How to Do a PhD?

PhD is a very long journey that people take to be an expert in a very specific area of research interest. Some people who never experience this journey just see how great those who have got the degree. You know the main point of doing PhD is having your persistence. You do not need to be very brilliant as a student though if you are so, it will help you a lot. But being brilliant only is not enough. You need to have a very strong motivation which always exists from the very beginning of your PhD journey. You may encounter some ups and downs but it is normal, it is parts of your natural journey. Sometimes you feel so bored of reading. You feel sometimes your time is not enough. Sometimes you feel you do not want to eat, or even to sleep when you have high motivation to finish any tasks you have. But having meal regularly is very important especially because your PhD project needs your fit body. Then, as the times goes you may find that your interests changes dramatically until you forget your initial idea about the project. Sometimes you also find your personal matters interrupt you. Your friends waste your time, your partner requests more attention from you. You need to cope with every problem which may come unexpectedly. Again, the key of doing your PhD is your persistence in the way you do your project, how you deal with your own boredom of reading and writing, how you keep yourself do something you almost hate to do, how you push yourself to finish some very long articles which make you get headache. Once you feel so tired of doing things, you need to say to yourself that you may have a rest but then you have to continue till it finishes. later when you finish your PhD, you will find that you become the winner over yourself. The real enemy is within yourself. You will find that after the tiring journey you will feel satisfied with your own work. But if now you are still struggling with your PhD, motivating yourself to be always persistent is very helpful. Always remember your reason why you are taking this journey. Your very personal reasons will help you keep yourself motivated to finish this journey whatever happen, or even if you are in the very bad situations of being stuck.

What is task- based learning?

Task - based learning (TBL) is an approach that makes the task the basic unit for planning and teaching. This contrasts with some approaches focusing on grammar. The rationale underlying TBL originated in the communicative approach. Proponents of the view argue that "you learn a language by using it." One of the first experiment with TBL took plae in 1970s, in soutern INdia, and is known as the Bangalore Project in which its architect, NS. Prabhu, designed and tuaght a syllabus of tasks.

sources:

Thornbury, S. (2006). An A-Z of ELT: a dictionary of terms and concepts used in English language teaching. Oxford: Macmillan Education.pp 223-224

What is Reflective Teaching?

Reflective teaching happens when you reflect on your teaching, you think back on it, in order to understand it better, and to take step to improve it. Reflection is regarded as the key stage in an experiental learning cycle which also includes planning, action and learning. Reflection, Thornbury adds, involves more than simply remembering. It means being able to think critically about experience, to identify problems, and to 're-frame' these problem.

source:

Thornbury, S. (2006). An A-Z of ELT: a dictionary of terms and concepts used in English language teaching. Oxford: Macmillan Education. p.194

Simple Acronyms

Just to remindmyself of some acronyms

1. big>< small
2. cheap>< expensive
3. high>< low
4. pretty>< ugly
5.  hot>< cold
6. old>< young
7. clean>< dirty
8. wet>< dry
9. dead>< alive
10. strong>< weak
11. slow>< quick
12. active>< passive
13. easy>< difficult
14. diligent>< lazy
15. fat>< thin
16. thin>< thick
17. careful>< careless
18. far>< close
19. safe>< dangerous
20. full >< empty
21. full>< hungry
22. correct>< incorrect
23. true>< false
24. right>< wrong
25. front>< back
26. open>< close
27. happy>< sad
28. sweet>< bitter
29. narrow>< wide
30. deep>< shallow
31. ripe>< raw
32. long>< short
33. tall>< short

Problems of speaking with native speakers

I have some experiences making me smiles each time I remember them.. These experiences happened when I was speaking with native speakers.

First, I was asking the direction to go to the supermarket. At that time, I felt that I understood the direction,, "go straight turn left turn right and on and on.." Then he explained it once more time just to make me clear which way to go. I was feeling that I heard all the words he was saying. I was so happy following the direction,, In my heart I said to my self that I would be so confident walking along the way with full spirit of knowing the new place....but it turned out that I had not fully understood  what he was taking about as the native speaker spoke very quickly and I quickly forgot his explanation. I only remembered the first and the last words of him,,, the middle parts of the speech had gone away,,,,,,, and as you may guess, I got lost in the middle of nowhere.... and it happened more than once,,, I have a list of experiences in getting lost,,, in people's land,,,, and it really feels like I am getting lost in the jungle of big buildings without knowing where is north, south, west, east,,, and you know the weapon for coming out from the jungle is the bravery to ask the very unknown persons you meet on the way,,,,, approach them and just ask, and they will show you the very right way.. though you only understand very first words,,, then you can ask another person, and go on asking until you find the place,,,

You know, sometimes it is advantageous of pretending to get lost when you need a partner to practice your confidence in speaking,,, you can ask and listen,,, you know you can  practice both your speaking and listening at the same time for free. So do not worry if you get lost,,, there are many of us who ever experienced being lost even when they were in the very close area from their apartment...and sometimes people really feel willing to get lost with the one they love,, just to spend the time longer though actually they know the right ways,,, you never know whether you really get lost, or you pretend to get lost,,,,,

Second,,I once got a call from a staff in the woman clinic, in the capital hospital. They asked me whether I needed the treatment, and I said yes. Then I was asking the place as I never went to that clinic.. Then the person asked me whether I have pin. Then I got confused,, pin? pin What? what pin? PIN like we use in ATM? pin means code? oh God, what pin? I do not have it,,,,,,,,   Do we need the pin to go to see the doctor in the hospital? I was wondering why she asked the pin... then I just kept silent, not talking,,, then the lady said " If you have a pin, I will give you the direction, you can take note or draw"..... OMG,,,,,,, I understand now that she was asking about the "pen." In the country where I was studying, they pronounce pen as pin...This experience teaches me to really pay attention to the pronunciation of different people living in different countries,,, there is no right or wrong but,,,, it is just a matter of the way we pronounce the words.... Each time I remember this experience, I laugh as I am like a silly lady being confused just because of one English word "pen" which actually I know very well, I use frequently,, but because of different pronunciation, I find it hard to understand the message from the native speaker.

Language Teaching Methods

There are some methods and approaches for teaching English. They are explained in Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching written by Larsen- Freeman & Anderson in 2011. Here are some of them which they explain.

1. Grammar translation method. This method emphasizes the use of grammatical rules and vocabulary of the target language. Teachers who use this method see that the language learning goal is to be able to read literature in the target language. Teacher becomes the one having the control toward the classroom and students are taught by translating from one language to another language, target language.
2. The Direct Method. This method is used by those seeing the intention of any language learning as to learn how to communicate in the target language, and therefore students have to think in the target language. the teachers and students are like partners. Vocabulary is given more emphasis over grammar. One characteristics of this method is the native language of the students or the mother tongue should not be used. Teacher  may use realia, picture or other media in explaining difficult words, but not with the mother tongue or the first language.
3. The Audio Lingual Method. This method is used by the teachers who have the goal to make the students able to use the language communicatively. The teachers will be the leader and director who will control all students' behaviour. New vocabulary and structural patterns are presented through dialogues. The dialogues are learned through imitation and repetition. Vocabulary is kept minimum while the students are mastering sound system and grammatical pattern. Similar to direct method, the native language is not used in the classroom.
4. The Silent Way. The teacher who uses this method have the target to make the students use the language to express their perception, feeling and thoughts. Teacher can give assistance, but not much. It is the learner who has to learn and as a result, the teacher is silent for most of the time. Meaning is not given by translation, but by focusing the students' perceptions. The mother tongue can be used especially to make the instruction clear or to give feedback.
5. Desuggestopedia. In applying this method the teacher have the hope to accelerate students' learning, helping them to use the target language for everyday communication. The teacher is the authority in the class and he/she will initiate the interactions with the whole group of students. A great deal of attention is given to students' feeling in this method. It is important that students are relaxed and confident. Vocabulary is emphasized and grammar is taught explicitly but minimally.
6. Community Language Learning. This method is used by the teachers who wants the students learn how to use the target language communicatively. Teachers will always support the students' learning and students' security is enhanced through the use of their native language. so the activity within the calssrooms is made far from being threatening. One regular activity will be listening to students in expressing their feelings in learning the language, and all the activities are graded very well to keep the secure feeling of the students.
7. Total Physical Response.  Teachers using the TPR hold the belief that it is very important for the students to enjoy their learning experience to communicate in the target language. Teacher have the role as the director of the class. Teachers interact with the whole class and individual. One of the main reason of creating TPR is to lessen the stress people have in learning the target language. Vocabulary and grammatical structures are emphasized over other languages areas. In this method, modelling is used. Teachers issue the command to some members of the class, then performs the actions with them. Next, they have to demonstrate that they understand the command by performing the action alone. So, the students will react non verbally, and as the time goes, they will be more verbal in giving the response.
8. Communicative Language Teaching. The goal of the teaching is to make students able to communicate in the target language. Teachers will facilitate communication in the classrooms. The most obvious characteristics of CLT is that almost everything is done with communicative intent. The activities can be in form of games, role - plays, and problem solving tasks.  The use of native language is permitted.
9. Content - Based instruction. in this method teacher wants the students to master both the language and the content. There is no overt role for students' native language. The teacher guides language learning and teacher corrects the students' error by giving students the correct form or allowing students to self-correct
10. Task Based Instruction. The goal of the teachers using this method is facilitating the students' language learning by engaging them in a variety of tasks that have a clear outcome. There is no explicit role for students' mother tongue. Students are motivated by doing tasks that prepare them for real world.

Authentic materials

Authentic materials are the materials created for non teaching purposes. They may include timetables, application forms, announcements, recipes, advertisements, greeting cards, literary works, newspapers, reports, brochures, catalogues, songs, movies, and web resource.

Other examples of authentic materials such as TV news and programs, TV and radio commercials, music, movies, announcements at public places such as railway stations, airports, supermarkets, newspapers, magazines, photographs, paintings, drawings, stamps, currencies, restaurant menus, street signs, product labels, tourist information brochures, catalogues, telephone books, greeting cards, letters, memos, circulars, minutes of the meetings, reports, billboards, notices, forms such as applications and tax forms, podcasting on the internet and web based programs involving multimedia use.

EFL vs ESL

EFL Vs ESL

English as a foreign language  (EFL) is a foreign language for learners in the community where English is not the usual language of communication. They may learn  English as a school subject, or for travel, business, or academic purposes. For learners who are living in an English- speaking environment, and who need English in order to become integrated into this environment, the terms English as a second language (ESL) is used.

Action Reserach, Accent, Articles

ACTION RESEARCH is a form of teacher - driven research, the twin goals of which are to improve classroom practice and to empower teachers, ie, to give them greater control over their working lives ( Thornbury, 2006:3)

ACCENT is the way people's pronunciation reveals their social and or geographical background

ARTICLE is the class of word which goes before noun and it tells us simply whether thing that is referred to is, or can be, identified ( definite), or if it is not (yet) identified (indefinite)

Research Design Creswell 2014

RESEARCH DESIGNS

Quantitative	Qualitative	Mixed method
Experimental designs, Non experimental designs, such as surveys	Narrative research,Phenomenology, Grounded theory, Ethnography and Case study	Convergent, Explanatory sequential, Exploratory sequential, transformative

LOVING or HATing English

When you really hate English it actually means that you almost love it,,
 The more you hate it, the more you will love it,
The more you feel it is annoying, the more you will feel it is interesting
The more you avoid it, the more you find it
The more you complain about English, the more you feel the burden of your hatred,

Then, my advise is, instead of choosing to hate English, do love it,, because there is no difference whether you love it or hate it, English is still in your head..

It's really funny that my students do not know that it's really funny

Once I taught my students in my class. I read the title of a funny story for them, then they continued reading sentence by sentence until it finished.
I smiled and laughed when they were reading the story,, but none of them smiled or laughed.
Among my students, within a quite big classroom, it was only me who laughed so loud as I was listening to the story.

Oh my God,, then I realized that they did not even understand the story. They did not know that the story was so funny. It was really really really funny,,,
I thought they knew that it was a funny story, but it was funny that they did not know that it was funny..

Have you ever experienced the same thing? Being an English teacher is really fantastic,, many unexpected things always happen in the class.. Don't give up to be an English teacher.. You will stay young and happy by becoming an English teacher..

Simple Vocabulary and the synonyms

1. buy : purchase
2. die : pass away
3. like: love
4. listen : hear
5. make : create
6. see : look, watch
7. complete : finish
8. increase: improve
9. learn : study
10. show : perform
11. speak : talk
12. ruin: damage
13. sleep : go to bed
14. take a bath : have shower
15. hate: dislike
16. experience: undergo
17. smile: laugh
18. similar: same
19. big: huge:
20. small: tiny
21. beautiful: pretty
22. expensive: costly
23. high: tall
24. intelligent: smart
25. kind: friendly
26. friend: mate
27. simple: easy
28. complex: complicated
29. popular: well known
30. glad: happy
31. example: instance
32. trip: journey

ACRONYMS YOU MUST KNOW AS AN ENGLISH TEACHER

ALM (Audio - Lingual Method)
CBI (Content- based Instruction)
CLL (Communicative Language Learning)
CLT (Communicative Language Teaching)
CALL ( Computer - assisted Language Learning)
SLA ( Second Language Acquisition)
TL ( Target Language)
TBLT ( Task - based Language Teaching)

Coherence and Cohesion

We often hear the term coherence and cohesion, but do we really know the meaning of those two terms?

Coherence is a property of discourse where sentences are connected in a meaningful way.
Cohesion is a property of discourse where sentences are connected in a meaningful way.

Those two definitions are taken from the glossary of Techniques & Principles in Language Teaching written by Larsen- Freeman and Marti Anderson in 2011

Authentic Materials

Authentic Materials

There a number of materials other than textbooks which can be used within an English Classroom. Some people use authentic materials, the materials which are created to fulfil some social purposes in the language community in which they are produced. (Little et al, 1998 in Guariento &Morley 2001 in their article  Text and task authenticity in the EFL classroom in ELT Journal Volume 55/4 2001).

Those materials include timetables, application forms, announcements, recipes, songs, movies, newspaper, advertisements, and many others. English teachers may use some of those materials to enrich their classrooms so that the students will not be bored of using only textbooks. 

My lecturer says "With English in your hands, the future is yours,,,"

Personal Experience...

My lecturer says "With English in your hands, the future is yours" and it's true. I learn English in a private university in Yogyakarta. From the beginning, I was not really mastering English, but in that university I was taugt to really master English. All the lecturers were excellent. They could motivate me to learn English. They were good models of English users. Once, one of my lecturer says that with English mastery, I can have bright future. Even when I hd not graduated from my university, I already got the job as an English teacher in one of Senior High School, and i also opened an English course in my house. Slow but Sure I had many students coming to learn English with me. I was really gald to earn money from my mastery of English, which is actually not fully perfect. Then now I have the opportunity to study abroad and it is once again because I passed English proficiency test. I am so grateful that my dad is an English teacher who sent me to the best university close to my house. I am glad that English makes my life full of work experiences, English speaking friends, and it helps me gain more knowledge from English books, articles and many other learning resources.

Don't worry about your accent

I'm not worrying about my Accent

I am a Javanese and I do believe that sometimes my strong accent of Javanese still comes when I am speaking English. But I am not even worrying about it. For me, the most important thing when we are talking to other people is the message is understood as it should be. Then as long as our partner in conversation get the messages we are sending to them through our speech, then the communication is successful.

If we do focus much on our accent in the way that it is not even close to native speakers, then we will be afraid of speaking. So, don't delay your speaking until you feel like a native speaker, just speak up guys. Be confident with your accent, while you try to improve your pronunciation.  

Genre is..

Many of us may have the experinces of not being able to define the word 'genre" though we know well that the example of genre itself. Here I quote the definition of Genre written bY Hyland (2003) in the book Second Language Writing. I do write this, to inform both my self and you who need to understand the meaning and types of genre. Hyland (2003: 18) writes that genre is abstract, socially recognized ways of using language for particular purposes. The purposes can be to get things done, to tell a story, request an over draft, craft a love letter., describe a technical process and so on. Next,Martin (1992) in Hyland (2003: 19) defines genre as a goal- oriented, staged social process. Genres are social processes because members of a culture interact to achieve them; they are goal oriented because they have evolved to achieve things; and staged because meanings are made in steps and it usually takes writers more than one step to reach their goals. Here are some factual genres taken from But et al (2000); and martin (1989) in Hyland (2003: 20. First,Recount, the purpose is to reconstruct past experiences by retelling events in original sequence. Second, Procedure, the purpose is to show hw processes or events are accomplished - how something is done. Third, Description, is used to give an account of imagined or factual events and phenomena. Fourth, Report, is used to present factual information about a class of things, usually by classifying them and then describing their characteristics Fifth, explanation, used to give reasons for a state of affairs or a judgement. For more information, we can read the book " Second Language Writing " by Hyland, Ken (2003) published by Cambridge University Press.