Journal of Research in Foreign Language Teaching (JRFLT)

Children’s Innate Capacity of Learning the First Language: an Overview of Structure-dependent Rules

Achmad Farid — 2023-10-19

How children acquire their first language has always been a question of debate between generativists and cognitive functionalists. Crain and Nakayama (1987) attempt to support the notion that children are innately equipped with syntactic rules and such rules are not learned by the child. They want to persuade functionalist linguists with the rightness of the innateness of the structure-dependent hypothesis (i.e. Universal Grammar/UG and poverty of the stimulus notion). To be precise, Crain and Nakayama discuss the Chomskyain “movement transformation” hypothesis (.i.e. subject/aux inversion in structures with relative clauses). They claim that children do not make errors when attempting to make polar interrogatives from relative clauses; as a result, they reserve the verb inside the relative clause and move the auxiliary in the main clause to the front. For example, children would not form structures like *Is the author who writing this task is confused? This is attributable to the claim that children are innately wired with structure-dependent rule. That is to say, children resort to what so-called innate schematism (UG principles) when they form yes/no questions. This assertion is based on nothing more than the claim that no structure-dependence errors were found so far in the child’s speech. Also, they conclude that grammar and meaning are disconnected from “the autonomy of syntax”. To support their view, Crain and Nakayama conducted a study on thirty children whose age ranged from three to five. This paper is primarily intended to critically review Crain and Nakayama’s article and discuss the structure-dependence rule in favour of both a formalist and cognitive functionalist point of view.

ERRORS ON COHESIVE DEVICES MADE BY SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN WRITING NARRATIVE TEX

Lila Aprillia Sugiarto — 2021-04-06

One of important aspects that needs to be considered to make good writing is ‘cohesive device’. It is used to connect the parts of a text. This study is focused on analyzing errors on cohesive devices that are made by senior high school students in writing narrative text. The design of this study was qualitative. It was found that the students made 3 types of errors in using cohesive devices: transitions, pronoun references, and repetition of key nouns consisting of 8 errors of transitions, 4 errors of pronoun, and 6 errors of repetition. Considering the findings, it is expected that teachers formulate a new strategy or ways of corrective feedback to improve students’ writing.

DESIGNING AN E-BANK OF READING EXERCIES OF NARRATIVE TEXTS FOR THE STUDENTS OF GRADE X

Yulia Sri Wulandari — 2021-04-06

This current research was conducted to design a teaching medium for teaching reading on narrative texts for grade X. The methodology applied in the research is a 'design research methodology' covering three phases: Preliminary Research; Design Phase; and Assessment Phase. Based on interview with the teacher, the needs could be identified as follow: there was no appropriate media used in teaching reading, the books used not sufficient for students to practice, e-bank can be applied in the class, reading text was needed narrative text, media can used offline, and provide 100 more exercise practice for e-bank. After getting information about the needs, the product was designed and developed based on them. After the prototype was created it was then validated by an expert. In general, the expert?s evaluation was concerned with: the grammatical error and adding more questions about main idea and generic structure. Besides it was also suggested to add sound in the text. The final stage was done through an assessment by the teacher (the end user of the product). The benefit of this research is to make it the teacher have alternative teaching materials and easy to access because they are too easily accessible via mobile phones. And also the students can use in practicing various questions about reading narrative text more easily.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TEACHER’S STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING READING TO NEWS ITEM TEXT

Emma Fashikhatur Rohmadania — 2021-04-06

Anecdotal evidence shows that some teachers are still using traditional teaching strategies. Because of the use of traditional teaching strategies, the students feel bored to learn in the class. As stated by Johnson (2008) “A simple behaviorist principle is that if we find something to be enjoyable in learning based on teacher’s strategies, we are more likely to do that thing again. If we find something to be boring, frustrating, or meaningless in learning based on teacher’s strategies, we are less likely to do that thing again.” (p.12). Therefore, if the teacher’s strategies make the students feel bored, the teacher cannot be labelled as an effective teacher. This also applies in teaching reading. In this thesis, the researcher seeks to investigate what strategies were employed a teacher at an Islamic state school. In addition, the effectiveness of the use of the strategies for teaching reading skill in news item text was also examined. In other words, the current study aims to explore how the teacher’s strategies on students’ reading skill in news item text were employed in effective ways. This study used a mixed-methods research design, in which data were obtained from two types of data collection methods, i.e. interview and questionnaire. The data were qualitative and quantitative. The researcher found that the teacher used several strategies for teaching reading to news item text; those are reading aloud, reading comprehension, and small-group discussion. The students reported that these strategies were effective for them to learn the reading skill in news item texts.

STUDENTS’ ERRORS IN USING COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS AT ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS

Imam Ahmad Ma’shum — 2021-04-06

In constructing sentences, it needs a connector or it can be called conjunction. It is important that a writer must master. The use of conjunctions also had many portion in meaning of the sentences. In this case, the students are able to understand what the conjunction is. Then they are able to construct the correct one. This study focused on the students’ errors in using the conjunction. They are Indonesian students that still learning about the second language, especially English. An error also done in several times, this is because they can’t master the conjunction itself, and using it. Then they construct the sentences with less understand of constructing sentences, especially in using the connector or the conjunction. In line with Richards (1971) the errors come from 3, those are Interference Error, Intralingual Error, and Developmental Error. Based on the result, the students’ errors are coming from Intralingual Errors, also Developmental Errors. The students may use the conjunction with the wrong formula or can be from their lack of knowledge also less in vocabularies. This study analyzed the students that in eleventh grade in senior high school. This study used 2 instruments, that was test also interview that validated to an expert that mastering language testing. The analysis of students’ error be descriptively analyzed, so it used Qualitative Descriptive method. The Result proved that students still using coordinating conjunctions except ‘for’ incorrectly. The errors were coming from intralingual errors, and developmental errors.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF TEACHER’S STRATEGY IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION

Ali Machfud Rizki — 2021-04-06

Sentence Pronunciation is one of the basic skills in learning English. One of the ways to learn pronunciation can be obtained from teacher’s strategy in teaching. The strategy used by the teacher certainly have the strengths and weaknesses. The research objectives were the strengths and weaknesses of teacher’s strategy in teaching pronunciation. This research used qualitative research to identify what are the strengths and weaknesses of teacher’s strategy using SWOT analysis in teaching pronunciation. To get the data, the researcher used interview. The result shows that the teacher has two categories and three subcategories of the strengths and weakness of teacher’s strategy. The first category is the strengths of teacher’s strategy, this category has got the following subcategories: (a) The strategies made the students pronounce word correctly, (b) The strategies made students’s score good. The second category is the weakness of teacher’s strategy, this category has got the following subcategories: (a) The strategy made the students difficult in understanding material.