News Presentation in Class as an Activity to Teach Integrated Skills in EFL in Africa (Published)
To make their learners achieve good competency in second or foreign language, teachers need to be careful in the choice of techniques, approaches and activities they use. Unfortunately, many teachers and course books separate the four macro skills in their teaching approach. The language which should be seen as a whole is taught in a segregated way, i. e. with whole lessons / sessions on listening, speaking, reading or writing skills. Language, whose prime objective is communication, is thus compartmentalised and leads to poor users. A good reader, listener or writer of a language is not necessarily a competent user of it in real communication situations. This paper proposes the presentation of news in class as an activity to integrate the four macro skills in teaching English as a Foreign Language. It is an exercise which involves the active participation of the whole class, considerably reduces the teacher talking time while increasing that of the learners.
Keywords: Integrated Skills, Listening, News, Participation, Reading, Speaking, writing
Improving Learning And Teaching English In Implementing The 2013 English Curriculum At Junior Secondary School (A Case Study At The Public Junior Secondary School 3 Babelan District Bekasi West Java, Indonesia) (Published)
English as one of international communication has been formally taught from the first year of Junior Secondary School (JSS) to university. However, most of JSS students or even Senior Secondary School (SSS) are not able to communicate in English. One of the causes is that the lack of teacher’s proficiency, creativity, innovation, teaching methodology, and little capability to create joyful teaching and learning. This research aims to find out an appropriate approach, method, and technique to improve teaching and learning English in implementing the 2013 English curriculum at JSS. Questionnaire, observation, and interviews were used to get information from purposive respondents of the first year students and teachers. The research reveals that most of the students are not able to speak, read, and write English properly as given in the minimum standard of the needed competence in the 2013 curriculum and the integrated English skill is one of the useful techniques to improve teachers’ English proficiency and their teaching methodology. Teachers are suggested to enhance their teaching strategies to improve students’ skills.
Keywords: 2013 Curriculum, Instructional, Integrated Skills, Teaching and Learning, communication