TERE'S ENGLISH TEACHING NOTES

DEIXIS AND ANAPHORA

2010-03-02T04:51:00.000-08:00

There are many words in the language that cannot be interpreted alone without being put in a context. This paper discusses how to interpret the meaning of words by studying the features of deixis and anaphora.

1. Deixis
Deixis is a Greek word for pointing or indicating. Kreidler (1998:144) states that in order to understand the referents in the utterance, the speaker and the hearer have to share the same context or situation in which the referents are used. Deixis concerns the ways in which language express features of the context of utterance or speech event in different way.
(1) I will be back in an hour is written on a piece of paper on someone’s office door. Because the reader was not present when the note was written, the reader does not know when it was written and when the writer will be back.
Saeed (2003:182) points out that every language has a word or phrase which relates an utterance to time, place or person. In addition, deixis is clearly tied to the speaker’s context. According to Cruse (2004:332) referent is located using the current speech event or one or more of its participants as reference points. Therefore, (2) Lee is over there contains a dietic locative expression. Lou is located with respect to the speaker. Lee is relatively distant from the speaker. This enables the hearer to pick out the referent (Lee) correctly.

1.2 Spatial Deixis
Spatial deixis specifies the location relative to the speaker and the addressee. Kreidler (1998:145) uses the term locative expression which designate space close to the speaker or farther away. Spatial deixis concerns the locations relative to anchorage points in the speech event (speaker = center). There are two basic ways of referring objects: by describing or naming them and locating them. Locations can be specified relative to other objects (3) The station is two hundred yards from the cathedral. Locations can be specified relative to the location of participants (4) It’s two hundred yards away. There are some pure place-deitic: here/there (adverbs) and this/that (demonstrative pronouns). Take the examples below:
(5) Bring that red chair here and take this blue chair there.
The word here refers to the location near the speaker (proximal) while there refers to the location away from the speaker (distal). In addition to this, the word that indicates that the object (red chair) is close to the speaker’s location whereas the word this indicates that the object (blue chair) is beyond the speaker’s location.

1.3 Person Deixis
Person deixis is any expression used to point to a person. Saeed (2003: 187) mentions that person deixis concerns with the roles of participants: the first person, the second person and the third person. Cruse (2004:333) argues that person deixis involves the speaker (the first person), the addressee (the second person), and neither speaker nor hearer (the third person). When Koko says (4) I missed the train, the word I refers to Koko. When Lulu says (4) I missed the train, the word I refers to Lulu. If the two persons do not only refer to themselves while talking, there is a third person (= the person they are talking about), which do not have to take part in the conversation (5) Harry broke up with his girl friend.

1.4 Social Deixis
Social deixis concerns social relationship between participants, their status, and relation to the topic of the discourse (Cruse 2004:336). The pronoun system used depends on the relationship of the participant of the conversation (Saeed 2003:188). The honorific form is used to show respect (6) Good evening, Mr. President.

1.5 Temporal Deixis
Cruse (2004: 334) asserts that “temporal deixis locates points or intervals on the time axis, using the moment of utterance as a reference point.” He further explains that there are three major divisions: before the moment of utterance, at the time of utterance, and after the time of utterance. The sentence (7) The meeting will be held next week was written on the notice board by Mr Smith, the Marketing Manager. Next week is a deitic expression which means the week after the speaker or the writer is in at the time of utterance. As a result, if A reads the notice on Monday, next week for A is next Monday. If B reads the notice on Wednesday, next week for B is next Wednesday.

1.6 Discourse Deixis
Discourse deixis is any expression used to refer to earlier or forthcoming segment of a discourse. Cruse (2004:336) points out that discourse deixis concerns the use of expressions referring to apart of the discourse. In discourse deixis, there are many words and phrases in English that indicate the relationship between utterance and prior discourse such as: but, therefore, in conclusion, to the contrary, however, besides, after all, etc.
(8) The boy stole a bike. Therefore, he was arrested yesterday.
Therefore functions as a connecting word between the utterance he was arrested and the prior sentence The boy stole a bike.

1.7 Gestural and Symbolic Deixis
Gestural deixis can only be interpreted with reference to an audio-visual tactile, and in general a physical, monitoring of the speech event. The hearer has to be able to see the speaker and their gesture (Cruse, 2004: 337) Instances would be demonstrative pronouns used with a selecting gesture, as in (9) You, you, but not you are dismissed or a second third person pronouns used with some physical indication of the referent, as in (10) He’s not my son, he is. He’s my nephew.
Cruse (2004: 338) says that symbolic deixis requires for their interpretation only knowledge of the basic temporal parameters of the speech event. Thus, it is sufficient to know the general location of the participants in order to interpret (11) This city is beautiful. Another example is to know when the interaction is taking place in order to know which calendar year is being referred to (12) We can’t afford a holiday this year.

2. Anaphora and Cataphora
According to Kreidler (1998: 145), anaphora is an instance of expression referring to backward utterance. Consider the sentence below:
(12) Mary and her sister live with their aunt in Bali.
Mary and her sister is termed antecedent and the pronoun their is termed anaphoric pronoun. Antecedent and anaphor must agree with respect to number, person and gender. This relationship of indirect reference is called anaphora (Saeed 2003:198). Thus, Mary and her sister and their are co-referential. On the contrary, cataphora is the coreference of one expression with another expression which follows it. The following expression provides the information necessary for the interpretation of the preceding one. In other words, cataphora is an expression referring forward to another expression, for example:
(13) If you need some, there’s some milk in the fridge. [some refers forward to some milk]

References

Cruse, Allan. 2004. Meaning In Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics.
(2nd edn) Oxford: University Press.
James R. Hurford, Brendan Heasly, and Michael B. Smith, (eds.). 2007. Semantics as a
Course. (2nd edn). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kreidler, James W. 1998. Introducing English Semantics. London: Routledge.
Saeed, John I. 2003. Semantics. (2nd edn). New York: Blackwell.

SOCIOLINGUISTICS PROJECT

2010-03-02T04:18:00.000-08:00

This paper focuses the analysis on style and register found in the data. Holmes says that people’s speech style is influenced by many factors, such as age, gender, social roles, and occupation (p. 236). According to Trudgill (1992) styles are seen “as varieties of language viewed from the point of view of formality". For example, a secretary uses formal style when talking to her boss. She should show her respect because her boss has higher status. However, she uses casual style to her best friend in that office when sharing about her personal problem. It is done to minimize distance.

In this data, it is found that the respondents use informal speech style. They use informal Indonesian, such as in :
LL : Mau dagang apa emang si Wiwit ?
[What does Wiwit wanna sell actually?]
LL and LKH are related. LKH is LL’s aunt. Therefore, LL says “Mau dagang apa emang si Wiwit ? which is the informal style of “Mau berdagang apakah Wiwit ?

They also use Betawi language which is classified as vernacular.
LKH :Bener. Ya udah, ambil itu aje gelas aqua.
[Right. Take that Aqua glass.]
JM :Iya. Itu juga mungutin gelas aqua. Saya ngumpulin. (laughing)
[Yes. I pick it up, too. I collect it.] (laughing)

LKH says “aje” instead of saja. JM says mungutin instead of memungut and ngumpulin instead of mengumpulkan. The ending –in is commonly used in Betawi language. There are some Betawi particles, such as: deh and sih.

They use some Javanese words.
LKH : Si embak - embak dagang yang di pinggir jalan kereta tuh kan deket tukang
buah. Tanya deh alamatnya.
The girl selling near the railway, near the fruit-seller over there. Why
don’t you ask her address?

LKH uses the words “embak-embak” (a young lady) which is taken from Javanese “mbak” (sister).
The reasons why the respondents choose informal style can be summarized as follows:
1.Two of the respondents (LKH and JM) are neighbors. Informal style is used to show that they have known each other and to minimize the social distance.
2.Two of the respondents (LKH and LL) are part of the same family. Informal style is commonly used among family members.
3.Two of the respondents (LKH and JM) have similar educational background.
4.The setting is at the grocery store. In this place formal style is not required.

Holmes describes register as the use of specific words used for a particular occupational group (p.259). Two of the respondents in this data are in the same line of business. Both are sellers. They share the same knowledge of buying and selling business. It can be seen from the specific vocabulary they use when talking about their business, such as: utang piutang (loan), modal (capital), kios (kiosk), dagangan (merchandise), laku (sold out), kaki lima (street vendor).

ETHNOGRAPHY OF SPEAKING: AN ANALYSIS

2010-03-02T04:03:00.000-08:00

I. INTRODUCTION
A mother is yelling to her twelve year old son who always forgets to put his shoes in the shoes rack.
Mother :[ pointing at her son’s shoes]
“Sudah berapa kali mama bilang jangan taruh sepatumu di sini !”
[“How many times have I told you not to put your shoes here!”]

Son : Iya…. iya . [he grabs the shoes and put them in the shoes rack]
[ OK…..OK]

Having noticed that her son always forgets to put his shoes in the shoes in the shoes rack, the mother is yelling angrily. Her son knows why she is angry. This can be seen from his response “Iya ….iya” [ OK…..OK]. He will not answer, for example “Sudah tiga kali” [three times]. Her son can interpret his mother’s utterance “Sudah berapa kali mama bilang jangan taruh sepatumu di sini !” [“How many times have I told you not to put your shoes here!”] as an angry statement instead of a question. This example shows an utterance may be interpreted differently depending on the context.

Sociolinguists have been using discourse analysis to understand the meaning of stretches of spoken or written language beyond an utterance or a sentence level. Holmes (2008) points out that:
Discourse analysis provides a tool to identify the norms of talk among different social group and cultural group in different conversational and institutional contexts and to describe the discursive resources people use in constructing different social identities in interaction. (p. 356)
The analysis can be conducted with different kinds of approaches. One of them is ethnography of speaking.

Ethnography of speaking framework focuses on speech event as a whole, and embraces the total social and cultural setting as components in the analysis. Dell Hymes developed for the analysis of communication events involved the following components:
·Topic: what people are talking about
·Setting and Scene: It refers to the time and place of a speech act and, in general, to the physical circumstances.
·Participants: Speaker and audience. The audience can be distinguished as addressees and other hearers.
·Ends: Purposes, goals
·Act Sequence: Form and order of the event.
·Key: Cues that establish the "tone, manner, or spirit" of the speech act.
.Instrumentalities: Forms and styles of speech.
·Norms: Social rules governing the event and the participants' actions and reaction.
·Genre: The kind of speech act or event.

II. DATA ANALYSIS
The data was collected from utterances in a conversation among three people. The conversation, which lasted for four minutes, took place in the grocery store. Below is the data of the respondents.

DATA OF RESPONDENTS
NO NAME AGE EDUCATION OCCUPATION LANGUAGES
1 LKH 60 Elementary School Grocery Owner Indonesian, Betawi, Sundanese
2 JM 45 Elementary School Street Vendor Indonesian, Javanese
3 LL 26 Bachelor in English English teacher Indonesian, Sundanese

Based on Hymes’ framework, the data can be analyzed as follows:
·Topic : the difficulties of earning money nowadays
·Setting and Scene: The conversation took place in the grocery store, in the morning
·Participants:
LKH: Grocery owner
JM : Street vendor, visiting customer and grocery owner’s neighbor
LL : English teacher, grocery owner’s niece
·Ends [Purpose]:
The purpose is to share problem about the difficulties of earning money
nowadays.
·Act Sequence:
The conversation began as a response to LL’s question to her aunt, LKH.
LL : Buat apa ?
[What for ?]
Then, LKH responded with :
LKH :Katanya mau dagang. Kalo mau dagang di inpres noh ada.
Tapinya ya gak bisa. Tempat si Encang noh kalo mau dibeli.
[She said she wanting sell. If she wanna sell at Inpres, go there.
But yeah, she can’t. It’s Encang’s place if she wanna buy it].

Latter on, the conversation developed in the form of question and answer, like in:
LL : Mau dagang apa emang si Wiwit ?
[What does Wiwit wanna sell actually?]
LKH : Tauk.
[Dunno]
LL :Ngaco
[That’s silly.]
LKH : Emang dagang enak?
[You think selling easy ?]
LL : Iya, susah kan. Sepi ya, sekarang ini....
[Yeah, difficult, right ? Not many transaction nowadays]
LKH : Kelihatannya enak, yah? Sekarang...
[Looks easy, right ?]
LL :Kenyataannya ?
[Actually ?]

When JM was coming, she was directly involved in the conversation. From the
middle to the end of conversation, LL did not take part in the conversation. She
was only listening because as an English teacher, she did not have any experience
in running a business. She could not share her opinion or feeling towards the topic
of the conversation: the price of a kiosk at Inpres market and the
difficulties of running a business nowadays like LKH and JM.

LKH : Iya. Entu yang ke sini, anak buahnya bos. Jualan rokok. Kalo dia
banyak duit bosnya, ya ? Kalo yang embak-embak tuh, yang
jualan sayuran tuh. Dua puluh lima juta ?

[Yes. The one coming here is the boss’s man. Selling cigarrettes.
He has lots of money, right ? What about he girl selling vegetables?
Twenty-five million?]

JM :Kalo kita dua puluh lima juta? Buat beli apa ? Jualan aja kaki lima.
[Twenty five millions ? How can we afford it ? We are only street
vendors]

·Key:
B
· Instrumentalities:
Styles of speech is casual because the conversation took place in a grocery store.
Formal style is not required in this place, for example :

LKH : (laughing) Ntar kita dagang ya...
[We will trade, then.]
JM : O, iya...Kalo nggak bisa dagang gimana nih ? Nyari makannya
gimana ? Udah make gerobak. Jualan kaki lima.
[Yeah right….What if we can’t sell? How can we survive? We’re
only using carts. Being street vendor.]

Both speakers used informal style Ntar kita dagang ya... instead of Nanti kita
berdagang ya. [We will trade, then.]. Then, Kalo nggak bisa dagang gimana nih?
instead of Bagaimana kalau kita tidak bisa berdagang [What if we can’t sell?]

· Norms:
The norm in this conversation allow the participants to interrupt, like in:
LKH : Apa kita jual kerbau ya ? (laughing) Berapa biji kerbaunya?
[What about selling buffalo ? (laughing) How many buffaloes ?]
JM : (Laughing) Ya, kalo punya kerbau kalo nggak punya ? Jual apa ?
Jual kecapung? (Laughing) Jual kecapung juga kagak laku.
(laughing) Yes, if we have buffaloes. But, if we don’t ? What can
we sell ? Dragonflies ? (laughing). Nobody buys dragonflies.
LKH : Dah sekarang mendingan kita jadi tukang sapu aja di jalanan.
[Well, now we’d better become street sweepers.]

LKH interrupted JM when they made a joke of selling buffaloes to buy a kiosk at
Inpres market. Knowing that they were talking nonsense, LKH interrupted using
the particle “Dah” to move to another idea.

· Genre:
The kind of speech act is conversation between people who have known each
others.
· Rules of interaction:
There is no prescribed orders of speaking

BASIC NOTIONS IN SEMANTICS

2010-03-02T03:58:00.000-08:00

An Indonesian student who learns English at the beginner level may misunderstand the meaning of the sentence I could eat a horse even though he understands the meaning of each word in the sentence. His limited semantic knowledge cannot help him recognize the non-literal meaning of the above sentence. Semantics can eqquip a language learner with this linguistic ability that allows him to communicate facts, feelings, or intentions to other speakers and to understand what they communicate to him. Saeed (2003: 47) defines semantics as ‘the study of meaning of words and sentences’. In similar vein, Kreidler (1998: 3) asserts that ‘semantics is the systemic study of meaning’. Hurford et.al (2007: 7) says that ‘native speakers of languages are the primary source of information about meaning’. However, non-native speakers of a language can study the meaning of a language by recognizing the forms of communication: verbal and non-verbal communication.

In verbal communication, there are three levels of meaning: utterance, sentence, and proposition. Utterance is something that people express whether it is in written or spoken form (Saeed 2003: 12). Utterance is the concrete unit that can be a sequence of sentences, a single phrase, or even a single word (Hurford et.al 2007: 16). ‘Sentence is concieved abstractly, a string of words put together by grammatical rules of a language’ (Hurford et.al 2007: 17). Kreidler (1998: 27) points outs that a sentence is a construction of words in a particular sequence that is meaningful. There are three people in the same room uttering:
(1)‘This room is hot’,
It means that there are three utterances but there is only one sentence. In (1) hot is the predicator and describes the state This room is. The predicator in declarative sentence can be of various parts of speech: adjectives, verbs, prepositions, and noun. They share the property of being able to function as the predicators of a sentence. In order to know the meaning of (1), we need to know the proposition of this sentence. Proposition is the content of the sentence. It is ‘the part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some state of affairs’ (Hurford et.al 2007: 20). True proposition corresponds to the facts while false proposition does not. In (1), it is true that the room is hot. Proposition consists of an argument and a predicate. Argument is what the proposition is about and predicate is what is attributed to the argument. In (1), the argument is This room and the predicate is hot. Thus, the relationship between these notions is that the sentence This room is hot can be expressed with another different sentence (say This room is not cool) and each of these sentences can be uttered an infinite number of times.

Meaning can also be communicated by the way it is said. Utterances are produced with variations of prosody that consists of accent and intonation (Kreidler1998: 30). In additon to this, paralanguage, appearance, tone of voice and gesture can communicate something about the mood of the speakers, which eventually contribute to meaning intrepretation. As an example, when the sentence (2) I got the scholarship is uttered with falling intonation, it means that the speaker informs the hearer that she got the scholarship. In contrast, when it is uttered with rising intonation, the speaker does not believe or she is surprised that she got the scholarship.

Another important aspect to understand meaning is by studying lexical semantics. Cruse (2004: 26) suggests extentional approach to correlate expressions in language with the things in the world referred to. In the dialog below:
(3) A : ‘Do you live around here ?’
B : ‘No, my house is in the suburb’
both A and B have the knowledge that the word house denotes the whole class of potential referents of the object house. Reference in wider sense is ‘the relationship between a word and or phrase and its entity in the external world’ (Richards and Schmidt 2002: 450). However, My house, which refers to a particular house (B’s), may be intrepreted differently. The word house to A may be a 21 square meter house whereas to B it is a two story luxurious house. This is called connotation. It refers to ‘the affective or emotional associations it elicits, which clearly need not be the same for all people who know and use the word’.(Kreidler1998: 45). To turn from reference to sense, sense is the relationship inside the language (Hurford et.al 2007: 26). The sentences below show that the same word can have more than one sense:
(4) I have a chicken.
(5) She is a chicken.
In (4) chicken refers to the object ‘chicken’ in the real world while in (5) chicken means timid. Because of this sense, a word co-occurs or does not co-occur with another word meaningfully.
Saeed (2003: 68) devides the lexical relations into several types. Those expressing identity and inclusion between word meanings are called homonymy, polysemy, synonymy, hyponymy, and meronymy. The others expressing opposition and exclusion are antonymy.
Homonymy is unrelated senses of the same phonological word, e.g.:
(6) bank can mean a financial institution or the side of the river
A polysemy deals with multiple senses of the same phonological word, e.g.:
(7) He hurt his foot.
(8) He stood at the foot of the stairs.
A synonymy is different phonological word which have the same or very similar meanings, e.g.:
(9) seaman/sailor
A hyponym is also called the superordinate or hyperonym e.g.:
(10) rose and jasmine are hyponyms of animal
Meronymy is decribed as a part-whole relationship between lexical items, e.g:
(11) wheel, engine, door are meronymy of car.
An antonymy is traditionally described as words which are opposite in meaning, e.g:
(12) dead/alive
While Cruse (2004: 150) puts forward that taxonymy is a subtype of hyponymy, e.g:
(13) A mustang is a type of a horse but a stallion is not. A stallion specifies sex

In summary, these basic notions of semantics is essential to enrich language users’ linguistic competence. As a result, misintrepretation in understanding the meaning of words can be eliminated.

References
Cruse, D.A. 2004. Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. (2nd ed)
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Hurford, J.R.and B. Heasly. 2007. Semantics: A course book (2nd ed). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Kreidler, Kate. 1998. Introducing English Semantics. London: Routledge.
Saeed, J.I. 2003. Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Richards, J.C and R. Schmidt, 2002. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied
Linguistics. (3rd ed) Harlow: Longman Group.

Linguistic Varieties and Multilingual Nations

2009-05-23T06:48:00.001-07:00

Holmes says that ‘ a multilingual acquires a number of languages because they need them for different purposes in their everyday interactions (p. 74). These contacts play important roles in language development. When people of many language backgrounds engage in extensive trading, or forced labour, or due to massive population dislocation and movement, pidgin is used as a means of communication. It is always spoken in addition to one’s native language. When a pidgin is used massively by parents at home and the society for whatever reasons, the children growing up in these communities will express their experience of love, fear, and other interactions through this pidgin. As they grow older and use it with others of their age, the pidgin develops into a Creole.

Creole is then used between people in the same ethnic groups. As the first variety acquired at home, it develops into vernacular language. It refers to a language which has not been standardized and which does not have official status (p. 75). A vernacular language can be a standard language if it has undergone some degree of regularization or codification. It is recognized as a prestigious variety or code by a community, and it is used for H functions alongside a diversity of L varieties.

According to the writer, the debate about a common origin of all pidgins should not continue because the process occurs to ease the communication. Therefore, I agree that no one should claim his variety more prestigious than the others’. These language varieties enrich an individual’s linguistic repertoires.

From this chapter I learnt how a language develops. It is a natural that human beings will communicate to others to fulfill their needs. The contact of one speech community with another can create a new language. I can understand why new words appear everyday. If I do not have the contact with the groups using those new words, I will not understand.

Language Maintenance and Shift

2009-05-23T06:47:00.000-07:00

Multilingual communities allow people to choose any code or variety in social interactions. These choices may have potential longer-term effects on the languages existing in those communities. The first effect is language shift. It is the process whereby a community gradually abandons its original language shifts to another language. Factors contributing to language shift are economic, social, political, demographic factors as well as attitudes and values (p.54). If this phenomenon continues, the speakers gradually lose the fluency and competence. This is the process of language death. The speakers tend to use less complex grammatical patterns and smaller amount of vocabulary. When the speakers the language die, the language die with them.

In order to save the language from dying, certain communities attempt to maintain the language. The communities continue speaking its original language in most domains. This language maintenance is done through language planning in education, law, government, or media. For languages which are considered dead like Latin or Hebrew, there is also an attempt to revive them through formal instruction.
According to the writer, there is no magic formula for guaranteeing the success of language maintenance or revival or for predicting language shift or death. I agree with this opinion because factors triggering the above phenomena in each multilingual community vary. The pressure from the dominant language speakers will not automatically lead to language shift.

I am very interested in studying these language phenomena. It shows me how people use the language in attempting to adjust with other speech communities. As a multilingual, I personally do not want to experience language shift let alone language loss. I see that being multilingual gives me more opportunities to interact with different speech communities. It helps me widen my horizon.

Language Choice in Multilingual Communities

2009-05-23T06:46:00.000-07:00

In multilingual communities, more than one language is used. It means that people living
in this situation may speak more than one language. Thus, they can have linguistic repertoire. When interacting with others, they can choose a code or a variety which is appropriate with participants, topic and location. These factors are known as domains of language use.

These complexities of language choice form unique sociolinguistic situations. A speech community use two varieties (H variety and L variety) to cover all communities domains. This is called diglossia. Whereas poliglossia is described as situations where more than two distinct codes or varieties are used for distinguishable situations. Language choice is also determined by social distance, status, formality and function. The process of switching back and forth between one language or dialect and another within the same conversation is called code switching. It is a conversational strategy used to establish, cross, or break group boundaries; to create, evoke, or change interpersonal reaction. Situational code switching happens because of the situation changes while metaphorical code switching happens because of the topic changes.

The writer clearly explains the complexities of sociolinguistic situations in multilingual communities. It is true that people are often unaware when switching back and forth between one language and another. However, when their attention is drawn to this behavior, people react differently (p. 46). According to me, the writer should provide more evidences for people’s disapproval and approval of mixing the language.

This chapter expands my knowledge on the reasons of code switching. Before reading this article, I assumed that people code switch due to their linguistic incompetence. In fact, factors to do code switching in a diaglossic or polyglossic community are various.

What do sociolinguists study ?

2009-05-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

This chapter discusses the aspects of sociolinguistics study. Sociolinguists are interested in describing sociolinguistic variation and in explaining why it happens. According Holmes, the linguistic forms chosen by a speaker is influenced by social context in which he is talking. It matters who he is talking to (participants), where he is talking (setting), what he is talking about (topic), and why he is talking (function of interaction). As a result, the same message may be expressed differently to different people (p. 9). In addition to these factors, there are four social dimensions which determine the linguistic choice. The social distance scale is concerned with how close or distant the relationship between participants is. The status scale is concerned with the status of participants in the society. The formality scale is related to the setting. Where the interaction occurs determines the level of formality. The functional scale is related to the purposes or the topic of interaction. When the speaker intends to convey the information, the interaction is referentially oriented. In contrast, when the speaker communicates to maintain goodwill, he emphasizes on affective function (p. 10-11).

This overview show that no individual is free to do exactly what he or she pleases so far a language is concerned. The choice of one linguistic form rather than another is useful clue to non-linguistics information. Linguistic variation provides social information.

This chapter is valuable. Now, I understand that language variation is the result of social interaction. The way people talk is influenced not only by their personal need but also by the social factors. As an English teacher, I can make use of this knowledge to motivate students use English in appropriate context.

CODE SWITCHING

2009-05-23T06:41:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard the following sentences ? Kata mama aku, perfume itu wanginya gak longlasting…jadi mendingan kasi bracelet from platina” (Indonesian/English). "Aku free hari ini" (Indonesian/English). "Suami saya dulu slim and trim tapi sekarang plump like drum" (Malaysian/English). The proceedings went smoothly, ba? (Tagalog/English). In linguistics, this phenomena is called code switching. Code switching is a widely observed phenomenon especially seen in multilingual and multicultural communities. Crystal suggests that “code, or language, switching occurs when an individual who is bilingual alternates between two languages during his/her speech with another bilingual person” (1987). Code-switching can take on several forms including alteration of sentences, phrases from both languages, and switching in a long narrative This paper discusses the underlying reasons of code switching.

Code switching is done deliberately due to different situations. This switching allows one to predict language choice; there is a "simple almost one-to-one relationship" (Gumperz , 1982) between extra-linguistic parameters and the appropriate language for this situation. The above sentence “The proceedings went smoothly, ba? (Tagalog/English) is used to express solidarity to the new comer who is a Philipino. This is categorized as emblematic or tag switching. The Tagalog tag ba can also depict an ethnic identity marker.

People use different code to elaborate the purpose of the interaction. When I teach, I use English and Bahasa Indonesia interchangeably. English is used to provide as much English exposure as possible. While Bahasa Indonesia is used as the last resort when explaining concepts using other techniques fails. Once I found that many students did not understand my explaining the concept of cohesive devices in the Composition Class in English. They were unable to identify the cohesive devices in the paragraphs in the handouts. To end the students’ confusion, I switched into Bahasa Indonesia. What I did is classified as intra-sentential switching. This switching is commonly used only when speaking to bilinguals. Holmes asserts that “only proficient bilinguals switch within sentences” (46).

On the other hand, my students code switch because they are not proficient bilinguals yet. In many occasions, they struggle to find the English phrases or dictions when talking. The sentence like “ The tiger menerkam the deer quickly” appeared when they wrote a narrative paragraph. Because they switch at sentence boundaries, it is called as inter-sentential switching (Holmes, 46).
People do code switching to respect the addressee. Each of the codes represents or symbolizes a set of social meanings. This type of switching has been called metaphorical switching. The speaker convey affective meaning as well as information (Holmes, 42-43). The sentence Apa “panjenengan” sudah dengar tentang perubahan peraturan perusahaan ? clearly shows how a fluent Javanese speaker who is currently using Bahasa Indonesia with another older Javanese switch to “Panjenengan” (kamu) to show respect.

People are often unaware of the fact that they code –switch. The change in feature of the social setting, the topic of discussion, the aspect of purpose of interaction may be the reasons for code switching. Even though reactions to code switching style are negative in many communities, this linguistic phenomenon can be a good control of both codes.

References
Crystal, D. (1987). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University
Press: Cambridge.
Holmes, Janet. (2008). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. London: Longman
Gumperz, John J. (ed.) (1982.) Language and Social Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO LANGUAGE SHIFT

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Language shift occurs when a community who share similar mother tongue abandon it, and collectively shift to speaking another language. It is always preceded by multilingualism. Someone cannot shift to a new language unless he
or she learns to speak it. According to Hoffman, “when a community does not maintain its language, but gradually adopts another one, we talk about language shift” (186). As an example, there is a language shift among the second born Telugu immigrants in New Zealand. Their ability to use English enables them to integrate and settle in an English speaking country. However, the loss of the Telugu language is more in the written and writing skills than the listening and speaking skills (Kuncha and Bathula, 2004). This paper discusses language shift which are triggered by demographic, attitude, economic, social, and political factors.
Firstly, demographic factor plays the role in the process of language shift. When there is a community of speakers moving to a region or a country whose language is different from theirs, there is a tendency to shift to the new language. Every time an immigrant learns the native language of the new country and passes it down to children in place of the old country language. For example, I was born in Solo so my mother tongue is Javanese which was used as the language in my former neighborhood and the medium of instruction in my elementary school. I moved to Jakarta in 1979. Since then, I only use Javanese at home with my family and my Javanese neighbors. Because there is a high frequency of contact with people coming from different ethnic groups who use Bahasa Indonesia, I gradually shift from Javanese to Bahasa Indonesia. This is a clear evidence that demography is an influencing factor in language shift.
Secondly, the negative attitudes towards the language can also accelerate language shift. It occurs where the ethnic language is not highly valued and is not seen as a symbol of identity. As stated by Holmes, young people are the fastest to shift languages (60). Teenagers in some big cities of Central Java Province gradually abandon Javanese in daily communication. Having various levels of formality, Javanese is seen as a difficult medium of instruction. They are required to choose different variety when talking to different people. In addition, they feel more prestigious when using Bahasa Indonesia or English than when using Javanese. (Samadi SP, Suara Karya). Teenagers nowadays want to be a part of a global community. Therefore, they do not have the need to show their identity by using Javanese. If this continues, they will eventually lose their ability to speak Javanese.
Thirdly, language shift is caused by economic reason. Holmes says that job seekers see the importance of learning a new language which is widely used in business (60). The high demand from industries for employees with fluent English has successfully encouraged job seekers to equip themselves with English. In fact, being competent in English leads to well-paid jobs.
Finally, political factor imposes on language shift. In a multilingual country, the authority usually chooses one language as the lingua franca to unify various kinds of ethnic groups. Consequently, the number of ethnic language speakers decreases. As an example, the political situation in 1947 led to the partition of India. Sindhi Hindus fled from the Sind. They spoke Sindhi at home but had to adopt the local languages. This process has led to language displacement leading to language loss among the Sindhis (Bayer, 2005). Another example, the official languages of many African countries were determined by their former colonialists. Those languages replace African tribal languages. Both examples show how they experience language shift.
To sum up, language shift is an interesting and inevitable linguistic phenomenon.The factors which trigger the shift vary from one language community to another. Some of them are demographic, attitude, economic, social, and political factors.

References
Bayer, Jennifer Marie. (2005). Sociolinguistic Perspectives of Cultures in Transition Indian Tribal Situation. Language in India. 5(March)
http://www.languageinindia.com

Hoffman, C. (1991). An Introduction to Bilingualism. London: Longman

Holmes, Janet. (2008). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. London: Longman

Kuncha, Rekha. M and Hanoku Bathula. (2006). The Role of Attitude in Language Shift
and Language Maintenance in a New Immigrant Community: A Case Study.
Working Paper 1(April): 6.

Samadi. SP. Pelestarian Bahasa Jawa Melalui Sekolah. Suara Karya. 20 March 2007.

ETHNIC LANGUAGES IN INDONESIA: QUO VADIS ?

2009-05-08T23:33:00.000-07:00

Being a country with various ethnic groups, Indonesia declared Indonesian Language as the national language functioning as a lingua franca. Since then it is very essential to ease the communication among those diverse ethnic groups throughout Indonesia as well as to unify the whole nation. This is in line with Holmes’ opinion that a lingua franca is ‘a language serving a regular means of communication between different linguistic groups in a multilingual speech community’ (81). This language policy has been successful. More and more people prefer to use Indonesian Language even among their own ethnic groups. This phenomenon is both gratifying and saddening.

The increasing number of people using Indonesian Language is gratifying.
It shows that the national language has unified the nation. People can use Indonesian Language to communicate with other ethnic groups for any purposes. As a result, any information can be accessed and transferred easily. In the long run, it contributes to the speed of national development.

On the other hand, it is saddening to see that the number of ethnic language speakers gradually decreases. It may due to practicality or the limited vocabulary of ethnic languages to express ideas. Therefore, ethnic language is considered as a hindrance in communication. In fact, ethnic languages are national heritage. They are very important vehicles of cultural expressions, knowledge, and values. In addition, they can help us discover indigenous values, which can also strengthen the national identity.

Maintaining ethnic languages in Indonesia is as crucial as developing Indonesian Language because both form linguistic diversity. Through formal instructions, both ethnic languages and Indonesian Language will be acquired by larger group of people.

Reference
Holmes, Janet. Introduction to Sociolinguistics. England: Pearson Education Limited,
2008.

The current ELT Approaches

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THE ANALYSIS OF A READING LESSON

INTRODUCTION

I chose a lesson from www.english-to-go.com. This website offers ESL lessons with fun, engaging, up-to-date resources based on Reuters® news articles. The reading text used in the lesson is taken from the Reuters® news article “An Eel Pet” dated January 7, 2003 (see Appendix 1-5). When noticing that the lesson is intended for elementary level, I assume it will be suitable for Year 8 students (second grade of Junior High School) in Indonesia. The skill focus is reading. However, at the end of the session, students should engage in a speaking activity using similar topic. I am going to analyse this lesson using current approaches in ELT listed below:
1. Genre-based approach to learning (Mauchlan 2005, Hammond, et al 1992)
2. Task-based approach to learning (Sanchez 2004)
3. Autonomous learning
4. Content-based approach to learning
5. Focus on form, focus on forms, and focus on meaning
6. Language-based theory of learning (Halliday 1993)
7. Problem-based learning

1. GENRE-BASED APPROACH TO LEARNING
This approach, which draws on the functional model of the language, was developed by Halliday (1978, 1994). Students are encouraged to analyze different text types available in daily life to develop the communicative competence. They are guided to identify that each text type has its own function, schematic structure, and grammatical pattern. The terminal objective of applying this approach is to that students are able to produce different kind of text types related to their needs.

The types of text include transactional conversations, interpersonal
conversations, short functional texts, monologs and essays of certain genres. Based on Well’s taxonomy (1987), the junior high school literacy level is the functional level. After graduating, students are expected to use English for survival purposes such as carrying transactional exchanges, reading for fun, or reading popular science for teenagers. Therefore the genres for this level will be procedure, descriptive, recount, narrative, and report.

ANALYSIS

The genre (text type) of the lesson is a news item taken from an authentic news (Reuters® news article “An Eel Pet” dated January 7, 2003). Based on Well’s taxonomy, news items is more appropriate for senior high school level. However, this news is very short so I think it is not too difficul for Year 8 students (not far beyond the ZPD). The social function is to inform readers about an unusual event. The text has a specific schematic structure (logical structure) :
· headline : Family Keeps Pet Eel in Bath -- for 33 Years
· summary of event : 1st sentence
· background event : what happened, to whom, in what circumstances
· sources : comments by participant, “He’s a part of our family,” said Hannelore Richer of Bochum in western Germany.
This text is using particular grammatical patterns: verbs of actions to retell story (Simple Past and Present Perfect).

According to Vygotsky (1978) teaching should provide systematic guidance and support to "scaffold" learners in achieving their potential level of performance. By the interaction and assistance from experienced others (teachers and peers), learners can finally achieve their potential by completing the task alone. Based on scaffolding, a teaching-learning cycle is proposed to teach genre. The cycle has five stages (Feez & Joyce 1998; Hyland 2004):
(a) Context building: experiencing and exploring the purpose, context and audience of the genre
# This lesson build up and extend vocabulary relevant to the topic. It can be seen in Activity A, B, and C
(b) Modelling: analyzing the genre to reveal structural patterns and linguistic features
# Students are guided to find the sequence of the event (activity D)
(c) Joint construction: guided, teacher-supported practice of genre;
# This is done through Activity C and D to explore the content of the text.
While in Post-Reading Activity A, students are guided to use the grammatical pattern used in the text.
(d) Independent construction monitored by the teacher
# In Post-Reading Activity B and C, students are working in groups.
(e) Comparing; linking what is learnt to other genres and contexts
# In Activity D, students use the vocabulary and grammatical pattern learnt in a conversation. They link what they learnt from the text to other genre (transactional exchanges). This enables learners to critique and exploit the linguistic possibilities of the genre (Macken-Horarik 2002).

2. TASK-BASED APPROACH TO LEARNING
Unlike in the past, teachers nowadays are required to design tasks or projects which are not aimed to reinforce one particular structure, function or vocabulary group but to exploit a wider range of language. In many cases, students may also be using a range of different communicative language skills such as in producing posters, brochures, pamphlets, oral presentations, radio plays, videos, websites or drama.
In task-based approach to learning, the tasks are central to the learning activity. Developed by N Prabhu (1987), this approach is based on the belief that students may learn more effectively when their minds are focused on the task, rather than on the language they use. Jane Willis presents A Framework for Task-Based Learning in a three stage process:
· Pre-task - Introduction to the topic and task.
· Task cycle – Task, planning and report
· Language focus - Analysis and practice.
Task-based learning can be very effective at Intermediate levels and beyond because the teacher does not introduce and 'present' language or interfere ('help') during the task cycle. The teacher is an observer during the task phase and becomes a language informant only during the 'language focus' stage.

ANALYSIS

The lesson is using the learning stages suggested by Willis :
· Pre-task - Introduction to the topic and task.
# Pre-reading activities which include Discussion, Vocabulary and Predicting are aimed to introduce the topic of the text and task. This is language input.
· Task cycle – Task, planning and report
# Reading activity helps student to pay attention on the content of the text.
· Language focus - Analysis and practice
# Post-reading activities are used as remedial task to check whether students are able to produce the grammatical pattern and vocabulary learnt in some tasks (crossword, paragraph writing, and conversation). It involves collaboration, natural context for language use, and solving problem.

3. AUTONOMOUS LEARNING
In this approach, teacher gradually reduces direction and support as the learner increases in maturity and confidence. Student should undergo the ‘experiential learning cycle’ through concrete experience, observation and reflection, abstract conceptualisation, and active experimentation in order to develop independence. They are encouraged to :
· Set their own learning aims
· Make choices over learning modes
· Plan and organise work
· Decide when best to work alone, work collaboratively and when to seek advice
· Learn through experience
· Identify and solve problems
· Think creatively
· Communicate effectively orally and in writing
· Assess their own progress in respect of their aims

ANALYSIS

This lesson encourages the students to engage in problem solving and collaboration . While students engage in Pre-reading activity, Reading activity, and Post-reading activity, the teacher’s guidance decreases. However, this lesson does not give students the opportunity to select their own text for the language input and for follow up activity. The text which is not interesting for teenagers may demotivate them to learn. Students are not given guidance on self-assesment. As a result, they have no idea how to set their own aims and how to achieve them.

4. CONTENT BASED INSTRUCTION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING
In this approach, the language is utilized as the medium for teaching subject matters, such as science, social studies, biology, or mathematics. CBI allows schools to combine the goals of language curriculum and the regular curriculum, making language learning the vehicle for strengthening the language skills as well as content knowledge (Echevarria, 2000). Mohan (1986) indicates that the goal of integration in CBI is both language and content learning. The benefits of learning language through subject content are evident in learners’ language and content acquisition. When the students are studying a content area of interest (i.e. tsunami, Gulf War, immigration, etc), they are more intrinsically motivated to learn both the content and the language simultaneously. The students are actually able to use their new language. Content Based Learning is most appropriate at intermediate and advanced proficiency levels.

Some examples of content based curricula:
· Immersion program
· Sheltered English programs
· Writing across the curriculum (where writing skills in secondary schools and universities are taught within subject-matter areas like biology, history, art, etc.)

ANALYSIS

This lesson is not content-based but language based. This lesson is for elementary level students to develop their language competence.

5. FOCUS ON FORM, FOCUS ON FORMS, FOCUS ON MEANING

FOCUS ON MEANING MEANING
· IDEATIONAL (getting the message across)
· TEXTUAL (making the message readily accessible)
· INTERPERSONAL (taking account of the receiver and presentation of self)

FOCUS ON FORM (ACCURACY)
1.A focus on one or two forms, specified by the teacher.
2.Learners’ language production is controlled by the teacher.
3.The success of the procedure is judged in terms of whether or not learners do
produce the target forms with an acceptable level of accuracy.

FOCUS ON FORMS
· Isolation or extraction of linguistic features from context or communicative activity

ANALYSIS

This lesson is focus on meaning. Its function of language is ideational as it puts forward information as to what ideas the author is trying to get across. A news item is used to convey the message of the text. This is called the textual metafunction. The news is an interpersonal metafunction as the writer is communicating to the reader.

6. LANGUAGE BASED THEORY

Michael Halliday’s theory (1980) works through three main stages:
·Learning language: semantic- lexicogrammatical-graphophonic
·Learning through language: the outside language (in consciousness), and the inside
language (the imagination).
·Learning about language: field, tenor and mode

ANALYSIS

The three stages of language based theory is applied in this lesson. Student learn the lexicogrammatical (structure), use the language to understand text and to interact with other students (conversation).

7. PROBLEM BASED LEARNING

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a model that enables students to work cooperatively by finding solutions to real world problems and learning by doing, searching and involving the solution activity. PBL prepares students to think critically and analytically, and to find and use appropriate learning resources in groups. They share their ideas, discuss their thoughts, write what they agreed, go through to develop solutions, learn to speak and write effectively. Also, students develop their vocabulary, grammar knowledge and social language usage by the help of this method. In short, they construct an understanding of language as it is used in real-world contexts.

ANALYSIS

Pre-reading activity, Reading activity and Post-reading activity i this lesson require students to work cooperatively to find solutions using the vocabulary and grammar knowledge learnt. However, the problems are not real world problems. The activities are textbook problem oriented.

Annotated Bibliography 4

2008-12-28T08:15:00.000-08:00

Annotated Bibliography 4
Kasper, Gabriele. (2000). Four Perspectives on L2 Pragmatic Development
( http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/Networks/Nwig/default/html )

The writer bases the discussion on Canale and Swain’s framework of grammatical, sociolinguistic, and strategic competence. Since then, many experiments have been conducted to examine other influential factors which may contribute to L2 pragmatic development. This paper discusses how four perspectives on pragmatic development relate to each other.

The first perspective is pragmatic and grammar. Bardovi-Harlig and Dornyei (1998) find that “pragmatic and grammatical awareness are largely independent and that their development may be associated with different learning environments in a rather complex fashion” ( p.6). L2 learners with high grammatical competence might use the grammatical rules inappropriately in real communication. For them, grammatical errors are more serious than pragmatic errors while L2 learners with low grammatical competence show the opposite tendency.

The second perspective is information process which is derived from psychological paradigm. There are two most influential proposals. Schmidt’s noticing hypothesis (1986) says language input can become intake and later on will be available for further processing if it is noticed consciously (p. 14). Bialystok’s two dimensional model of L2 proficiency development (1993, 1994) explain “the development of already available knowledge along the dimensions of analyzed representation and control of processing” (p. 14).

The third perspective is sociocognitive theory which is based on Vygotsky’s notion of Zone of Proximal Development. Learners’ pragmatic competence develops if they engage in interaction. It is true that explicit instruction pushes learners to use the language in social interaction appropriately. In contrast, some studies show that without any explicit instruction, learners gradually develop their pragmatic competence due to the interactional demand (p. 22).

The fourth perspective is language socialization. Learning a foreign language is more than learning the language. L2 learners should also learn second culture (C2) in order to interact with native speakers appropriately (p. 33). Language teachers with communicative and culture repertoire enable to support learners’ learning of L2 pragmatics effectively. Therefore, language teachers do not have to be natives of L2 but they have to be experts in L2 (p. 33).

This article is very hard to comprehend. The reader finds difficulty in understanding the main idea of each perspective. Unfamiliarity with many new terminologies related to pragmatic development has been somewhat discouraging the reader to continue reading more seriously. This burden lessens when the article is being discussed in the class. The knowledge of perspectives in pragmatic development helps the reader to analyze the phenomenon in L2 classroom.

Annotated Bibliography 3

2008-12-28T08:13:00.000-08:00

Annotated Bibliography 3
Culhane, Stephen F. (2004). An Intercultural Interaction Model: Acculturation Attitudes in Second Language Acquisition. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 1(1), 50-61.

This paper discusses approaches in sojourner research to understand how motivation to interact in the second language (L2) and in a second culture (C2) relates to attitudes toward second language acquisition (SLA). The writer reviews a variety of perspectives by an eclectic group of researchers. He proposes an intercultural model, termed as the Intercultural Interaction Model, to enhance understanding of SLA by integrating factors from acculturation research.

The writer begins with the overview of learner motivation in SLA. He referred to Gardner’s theory of learner motivation (1959) which consists of instrumental and integrative motivation (p. 4). Instrumental motivation refers to individual primary concern whereas integrative motivation is driven by social interactions. Accordingly, instrumental motivation has a primary role in learning L2.

In other studies, Berry et al (1986) view that attitudes toward acculturation also contributes an important impact on the process of SLA. Berry sees that a learner’s attitudes in perceiving home culture (C1) and host culture (C2), and a learner’s level of acculturation determine the success of his SLA. The patterns of acculturation are termed as integration, assimilation, separation and marginalization (p.5). Ward and Kennedy (1994), later on, find that “sojourners with Integrated and Assimilated acculturation attitudes demonstrated lower level of sociocultural difficulties than ones with Separated and Marginalized attitudes” (p.7). As a result, these Integrated and Assimilated acculturation attitudes can accelerate the process of SLA.

The writer combines Gardner’s integrative and instrumental motivation with Berry’s four acculturation patterns into an orientation toward learning a new culture and language within an L2 speaking community or authentic L2/C2 context. He proposes three levels of functioning: instrumental, integrative, and psycho-social functioning (p.9). The level of functioning a learner adopts shows his relative balance of instrumental and integrative motivation. This should be recognized as a fundamental and determinant of SLA and acculturation (p. 14).

The reader finds this article worth reading. The reader’s prior knowledge of integrative and instrumental motivation helps her understand further studies on motivation in SLA. In the reader’s point of view, Berry’s four acculturation patterns and Culhane’s three levels of functioning can be applied only for L2 learners in authentic L2/C2 context. Further study on motivation should be conducted with L2 learners who never have any contact with authentic L2/C2 context. The future findings may eliminate the failure of SLA in L1/C1 context.

Annotated Bibliography 2

2008-12-28T08:11:00.000-08:00

Annotated Bibliography 2
Bongaerts, Theo. et al (1995). Age and Ultimate Attainment in the Pronunciation of a Foreign Language. SSLA, 19, 447-465.

This article reports on two studies which aim to find out whether late L2 learners can achieve authentic, nativelike pronunciation of a foreign language. The experiments are conducted to provide some evidences that former theory on a critical period for second language acquisition needs reviewing. In the experiments, experienced and inexperienced native speakers of English are asked to rate the pronunciation of highly successful Dutch learners of English.

The writers start the article with the review of Lenneberg’s argument (1967) on the impossibility of complete mastery of L2 owing to the loss of neural plasticity around the onset of puberty (p. 447). Then, Schovel (1988) beats the predictions of the critical period hypothesis for some superexceptional learners (p. 450-451). To examine both opinions of the critical period hypothesis, the writers design two experiments with a carefully selected group of highly successful Dutch learners of English. The result of the studies reveals that some individuals in both groups can achieve nativelike pronunciation despite the fact that they already passed their puberty when starting learning L2. This fairly exceptional phenomenon may relate to some factors. Firstly, these individuals have greater neurocognitive flexibility than normal population of late L2 learners. Then, they constitute very highly motivated learners. Most of them are English teachers at the university levels. Therefore, being able to speak English without a Dutch accent is very important. Another important factor is that all learners in both groups have received intensive training both in the reception and in the production of the speech sounds of British English (p. 462-463).

The reader would find difficulties to understand the article if she did not have prior knowledge of Critical Period Hypothesis in SLA. The explanation of how the experiments are done is easy to follow. It enhances the reader’s comprehension of the issue. However, the reader suggests that a further study be conducted with late L2 learners whose mother tongue is not typologically related to English. The findings might be different. In addition to this, “pronunciation is the language performance that has a neuromuscular basis” (p.448). Thus, the reader believes that every late L2 learner will achieve different level of attainment in the pronunciation of L2 from the other learner due to their different neuromuscular system.

Annotated Bibliography 1

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Annotated Bibliography 1
Canale, Michael and Merril Swain. (1979). Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing. Applied Linguistics, 1 (1), 1-47.

This article is the proposal of a theoretical framework for communicative competence and its implications for second language teaching and testing. The authors base on their proposal on various theories of communicative competence that have been proposed by former linguists.

Chomsky (1965) introduced the concepts of competence and performance (p.3). A few years later many applied linguists broadened his concepts. Van Ek (1976) says that students can develop their communicative competence at early stages with the basic communication skills. These skills help them to survive (linguistically speaking) in temporary contacts with foreign language speaker in everyday situations (p.9). While Halliday (1973) and Hymes (1972) who bring the sociolinguistic perspectives into Chomsky’s linguistic view of competence claim that communicative competence is concerned with the interaction of social context, grammar, and social meaning (p.19). According to Widdowson, communicative abilities have to be developed at the same time as the linguistic skills; otherwise the mere acquisition of the linguistic skills may inhibit the development of communicative abilities. He distinguishes two aspects of performance : “usage” (learner’s knowledge of linguistic rules) and “use” (learner’s ability to use his linguistic rules for effective communication).
Canale and Swain, then, study that those theorists have a little attention to communication strategies, the establishment of grammatical and semantic concepts, and the evaluation and levels of achievement (p.25). They propose their own theory of communicative competence that minimally includes three main competencies: grammatical, sociolinguistic and strategic competence. Grammatical competence includes knowledge of lexical items and of rules of morphology, syntax, and semantics. This competence is important for providing learners with knowledge of how to determine and express accurately the literal meaning of utterances. Sociolinguistics competence is made up of two sets of rules of use and rules of discourse. This competence is important in interpreting utterances for social meaning. Strategic competence is made up of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that may be used to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or to insufficient grammatical competence.

This article is considered hard to read but very beneficial to widen the reader’s knowledge on the background theories of communicative approach development in language teaching and testing. According to this approach the objective of foreign language teaching and testing is to help learners to develop their communicative competence. Therefore, the reader now understands that syllabus design, teaching methodology, teacher training, and material development should be planned on the basis of communicative functions.

The Advantages of Using L1 in L2 Classroom

2008-12-28T08:04:00.000-08:00

The Advantages of Using L1 in L2 Classroom

Audiolingual method, the communicative approach, or task-based learning have advocated L2 only method. One reason of using this method is that the exposure to L2 outside the classroom is rather scarce. As Cook says that “the use of L1 is perceived to hinder the learning of L2 “ (as quoted in Zacharias 2000). On the contrary, many ELT professionals have suggested reexamining the English only approach in the L2 classroom. Prodromou reminds us that there is much potential for using L1 in language learning contexts rather than abusing it (as quoted in Juarez and Oxbrow 2008). Therefore, when not used excessively, L1 is beneficial in L2 classroom.

First of all, the use of L1 enhances relaxed classroom atmosphere. Both teacher and students are given the opportunity to use L1 in certain situations. In such a less threatening classroom, students’ anxiety can be minimized. Rivera finds that allowing students to use L1 makes them feel less intimidated (Auerbach 1993). In addition, students feel freer to express their ideas. Whenever they do not know a particular lexical item in L2, they can switch to the one in L1, for example “How do you say menerkam in English ?” Bolitho sees this phenomenon as a valuable humanistic element in the classroom (Atkinson 1987). When this happens, learning takes place.

In addition, L1 is useful in managing the class. Explaining grammar concept through L1 saves time. Piasecka states that for novice students, grammar explanation in L2 is useless because their language repertoire is limited (as quoted in Auerbach 1993). Atkinson advises teachers to use L1 “when a correlate structure does not exist in L1 such as a verb tense” (as quoted in Harbord 1992). Checking students’ comprehension and correcting errors can be conducted in L1, too. This strategy is believed to be very helpful to avoid misunderstanding (Harbord 1992). Giving instruction in L1 helps teachers keep the class moving at early levels. Harbord (1992) asserts that teacher can use L1 to simplify a complex activity. Moreover, a research done by Lameta-Tufuga reveals that students can fully understand the content of the written task through L1 (as quoted in Nation 2003). Eventually, these procedures help teachers to achieve the objective of the lesson.

Most important, permitting students to use L accelerates students’ L2 acquisition process. Students learn new vocabulary faster through L1. Laufer and Shmueli claim “studies comparing the effectiveness of various methods for learning always come up with the result that an L1 translation is the most effective” (as quoted in Nation 2001). If students are aware of similarities and differences between L1 and L2, they can avoid errors which could be derived from the transfer of their L1. Ferrer (2005) takes the view that the use of L1 enable students to “notice the gap between their inner grammars and the target language and ultimately, through constant hyphotesis testing, achieve higher levels of grammatical as well as communicative competence”. This awareness contributes to L2 acquisition process.

Even though many language teachers oppose the issue of L1 use in L2 classroom, literature provide evidence that L1 use in L2 classroom is advantageous if not overused. Due to friendly classroom atmosphere, students feel more comfortable so they are motivated to learn. The use of L1 makes it possible for teacher to manage the class more effectively. Through L1, students experience faster L2 acquisition process.

References
Atkinson, D. 1987. “The mother tongue in the classroom: A neglected resource”. ELT
Journal, 41(4): 241-247.
Auerbach, Elsa Roberts. 1993. “Reexamining English only in the ESL classroom”. TESOL
Qarterly, 27(1): 9-31.
Ferrer, V. (2005). “ The use of the mother tongue in the classroom: Cross-linguistic
comparisons, noticing and explicit knowledge”.
(Online: http://www.teachenglish worldwide.com/Articles.htm.).
Harbord, J.1999. “The use mother tongue in the classroom”. ELT Journal, 46(4):
402-423
Juarez, Carolina Rodriquez and Gina Oxbrow. 2008. “L1 in the EFL classroom: More a
help than a hindrance ?” Porta Linguarum, 9(1): 99-109.
Nation, Paul. 2003. “The role of the first language in foreign language learning”.
Asian EFL Journal, 5(2).
(Online: http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/june 2003 Rn.html )
Zacharias, Nugrahenny T. 2000. “Teacher’s belief about the use of the students’
mother tongue: A survey of tertiary English teachers in Indonesia”. English
Australia Journal,22:44-52.

Language Testing

2008-05-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

Preparing a test is one of teacher's obligation to evaluate the teaching learning process. To be able to construct a good test, teacher should know the principles of designing a good test. A test must be valid, reliable, and practical.

Validity
Test is valid when it tests what is supposed to test. Therefore it is not valid, for example, to test students' speaking ability on delivering a persuasive speech whereas the teacher never taught them how to prepare a persuasive speech before. The test should look also valid on the 'face' . It means the test should contain information about the level of student, the day/date of test, the name of the subject. In addition, test should be readable.

Reliability
A good test should give consistent result. For example, if the same group of students took the same test twice within two days - without reflecting on the first test before they sat it again - they should get the same results on each occasion. Thus, the test instructions should be clear, the scope for variety in the answers should be restricted, and the test conditions should remain constant.

Practicality
A good test should be practical. It should be easy to administer in terms of time, finance and scoring. For example, the number of the pages should be reasonable. It will be impractical for both teacher and students when the test consists of 10 pages.

A a language teacher, I have written a lot of tests. Yet, I still find it extremely difficult to design a test which fulfills the above criteria. When I think I can not rely on the result of the test, I usually observe my students' achievement from their daily assessments. By doing this I can assure myself that they have understood what I have thought them.

Practical

Designing a syllabus

2008-05-09T05:21:00.000-07:00

Last month, I recieved an email from my old student. She used to be my student in a secretarial academy. Now she is working in a company which supplies toiletries to several hotels and aviation industries. She was asking me to teach a group of employees in her office. She said that her boss asked her to find a teacher who has been experienced in teaching business English. And the choice went to me. I was elated. It's been several years since I taught a business English class. This will be a great opportunity to me to develop a syllabus.

My first encounter with business English class was in 1999 after I attended a workshop on designing a business English class held by The British Council. Since then, I feel more confident when I have to teach and design a syllabus for a business English class.

These are several steps I usually do :

Need analysis is done by giving a questionnaire and interviewing the students to find out their need and competence.
Determining the goals and objectives can be negotiated with the students. They should be told what the will have to do to achieve their goals and objectives.
Conceptualising content is done by selecting the backbone of the content.
Selecting and developing material and activities will be easier when I know the students' background of their proficiency, learning preference and objectives. I can select material and activities which will make them interested in learning.
Organisation and content of activities should be designed systematically so the students can follow the lesson easier.
Evaluation is done in accordance with the materials presented and activities done in the class. This will eventually assess what the students have learned.
Constraints which may occur in the class should also be anticipated by writing a journal teaching. With this, I can predict what obstacles I may find in the future and try to find a solution for them.

Teaching a group of adult with different education background and occupations is not only exciting but also challenging. They are usually more anxious to improve their English as they need it for their career advancement. However, they have limited time to do self improvement. Therefore, the activities in the class should be dynamic and related to their real world.

Teaching Grammar

2008-04-29T23:24:00.002-07:00

After teaching for 15 years, I still feel overwhelmed everytime I teach grammar. Teaching grammar has been a topic of the debate among linguists concerning its place within the ESL/EFL curriculum. One of them, Scott Thornbury is against the grammar- based lessons which do not lead to oral fluency. It is oral fluency that most students want. He says language is acquired, rather than learnt. Therefore teaching grammar should be based on a process (Process Teaching) and should not be on the traditional hierarchiel model of transmision.

Thornbury lists 10 fudanmental rules that can be used as gudelines for Process Teaching :

The resources used for teaching are the teacher and students themselves
The teacher should only use the listening material which is recorded from the students doing pair work or group work activities for re-play and analysis
The teacher must sit down at all time the students are seated, except when monitoring group or pair work.
The questions must be real questions like "Did you read the newspaper yesterday ?" not "Is there a clock on the wall ?"
Slavish adherence to a method is unacceptable.
Pre-selected and graded grammar items is forbidden. Any grammar that is the focus of instruction should emerge from the lesson content, not dictate it.
The topics generated from the students should be prioritized.
Students should not be graded into different levels. Diversity of competence should be accomodated.
The criteria and administration of any test should be negotiated with the students.
Teachers will be evaluated according to only one criterion : that they are not boring.

When I learnt this lists, I was asking myself whether I can apply this teaching process in my class. As a teacher of a formal school, I am required to follow a set of syllabus which is designed by the institution and normally left to the coursebook in conventional teaching. However, I keep on experimenting with different methods of teaching because I believe that every teaching approach has something to offer. The teacher should seek the method suitable for students with different learning preferences and competence.

Lesson Planning

2008-04-29T03:41:00.000-07:00

This semester I am assigned to supervise some students from the eight semester doing pratice teaching. They learned approaches in ELT, lesson planning, and teaching techniques last semester. They are 9 students participating in this program. Before they teach the real class, they are trained to do peer teaching. With this experience, they should be ready to teach the real class with real students.Then, I asked every student to prepare a lesson plan. Knowing that they already got the knowledge of preparing the lesson plan in the previous semester, I directly told them to choose a topic which is suitable for teaching children class.

Yesterday, we started the fisrt peer teaching. There were three students presenting their lesson plans. The first student was teaching some language expressions used in speaking activities. It ran well. I could see that this student learned a lot. However, I was dissapointed when the second and the third students did their micro teaching. The second student was supposed to teach a pre school class. The topic was writing a letter A. The presentation was done well but the practice stage was too unrealistic. He asked the student to discuss in group. The students were given a task to find things which starts with A. Then he asked the students to guess what things another group found. How could students aged 3 - 5 years old do this ? It shows that he didn't utilize the principle of teaching children, therefore, he couldn't demonstrate the appropriate instructional stategies for students.

Before the next student took his turn, I decided to explain the principle of lesson planning once again. I emphasized that the lesson plan should be visible or doable. If someone else is replacing them, she/he would know what to do. A good lesson plan ensures thet several things happen in your lesson :
1. A lesson plan should be based around one language point.
2. If you are going to use games and activities, they should be age/level appropriate.
3. A Lesson should keep building. The students will be lost if the lesson plan jumps from here to there as they won't be able to follow where you are going.
4. A lesson plan can help you overcome the problem the students usually encounter when learning a new language points.

I hope that next students' presentation will be a lot better.

Teaching English to Adult and to Children

2008-04-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

After graduating from Universitas Negeri Jakarta (formerly IKIP Negeri Jakarta) in 1995, I feel that it's time for me to widen my horizon in English Language Teaching in a formal institution. I, therefore, decided to take the post graduate program (Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris) Atma Jaya Catholic University. This will give me the opportunities to meet many experts in ELT and teachers from various regions and to learn the current teaching methodologies.

I was required to do three kinds of tests, which are writing an essay, TOEFL, and interview. In the writing test, I was asked to write a 1000 word essay on the similarities and differences between teaching English to adult and to children. It's quite a difficult task. I need to synthesize my knowledge and my teaching experience on this particular topic in an essay so the reader can see that I have known some ELT theories. While writing the essay, I was unable to quote all theories. What I did was writing the basic principles of how adult and children learn foreign language and showing my own experience of teaching those two groups of learners.Then, at home I was trying to browse some articles for the above topic to make sure that what I had written was not beyond the theories. The findings are as follows :

The acquisition of the foreign language by adult learners is slow, discouraging and often frustrating. All learners want to use a foreign language with confidence and spontaneity, in the same way as they use their mother tongue. The major complaint that teachers hear is ‘I can’t say anything off the top of my head’ (Rivers, 1992). Moreover, ‘none of learners can talk on unrehearsed topics without constant and painful hesitation’. The latter point is also applicable to young learners. It is noteworthy to examine how adult learners differ from young learners.

Adult learners are notable for a number of special characteristics (Harmer, 2000): “They can engage with abstract thought, have a range of life experiences, definite expectations about the learning process, their own set patterns of learning, and are more disciplined than children. On the other hand, adult learners have a number of characteristics which can make learning and teaching problematic: can be critical of teaching methods, anxious and under-confident because of previous failure and worry about diminishing learning power with age”. They more often than young learners face certain linguistic problems like ‘fossilized’ errors – persistent deviations from the L2 norm, language transfer - negative influence of the mother tongue on the productive skills.

Research in error analysis shows that over half the errors are interference errors. Adult learners are believed to be focused on form or correctness: “they are particularly conscious of deviations from the established networks, and seek to understand the nature of the rule system” (Rivers, 1992).

In one respect, however, adult learners are similar to young learners. All may be grouped according to their preferred learning styles. Differences in cognitive styles influence learners’ priorities for particular approach to learning. Learners employ different learning strategies, i.e. “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, and more transferable to new situations” (Oxford, 1990). The common learning styles for each type of learners are (Richards & Lockhart, 1996):

- concrete - learners use active means of processing information;

- analytical - learners prefer logical and systematic presentation of new material;

- communicative - learners prefer social approach;

- authority-oriented - learners prefer the teacher’s authority.

While children learn English much faster than the adults. They imitate the teacher’s pronunciation, sentences, phrases, and words more easily. They do not ask for explicit rules which explain how sentences are put together, produced, and pronounced. They may ask for the meanings of words, but they are able to intuitively identify salient features of the meanings of a word and use the word more or less correctly.

An important prerequisite for effective learning and retention appears to be that instruction should be activity-based, rather than explanation- or theory-oriented. The activities should be of an engaging nature. The teacher should be pleasant and sweet-natured, able to communicate at the level of the children. She should not be a terror! Use of audio-visuals is more important than the printed text. The printed text should be colorful, full of pictures, and should have only few language elements such as words, phrases, and sentences.

Language learning should be encouraged in all the classes and in all the environments. Children have a natural curiosity to investigate the environment in greater detail. When they go to the bazaar, the see a lot of signboards and they start reading the same. They start reading the road signs with great interest. The teacher can create a bazaar inside the classroom for reading and conversation purposes. Pretend situations are greatly enjoyed by children, and they do actively participate in such game.

“This language is meaningful and understandable, because the activities are meaningful and understandable. Children are taught in English; children are not introduced to English language in an artificially pre-determined sequence of grammatical structures or functions; the input from the teacher, and their learning about their world, is in English” (Vale and Feunteun 1995). They
suggest the following orientation when we teach English to children:

- build confidence;
- provide the motivation to learn English;
- encourage ownership of language;
- encourage children to communicate with whatever language they have at their disposal (mime, gesture, key word, drawings, etc.);
- encourage children to treat English as a communication tool not as an end product;
- show children that English is fun;
- establish a trusting relationship with the children, and encouraging them to do the same with their classmates;
- give children an experience of a wide range of English language in a non-threatening environment.

Physical activities help in learning the words and sentences. An actitvity-based approach is always better than mere classroom teaching mode with repetition, imitation drills, etc.

Teaching both groups is interesting. It's rewarding when I observe that they can show their improvement after a series of teaching. In the mean time, I keep on reading more articles on ELT methodology to improve my teaching techniques. Eventually, I feel that teaching has enlightened my mind.

Teaching large classes

2008-04-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

The new semester has just started. All lecturers in our institution including me are busy preparing the lesson, designing teaching aids, writing handouts and quizzes. Before doing these, they usually look at the attendance list. How many students are they in my class ? When they see more than 25 students in the class, they start to complain "How can I teach Public Speaking with 27 students ?" "How am I supposed to correct students' essays if I have more than 25 students ?"

Well, I do really understand those complaints. Indeed, teaching large classes is not easy but it doesn't mean that it is impossible. As a lecturer who happens to help the head of the department, I can understand the difficulty of accommodating lecturers' need to have classes with 'an ideal size'. The first reason is that there aren't enough rooms. Being less than ten years old, the institution doesn't have enough budget to build a new classroom let alone a new building. The second is the number of lecturers available to teach in particular hours decreases. The last one is to cut the operational expenses, which is usually determined by the management.

What should the lecturers do then ? Drop the class ? Of course not. They have to find some techniques which are suitable for teaching large class. Below is an example of a lesson plan proposed by Andi Hoodith from Saitama University in Japan :

Promoting Oral Fluency via Group & Pair Work

Andy Hoodith
Saitama University

Page 1 | Page 2

TIME: 60-90 Minutes

AIM: To provide speaking practice for a class of 40 students

WARM-UP

Ask the class: "What will happen on December 31st 1999?" Elicit or teach the phrase "Turn of the century". Now ask, "Who is or was the most important person of the 20th century?" (alive or dead, any nationality: they needn't have been born this century, but must have been alive during some part of it). Then take 4 or 5 examples at random and write them on the blackboard, asking if other students have the same opinion.

ACTIVITY 1

Introduce your own example (unless one the students has named him), Albert Einstein. Write his name and then ask the following questions as you write them on the board:

Who was Albert Einstein?

Where was he from?

What was his field?

What did he do?

Is he alive now?

Was he important or just famous?

Explain "field" if necessary (or use another word), and elicit answers. Make sure students understand the difference between questions with factual answers and those which require that they give an opinion.

ACTIVITY 2

Give students 10 minutes to write down the names of the 10 most important people to have lived this century. Stress that there is no moral judgment here, so that personalities seen in general as "bad", e.g. Hitler, can be included. Also make it clear that students must be able to provide some basic information about each of the people they choose, as you did with Einstein.

ACTIVITY 3

Now divide the class in to small groups. If possible, these should be of a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5. Tell students to take it in turns to introduce the people they have selected, with the other students asking fact and opinion questions about them. Ask students to be open-minded: they should change their lists if other students in their group suggest more appropriate people, although they can stick to their original lists if they want to.

ACTIVITY 4

Depending on how the time is going, Activity 3 can be repeated by forming a set of different groups. Alternatively, you can ask students to find one new partner to discuss the choices with as a pair. This option might give the more shy students an opportunity to give his/her opinion. As the students do activities 3 and 4, go round and make a note of the names which seem to be coming up most often. You'll need these later to make the final activity more "doable".

ACTIVITY 5

To finish the class, conduct a rough survey to arrive at the whole class decision on the 10 most important people of this century. You may want to make the voting more strict, but this may take considerable more time. You could tell the class that there will be a formal vote at the beginning of the next lesson, and that they can change their opinions in the intervening period.

ALTERNATIVES

Of course, there are several variations on this theme, both in terms of the initial question (you may choose the last millenium, for example), and the way the discussion is structured. You should always tailor the activity types and the items you wish to focus on on your students: you know them best!

My daughter learn computer

2008-04-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Amazing. My girl can play with computer.

My daughter's language development

2007-10-16T21:23:00.000-07:00

Observing my daughter , Sekar Putri, learning to communicate is amazing. She is now 2 year 10 m0nths old. She produced her first word "kakak" when she was turning one. I noticed that she imitated our habit of greeting our next door neighbour's daughters, Kakak Tiara and Kakak Echa, everytime we met them. Since then she started to call them Kakak. The next word is "Dede" since those two kakak called Sekar "Dede".

Having been exposed with Indonesian, Javanese and a little English, Sekar is able to communicate well now. She can express her feelings using appropriate words. She sometimes says "thank you" "makasih" or "matur nuwun" when given something. I usually make up a story from certain pictures that she likes. She keeps on asking me to repeat the story. I was surprised when one day she showed me the pictures and told me a story with her own words. She didn't change the name of the characters but she made up her own story which was different from mine. Knowing this, I am more interested to know how a child acquires a language.

Echa, Dardjowidjojo's book, has given much information about this. His research reveals that children's language development is influenced by their innate properties and environmental stimulation. Children can not be forced to produce sounds or words when their brain is not ready. According to Chomsky, children's language acquisition occurs when provided with appropriate nutrition and enviromental stimulation. I know now why Sekar can't produce the sound [r] yet. According to Jakobson , this sound is usually acquired the latest. Sekar's organ of speech is not ready to produce [r] at this moment.

I conclude that stimulation is important to help children learn a language. However, we don't have to force them to speak the language when their organ of speech and brain are not ready.

Teaching English Tenses

2007-09-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

I have been teaching college students for almost 5 years. However, teaching tenses is still quite stressful. I have been trying to apply several methods and techniques but I think I haven't been able to make my students capable of using them in speaking let alone in writing. That our beloved national language-Bahasa Indonesia-doesn't have tenses is not an excuse for this difficulty. What I have experienced recently may give some illustration of how English has been thought in the formal schools.

Last week I taught Simple Present Tense to the first year students. Considering that they have learned about this tense before, I elicited their knowledge about its use and usage. When I asked them to give examples, they still came up with "The sun sets in the west" for fact and "I go to school everyday" for habit. Wow !!! They are at least 18 years younger than me but they still gave the examples which I got from my English teacher at SMP in 1983. Then I gave an example : I am a teacher. I asked them : Is it a fact ? None of them answered "Yes". I was trying to find some more techniques to help them understand when and how to use this tense for communicating.

New approaches in ELT have been developed but in my opinion teaching English in formal schools has never made students know how to communicate in English. The students whose English is good usually take a course after school hour. English courses usually keep updated with the recent findings in ELT. In addition, the small number of students in the class also help teachers to monitor their progress. How will our human resources survive in the globalization era if we let this situation continues ? Who should do something about this. Diknas ? PKG ? Pusat Kurikulum ?

I have a dream that one day my students will come up with their own ideas when asked to give some examples of Simple Present Tense such as : "My sister has long hair and wears glasses", "My father doesn't drive to work. He walks. His office is only 1 km from our house".
Dream on ..............................................

Translation problem

2007-09-27T08:08:00.001-07:00

This morning I was examining the student who was taking the comprehensive exam. It is a compulsory exam for the students to finish their Strata 1 program in our English Department. Something funny happened with a particular student who is majoring in translation. After he succesfully explained one of translation procedure called modulation, I gave him two English sentences. "I cut my finger when I was cooking" and "I left my wallet at home". I asked him to translate these sentences into Indonesian. To my surprise, he gave me these answers : Saya memotong tangan saya ketika saya sedang memasak and Saya meninggalkan dompet saya di rumah. I felt dissapointed. He only knew the concept of modulation but didn't know how to apply the concept. There was another student who translated the sentence "She passed the SAT test with flying colors" into Dia lulus tes SAT dengan nilai warna-warni. It seems that they have never been taught about the translation theories.I was asking myself. What have we (lecturers) done wrong ? Does this happen in other colleges ? How are we supposed to change the way we teach ? What is wrong with our curriculum ? Can anyone share some ideas ?

My first page

2007-09-23T09:59:00.000-07:00

Testing my first page !