CULTURAL CONTENT IMPLEMENTED IN STUDENT-
TEACHERS’
TEACHING PRACTICUM PROGRAM VIEWED FROM EIL
PEDAGOGY
Thesis
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Benny Nor Cahyanto
112008081
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
ii
CULTURAL CONTENT IMPLEMENTED IN STUDENT-
TEACHERS’
TEACHING PRACTICUM PROGRAM VIEWED FROM EIL
PEDAGOGY
Thesis
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Benny Nor Cahyanto
112008081
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
iv
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
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@ 2012. Benny Nor Cahyanto 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 Christian University, Salatiga.
v
PUBLICATION AGREEMENT DECLARATION
As a member of the (SWCU) Satya Wacana Christian University academic community, I verify that:
Name : Benny Nor Cahyanto
Student ID Number : 112008081
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:
CULTURAL CONTENT IMPLEMENTED IN STUDENT-TEACHERS’ TEACHING PRACTICUM PROGRAM VIEWED FROM EIL PEDAGOGY
along with any pertinent equipment.
With this non-exclusive royalty free right, SWCU maintains the right to copy, reproduce, print, publish, post, display, incorporate, store in or scan into a retrieval system or database, transmit, broadcast, barter or sell my intellectual property, in whole or in part without my express written permission, as long as my name is still included as the writer.
This declaration is made according to the best of my knowledge.
Made in : Salatiga
Date : January
Verified by signee,
Benny Nor Cahyanto
Approved by
Thesis Supervisor Thesis Examiner
vi
List of Tables
Table 1: The Interviews’ Schedule
Table 2: The observations’ Schedule
vii
List of Figures
Figure 1: The Use of Cultural Aspect in Lesson Plans
Figure 2: Renny, Lesson Plan, News Item, May 1st 2012
Figure 3:Denna, Lesson Plan, Description, March 31st 2012
1 implemented the cultural aspect in EIL pedagogy as seen from their teaching practicum. This is a qualitative study, which focus on the cultural aspect in the lesson plans and materials given to the students.The finding showed that there were three common themes of cultural contents that the participants used in their lesson plans. The first one was using the national issues including current news or phenomena that became headlines in the national media, the second one was using national landmarks that were familiar to the students, and the third one was the use of local English speaker voice in teaching. It was founded that the first and second themes were brought into the lesson plans because of the familiarity reason in which the cultural contents being discussed were known by the students. However, the third cultural content was used in the lesson plan because the student-teachers wanted to introduce the learners about the variety of English accents, as well as let the student know that in EIL pedagogy, there were no exact English accents that had to be followed. It is expected that this research will give better understanding and awareness about EIL pedagogy.
Keywords: culture, EIL pedagogy, familiarity, accent
Introduction
The emergence of world Englishes, following the never ending development of
globalization, makes English reaches its international status and becomes the most popular
language that people want to learn (Crystal, 1997 as cited in Lai, 2008). As Graddol (1999)
assumes, second language speakers of English will surpass the number of native speakers.
Therefore, after the term of world Englishes become popular, EIL pedagogy appears and
become a popular approach to be used in the classroom. So, what is EIL? Do all people,
especially student-teachers in English Department, have the same understanding about this
pedagogy?
In an attempt to understand more about EIL, we need to first understand the
2
have started to, make a significant contributionto the EIL paradigm through the new
approaches employed over the last few decades (Sharifian, 2009). These include the
establishment of sociolinguisticapproaches as well as the more recent approaches such as
those fromcultural linguistics and cognitive linguistics (Polzenhagen & Wolf, 2007;Sharifian,
2006).Sharifian (2009), assumed that these approaches can provide deeperinsights not only
into the nature of world Englishes but also about communication across Englishes, an issue
which lies at the heart of EIL. Here, after reading the journals above, I realize that EIL
approach will become a really useful approach to be applied in Indonesia, considering the
cultural diversities that Indonesia has.
EIL itself is an approach which is believed to be a suitable to be implemented in
teaching English as a second language since it gives specific emphasize on students’
diversities (McKay, 2003). In the era of globalization in which the need and demand to
master English is very high, considering students’ diversities along with local factors that
present in the area where English is taught can be seen as a really important thing. One of the diversities that present in the classroom is students’ cultural context.
From the reasons above, I would like to investigate English Department students’ understanding of EIL. The best time to check English Department students’understanding of
EIL is while they are taking a teaching practicum program since it is the time when they can
consciously choose and apply this approach among all approaches that they have already
studied. Moreover, the student-teachers have already had various knowledge regarding to
teaching methodology and material development from several lessons they had taken, such as
Introduction to Language Education (ED306), Teaching English as Foreign Language
(ED403), Teaching and Learning Strategy (ED407), Curriculum and Material Development
(ED503), and Micro Teaching (ED603). Therefore, this study chooses the student-teachers,
3
Nevertheless, despite all the advantages of applying EIL approach, there are some
problems that bilingual people face in the case of ELT context. One of them is differences of cultural backgrounds between the students’ local cultures versus the English native’s culture.
Obviously, the culture from which English is spoken as mother tongue language is different
from the local culture in which English is taught as second or foreign language. It is proven
from the programs forpre-service EFL teachers which tend to focus on the inner circle
(Kachru, 1997), although actually, EFL teaching and learningwould benefit greatly from
incorporating a World Englishes perspective (Brown, 1993). Inner circle in this sense
includes the countries which use English as their mother tongue.Therefore, it was hard for the
students to get the point in learning English if the teacher only skewed the material from the
native books such as Cambridge, Harvard and etc. It is supported by Kachru (1992) who
argues that Englishmust now be dissociated from the colonial past, and not necessarily be
linked to ‘westernization’. Widdowson (1994), also maintains that the time has now come for
bilingual speakers of English to assume ownership of English, using it for their specific
purposes, and modifying it to meet their needs. Because of that, Cook (1999) argues for the
need to avoid comparing bilingual speakers of English to native speakers, and rather to
recognize the much strength of bilingual users of English who have a rich linguistic repertoire
to serve their communication needs.
Previously, similar study has been conducted by Sandra Mckay (2003), in her paper
entitled “Teaching English as anInternationalLanguage: the Chilean context”. In this study
she argues that when teaching English as an internationallanguage, educators should
recognize the value of including topics that deal with the local culture, support the selection
of a methodology that is appropriate to the local educational context, and recognize the
4
trying to find out how ED student-teachers implement the cultural aspect in their mini
lessons.
To strengthen the study background on why I conduct this study, I rewrite a
statement from Canagarajah (2011), which says that as a teacher we should have our own
way to teaching English. For example if we are comfortable with our accent in teaching
English, we should not change it into native speakers’ accent. However, a pivotal theme in
the EIL paradigm are the issues such as identity, ideology and power that are directly
relevant to and do have a determining role on the content as well as the approach in ELT
(Sharifian, 2009). In other word, I can say that EIL approach will not disturb or change the way we teach, but more to improve the way we teach and have better students’ achievement.
The changing itself will more on the development of a curriculum that takes into account the
sociolinguistic reality of English across the globe, rather than settling for a skewed one in
which only select groups of native speakers are represented. For example when I was in
micro teaching class, my lecturer gave me a material which was so western, because it was
taken from Touchstone Students Book without any changing. Then my lecturer also asked the
students to make that material to be more EIL friendly. The material was about engagement
and at that time I tried to compare the engagement culture in Indonesia and western countries.
That is the simple example of how to develop English material to be friendlier for the students because of the adjustment with Indonesian’s sociolinguistic reality.
Seeing my personal experience above, through this study I want to find out what
other student-teachers concern on the application of EIL approach in the teaching and
learning process. This study is focused to find out the cultural aspects that the
students-teachers applied in EIL pedagogy. Therefore, this study would like to answer the following
research question: “How do English Department student-teachers implement the cultural
5
It is expected that, by writing this study, the readers (especially student-teachers)
will get more ideas about common understanding in EIL approach by looking at others’
experiences. EIL teacher preparation programs itself should aim at graduates who can teach
others to communicate successfully with all sorts of speakers no matter which World
Englishes they use (Matsuda, 2002). I will conduct this study by doing the interviews with
some of students-teacher who are taking teaching practicum which is conducted in a public
senior high school in Salatiga.
Literature Review
EIL approach has some differences from other approaches. Sharifian (2009) says
that, EIL emphasizes that English, with its many varieties, is a language of international, and
therefore intercultural, communication. Based on those statements, it can be concluded that
EIL approach does not limit the cultural contents which should be used in teaching English.
EIL approach does not refer to a particular variety (American or British or Indonesian
English). In accordance with this statement, Smith (1976) also maintains that the acquisition
of an international language should follow the three aspects below:
The learners do not need to internalize the cultural norms of native speakers of the
language
The ownership of an international language (English), becomes ‘denationalized’,
which means that English does not only belong to its native speakers, but to other
people across nations and cultures who learn the language, and
The educational goal of learning the language (in this case learning English), is to
enable learners to communicate their ideas and cultures to others.
From the statements above, it shows that in EIL approach there are no exact rules which tell
6
culture, instead of western culture, to be used in class. In coherence with this statement,
Britten (1985) as cited in Zacharias (2003) says that a good language teacher is the one with a
near-native speaking proficiency of the foreign language but come from the same linguistic
and cultural background with the students. This kind of teachers will be able to teach the foreign language by using the students’ cultural background so that the students will
understand the context of the material easily.
Kachru (1992) argues that English must now be dissociated from the colonial era, and not necessarily belinked to ‘westernization’. Based from that statement, it can be found
that in past, the old approach of English language teaching to make students to master the
four language skills the native perspective. It means that they had to listen, write, speak and
read just like the way native do. Widdowson (1994) maintains that the time has now come for
bilingual speakers of English to assume ownership of English, using it for their specific
purposes, and modifying it to meet their needs. Then EIL approach came in order to cover
what bilingual needs in learning English, including incorporating the local cultures into the
materials. Furthermore, Zacharias (2003) says that in a multicultural country like Indonesia,
most people are bilinguals in which banning the mother tongue will make the classroom
sounds artificial since it disregard the bilingual reality that surrounds it.
This study will use two important principles related to culture for the teaching of
EIL, based on McKay (2003, 140). Those principles are:
First, the cultural content of EIL materials should not be limited to native
English-speaking cultures.
If one of the central educational goals of an international language is to enable
learners to communicate their culture to others, then EIL materials should provide
students with the vocabulary and information to do this by including local cultural
7
reading materials, the reading text can be taken from students’ folklore, such as Timun
Mas if the students coming from Central Java. Kirkpatrick’s (2007) state that
emphasizing local culture in teaching English will help the students to have the needs
and things to talk about, given that they understand what they have to say. Having
material that the students understand will make the students at least know what they
are dealing with and then encourage them to talk.
In addition, teaching the cultural content will enable students to communicate in
various setting and purpose (Zacharias, 2003). She further explains that the idea of
teaching the cultural content is to equip the students with two languages (the native
and foreign language) without losing their true identity. So a good teacher is expected
to train their students to be aware of their cultural identity instead of simply make
them sound like native speakers.
Second, an appropriate pedagogy of EIL needs to be informed by local expectations
regarding the role of the teacher and learner.
Presently, in many countries where English is being learned as a second language,
educators look to countries where English is a native language for appropriate
methods (Mckay, 2003). Here, what is mean by local expectation is more on the
purposes of the teacher in teaching English. That is why the material needs to be
adapted by looking to who are the students. For example when I teach a senior high
school students, it is more on the Teaching English as Test Purposes. However,
McKay (2003) argues that just as the content of EIL materials must be separated from
native-speaker models, so must EIL methodology, by allowing a locally appropriate
pedagogy to be implemented. The characters of locally pedagogy in Indonesia are the
8
deductive skills (the teacher explain the material first and ask the students to do the
exercises).
The whole discussion and analysis of this study will be focus on the implementation
of cultural content in the materials given to the students. Thus, the two principles taken from McKay’s work (2003) will be served as guidelines in doing the analysis. Before presenting
the discussion and analysis, a general picture on how this study looks like will be shown in
the following heading.
The Study Context of the study
Here, I conducted my research in a public senior high school in Salatiga, one of the
places where ten ED’s student-teachers take their teaching practicum. This high school is
located in Kemiri No. 1 Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia and is acknowledge as one of the
best senior high schools in Salatiga. It means that this high school has a qualifying teachers
and students too.
The time frame in which this study is conducted is when the student-teachers have a
teaching practicum. Teaching practicum is a time when the students have to teach the real
students, real class situation, and real school environment. It is very different from micro
teaching class which is more like a teaching simulation or rehearsal since the students-
teachers do not teach in a real classroom setting, but in a made-up class which consists of
their classmates who pretend to become their students. In teaching practicum, we can feel
what the real teacher feel as well. The teaching practicum program was conducted for almost
one semester, which was started on February and ended on May 2012. Each student- teacher
9
is the person who grade, giving advices and the teacher who teach in the school where the
teaching practicum is conducted.
Participants
The participants were three English Department student-teachers who are taking
teaching practicum in a public senior high school in Salatiga. This study used purposive
sampling strategies. Students-teacher participants had been selected based on the following
criteria:
Students who have passed micro teaching class and still taking teaching practicum. The
reason why I choose teaching practicum students instead of microteaching student
because teaching practicum is the time when the student-teacher can apply all approaches
they have learned, so I hope that they ever get or even ever heard about EIL approach.
Students who already know about EIL approach, even only with their own definition or
understanding about it.
This study chose Ranny, Denna and Arin as my participants because they really
appropriate with the criteria above. Those participants also had some planning to bring
cultural aspect in their teaching practicum, so that it was made this study became easier to
conduct.
Instrument of data collection
In order to get the answer my research question, the data was collected through:
Observation. The observation focused on cultural aspect that participants bring
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Examining the participants’ lesson plans. The reason is to dig deeper how the
student- teachers implement the EIL material in their teaching. Each participant
has 6 lesson plans, so there are eighteen lesson plans to examine.
Interview. The interview was conducted once for each participant in
approximately 45 minutes duration. The schedule of the interview can be seen
in Table 1 below, whereas the list of the interview questions can be seen in
Apendix A.
Table 1The Interviews’ Schedule
Participant Date Length
Arin June, 4th 2012 45’
Renny May, 30th 2012 45’
Denna May, 31st2012 45’
A more complete information about the observation protocol can be seen in Appendix B.
Meanwhile, below isthe schedule of observation that was conducted in order to study how the
mini lessons were, what kind of teaching materials that was used, and also to build the
interview questions (stimulated recall).
Table 2 The observations’ Schedule
The Participant Date Grade Meeting
Arin March 31st2012 XI IA 2 90’
April 7th 2012 XI IA 1 90’
Renny May 1st 2012 X-1 90’
May 9th 2012 X-1 90’
Denna March 30th 3012 X-1 90’
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Procedure of data collection
The study used qualitative data analysis. The data was analyzed quantitatively and
elaborated qualitatively. Firstly, the data was collected by conducting an observation to study
how the mini lessons were, and what kind of teaching materials that was used. The
observation was recorded in order to build the interview question if the data which were needed cannot be found in participants’ lesson plan.
After finished with the observation, the second step was examining the cultural
contents such as national issues, local places and language accent (for audio and visual materials) in participants’ lesson plans. There were three participants in this study, and each
participant has six lesson plans. So there are eighteen lesson plans to examine. When finished
examining each lesson plan, I categorized them all based on the similarity of the cultural
contents. Then, I found the most common cultural contents as the themes of my analysis.
Table 3 The frequency of common cultural contents appear in the lesson plan
Cultural Content Frequency
Then the last step to get and enrich the data was by conducting the interview. It was
needed to find out some data which were not really clear in the lesson plans, or the data that
could not be founded in the lesson plans. A semi structured interview is used, which means
12
changing the order of questions to provide opportunity for follow –up questions. The question
itself is still around the participants’ lesson plans and more focus on the major cultural
contents that appeared while examining the lesson plans.
Procedure of Data Analysis
The way to analyze the data which already collected was by focusing on the content or theme across the participant. It was began by assigning categories to the participants’
transcripts, and then separate utterances of the interview transcribe were extracted, classified,
and gathered into these categories (Zacharias, 2012). As mentioned in the literature review,
this study used McKay’s (2003, 140) principles about the cultural contents in EIL pedagogy.
Therefore, in analyzing the data, it was focused on the cultural content that mostly appeared
in participants’ lesson plan. Kirkpatrick (2007) state that EIL material might emphasize local
culture in teaching English will help the students to have the needs and things to talk about.
Seeing that statement, this study focused on the local culture as the content to be discussed as
the theme.
Finding and Discussion
From all the eighteen participants’ lesson plans; there are fourteen lesson plans
which contain culture on it. Those materials which contain cultural contents are then categorized to find cultural aspects that mostly appear in participants’ lesson plans. Those
cultural contents are divided into: 1) national issues, 2) national landmark, and 3) Indonesia
English speaker voices. The other three lesson plans do not share any common cultural
content, whereas the rest do not contain any cultural content. The data is presented in Figure
13
Figure 1 The Use of Cultural Aspect in Lesson Plans
1. National issues
Seeing the data that has been collected, this study found that one of the participants’
beliefs about EIL material is using national issues which happened in Indonesia. National
issues in this study cover news or phenomena that was being discussed and talked about by media in Indonesia. This example can be seen in Renny’s lesson plan when she explained
about News-Item text/genre. To describe the example of News-Item text/genre, she uses
several articles from The Jakarta Post and Jakarta Globe to show the generic structures of
the genre. Below is one of the examples of the article from The Jakarta Post that she used in
14
Figure 2Renny, Lesson Plan , News Item, May 1st 2012
The article contains the national issues about Angelina Sondakh, a politician who was
arrested due to a bribery scandal. This national issue was becoming a hot issue at that time
because she was the politician from the ruling party in the Republic and a well-known public
figure and the winner of Putri Indonesia beauty contest. She chose to use The Jakarta Post
articles for the teaching materials because of one reason. In her interview, she stated that:
Interviewer : In your teaching material, you choose Jakarta post as your teaching material in news item instead of western newspaper. Why?
Renny : Because Jakarta post is from Indonesia, and I want my students to know their newspaper Indonesia which is in English. I used Jakarta post to make them understand about the context inside the article.
15
From her statement above, it is clear that she wanted to help the students to
understand the texts since The Jakarta Post and Jakarta Globe are two English newspapers
published in Indonesia. Both of those newspapers contain article about current issues that
happen in Indonesia, and one of the example is the corruption issues. She believed that she
could help the students to follow the topic discussed in the lesson by using their cultural
background. In her lesson plan, it is stated that the goal of this teaching is to make the
students be able to answer the comprehension questions with 80% correctness. She does not
realize that she apply EIL pedagogy until she finds out that The Jakarta Post is an Indonesian
newspaper. In her interview, she stated that:
Interviewer : Was your decision to use Jakarta Post because you want to apply EIL approach?
Renny : At the first time I didn’t realize that I will use that newspaper, and at the end I realize that Jakarta post is from Indonesia, then I thought about Indonesian culture, so I think that was part of EIL approach.
(Renny, Interview, May 30th 2012)
From the interview above, Ranny chose the Jakarta Post because it contains news about
Indonesian culture or issues. She believed that Indonesian national issues are included as
Indonesian cultures. The purpose of putting local culture in her material is to make it familiar to learners’ domain, Indonesia. It is supported by McKay’s (2002) who says,”EIL materials
should be relevant to the domains in which English is used in the particular learning contexts”. The domain where this English material used is in Indonesia, so Renny creates
teaching material that discuss about Indonesian issues so that it is more relevant for
Indonesian students.
Another example of choosing the national issues as teaching material was found in
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she used video as the teaching material. She used two videos from BBC news which talked
about Merapi eruption and tsunami that happened in Mentawai as a listening material for her
students. The first topic in the listening text is about Merapi eruption. In her video,
Indonesian government forced people in the slope of mount Merapi to evacuate. The second
video was about tsunami disaster in Mentawai Island. The video shows the information about
unclear members of the victims. The reason why she chooses the videos about those two
natural disasters are:
Interviewer : Why do you choose the disaster that happened in Indonesia?
Denna : I think it’s just to make my students easier to understand what we are talking about. Here the goal is to develop the students’ listening skill. Why I choose something that happened in Indonesia is just something that not too far, it’s still around us. I believe my students will know about the news and at least ever heard about the news.
(Denna, Interview, May 31st 2012)
From the interview above, Denna had the same view as Renny, that students’ cultural
background plays an important role in helping the students understand the material. She has
similar reason to what Renny has mentioned earlier that students will be easier to follow the
lesson if it talks about something that is not too far from their society. Both Renny and Denna’s statements are supported by Kirkpatrick’s (2007) statement who says that
emphasizing local culture in teaching English will give ideas to the students to speak or write
in English because they understand what they have to say or write.
From this first theme, it can be concluded that student-teachers put national issues in
their lesson plans to help the students to grasp and comprehend the reading text since the
topic being discussed in the material is also discussed in their real life, their cultural contexts.
17
students as an important thing to be put in their lesson plans. This first theme is in coherence
with the EIL principle that McKay (2003, 140) says earlier, that EIL materials should not be
limited to native English speaking cultures
2. National Landmark
After studying the fourteen participants’ lesson plans which contain cultural content,
this study found that there were three lesson plans made by two participants, Denna and
Renny, which included national landmarks. They believed that national landmark was also part of students’ culture, and therefore, because it was related to students’ culture, the
inclusion of national landmark in the lesson plan was also part of EIL material. One example of the use of national landmark as lesson plan can be found in Denna’s Lesson Plan that used
LawangSewu as the example of descriptive text in her lesson plan.
Figure 3 Denna, Lesson Plan, Description, March 31st 2012
LawangSewu
LawangSewu is 1. ______for the doors and windows. The place is famous for the Thousand Doors and windows and the fascinating 2. ______glass windows 3._______the Dutch Symbolism of the places like The Hague and Rotterdam and also the Royal family. The building has numerous long 4. _______corridors which open out to the offices on one side of the office and the other end of the building on the other hand. It is a famous landmark in the region of Semarang and a pride for Java. The place was actually built as the main colonial office for the Dutch and was then 5. _____over by the Japanese government. This place was 6. _______because it was the main military hub for the Indonesians and was 7. _____ for giving shelter to the soldiers and army men here. The place was often considered to be 8. ______place as many truly and sincerely believed that the place was 9. ________ by spirits and ghosts and thus many people used to feel scared to visit the place fearing the obvious. However later the place was 10. ______ in to a heritage site and many came to visit the place during their holidays or vacations while coming to visit the Semarang. There are other places also which deserve mention but LawangSewu stands out among the rest.
Denna used the text above as a listening material. In the lesson plan, she taught about a
18
listening material. She stated that the purpose of this listening section was to describe
LawangSewu based on the principle and the generic structures of the descriptive text.
She recorded her own voice while reading the text and in the listening section, the
students were asked to fill in the blank by listening to the recording that she had prepared
before. The material contains a description about an iconic place of Central Java,
LawangSewu which is located in Semarang, a town near Salatiga. In the interview, the reason
she chose LawangSewu was:
Interviewer : and then for your reading material. I found that you used the story of lawangsewu. Why you chose that kind of reading text?
Denna : First, LawangSewu, because it is in Semarang. Most of my students knew about lawangsewu, even some of them even there before. So, it kind of cultural content and part of EIL.
Interviewer : and then about your material about direction, you used some places near Salatiga. Why? Is it because the same reason as you said before?
Denna : It has the same reason but also because it is speaking activity. So, I want my student to describe and to give the direction easier because it is around Salatiga, I believe that they have ever been there before; at least they knew about the places.
(Denna, Interview, May 31st 2012)
From the interview transcription above, Denna chose the text of LawangSewu for
her listening material because two reasons. The first reason was familiarity issue.
LawangSewu is an iconic landmark which is located in Semarang, a city about 60 km from
Salatiga. Because of its location which is near Salatiga, Denna thought that some students
have been there or at least have seen it, so it is assumed that they know what LawangSewu
looks like. Therefore, she believed that it would help the students to understand the
19
From her interview, it can be analyzed that when the students are familiar with something, it
will help the students to understand the text and finally compose a similar generic structure of
the descriptive text (the generic structures of a descriptive text consist of identification and
description). It means that when they are able to identify the generic structure of
LawangSewu descriptive text, they can create different descriptive text about other national
landmarks by following the pattern that appear in LawangSewu reading text. For example,
they can choose the title of Tugu Monas and put the text identification (location, size of the
area, the founder(s), and distance from the nearby location) in the first paragraph, followed
by description of physical features (in the following paragraph). The second reason was
because of the cultural content of the national landmarks. She mentioned that students were
familiar with LawangSewu and she believed that everything that the students are familiar
with is considered as culture. Based from her understanding, cultural content is also a part of
EIL approach. The use of national landmark, LawangSewu, as the example in the lesson plan
becomes her application of her understanding about EIL approach.
The second participant is Renny who also used Indonesian’s landmark as her
teaching material. She used the text entitled Jatim Park as her material to explain the students
about the generic structure of a descriptive paragraph. Jatim Park is a recreation theme park
which is about 20 km west of Malang, and has become one of East Java tourism icon. It has
zoo and a large swimming pool with spacious picnic and resting areas inside. Below is the
20
Figure 4 Renny, Lesson Plan, Generic Structure of Descriptive Text, March 30th 2012
During the interview, I asked about the reason why she put this kind of reading text
on her lesson plan, she answered:
Renny : Because those places are in Indonesia, I just to make my students know about some tourism place in Indonesia. And some students ever been there before and they can describe the place well.
Interviewer : Do you think that what you have done here is part of EIL?
Renny : Yes, because there is some Indonesia culture, like the tourism places. So I think that this is EIL.
(Renny, Interview, May 30th 2012)
Based on the interview above, Renny believed that being familiar to the subject being
Jatim Park is located in Jl. Kartika 2 Batu, East Java. To reach the location
is not too difficult because the location is only 2.5 kilo meters from Batu city. This
Jatim Park tourism object is about 22 hectares width.
Visitor can enjoy at least 36 kinds of facilitieswhich can attract them as
well as give new knowledge. Just after the pass gate, the visitors will find an
i teresti g ie of Galeri Nusa tara area. This study offeri g co ti ues to step on
Ta a Sejarah area contains of miniature temple in East Java like Sumberawan temple, customhouse of Kiai Hasan Besari Ponorogo and Sumberawan Statue.
The other facility which is able to be enjoyed is Agro Park area. It
presents crop and rareness fruits, animal diorama which consists of unique animals that have been conserved, and supporting games like bowling, throw ball, scooter disco, etc. Jatim Park is suitable for family and school recreation. The recreation area sites offer precious tour and can use as alternative media of study.
Identification
21
believed that a country’s tourism place could be included as Indonesian culture, and according to her, a country’s culture is a part of EIL approach. Therefore, we can assume that
putting a description about the national landmark could be a national heritage or famous
tourism spot provides helpful hints for the students to recognize the generic structure of a text
because the students have already had sufficient background knowledge about the place being
discussed that make them easier to follow the reading passage. Those hints are considered as
a valuable source to enable students to step forward in making their own descriptive text.
From this discussion and the data that already displayed above, it can be concluded
that the use of national land mark were almost similar with the use of national issues which is
presented in the previous section. They both shared one common feature of familiarity.
Putting some local places or national landmarks that the students familiar with will make
them easier to understand the lesson and participate actively in the lesson. This become the
ultimate purpose of putting EIL approach in the material is that to lead the students to become
successful language learners.
3. The Use of Indonesian English Speaker’s Voices
According to Mckay (2003) the cultural content of EIL materials should not be
limited to native English-speaking cultures. The content and also the delivery of the content
should not only focus on the native speakers’ culture and accent. It is due to the spirit of EIL
pedagogy which supports the usage of English from many different accents that exist in the
world. In line with that argument, after doing some observations and studies on the
participants’ teaching materials, this study found that the two participants, Denna and Arin
also recorded their own voices as their listening materials. In the interview, they explained
22
the listening material that Denna made, still about LawangSewu. Below was her explanation
in the interview:
Interviewer : Why did you choose to record your own voice instead of only copy from other sources?
Denna : In the first listening class, I gave them the Tailor Swift’s song entitled you belong with me, and they can easily follow it. In the second listening class, I used my voice to explain about LawangSewu, and I want them to realize that the way people speak in English one and another is different.
(Denna, Interview, May 31st 2012)
From the interview above, Denna’s purpose of giving the students four kinds of listening
voice which were Javanese, Indonesian, British- English, and American- English was to
make the students realize that there were so many accents in speaking English. She wanted
the students to recognize that the way people speak English was different, and therefore this
awareness will encourage the students to feel confident with whatever accent they want to
perform when speaking English. This is in coherence with what McKay (2012, 72) says that”
Promoting an awareness of the varieties of English in EIL classrooms will serve two
purposes. First, it may enhance learners’ receptive skills in processing different varieties of
English. Secondly, it will promote an awareness that English, as an international language, no longer belongs solely to speakers of the Inner Circle”
In Denna’s lesson plan, she also used BBC news from England and Metro TV News
from Indonesia as her listening material when she explained about News Item text/genre. The transcription bellow tells about her experience regarding the students’ preference in the use of
23
Interviewer : Do you think it is also about accent? Do you think that accent has any contribution to EIL?
Denna : Off course yes. In the last teaching, the news item, I used material downloaded from BBC website and metro TV website, so my students realize that the accent of each record was different. When I
asked “is it hard to follow the news?” from the BBC one, they said it
was difficult. Some of them prefer the local one because they think it is easier. Take example when in BBC the news broadcaster said there
was “thirteen” victim, the word thirteen which means tiga belas in
Indonesia, they cannot catch. Because it is has different accent. Even when I repeat the video twice, they still couldn’t catch them. But when I said thirteen, they can realize.
(Denna, Interview, May 31st 2012)
Denna chose to use recording from BBC and Metro TV News because she wanted to
introduce the variety of English accent. She used BBC to represent the British English accent
and Metro TV News to represent Indonesian English accent. The data gathered from the
interview session with Dana showed that almost all of her Indonesian students prefer to listen
to local accents instead of the western one because they think that it is hard to listen and
follow western conversations. Like what has been written in the transcription above, some
students could not catch even a simple word like “thirteen” when it was spoken in British
English tape (taken from BBC). They could get the word when the teacher, with her
Indonesian accent, helps them by saying “thirteen”. Overall, it can be analyzed that Denna
has a believe that it is important to introduce the students kinds of accents in speaking English. However, this model had a drawback because according to the interview, Denna’s
students chose the local English speaker because they felt that the accent was easier to
24
Furthermore, when asked whether accent was part of EIL, she stated that she really
believed that accent played an important role as a part of EIL (Denna, Interview, May
31st2012). This data is in coherence with what McKay (2003) says that English teaching and learning which uses EIL pedagogy should not be limited to native English speaking cultures
and models. This means that the material to teach in EIL approach should not always the
authentic material from Western country but the teacher can modify and adjust with the
culture grows around the students. Denna apply this statement in her material by inserting
Indonesian English version.
The second participant who also used the Javanese English speaker is Arin. Based
on the materials in the lesson plan she also recorded her Javanese friend’s voice for her
listening material. When she was asked about how important to bring the local English accent
into the class, she said:
Interviewer : Is it important to bring local English speaker into the class?
Arin : For me yes it is important because I think it can give courage and stimulate the students that they, who aren’t native speaker of English, can speak good English too.
(Arin, Interview, June 4th2012 )
Based on the interview above, the reason why Arin recorded her friend’s voice is
because she wanted to make the students realize that although they are not native speakers,
the students can still be good speakers of English.
The statement above is in line to what Canagarajah (2011) states, that a teacher should
have his own way to teaching English. For example, if we are comfortable with our accent in speaking English, we should not change it into native speakers’ accent. His statement shows
25
that they have. Arin’s belief was supported with McKay (2012) who stated that “one central
goal of EIL materials is to provide students with an awareness of the diversity of the use of
English use today (p.73). Therefore, when Arin said in the interview that she wanted to
encourage her students to use any accent as part of the cultural content they had, it was in
coherent with the EIL principle.
The diversity of English here also covers the variety of English accents. When the
students are exposed to non-native speaker, they will see that speaking English in a good way
should not only be performin the way of the native speaker talk but also in all accents in this
world. Exposure to varieties of EIL and successful EIL users through classroom instruction
seems essential to contribute to the legitimacy of new varieties of English and better attitudes
toward their own English (Chiba et al., 1995).
From the data that have already been analyzed above, it can be concluded that
accents brought an important role in students’ learning process. It could determine the students’ understanding toward what someone is saying. Some students may feel that
listening to the local English accent is more understandable. However, teachers who have
good understanding of EIL should also introduce other accent than the local one, for example
the native accents, to build up awareness to the students that there are various kinds of
English accents. The second one is that the appreciation of all accents used by the students
could help the students to have the courage and confidence to speak English. Thus,
maintaining the various accents of English, is seen an important aspect in EIL pedagogy.
Conclusion
This study was conducted to find out how English Department student-teachers
implemented the cultural aspect in EIL pedagogy as seen from their teaching practicum.
There are two major findings that can be derived from this study. The first finding is
26
give materials or topics that are familiar to the students in order to help the students to better
follow and participate actively during the lesson. The second finding is regarding the use of
Indonesian English speakers’ voice.This study found that the use of various accents of
English should be maintained so that the students will be encouraged to use any accents that
they have.
However, this study still has some limitations. The first limitation was the number of
the participants, which were only three participants. Even though the data was quite enough
to be analyze, the finding that was already found is too narrow to be elaborated. The second
one, this study only discussed some cultural aspect of EIL pedagogy, while there were other
aspects which is good to be analyzed, such as the use of pop culture, traditional AVA, and the
use of mother tongue in teaching.
This research suggest that since the realization of EIL approach in teaching English
in Indonesia was still not sufficient, the socialization of EIL needs to be improved. This
means that Indonesian teacher should be given more knowledge regarding to the
implementation of EIL pedagogy. For example, this case study has found that the
students-teachers have already had awareness of EIL pedagogy and that awareness is included in their
teaching materials with the hope that their students would learn better. Therefore, similar
study in broader context could be done in order to improve Indonesian English teachers’
understanding of EIL. This is important to be done as the implementation of EIL approach is
beneficial both to the teacher but also to the students. As what Sharifian (2009), stated, these
approaches can provide deeper insight not only into the nature of World Englishes but also
about the communication across Englishes, an issue which lies at the heart of EIL. With the
wide of research on the EIL approach, hopefully, EIL can be better recognized by teacher in
27
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Allah SWT who always guides and blesses me so that I can
finish this thesis on time. This thesis would not have been possible without the help of many
people. I would like to deliver my biggest thank to my supervisor, Ibu Nugrahenny T.
Zacharias, Ph.D. for her for fundamental suggestions and guidance in the finishing of this
work. My deep gratitude goes to my examiner, Ibu Anita Kurniawati, M.Hum for her help
and significant input. I also want to express my big gratitude to my parents, Pak Yanto and
Bu Yanto for the endless support and immeasurable love and care during my study. Special
thank goes to Tyak and Mbak Nyum who always made my sudden, late night, and full of
confusion advising possible. I also thank my thesis classmates, Temon, Yaya, Anissa, Onie, etc. for the companion in our ‘hard times’. Special thank goes to my ‘08ers friends, Tyak,
Anhar, Nindy, and all ED 2008ers for the togetherness and sweet fight during our hard times
in ED. Last but not least, I would deliver my gratitude to all my lecturers in the English
Department and SWCU for the knowledge and dedication which makes my study in this
28
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30 Appendix A
Interview Question
Participant : Arin
Date : June, 4th 2012
1. When did you hear about EIL for the first time? 2. What was your understanding about EIL approach?
3. Did you try to implement EIL in your teaching practicum? And what kind of implementation that you did?
4. So, do you mean that EIL approach is about comparing one culture to another? 5. In your opinion, what is the purpose of comparing culture?
6. Where did you get your teaching material except you make it by yourself?
7. And then, I do interest with your AVA that you used in your teaching. The phone that was made from can. Was it has a relationship with EIL approach?
8. Did you made all the listening material for your teaching?
9. Why did you choose to record your friend voices instead of download it from the internet?
10.Is it important to bring local English speaker into the class? 11.What is your opinion regarding accent is a part of EIL?
Participant : Denna
Date : May, 31st2012
1. When did you hear about EIL for the first time? 2. What is your understanding about EIL approach?
3. Did you try to implement EIL in your teaching practicum? And what kind of implementation that you did?
4. You said it is about local culture, how about other culture? 5. So you put culture in your material?
6. Why did you choose to record your own voice instead of only take from other sources?
31
8. I found that you use Lawangsewu and Situpatenggang as the reading text. Why you chose those reading texts?
9. In the news item material, I found that you put some videos, from BBC and Metro TV which told about the disaster that happened in Indonesia. Why you choose the disaster that happened in Indonesia?
10.Do you thing that bringing the news that happened in the students’ domain is part of
culture?
Participant : Renny
Date : May, 30th 2012
1. When did you hear about EIL for the first time? 2. What is your understanding about EIL approach?
3. Did you try to implement EIL in your teaching practicum? And what kind of implementation that you did?
4. Is it only from Indonesian culture or may be it can be western culture?
5. In your teaching material, why did you choose Jakarta post as your teaching material? 6. I also watched that in your class, you played two kinds of news video. Metro TV and
VOA special English. So, what was your purpose of playing those video?
7. Why you chose some national tourism destination like umbulsidomukti as your material?
8. So do you think that the national land mark or the tourism place is part of students’ culture and do you think that bringing the students culture in class is part of EIL approach?
9. About your listening class. Was the material taken from local sources or western?
33
Reading text entitled “Jatim Park”
2. The use of National Landmark.
Writing material: the pictures of “UmbulSidomukti” with
