audience as a whole. Other subject used is We. As it is known, this is used as a collective pronoun which refers to Oprah and her guest and, probably, all her audiences. This use of pronoun indicates that Oprah manages to involve all existing participants in the program. Besides, the use of this pronoun will also take a role as a representative of audiences’ perspective. Different from as I understand it, in the expression of you're very westernized, and then we see women wearing the hoods …, the pronoun we is used to show that most of people, including the audience, share the same general opinion of the issue. It will represent that the existing information is generally believed by general people, and the use of we is also showing how the guest (you) is demanding to share the information to all people (we), not only to the host (I). Due to different culture of the issue being discussed, the use of you and we will show how different culture is shared in the session. In the conversation, you (the guest), which is from Jordan and a moslem, have different culture with the host and the audiences (we), which are Americans. This indicates that there is the opposition between you (the guest) and we (the host and the audience) regarding culture. Dealing with this kind of matter, in the context of EFL teaching and learning process, teachers and students of English, can use this kind of pronoun to mean more than the word I and We themselves. More than it, they can use those two kinds of pronoun for various purposes in their conversation activities. This could imply that cultural beliefs and rules are subject influencing the use of these two pronoun. It is therefore important for both teachers and students to really aware that pronouns could represent culture.
Finally, it could probably be inferred that knowledge on pronoun is not simply knowing what they replace (I to replace first person singular and We to replace first person plural) but also know their other functions with certain cultural implications which will influence our way of using it.
Tense finites
The participants in this conversation use present tense finites. This probably happens because the topics discussed are in a present mode. Using this tense, the speakers focus on present circumstances, events, feelings and thoughts. Other tense used is past tense. This might be a way to show a relationship between what has already happened and what has it influenced to the recent events. In another case, the use of past form is also used to indicate an informal context for example, you were recently here in New York, and as I understand it, you went to Ground Zero with Mayor Giuliani. What was that like?. This example is used by Oprah to open the program. She wanted to call for attention from her audience. Using were in the example, she might want her audience to refer back to what they experienced in the past and bring it to the present discussion in the talk show. The implication of this is that teachers and students of English can learn that opening a conversation could be done in a “past tense” when they want to share their past experience. This means that opening a conversation is not strictly that static by, for example, greeting and asking present condition, rather, they can also directly invite others to think of what is going to be discussed by using certain clue (as were and was, in the example above).
Other interesting phenomenon on the use of tense is the fact that speakers, as Oprah has shown, could decide on whether or not they want to elaborate the case. When they do more elaboration, there is tendency of using a past form as a reference for what happens in the present in time as shown in this example When this first happened on September 11, I think it came as a shock to so many of us that other people in the world hated us so much. The given example also shows that a casual conversation make use of more than one tense finites depending on what they are discussing. They can refer to what has happened in the past and bring it to what is happening at the time of speaking to show a link between them. This means, to some extent, that past and present are related to each other.
E. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATION ON EFL CLASSES
The study on interpersonal meaning could be one alternative way to help students of EFL understand more the nature of English as a foreign language especially its use in a casual form of conversation. Exploring these meanings, in terms of function will give students a feel and an idea of the way these meanings are constructed across different context of situations in which culture is significantly influencing them. This way, students are more apt to build a practical repertoire of workable language resources for making interpersonal meanings. This kind of activity as suggested by Nepomuceno (2008), also, can build a rich repertoire of text elements when students are introduced to the structural patterns of different genres.
Other implication is their cross-cultural awareness. Students can learn how Americans as represented by Oprah Winfrey, for example, use English in their casual or formal conversation activities. They can also learn the social rules which somehow control the use of the language itself by observing how Oprah selects words or expressions in her questioning activities. Bearing this fact, it is therefore suggested that students of EFL expand their knowledge not only on the grammar of English but also the social rules (culture) of using the language. Observing real use of English like those shown in Oprah Winfrey Talk Show, could be a place for their improvement.
F. CONCLUSION
This research has shown that interpersonal meanings could be created in such a complex way. This is usually indicated by the involvement of contexts and other supporting elements surrounding the meaning creation process. In other words, the interpersonal meanings are not subjects to be isolated.
In Oprah Winfrey case, an interesting fact has been revealed. Her ability in integrating words and non verbal language has made her successful enough in conversing and gaining more information from her guests as source of information. This way could also be part of her effort to control her audiences’ attention. Dealing with her guest, interpersonal meanings seems to be built through those creative combinations between words and non verbal language. Using pronoun WE, for example, Oprah manages to represent herself and others. This proves to us that the choice of words is one of the main factors in maintaining a good interchange in a conversation activity. Finally, the choice of mood and tense are also important part which brings the dialogue into a dynamic interchange during the progress of the dialogue itself.
References
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Harmer, Jeremy (2000). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Perason education Limited.
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Halliday, M. A. K. (1985a). Systemic background. In J. D. Benson, & W. S. Greaves, Eds. Systemic Perspectives on Discourse, Volume 1. Selected Theoretical Papers from the 9th International Systemic Workshop (pp. 1 15). Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1985b). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold
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Martin et al (1997). Working With Functional Grammar. JW Arrosmith Ltd.
Nepomucenno, S (2008) An Analysis of Interpersonal Meaning in a Computer Mediated Conversation Using SFL Approach: an Article available at: http://www.paaljapan.org/resources/proceedings/PAAL9/pdf/Nepomuc.pdf
Wijayanti, Ayu. (2004). An Analysis of Speech Acts in the Oprah Winfrey Talk Show. A Thesis: Semarang State University.
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Thomspon, G (2004). Introducing Functional Grammar. Oxford University Press Inc. New York
-----------Nonverbal Communication Skills: The Power of Nonverbal communication and Body Language. Available at: http://helpguide.org/mental/eq6_nonverbal_communication.htm

Public Speaking in EFL Class

Public Speaking Skill in EFL Class
A Short Guide to Effective Classroom Teaching Practices

By:
Udi Samanhudi

Teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Indonesia is a subject of dynamic due to the development of theories in teaching and learning methodology. The theories develop from time to time following the development of the need to maximize the learning process in order to attain the highest level of mastery of English.
Today, one of the important issues in English language teaching is the ability of English teachers to encourage students to use rather than to study the language, to talk in English rather than talk about English. This issue of teaching in EFL brings an implication to the choice teaching methods we as teachers take and implement in our classroom teaching practices. Thus, following the competence based curriculum (CBC), teachers of English are encouraged to be competent in the four major skills of English one of which is speaking. This ability, in general, is interrelated with our communication skill as teachers.
As English teachers we have, at least, two important responsibilities, pedagogical and managerial one. To support us maximizing these roles, communication skill is an important asset. The ability to communicate our ideas will influence our roles as teachers in the class. As communication skill is indispensable, it is therefore crucial for us, teachers, to keep sharpening our communication skill. Our ability to pass the message across to those listening to us cannot be underestimated. As a tutor, we should try to access ourselves to know if our communication skills are great or need a little sharpening. Sharpening our communication skills is something that can be achieved with practice and since our teaching requires students to become at least near fluent within a short period, we probably want to do any sharpening we have to do quickly and make sure changes to our persons do not affect classes.
This book is compiled to help future English teachers learning in English Departments to be familiar with principles of public speaking which can be applied in their future teaching practices. This book is also compiled due to the fact that the knowledge of the public speaking principles has a very tight correlation with the success of teachers in helping their students learn in the class. These knowledge and skill, in short, helps us understand how to let our message across and understood easily by our students.

Defining Public Speaking

In our daily life, we talk a lot with many people in our surrounding. We, adults, for example, spend about 30 percent of our waking hours in conversation (Lucas, 2000). In dealing with other people through a conversation, we tend to use different ways of speaking for different purposes. We will merely tell something when the purpose of the speaking is to inform, persuade when the purpose is to convince that something is right or better and so on.
We are sometimes unaware that in conversing with other people, we are actually perfecting the art of conversation from time to time. This is mainly aimed at facilitating our ideas to be shared with others. When talking with other people, we need to employ a wide range of skills like organizing our thought logically, tailoring our message to other people, telling a story for maximum impact and adapting to listener feedback.
The activity, after all, is also termed as Public Speaking. As it is known that public speaking has been defined differently by many experts. Lucas in The Art of Public Speaking proposes a definition of public speaking as the process of speaking to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner intended to inform, influence or entertain the listeners. This definition shows us that a public speaking activity is done for different reasons and purposes. In one occasion, it is intended to inform and in some other occasions, it is done for influencing and convincing other people. In other words, it can be said that the purpose of public speaking can range from simply transmitting information, to motivating people to act and to simply telling a story.
Another definition of public speaking is shared by King (2002) who views public speaking as a various type of linguistics acts where the audience consists of more than one individual, including public speaking, oration and quotation. This definition then gives us a light that public speaking is closely related to the use of language in various context of situations.
So what is the nature of public speaking for us as English teachers? In my opinion, public speaking for teacher is much related to his or her role as an actor, counselor, motivator and some other important roles who tries to facilitate a conducive learning atmosphere. A teacher of English as a public speaker will have to be able to manipulate language in the classroom in order to motivate, to share and to arrange everything in a good order to facilitate learning.
As a teacher of English, our job is not only teaching in front of the classroom which means that we act as a teaching teacher. It is indeed, our job as a teacher is of a multifaceted things that interrelate each other in order to help students to be successful English learners. The following is figures describing English teachers’ roles in general.


Figure I: Roles of English Teachers
Referring to the roles of teachers above, it is clearly seen that teachers of English, as other teachers do, have multifaceted roles both in and outside the classroom that change from one activity to another, or from one stage of an activity to another. If we, teachers, are fluent at making these changes our effectiveness as teachers is greatly developed (Harmer, 1983). To maximize those roles above, teachers, again, need to have a good communication skill because each role demands them to do so. Therefore, communication in this sense, is a key factor to reach an ideal goal teachers wish to achieve.

Public Speaking and Conversation
In many ways, public speaking is the same as an ordinary conversation we usually do in our daily interaction with other people. It needs the same skills used in a conversation. In other words, people who can communicate well in their daily conversation can learn to communicate just as well as in public speaking. The following are skills we need in perfecting our public speaking as well as our ordinary conversation (Lucas, 2000).
a. Organizing our thoughts logically.
Organizing our thought in delivering a certain message in and outside a classroom is an important skill in our daily conversation or public speaking. This skill is mainly focused on making information to be delivered is more systematically arranged in our thought.
b. Tailoring our message to our students.
This skill is focused on how a message is delivered, say what you say to whom. This also will help you to the choice of words or expressions based on context of situations.
c. Telling a story at a maximum impact
This skill refers our way to build up our story (material given to our students), adjusting our words and tone of voice to get the best effect.
d. Adapting to a listener feedback
A good way to sharpen our communication skill is through listener feedback adaptation. Adapting to a listener feedback means we are being sensitive with our students’ facial expressions, physical reactions and their verbal.
Instead of those similarities, public speaking and conversation, is many ways, are also not identical. A different point between conversation and public speaking mostly lies on rules beyond those two things. Here are some differences between a public speaking and an ordinary conversation.
a. Public speaking is more highly structured. It usually imposes strict time limitation on the speaker. In most cases, the situation does not allow listeners to interrupt with questions or commentary. The speaker must accomplish his or her purpose in the speech itself. In brief, public speaking demands more detailed planning and preparation.
b. Public speaking requires more formal language. In public speaking, jargon slang and bad grammar have only a little space. This means that formal language is highly demanded.
c. Public speaking requires a different method of delivery. This shows us that public speaking demands us to adjust our voices to be heard clearly throughout the audience.

Public Speaking Skill in an EFL Class
As an English teacher, our job is not only about transferring information or knowledge to our students, but it is also about activating them as human being who have critical thinking faculty. This means that we, as teachers, need to be able to encourage them to be independent learners who can think for themselves long after they leave their classroom.
To do so, effective teaching and learning process in the classroom is paramount. In this manner, we as teachers need to know how to motivate our students to learn better and at last become a successful learner.
A common problem that, we as English teachers, commonly face is passive students. Many of them find it hard to express their opinion, ask for some questions that finally hinder them learning better during the progress of the course. The other implication of such a situation is a low achievement in English mastery our students reach.
As good English teachers, strategic efforts need to be done in order to help our students learn easily. The key point of all is an effective way of transferring of knowledge or information from us to our students. To do so, our knowledge on principles of effective Public Speaking will help us to transfer the information we have easily. Here are principles of effective Public Speaking to be implemented in our classroom.
Don not overestimate what our students know
Before giving a presentation aimed to inform something new for our students, it is much better if we look back our students. Ask questions like “are they quite familiar with this topic?”. This question will help us not to overestimate our students as our audience. Some experts recommended preparing a speech as if the audience had never heard the subject. That may be a bit extreme, but is one way to make sure that we define every special term, clarify every idea, illustrate every concept and support every conclusion. We cannot go wrong by following the news reporters code : “ Never overestimate the information of your audience; never underestimate the intelligence of your audience”.
Relate the subject directly to our students as the audience
Our way of speaking will be different from one type of audience with other type of audience, from one place to another place. This means that, as a teacher, we need to adjust our speaking with our students’ background. Dealing with fresh students starting their study in the first semester, our way of speaking will be different, in some way, with those speaking in front of the fifth semester students. Their knowledge on English, their exposure on English atmosphere and their expectation which demands us to speak differently!
Therefore, relating our subject to our students’ background as our audience will be very helpful in our effort transferring knowledge and information to them. Doing this, effective teaching and learning can be reached.
Do not be too technical
What does it mean to say that an informative speech is too technical? It may mean the subject matter is too specialized for our students as the audience. Any subject can be popularized-but only up to a point. The important thing for a speaker to know is what can be explained to ordinary students as the audience and what cannot.
Avoid abstraction
Avoid abstraction means that we use description to help our students easily understand things being explained. We can also make a comparison in order that our students can easily “view” abstract concepts we deliver to them.
Personalize our ideas
This guideline means that we personalize our concepts or materials. Remember that people love people, people are interested to people. So, when we are teaching to inform our students personalize our ideas through stories, sharing experience and dramatization.
Those principles above are some alternatives of choices to begin creating a good atmosphere of teaching and learning. It is therefore good for us as teachers to give those principles a try.