Teaching English as Second Language: challenge and expectation for the teacher

Becoming a teacher is a choice and a big risk. Consider the duties and obligations that teachers carry out in their profession. Furthermore, as a teacher of English as a second language, or foreign language, delivering English language learning is not an easy thing, coupled with the challenges that accompany it. Here we will discuss some of the challenges and expectations of an English teacher for foreign and second languages, including; Pre-service English teachers’ Career perspective; Assessment for learning and cognitive process dimensions literacy of instructors in English; and Online English language learning among tertiary students.

Pre-service English teachers’ motivation to pursue a career in teaching viewed from speaking self-efficacy

Three types of motivation were identified: intrinsic, extrinsic, and altruistic. Intrinsic motive is something from within as interest, personal experience, and intellectual fulfilment. It is when an individual has an instinctive passion for teaching and genuinely enjoys it. On the other side, the extrinsic motive is something from the outside job of teaching itself, such as working hours, salary, holidays, the economic condition of service, and social status. Finally, an altruistic motive is an individual’s desire and intention to contribute to the growth of another individual. Previous research on pre-service teachers’ motivation to pursue a career in teaching found different results. Some research found altruistic motivation dominant in determining career decisions, while others suggested extrinsic or intrinsic motivation. The current study extended the topic by relating preservice English teachers’ motivation to teach to English-speaking self-efficacy. The construct of self-efficacy is derived from the Social Cognitive Theory of Bandura which suggests a model of causation involving the person, behavior, and environment in triadic reciprocally. What people think affects their actions, and these actions can change the setting. The environment, in turn, can change people’s thoughts. Students may expend a higher effort to learn (behavioral variable) if they feel competent in the subject they learn (self-efficacy as a personal variable). The teacher may praise them (social/environmental variable), which may substantiate their learning progress (personal variable). This, in turn, motivates the students to learn harder.

This study adopted a quantitative research design. Data collected were numerical and analyzed quantitatively. Statistics were used to describe and explain phenomena of interest, in this case, the preservice English teachers’ motivation to pursue a career in teaching and their English-speaking self-efficacy. The respondents of the study were the students of semesters 3, 5, and 7 of an English education study program at a university in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia. Students of semester 1 were excluded under consideration that, when the data were being collected, they had just started their study. The total population was 150 students. Data were collected by questionnaires of three sections (gender, motivation to pursue a career in teaching, and respondents’ English-speaking self-efficacy). The researcher invited students to participate in the study by sending them a request and a link to a Google form containing the questionnaire through the class WhatsApp group (WAG). Those who agreed to participate would open the link, fill in the questionnaire, and submit it. The responses of agreement levels on the questionnaire on career motivation were transformed into scores of 1 to 5. A strongly disagree response was scored 1, disagree was scored 2, and scores 3, 4, and 5 were consecutively for undecided, agree, and strongly agree.

The study found that Indonesian pre-service English teachers have a high motivation to teach, and extrinsic motivation is the most dominant motive. Among the reasons are the nobility profession and the profession’s sustainability as societies will always need teachers. Income is found not to be a solid motive to teach. Besides having a strong motivation to pursue a career in teaching, Indonesian pre-service English teachers have a high level of English-speaking self-efficacy. Their belief in the ability to perform tasks in speaking is high. Since self-efficacy can predict performance, it is expected that they can speak English well, although speaking anxiety, idiom usage, grammar, and fluency are still problems. The motivation to teach positively correlates to English-speaking self-efficacy at a moderate level. This indicates that English-speaking self-efficacy is not a dominating factor that encourages pre-service English teachers to pursue a career in teaching.

Assessment for learning and cognitive process dimensions literacy of instructors in English

Assessment literacy is an essential way to determine the level of performance of an individual in different fields or disciplines. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many educators are doubtful about how they will determine the level of proficiency, assessment, and cognitive domain of the students as it takes a lot of studies and examinations to find out the result. This study aimed primarily at determining the literacy level of instructors in English on assessment for learning and cognitive process dimensions. Specifically, it explored the ability of instructors the assess learning and cognitive process dimensions in terms of the following parameters such as classroom assessment objective, classroom assessment theoretical basis, types of tests, content and performance standards and competencies, and cognitive process dimensions. It is relevant since this would help policymakers in terms of developing relevant guidelines and development programs that are drawn from the research-based gaps about the strengths and weaknesses of instructors in assessing their students’ knowledge and skills in English.

The researchers utilized an assessment type of research. The respondents of the study involved five university administrators, 15 instructors in English, and 225 college students during the school year 2020-2021. These three groups of respondents are involved to avoid bias and to perform triangulation of the data which are necessary elements for validating the data gathered. A self-made questionnaire was utilized to determine the literacy level of instructors in English on the assessment of learning and cognitive process dimensions in terms of objective, theoretical basis, types of assessment, content and performance standards and competencies, and cognitive process dimensions. The questionnaire underwent expert validations by three university professors with a doctorate in English and reliability testing through pilot testing with 0.987 Cronbach’s alpha. The data were treated using SPSS Software. It is a versatile and responsive program designed to undertake a range of statistical procedures. Specifically, the researchers used the mean procedures and frequency schemes to analyze and interpret the data gathered.

To sum up, although instructors in English are utilizing specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) learning objectives, they still have to distinguish between three learning domains; Secondly, while instructors in English are excellent at identifying the diversity of students, they have to look for various assessment tools; third, though they have flexibility in crafting learning goals, and assess students holistically, they need to be familiar with levels of cognitive process in achieving profound assessment for learning. The study is limited due to its scope which might affect its generality.

The role of speech style between teacher and student in learning English

Every classroom has its characteristics. The characters of teachers and students influence the run of the teaching-learning process. The teachers need to design a meaningful environment learning process. The teachers will have their style to do it. Style of teaching is not the public way to start the relationship with the students and to manage a classroom. It considers the arrangement of behaviors and attitudes characterizing the teachers in the teaching-learning process. This study examined the role of speech style between teachers and students in learning English. Teachers’ speech style is important to help students succeed in the target language particularly students with cognitive disabilities. The speech style of the teachers can assist students in overcoming their developmental and learning problems.

The study was quantitative research employing an ex post facto approach. The participants of the study were students and teachers of the English Department at Madura University. They consist of students who are in the third, fifth, and seventh semesters. There were 13 students from the third semester, 11 students from the fifth semester, 10 students from the seventh semester, and 10 teachers from the English department. They are chosen as the subjects in this study. Questioners and tests using interviews were employed to collect the main data, while observations and documentation were used for supporting data. This research used questionnaires to get information about speech styles between teachers and students.

This research found that the role of speech style between the teachers and the students of the English department at Madura University in learning English is positive and significant, and the amount of the role of the variable is 0.62 (62%). The speech styles of the teachers and students manipulate students’ proficiency levels in English. Appropriate speech style used by the teachers in language learning helps the classroom by providing students with input. The classroom facilitates students’ input in language learning when the teachers propose the classroom with comprehensible and interesting input. It implies that teachers should use appropriate speech styles to construct the right conditions in the classroom to help students with meaningful input. The members of academic society should be responsive to proper speech style in the English teaching-learning process.

Online English language learning among tertiary students

With the help of digital technology, online learning has shifted from being merely a marginal trend to becoming popular in English language learning. The objectives of the present research are i) To determine the level of technology accessibility, technical abilities, self-directed learning, attitude towards online English language learning, and continuance Intention; ii) To identify the impact of variables technical abilities, technology accessibility, and self-directed learning on attitude towards online English language learning; and the last is iii) To identify the impact of attitude towards online English language learning on continuance intention. In online learning, the students participated in the learning spaces through synchronized and synchronized. It is considered purely student experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, either synchronous or asynchronous virtual classroom, as for several months no one was allowed to have a face-to-face class set up. The purpose of the present study is to develop the students’ readiness for online English language learning on their continuance intention of e-learning use. The student’s readiness was based on the level of the student’s technical abilities, technology accessibility, and self-directed learning.

There are 7,000 students from the two universities as the population of the present study in Riau Islands. The representative participants were selected by referring to N/N(d))²+1, (N=total population d=precision value 0.1). The sample considered was 102 students from non-English department students. There were no characteristics of social economy background, gender, or stratified characteristics taken into account. A non-random sampling technique was applied. The present study applied the quantitative research method where generalization was incumbent. To accomplish the aims of this research, 25 items of the questionnaire were developed to collect data from respondents. The developed questionnaire was based on three variables independent (Technical ability, technology accessibility, self-directed learning), one variable intervening (Attitude towards English language e-learning), and one dependent variable (continuance intention). The present study indicated that self-directed learning is a crucial factor in building positive attitudes of students in utilizing digital technology in learning. The obstacles are often experienced by students during online learning as the LMS platforms such as Siakad and Edlink (the platforms that are commonly utilized on campus) appear not so clear on the small gadget screen. But the experience of digital classroom space is the digital literacy skill required.

It can be concluded that the level of technical abilities, technology accessibility, attitude towards online English language learning, and continuance intention have indicated that the responses of statements mostly in the level of agree or very agree to measure the variables. The positive trend of these responses can be cited as a basic reference that students have excellent potential to adapt better to online learning in the future, of course, by paying attention to various aspects of their respective environments. However, the second objective of the present research indicated that technology accessibility and technical ability did not significantly affect the attitude of the respondents toward online English language learning. It assumes that the respondents had gone through an adaptation period of a year at the beginning of high school before continuing to college. However, self-directed learning which in theory refers to psychological processes that intentionally direct learners to acquire knowledge and understand how to solve problems is closely related to their attitude towards online learning. Students who are more independently adapt to more technology-based learning have a positive attitude in adopting online learning strategies and continuously show good academic performance. Online English language learning has provided a clear roadmap and opportunity for educators and students to take more advantages and engage major stakeholders to create a novel market in case the pandemic longer last or becomes a generally acceptable mode of teaching and learning. The weakness in the present research, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic was the small sample size due to the limited space to explore various demographic and other social aspects of students in the context of online learning. It would be helpful to provide an overview of the phenomena with different treatments between purely online-based learning vs. face-to-face learning by comparing the education of the two groups, as well as socio-economic factors.

Sources:

https://edulearn.intelektual.org/index.php/EduLearn/article/view/20457

https://edulearn.intelektual.org/index.php/EduLearn/article/view/17787

https://ijere.iaescore.com/index.php/IJERE/article/view/22714

https://ijere.iaescore.com/index.php/IJERE/article/view/23358