ASPECTS MICRO TEACHING STUDENTS CONSIDER IN
DESIGNING EIL MATERIALS
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Febrika Punthadyhatma
112008087
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
ii
ASPECTS MICRO TEACHING STUDENTS CONSIDER IN
DESIGNING EIL MATERIALS
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Febrika Punthadyhatma
112008087
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
iv
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This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright@ 2013 Febrika Punthadyhatma and Nugrahenny T. Zacharias, Ph.D
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana University, Salatiga.
v
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Study Program : English Education Faculty : Language and Literature Kind of Work : Undergraduate Thesis
In developing my knowledge, I agree to provide SWCU with a non-exclusive royalty free right for my intellectual property and the contents therein entitled:
Aspects Micro Teaching Students Consider In Designing EIL Materials
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1
ASPECTS MICRO TEACHING STUDENTS CONSIDER IN DESIGNING EIL MATERIALS
Febrika Punthadyhatma
Abstract
This study discussed aspects that Micro Teaching students consider in designing EIL (English as an International Language) materials. This study was aimed to answer the research question, “What are the aspects that students in Micro Teaching class consider in
designing EIL materials?” Seven participants from Micro Teaching class were selected to be
the participants of this study. The data were obtained from seven participants’ action research journals, lesson plans and interview. The result of the study revealed that familiarity issues and the place of western culture are the things which were mainly considered by students in Micro Teaching class. This result supported several finding found by McKay (2002, 2003, 2012) and Matsuda (2012). EIL approach is beneficial in teaching EFL (Friedrich & Matsuda, 2010 in Matsuda, 2012) and quality of input (material) is very critical (Matsuda, 2012). Pedagogical implication suggested by this study is that teachers should be more aware with EIL and provide more varied and suitable EIL material to achieve a qualified application of EIL approach in teaching and learning process.
Key words: EIL material, familiarities issue, western culture.
Introduction
The aim of this study is to learn the aspects which are needed in designing the “EIL
materials”. According to Matsuda (2012) EIL material is material which internationalizes the
content or in other word, material which includes the varieties of English. Jenkins (2003)
claims that English is being an international language or a lingua franca in today’s world. It
means, English is used in most international communications. However, according to her,
most communication in English may not always involve the inner circle speakers of English.
Inner circle speakers of English are speakers from countries such as U.S and U.K. This
phenomenon has raised the issue of the ownership of English. The issue of ownership of
English stated that there is no one who owns the English. In 2008 Lai finds that in the world,
with the rising number of English users, there are many varieties of English. Because of the
“EIL issues” (the use of English as an International language issue), now the teacher need to
teach in a new way, that is using an “EIL approach”. EIL approach is the method which is
2
When teacher teaches using EIL approaches, he/she needs to use the EIL materials.
However, McKay (2012) stated that EIL materials development for English for international
communication is not sufficient. Therefore, it can be assumed that it is not easy to compile
EIL materials. Teacher should consider about this and should try to form a new appropriate
EIL material. McKay (2012) suggested that the EIL material needs to provide students with
an awareness of the diversity of English today and the material itself should still provide
learners with widely accepted English grammatical norm. It is clear that the EIL material
should combine many cultures without leaving the rules inside the language itself.
My first experience learning about EIL was when I took micro teaching class in my
7th semester. My teacher asked me and other students to conduct mini teaching using EIL
approach. EIL for me is something new because at the first time, I didn’t have any
understanding about it. However my teacher explained about the EIL clearly, so I could get
my own idea about EIL. When I was asked to do the mini lesson, the first thing that I
considered was the material. Matsuda (2012) stated that textbooks and other teaching
materials play an important role in foreign language classrooms, regardless of the language.
Therefore, I assumed that if I want to teach using an EIL approach, I need to design suitable
EIL material.
Actually, at the first time I designed the EIL material, I faced difficulty, which was
choosing the suitable material. McKay (2002) said that the central goal of EIL needs to
provide students with awareness of the diversities of English use today. However, I found
that when I designed the EIL material, I got difficulties in finding the proper input text
because I had to try to find the texts that reflect the diversities of English use. Seeing that
English is used almost around the world, English is very varied and the use of English today
is also varied depends on the place where English is being used. Rubdy and Saraceni (2000)
3
changes in English usage around the world. Therefore I need to find the texts that fulfill the
EIL criteria. I tried to find the texts that were not only from English speaking country. I also
searched the text from other countries. It is all because of the EIL issue. That is the reason
why my study focuses on the EIL material.
My first understanding about the EIL material is that the material should involve
culture in teaching, especially students’ background culture. I think the use of culture is the
best way to get the students attention, because the culture is very close to the students’
background experience. Teaching in different culture is also important because EIL is
commonly used in the cross-cultural encounters (McKay, 2002). I realized that the culture
should consist of both cultures. Those are western culture that is well known as the culture of
the owner of English, and the native culture of the learners. The first time I got the experience
in teaching using an EIL approach was not quite difficult. That’s because I got the material
from my teacher. Therefore I didn’t need to find the material. I got material about western
culture. In this case, my teacher asked me to make the material more EIL friendly by trying to
relate the material with the Indonesian culture. It was hard for me to relate the material with
two different cultures. It was clear that both cultures were different, so I designed the material
clearly so that the students could understand about the difference and get the idea well.
The second time when I taught using EIL approach was different from my first mini
teaching. I tried to include several cultures, because I had learnt that in designing EIL
material I could include varieties of culture. However, I still included students’ background
culture. At that time, I used several unique customs from different countries. I also included
the unique custom from Indonesia because it is part of the students’ background culture. I
wanted to compile material which was appropriate to EIL approach and at the same time I did
not want to create a boring classroom atmosphere, therefore I tried to find interesting but
4
English as International Language can be used not only with native speakers, but also with L2
speakers in wider variety of cultural and social context. I designed my own EIL material that
combined the extreme cultures from other countries with the one from Indonesia. My aim is
that to make the students interested in the topic and also give them information that their
country also had those kinds of cultures. I used to design the material in that way because I
knew that the students need to learn other cultures to increase their knowledge.
However after I did two mini teachings, I realized one big thing. I believe that if I
wanted to make an EIL material, I shouldn’t always need to compare those two cultures.
According to Matsuda (2012), teaching EIL today is not only about exchanging two culture,
native’s and non-native’s. It is more on the creating understanding about the relationship with
people from other cultures. McKay (2002) also states that in order to develop the use of
cultural content in EIL, students need to be encouraged to reflect on their own culture. It
would be more interesting for the students if they learn about their own culture because they
would understand the material easily.
In brief, in doing my two mini teaching, I could summarize that there were three
important aspects that I considered. The first one was I should adapt the content with the
student’s background knowledge. The second one was I made the students know more about
their background culture. The last and the most important thing was that I wanted to make the
students understand that when they learnt English, they would not always learn about western
culture. However, knowing that EIL has been becoming a hot issue and more people have
been putting their attention to it (Jenkins, 2003), it is important to have more understanding
on how to design EIL material. Therefore, through this study, I made my research question as
“What are the aspects that students in micro teaching class consider in designing EIL
materials?” The reason why I use this research question is I want to know the aspects that
5
that the result of this study can help teachers find the suitable material according to EIL
approach and finally it can help promote the awareness of EIL.
Literature Review
McKay (2012) and Matsuda’s (2012) suggested four theoretical categories of EIL
materials:
1. EIL material should be relevant to the domains in which English is used in the
particular learning context (McKay, 2012). According to McKay (2012) teaching
English should consider the manner of the learning context. There are three manners
to consider: 1) the students’ proficiency level, 2) learning goal and styles, and 3) the
social context.
2. EIL materials should include examples of the diversity of English varieties used
today. Nowadays, English is spoken in many countries around the world. Therefore,
according to McKay (2012) it is important to make the students aware of the diversity
and promote the awareness itself. By promoting this awareness, the students will gain
two benefits. The first one is increasing the students’ receptive skill toward the
diversity and the second, also in line with Lai (2008), is promoting the different styles
of English. It is important to include the diversity to have the students explore the
grammatical and lexical variation that exist within their own country their own
country based on geographical region (McKay, 2012).
3. EIL material could cover many cultures, such as, global culture, interlocutors’ culture,
and students’ culture. Language cannot be separated from culture. Matsuda (2012)
mentioned three sources of culture that should be included in teaching and learning
6 a. Global culture
One way to insert global culture in the teaching and learning process is using topic
around the world through reading and class-discussion. This is very beneficial for
the students to foster the global citizenship feeling.
b. Interlocutor culture
Understanding the interlocutors’ culture is important for the students so that they
can create a good communication. Besides that, this can help the students to get
more knowledge of the variety of cultures. This inclusion is not only based on
geographical spread but also in the functional diversity of the language (e.g. the
dominant language of the society)
c. Students’ culture
Students must be familiar to their own culture, and therefore, the ability to see
deeply and critically the familiar from the outsider’s view is important. Culture is
not limited to traditional culture but it can also be the belief and practices that the
students experience in their daily life (e.g. family, community, school).
4. EIL material needs to provide students with an awareness of the diversity of English
today but the material itself should still provide learners with widely accepted English
grammatical norm. Making the students aware of the diversity of English is important,
however, McKay (2012) suggests that to achieve a meaningful communication in
English, the speaker should understand the rule.
Supported by the need to know how to compile suitable material for EIL and also the
7 The Study
Context of the study
The setting of the study is the Faculty of Language and Literature of the English
Department in Satya Wacana Christian University. It is located in a small town of Salatiga,
Central Java, Indonesia. English Department focuses on one major of English, which is
Language Education. In this major, students are prepared to be English teachers. Therefore,
there are six courses that the students must pass before they do the Teaching Practicum.
Those courses are Introduction to Language Education, Teaching and Learning Strategies,
Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Curriculum and Material Development, and Micro
Teaching. The first five courses provide the students with the theory of language teaching and
in the Micro Teaching course, the students have to apply the knowledge they have got in
form of mini teaching. The student-teachers have to prepare the lesson plans as well as in real
teaching. They also have to write journals about their material and teaching practice. The
mini teaching lasts for 15-20 minutes.
Participants
The participants were seven selected student teachers who were in NTZ’s Micro
Teaching class. This study chose this class because this is the only class that focuses on
teaching English using EIL approach. This study used purposive sampling, selecting the
participants based on:
Students who were in Micro Teaching class and had passed introduction to language
education, TEFL, TLS, and language assessment class. It is assumed that if students
have passed those courses, then they have learned the theory of teaching to be applied
in Micro Teaching class.
8
Besides those criteria above, in conducting the data collection, this study limited the
participants based on the validity of the data gathered from the interview. From eleven
interviews of eleven students enrolled in the current class, only seven were valid. one
interview had been used as the pilot interview, and Three other interviews were considered
not valid because the participants could not explain why they consider such things in their
mini teaching. From the characteristics above, I have planned to find what are the things that
they’ve considered when they taught by using an EIL approach.
Instruments of data collection
The primary data that I used in this research was Action Research Journal. The other
data that I analyzed were Lesson Plan and Interview.
a. Action Research Journal (ARJ)
Before and after doing the mini teaching, NTZ’s micro teaching students had to write
the action research journals. These journals were divided into two parts. The first part was
done before the mini teaching which consisted of the ‘topic’ section explaining about what
they wanted to teach and the ‘planning’ section telling about the way they want to deliver the
material. The second part was done after the mini teaching which consisted of the ‘action’
section explaining the things that they realized after doing the mini teaching, the
‘observation’ section which contained their opinion after seeing the video, and the
‘reflection’ which contained their hope in the next mini teaching. This study used two AR
journals which were ARJ 2 and ARJ 3.
b. Lesson Plan (LP)
Before doing the mini teaching, NTZ’s micro teaching students had to write the lesson
plan. Lesson Plan contains the material and the teaching steps which the students need to do
in the mini teaching. The students had to write three Lesson Plans from three mini teachings.
9
the 3rd mini teaching Lesson Plan (LP 3) because it was assumed that the students’
understanding of EIL was better formed after they had their teaching experience and
suggestion in the 1st mini teaching.
c. Interview
After observing participants’ ARJs and LPs, the next step was interviewing the
participants. Here, I made sure that what I had observed in the participants’ ARJs and LPs
was right and I got data that might be missing from their ARJs. The interview was scheduled
to last around 20 minutes and used an unstructured interview type. To lead the interview, I
started the interview with same question which was “what is your opinion about EIL
material?” because I wanted to know their understanding about EIL material before I asked
further about the material they had designed. Table 1 below shows the complete data that I
collected.
first was collecting the participants’ lesson plans and AR journals. The lesson plans contain
materials that the participants thought and the AR journals contain the explanation, reason
and reflection on their teaching. The second step was done through an individual interview.
10
average and were recorded and transcribed. The Interview was held by using participants’
native language (bahasa Indonesia) to avoid the difficulties in expressing their opinion in
English so that the data got would be deeper.
Data Analysis
In analyzing the data, I went through several steps. There were: 1) reading the lesson
plans, 2) Reading the ARJ to find the reason of using such topic in the lesson plans, 3)
interviewing the participants, 4) transcribing the interview, and 5) analyzing the data. In
transcribing the interview I used clean transcription. Then, the interview transcript was
analyzed. In analyzing the interview, I used “categorical content” analysis (Lieblich et al.,
1998). This means that I focused on the contents and themes emerged from the participants’
statement. The most frequent themes appeared in the interview were familiarities issue and
the place of western culture. These two themes were further analyzed.
Finding and discussion
The aim of the research is to find out aspects that students in micro teaching class
consider in designing EIL materials. From the data gathered, there are two main things which
were found. Those main things are familiarities issue and the issue of the place of western
culture. The familiarities issue is divided into two sub-themes which are culture which is
familiar to the teachers and culture which is familiar to the students.
1. Familiarities Issue
The first aspect found to be the most considered by the participants was the issue of
familiarities. This issue came from participants’ action research journals, lesson plan and was
strengthened by the interview.
a. Culture which is Familiar to the Teacher
From the research it was found that there were three participants, Rina, Novi and
11
According to their AR journals, Lesson Plans and interviews, culture which is familiar to the
teacher means that the teacher should know and understand well about the culture which is
taught to the students.
Rina in her third mini teaching explained about how to write descriptive texts with the
correct generic structure and language features. Her class activity was a role play with Rina,
the teacher, acted as foreign tourist and she wanted the students to act as local people who
promoted the local places in Indonesia. To give the students the examples of places to be
described, she used the pictures of some local places in Central Java such as Borobudur
temple, Gedong Songo temple, Rawa Pening, and Ambarawa Train Museum. She chose local
places in Central Java because:
Here, I want to show the culture of Central Java only because I live
in Java and I only knew about it. In this mini lesson, I hope that my
students will be able to describe and promote some places in Central
Java using English to the visitors especially to the foreigners and the
students will use interesting words to describe that place in order to
make people interested in visiting the places.
(Rina_ARJ 3, 7-12-2011)
Rina used the places in Java because she is from Java, and she wanted the students to be able
to understand and describe them. This idea is in line with Matsuda’s (2012) idea that the
second source of culture the teacher can use in the EIL material is the culture of the
interlocutor. This means that the students should be introduced with other cultures, in
Matsuda’s case, the interlocutor’s culture. However, in this study, this idea is simplified into
the classroom setting. Therefore, interlocutor can be referred to the teacher because teacher
12
cultures besides the students’ culture, it would help the students enrich their knowledge about
the places in Java and later on they could explain it in the descriptive text.
Almost similar to Rina, Novi, in her second mini teaching explained about traditional
wedding ceremony in Indonesia. She used traditional wedding ceremonies because:
The reason I choose this topic is to bring the EIL in my speaking
class and I assume that my students are familiar with the wedding
ceremony from their ethnicity. I think if the topic is familiar with the
students. This topic relate to the EIL because students can share their
costumes.
(Novi_ARJ 2, 13-11-2011)
However, before she asked the students to share about their traditional wedding ceremony,
she explained the ceremony from Sumba first. In her interview she said:
I introduced my own culture first. Because I come from Sumba, I
used my own culture to give example. While some of my students
come from Java, so they explained Javanese culture.
Later on in the interview she added:
I used my own culture as the example because it is the only culture
that I understand well. If I used other cultures that I do not know
well, I was afraid that my explanation was wrong and that was not
right.
(Novi_ Interview, 20-7-2012, my translation)
From Novi’s ARJ and interview data above, it can be inferred that Novi used wedding
ceremony because of three reasons. The first reason was because she believed that the
wedding ceremony is the cultural product which the students can see in their neighborhood.
13
that by doing so, it could motivate and encourage the students to also share their own
cultures. The second reason is from her interview data, Novi believed that using culture that
the teacher was familiar with would help the teacher to avoid misdirecting the students. It
means that she was afraid to tell something to the students wrongly because she didn’t
understand the culture she was talking about. Besides of the reason above, Novi also had
further purpose. This purpose was similar to Rina, which is to introduce culture and enrich
the students’ knowledge about the culture. What Novi believed was also in line with
Matsuda’s (2012) statement that second source of culture the teacher can use in the EIL
material is the culture of the interlocutor. But, here Novi’s purpose is different from Rina.
Another example of the use of culture which is familiar to the teacher found in this
study was the material used by Aryani. In her third mini teaching, she used jamu as a cultural
content because:
In my third mini teaching, I only focused on one culture, Javanese,
because almost all my students were Javanese, and I am a Javanese
too. However, I thought that not all Javanese people understood
about their own cultural product, therefore, I chose jamu as the topic
in my mini teaching. In my opinion, if I used culture that I
understood well, it could help me in developing the material. I hope,
after joining my third mini teaching, my students, no matter from
what ethnicity they came from, they would understand more about
drinking jamu culture.
(Aryani_Interview, 25-7-2012 my translation)
From Aryani’s data above, it is clear that she only focused on Javanese culture that is familiar
to her. Similar to Rina and Novi, she believed that by doing so, it would help her in
14
jamu so that the students could know about what jamu is, and they also could taste it. By
using the authentic jamu as the real object, it could help her in describing the different taste of
jamu because the students could drink it and later on they could differentiate about the taste
of jamu which they had drunk. What Aryani believed is in line with McKay’s (2012)
statement that EIL material should be relevant to the domains in which English is used in the
particular learning context. The example that McKay (2012) states is the use of authentic
material that is relevant to the place of teaching. In this case, Aryani used the authentic
material which is jamu because she is a Javanese, and the place where she taught is in Java.
Because jamu is a part of Javanese culture, therefore it is relevant with what being taught by
Aryani.
From the discussion above it is stated that there are two principles which are in line
with the participants’ data. The first principle is from McKay’s (2012) statement which is
EIL material should be relevant to the domains in which English is used in the particular
learning context. This statement strengthens Aryani’s data that concerned on local beverage
which is familiar to the teacher. Another principle is from Matsuda (2012) that EIL material
could cover many cultures, one of them is interlocutors’ culture. This statement strengthens
Novi and Rina’s data which concern on local ceremony and local places which are familiar to
the teacher.
b. Culture which is familiar to the students
The second criteria guiding the participants’ material selection is using the culture which
is familiar to the students. As Matsuda (2012) states the possible source of cultural content
for EIL materials is the learners’ own culture. The data from the interview and action
research journals shows that there are four participants who are Annita, Arimbi, Dhena, and
15
Annita in her third mini teaching focused on writing skills. She asked the students to
mention the meaning of their names and the other students commented on the explanation..
The reason for such selection:
I think this material would be very easy, because in the class the
students not only come from Java, Sunda, and other places. So they
use different accents. Therefore when they tried to give comment on
their name, they also have different family names, So maybe other
students would not know about that and they would be curious to
listen to their friends’ explanation. Then from this activity, the
students would understand the material that I give.
(Annita_Interview, 27-7-2012), (my translation)
From the data above, Annita assumed that the students could share their culture with others
because they learn the histories behind their names. The idea of using students’ culture is in line with Matsuda’s (2012) idea that the third source of culture the teacher can use in the EIL
material is the students’ culture. Moreover, Annita’s purpose of using culture which is
familiar to the students is continuing Matsuda’s (2012) idea that by reflecting on the things
the students meet every day in their surrounding; it will help them involve in the classroom
activity. Therefore Annita assumed that when the students can involve in the class activity,
further they can be attracted to the material and they can share culture with others.
The second example of the use of culture which is familiar to the students was found
in Arimbi’s material. In her second mini teaching, she exposed students to tourism places
familiar to students because:
So I wanted to teach English to the students by using material which
was familiar to the students. In my mini teaching, I used some
16
temple as the examples. Those places are familiar to the students. I
assumed that all students know about them, and even some of them
had gone to those places. If I used some tourism places abroad, the
students might not know them, and it could reduce their interest in
learning English.
(Arimbi_Interview, 27-7-2012, my translation)
From data above, it showed that Arimbi used culture which is familiar to the students in term
of tourism places which the students knew about or had gone to. She believed that using it
could attract the students’ interest in learning the material. Arimbi also believed that by
putting tourism places which were familiar to the students in the material, the students could
imagine the things being discussed by the teacher and it would be easier for the students to
talk about and describe those places. Similar to Annita, what Arimbi believed was also
supported by Matsuda’s (2012) idea that the third source of culture the teacher can use in the
EIL material is the students’ culture. However, Arimbi’s main purpose is little bit different
from Annita, here Arimbi focused on raising the students’ idea by using the tourism place
which are familiar to students.
Different from Arimbi, Dhena taught about the descriptive paragraph and the generic
structure. Dhena focused on some places around students’ town, but here Dena also added
about local vocabulary such as odong-odong which can’t be literally translated to English.
17
I concern more to the material and the way I explain rather than the
EIL aspect as I think the material I gave to my students is EIL, some
places around their town. Here I exposed the EIL side by letting my
students decide the way the described the place included used some
local vocabularies which couldn’t be translated into English.
(Dhena_ARJ 3, 15-12-2011)
Regarding the local vocabularies which cannot be literally translated to English, in her
interview Dhena added:
In that time, we were discussing about Pancasila field. In that place
there is a toy called odong-odong. When the students describe about
Pancasila field, they mentioned odong-odong, and the students did
not know how to translate it in English, so I let them use the word
odong-odong in their descriptive text.
(Dhena_Interview, 16-7-2012, my translation)
From Dhena’s ARJ 3 data above, it can be implied that what Dhena believed is aligned with
McKay’s (2012) statement that EIL material should be relevant to the domains in which
English is used in the particular learning context. Therefore Dhena used local places around
Salatiga because all of her students lived in Salatiga so she assumed that they were familiar
with those places. She believed it would be easier for the students to describe those places.
Here, Dhena did not only focus on describing the places but also let the students use local
vocabularies such as odong-odong (mini vehicle powered by batteries and can be ridden by
one child) which could not be literally translated to English. It would be difficult if she forced
the students to translate the word into English.
The fourth example was found in Kania’s material. She used wayang as the speaking
18
believed that because almost all of her students students are Javanese, and wayang is a
Javanese culture product. She assumed that the students were familiar with wayang. Further,
she also wanted to increase students’ awareness about their own local culture product:
I am planning to make the students aware of their local culture called
wayang story by watching the modern animation of Rama and Sinta
video. wayang story is likely related to EIL because it draws
students own culture as content. Also, Rama and Sinta story might be
well known for students, I don’t want to be ambitious to use another
complicated story of wayang at this level of the third senior high
school
(Kania_ARJ 2, 14-11-2011)
In the interview, Kania added:
Because I taught in Javanese, and almost all of my students are
Javanese, I chose wayang as my topic. However, as far as I know,
wayang comes from Java, but nowadays, wayang also become one
of Indonesian traditional famous art. Therefore, my students who
come from outside Java will be familiar with wayang and they will
feel that they also own it.
(Kania_Interview, 26-7-2012, my translation)
From the data above, Kania used “Rama and Shinta” story because in her opinion, the story
was very famous. By using this story in the speaking class, Kania hoped that the students
could understand what they had to talk about that further encourage them to speak. At this
time, Kania used wayang because she taught in Java and wayang is a part of Javanese culture.
It is in line with McKay’s (2012) statement that EIL material should be relevant to the
19
wayang was not only Javanese culture product, but it has been Indonesian culture product.
She hoped that all students from all cultural backgrounds were familiar to it. She believed
that using wayang could also erase the students’ cultural boundaries. It means that all
students from different cultural backgrounds could feel that they also own wayang. Her belief
is supported by Matsuda (2012) who states that the main source of designing the material
which used cultural content is global culture. As what Kania said in the interview that
nowadays, wayang becomes Indonesian traditional famous art. This cultural content cut
across national boundaries and are relevant to the global society as a whole.
The discussion above shows that in Indonesia, applying local culture in the material is
not that easy, because Indonesia has so many cultures. Winarto (2006) states that there are
seven hundred cultures in Indonesia. Based on this fact, it is impossible for teacher to teach
using those many kinds of culture. Therefore familiarity plays an important role in the
material. Familiarities issue became the main thing that the participants considered in
designing the EIL material because it gives benefit both to the teacher and students in term of
making the teaching and learning process easier. According to Kirkpatrick (2007),
emphasizing local culture in teaching will help students to have the needs and things to talk
about, given that they understand what they have to say. From the discussion above it is seen
that the participants’ idea is in line with Matsuda’s (2012) statement that the sources of
culture the teacher can use in the EIL material are the global culture and the students’ culture, which can be seen in the exploration of students’ name’s meaning (Annita), description about
the tourism places familiar to the students (Arimbi) and the use of wayang as a global culture
(Kania). Another source which strengthens the participant’s data is from McKay (2012) that
EIL material should be relevant to the domains in which English is used in the particular
learning context, which can be seen from Dhena’s topic about describing some places in the
20 2. The Place of Western Culture
The second thing that the participant considered in designing EIL material found in
this research was the issue of “the place of western culture”. “Western culture” refers to the
culture which comes from English speaking countries such as USA or England. This issue
focused on the use of western culture in the material. There were two participants, Arimbi
and Annita, who put this issue into consideration.
The first example found in this study was Annita. In her second mini teaching, she
taught speaking and emphasized the drop syllable when pronouncing some words. In her mini
teaching, she used material about varieties of pronunciation that exist in the world. She gave
two different accents as the example. The first one was American accent and the second one
was Thai accent. The reason for using those two accents was:
In this activity I want to give a perception that varieties of
pronunciation exist in the world by giving them the song title ‘Price
Tag’ which is brought in Thai and American accent. At last the song
will be sing by the student so that students will be realize that
actually they have their own accent in pronouncing English words.
(Annita_LP 2, 25-10-2011)
With regard to the reason she included western culture in her material, in the interview
Annita stated:
Western is the root of English, so it is okay to compare or to know
about that, and I think western here refers to country such as US. In
EIL, we focus on students’ culture but we are not supposed to omit
the western culture so that the students will know the differences.
21
From Annita’s 2nd LP and interview data, it can be inferred that western culture in Annita’s
opinion was everything comes from western countries, such as United States. Annita believed
that by including western culture in the material, it would help the students to differentiate the
cultures, especially in the varieties of English accent today. What Annita believed is
supported by McKay’s (2012) idea that EIL materials should include examples of the
diversity of English varieties used today. In her mini teaching, Annita also include Thai
accent in her material so that the students can get more awareness about different varieties of
English accent which are American and Thai accent.
Similar to Annita, Arimbi in her second mini teaching also included western culture in
her material but only specified in grammar explanation. She believed that grammar is part of
western culture. In her interview, she stated that:
In my opinion, EIL can free Indonesian people, as non native
speakers of English, to speak English using any accent that they can.
However, still, people who speak English should understand the
English rule which is grammar, and also the expressions in English.
This is the only part of western culture that I included in my lesson
plan.
(Arimbi_Interview, 27-7-2012, my translation)
From Arimbi’s interview data, it can be seen that Arimbi only included the western culture in
form of grammar and English expressions explanation, whereas her topic was about culture
that is familiar to the students. She believed that although the students talk about anything, as
long as they are talking in English, they have to apply the correct English rule so that what
they want to say can be delivered well. It is in lined with McKay (2012) who concludes that
22
today but the material itself should still provide learners with widely accepted English
grammatical norm.
From the discussion above, it can be seen that the participants used western culture in
their material in two ways. The first one is providing the example of varieties of English
accent today and the second one is explaining the English rule (grammar). Those data are
supported by two principles. The first principle is from McKay (2012) that EIL materials
should include examples of the diversity of English varieties used today as in Annita’s
example. Another principle is also from Mckay’s (2012) idea that the EIL material needs to
provide students with an awareness of the diversity of English today but the material itself
should still provide learners with widely accepted English grammatical norm which can be
seen from Arimbi’s data.
Conclusion
This study is aimed to learn the aspects which are needed in designing the EIL
materials. This study found that the participants chose to use culture which is familiar to
teacher or students and still put western culture in the material. There were several reasons
behind it. First, there were two main reasons why the participants considered about using
culture which is familiar to teacher. The participants believed that when they chose culture
which is familiar to the teacher, it can help the teacher to avoid misdirecting the students and
can share her/his culture to students. Second, the reason why the participants used culture
which is familiar to students was because the participants believed that the students would be
more interested in learning the material. It would be easier for the students to discuss the
material and help them understand and encourage them to participate in the class activity.
There are also two reasons why the participants considered about the inclusion of
western culture. The first reason was by including western culture in the material, it could
23
culture with students’ local culture especially in the varieties of English accent today. The
second reason was by including western culture in the material, it could help the students to
learn about the correct grammar rules.
However, this study still has limitations. The first limitation is the number of
participants (n=7). Bigger number of participants will be more beneficial for the reliability of
the further studies. The second limitation is on the limited participants’ understanding of the
EIL itself. Most of the participants believed that teaching using EIL approach means that they
always have to relate the teaching with culture, both local culture and the western culture.
However, Kirkpatrick (2007), Matsuda (2012) and McKay (2002, 2003, 2012) imply that the
focus of EIL is wider than that. It is more on the showing the varieties of English. Therefore,
having participants who have sufficient exposure of and experience in EIL will be more
valuable.
From this study, it is found that EIL approach has many aspects, and according to
Friedrich & Matsuda (2010) in Matsuda (2012) EIL is also very beneficial in preparing the
students to communicate in English and also know the function of English in international
and multinational context, hopefully this study will help English teachers to be more aware of
EIL and provide more varied and suitable EIL material. The suitability of the material is
important because according to Matsuda (2012), one important thing in teaching foreign
language is the source of input because the students’ exposure of the language is limited
inside the classroom, and therefore, the quality of input is very critical. Consequently, teacher
must really monitor the fitness of the material with the students’ need and environment which
then, hopefully EIL approach in teaching and learning process can be fully applied.
Acknowledgement
I would not be able to finish this thesis without the help and support from several
24
His blessing, love, and for always being around me in every condition I have. I would like to
send my gratitude to my supervisor, Ibu Nugrahenny T. Zacharias, Ph.D for the supervision,
support and fundamental suggestion given to me, and also to my examiner, Ibu Victoria
Usadya Palupi, M.A.-ELT for the guidance during the completion of this thesis. I also want
to say thank you to all of my participants for their time and help in the process of collecting
data.
I am very grateful of being among my parents: Ibu, Bulik Anti, and Om Nar whom
without their endless prayer, love, and support, I would not be able to finish my study.
Special thank goes to Tyak for her support, restless companion, and knowledge to share that
made the finishing of my thesis possible. I also want to say thank you to several people
around me: 1) my thesis mates, Yaya, Benny, Dhenok, Onie, and all for their help and
support, 2) my Wahid buddies for the crazy time and the sharing of experiences, 3) my
friends in Gegabah 08 and ED 2008 for the togetherness, joy, laughter, and lessons to be
learned during our study time. Last but not least, I would like to deliver my deep thank to all
teachers in English Department for teaching and educating me the whole time I study in
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