Thesis Defense, In-Class Debate: Critical Thinking for Language Classroom

After conducting one year research for my Master’s thesis, finally I got approval for the examination in front of Board of Examiners (Dr. Mirjam Anugerahwati, M.A and Prof. Dr. Punaji Setyosari, M.Ed.) in the mid of June. I have been conducting a study focusing on the critical thinking in academic debate practices and how possible integration of the practices in accommodating critical thinking into language learning in the form of in-class debate.

 

Guk Sueb posing after the thesis defense in H3.108 Hall
of Graduate Program of State University of Malang
left-right: Prof. Bambang Y. Cahyono, Guk Sueb,
Dr. Mirjam Anugerahwati, M.A., Prof. Dr. Yazid
Basthomi, M.A. and Prof. Dr. Punaji Setyosari

Since I presented the thesis proposal in 2013, my advisor told me, repeatedly, that my proposal seemed a huge and ambitious project. Moreover, my advisor was breaking down my proposal even into three theses: observatory grounded-theory study, research and development, and class action research. He emphasized that I needed to scoop down—or, choose one of the section—being the focus of the study.

I decided to switch the focus of the study to observatory grounded-theory study concerning on the principles and instructional strategies in academic debate practices in accommodating critical thinking and how those instructions could be integrated into language classroom context.

The following is the abstract of my Master’s thesis:

Critical Thinking Reflected in Academic Debate Practices for English Language Classroom

Keywords: in-class debate, academic debate practices, critical thinking, language learning

Critical thinking has become one important educational goal over the last two decades. Therefore, critical thinking competence is considered as one of essential cognitive skills to be acquired by the learners in learning process. This research was aimed at affirming the integration of critical thinking through in-class debate activities by observing the possible model of critical thinking reflected in academic debate practices in Indonesia. More particularly it focuses on the attitude of Indonesian debaters towards critical thinking, how the critical thinking is reflected in the debate, how the critical thinking is accommodated in academic debate including the interactions in academic debate practices, and the possibility in the integration of critical thinking in academic debate practices into language classes based on the principles of language pedagogy. This qualitative study involved two major academic debate communities, Malang Debating Union (MDU) and JogjakartaDebating Forum (JDF), during regular practices and competitions. There are four findings from this study. First, the attitude of debaters towards critical thinking was positive; this includes clear stance to controversial issues, objective and relevant data, and logical reasoning. This was to refute the previous assumptions that critical thinking is Western-tailed culture and Asian students tend to be hierarchical in thinking. Second, the critical thinking of the debaters was reflected through their debate performance, both spoken and written forms. Debaters showed clear assertion with multi-layer reasoning, and the use of relevant data and fallacy. The next finding is based on the observations to the academic debate practices which concerned the critical thinking aspects through some activities and instructions; the aspects cover the clarity and logical reasoning, independence and autonomy in learning, and coach’s instructions to the debaters, reflections towards the issues (motions) in debate. Lastly, the possible in-class debate to integrate critical thinking should refer to the academic debate practices in the forms of some formats which are in line with the principles of language pedagogy.

For the accomplishment of this thesis, I would like to give my best gratitude to my advisors: Prof. Bambang Yudi Cahyono, Ph.D and Prof. Dr. Yazid Basthomi, MA for being the best academicians at the campus and in this country. The other acknowledgement is for the debating society in Indonesia for the commitment to debate proliferation in Indonesia.

YSEALI Kuala Lumpur: ASEAN Youth Interfaith Community

During the Young South-East Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) in Kuala Lumpur, I was put into civic engagement team, named Team Magnet. Choosing the name, we believe that our job as youth is to invite more youth and people to get engaged into a more serious and honest conversation.

Guk Sueb with Team Magnet and mentors
during the YSEALI in Kuala Lumpur

We were engaged into a serious discussion of establishing such interfaith community across the South-East Asian region by involving some countries to participate in this community. The idea was very simple but this is very fundamental.

We have been overshadowed with religion conflicts in Middle East, Africa, and South Asia; the fact is one of the longest conflicts related to religions have been happening in South-East Asian region, in Philippines, Cambodia and Thailand, Myanmar, and even some parts of Indonesia. Yes, we are working on civic engagement of #YSEALI in religious diversity in South-East Asian region.

The existence of the religion conflicts might be due to some factors, namely politic: some political leaders who use religion to trigger hatred for power, making the people are triggered to confront each other instead of searching the common values and grounds. Education: the lack of education and understanding towards the religious values and diversity might the people are easily influenced and provoked. Media: the media are to tend to overwhelm the society with animosity and the religious conflicts and hatred instead of providing the solution. Other causes like economic disparity, sources, law enforcement, and others.

We are working to promote religious tolerance through ASEAN interfaith community across ASEAN region by involving the youth as the main actors for this campaign. There are some tools we are about to utilize like posters, stickers, banners, pictures and posters bookmark. I believe it is really cheap and very close to the public. Another cheap but effective media is social media e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blog, these are where our youth now are hanging out daily anytime anywhere.

On-site visits to school, universities, house of praying, and other religious communities are considered very effective to meet directly with the key actors of this community. Another unique medium is food for peace, having food together on one table in such religious holy days or events. These would be conducted on-site and be shared to the wider audiences in other countries through social media.

Who are the key actors, we expect during the first three months ahead, we can gain recognition from the people especially the youth. How do we gain that? We’d like to optimize from the alumni associations across the countries. It is believed that there are hundreds of alumni who are actively engaged in their alumni associations. Similar local communities like religious communities would be very effective to be invited to share their perspectives. Students’ government and school principals, and media like local radio are great communities who would help this project.

There would be of course further program for this project. We really encourage you to get involved in this project by visiting our Facebook Page.

Teaching Bahasa Indonesia: from American to Japanese Students

This February until mid-March, I will be teaching Bahasa Indonesia to international students from Kanda University, Japan, at Indonesian Studies Program of Malangkuçeçwara College of Economics.

Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program 2013:
Instructors and students with the Rector
of State University of Malang

This is my first involvement in this program despite I have been involved in similar program namely Critical LanguageScholarship (CLS) program sponsored by the U.S. State Department since 2011, where there are several American students who learn Bahasa Indonesia at Center of Indonesian Studies of State University of Malang.

Despite my major is English language teaching (ELT), the foundation is just the same with teaching Bahasa Indonesia to these students, teaching students with foreign (or second) language. I have been learning both theoretical and practical concepts of this language learning.

As I am facing different students, from different countries, the approaches are indeed different. For American students, a more free and critical discussion are preferable; in addition, the American students who participate in the CLS Program are mostly senior students and even doctoral students who study Asian Studies or even Indonesian studies at their university in America. Moreover, their expectation is very high! My passion in American culture as well as experience in learning in the United States in 2011 allow me to feel more comfortable being engaged in the language classroom activities.

with the students and instructors
during the opening ceremony of Program Bunga 2014
at Malangkucecwara College of Economics

On the other hand, Japanese students tend to be more passive. This might be some factors such as the learning culture in Japan or the students’ language proficiency level. As this is my first time teaching Bahasa Indonesia to Japanese students, I need to adjust myself and my teaching style into the more communicative one by inviting more students to get engaged into in-depth analysis and discussion, minimizing the gap between the instructors (sensei in Japan) and the students, standing on the equal position.

The other special thing being part of these programs is how I am standing not only as language instructor, but rather being figure who bridges the two different cultures. This is both interesting and challenging. This is interesting as knowing different perspectives allows me to be more tolerant, open-minded, as well as knowledgeable in terms of international studies. It is challenging as I need to open my eyes, both standing as an instructor as well as Indonesian ambassador to promote soft diplomacy within these countries.

This soft diplomacy, for me, is more effective is promoting more business as well as understanding within these countries in international world. This is the moment when I can promote Indonesian cultures to the international world as well as improve the cooperation within these countries.

IGSCI 2013: Fulfilling Children’s Right, Introducing sensitive issues into classes in time of responsible society

As language teachers, especially foreign language teachers, in 21st Century, we live in such critical moment. In this time, in this complex live and society, we face serious global issues of terrorism, ethnic conflict, social inequality, injustice, religious conflicts, racial segregation, and environmental destruction. How can we prepare our students to cope with these problems? What is our responsibility as language teachers in a world of war, poverty, prejudice, and natural destruction/pollution?

Guk Sueb and Niki Raga Tantri
with Prof. Budi Darma
during Sang Guru 2 International Conference
at State University of Surabaya

It is not easy task for us to provide understanding to the students about those issues. This month, Niki Raga Tantri and I have opportunity to present our paper during International Graduate Student Conference on Indonesia (IGSCI) 2013, Gajah Mada University Jogjakarta. Our paper focuses on how to bring sensitive issues in the classroom, especially language classroom of secondary level. Here is the abstract of our paper presented during the IGSCI 2013:

Introducing sensitive issues in ELT classes of secondary schools in time of responsible society

Guk Sueb & Niki Raga Tantri

Graduate School in English Language TeachingState University of Malang, Indonesia

ABSTRACT
Raising a child is probably the most gratifying job any of educators will ever have—and one of the toughest. In large part, that is because times have changed. We live in an increasingly complex world that challenges us every day with a wide range of disturbing issues that are difficult for children to understand and for adults to explain. All teachers will inevitably teach about sensitive topics in their classes, especially classes that will deal with international perspectives such international studies and English language teaching (ELT) that occurs in secondary schools in Indonesia. These sensitive topics may range from racism, forced labor or slavery to bullying, sexual orientation, gender biases, poverty, diseases, disaster — and may be completely unexpected. Any topic of a sensitive nature may make even the best of teachers uncomfortable when exploring the topic with students. Despite the emergence of the concept of cross cultural understanding in ELT, but mostly the natural reaction of the English language teachers is often to shy away from difficult or controversial topics, or to approach them from a superficial, strained or half-hearted standpoint, or even try to avoid these topics, leaving the secondary children into confusion as they will face the global challenges for the upcoming years. But many times these topics are crucially important to students’ development and awareness of the world and its social, moral, political and civic underpinnings. Students of secondary schools deserve to be taught about these topics in authentic, engaging and purposeful ways.  This is the teachers who deal with global development perspective should have foundation in introducing sensitive issues to the children in their classes.

Keywords: sensitive issues, child’s development, tolerance, responsible society

There will be more than eighty papers during this conference. Further update about the conference will follow.

At A Glance: ASEAN Youth Initiative 2013

ASEAN Youth Initiative with Secretary John Kerry

The two-day ASEAN Youth pre-Summit was held at Jerudong International School in Brunei, in the form of youth leadership initiative workshop. This workshop was intended to create initial framework for the greater ASEAN Youth Summit held on December 2013 in Manila, The Philippines.

There were 25 youth delegates from South-East Asian countries and the organizer (AyalaFoundation) of the program, discussing some issues as well as opportunities for the sustainable youth engagement following the summit. There were two main objectives from this workshop: the establishment of youth initiative as the core team and the issues to be advocated for further discussion during the summit in Manila.

The workshop was started by team-building activities as well as sharing ideas about the characteristics of the youth in each country. From this, we could set and determine the level of knowledge of the ASEAN youth in relation to youth empowerment through community engagements.

The next agenda was to determine the advocacies in relation to the (urgent) issues in South-East Asian region. Various issues were proposed; then, we classified the issues into five major headings:

1. Education: education for remote area, education about disaster prevention, and strengthening the education system through public policy advocacies, and youth leadership empowerment;
2. Environment: eco-friendly policy/lives as well as sustainability program advocacies;
3. Social issues: human trafficking, women empowerment and gender equality, religious tolerance, and freedom of speech (youth and social media);
4. Economic: economic development, health (and living cost), and discussion especially youth employment; and
5. Cultural preservation, creating understanding toward the cultural diversity and difference within the globalization.

I see the issues are very prospective for Indonesian delegates for the summit in December such as social issues in religious tolerance, cultural preservation (e.g. PlayPlus), sustainability program, and education about disaster. The method in selecting the delegates will be discussed later, especially within the alumni coordinators of each country.

Besides that, we also had great surprise visits by US Ambassador for ASEAN David L. Carden and US Secretary of State John Kerry. During the conversation with the two prominent figures, we could share our ideas and experiences in youth engagement. Ambassador Carden emphasized on inviting more youths into more serious and honest discussion for betterment, while Secretary Kerry talked about consistency in making different efforts in the heart of common people. I had an opportunity to deliver a question in relation to the US Government’s commitment dealing with sustainability program, especially in relation to tropical forest and global warming.

As the follow-up of this workshop, the twenty-five delegates and the event’s organizer keep discussing on the proper facilitation and other aspects for the summit in December. We really hope, during the summit, the youth delegates will be able to share their experience and perspectives in youth engagement they have involved as well as sustainable projects in regional scale. Can’t wait to see and share with other delegates in Manila!

“Your voice, Youth Voice!”

Bandar Seri Begawan, October 10^th, 2013

The Use of Twitter in Language Learning

Guk Sueb during Sang Guru
International Conference presentation
of his paper focusing on the use of
Twitter in language classroom.

Twitter timeline is viewed as a supplement to practice in authentic environment different aspects of the target language as it was taught in the classroom. One aspect of language learning which can be practiced in Twitter is communicative competence (Hymes, 1976), a concept based on a view of language learning postulated in the communicative approach to language teaching, in which interaction is focused as a means of language learning and teaching.

Nowadays, new vast development of technologies has become the basic grounds in society; therefore, it is necessary to help learners develop skills and abilities with these new technologies coming up in their everyday lives. According to the UNESCO (2002) “ICT adds value to the processes of learning, and in the organization and management of learning institutions. The Internet is a driving force for much development and innovation in both developed and developing countries.” It is widely believed through various studies that the development of the technology has facilitated the making of good use of teaching amenities and provided rich resources to help improve their teaching devices and to adopt new and advanced teaching facilities.

In order to incorporate new technologies in primary education, this fact has established a milestone because it benefits students’ autonomy (Benson, 2001:2), since these online resources provide more freedom and flexibility to learn at their own pace and convenience. In relation to the use of Twitter in learning process, it is based on the benefits of Twitter of which are the most up-to-date source that can be accessed by public. Thus, this study employs Twitter due to the prime-time topics for the base of classroom discussions; instead of retrieving the past events, Twitter will accommodate the hype of the topics and triggers the students to use their autonomy learning beyond the classroom.

By seeing the usefulness, Twitter is a fantastic learning tool due to its potential to improve students’ motivation, not only by triggering the use of the language (from various styles) in a meaningful and authentic way, but also because students can create and reflect their ideal lives as well as what is happening outside there through Twitter timeline. The latter is a theoretical framework proposed by Dörnyei (2005) and refers to the representation of all the attributes that a person would like to possess (e.g. hopes, aspiration, desires, etc.). In this case, learners would present their ideal self with the association of the mastery of the second language, which is, becoming more proficient in the L2 and taking it one step forward by integrating him/herself into the language community.

The question is then can we really use Twitter in language learning and teaching? According to Meabh Ritchie, in the April 2009 Times Education Supplement article, micro-blogging can have the following pros for education: it could help develop fluency in written and oral skills; students could learn how to focus on what they say better (they can only use 140 characters); through tweeting themselves, teachers can differentiate and help to reinforce what they have introduced in their classrooms; finally, micro-blogging can lead to more interactive and swift discussions. Also let’s not forget that micro-blogging can add to metacognitive work, i.e. reflexive learning. Tweets can also be used to ask questions and hunt for instant points of view.

Of those advantages of the use of Twitter in language learning, here are some systematic and brief reasons on how the utilization of Twitter in language learning will be justifiable:

1.     Relevance: many students already use Twitter in their own language as well as their foreign language (target language). It has become a part of social, business and academic discussions and it has already entered mainstream communication.

2.     Real-time: as the language instructors start classroom discussion, it is expected that the discussion is about something that being hype in the daily life. The discussion might be started through newspaper headlines until some serious topics that might be controversial. The easiest way to find the common topics is by highlighting the trending topic feature on Twitter.

3.     Distinct style: the brevity of twitter (each message is limited to 140 characters) means that the writing has a different style from other online writing (e.g. emails and blog posts or even online newspapers). With this brevity, the students need not to read a lot but understanding the heading of the discussion. Should the discussions requires deeper analysis, this is the follow-up activities that will be utilized by the instructors to invite the students to learn beyond the classroom wall.

Twitter can be used for stand-alone activities or it can easily be combined with other classroom or homework tasks. It is a way to keep students in contact, to emphasize fluency in communication and to focus on conciseness and accuracy.

1.     Following Conversations: students can follow public conversations regardless of whether they even have their own twitter account. This is because Tweets (each comment in Twitter) are usually publically viewable.

2.     Following Others: students can ‘follow’ (i.e. subscribe) to the twitter accounts of mainstream media to receive regular updates on topics of interest.

3.     Tweeting in a Community: students can share ideas (via twitter) with others in their class on an ongoing basis – the class could have a common tag or simply all become friends (i.e. follow each other). This activity can be added to other activities for example as part of an assignment, the student could twitter their thoughts on an article they have read (or indeed, a tweet), or a video they have watched.

4.     Twitterature or live-tweet: summarizing articles or even whole works of literature into tweets (known as Twitterature), helps the learners focus on what the original text is fundamentally about (in their opinion). Learners can also collaboratively write a piece – perhaps with each tweet as a chapter.

For this paper, the use of Twitter is to update the real-time information especially from the official newspapers accounts and/or notable figures such as politicians, scholars, celebrities, and so forth. This will specify the discussion as well as the limit the scope of the discussions; whereas, the students are not restricted to following those only accounts, but those are recommended for them.

Sang Guru 2: Twitter for language classroom discussion

This weekend, I will attend an international conference in language teaching at State University of University (UNESA). The conference at UNESA is named Sang Guru 2, hosted by Faculty of Cultural Studies. This will be my second opportunity to present my paper on such ELT conference. The previous opportunity was during NELTAL 2013 at State University of Malang.

This time, I will discuss about the utilization of technology in language learning, in specific the use of Twitter for classroom discussion. The idea of this paper is the accessibility of Twitter by most of the students and this is the job of the language instructors to utilize this for classroom activities. Here is the abstract of my paper.

“What’s up?”Twitter timeline as speaking prompts and language classroom discussion

The emergence of social media such as Twitter provides the most up-to-date information and might trigger the curiosity of the learners about the topics being discussed. As language teachers, we should be aware of this phenomena as the learners are not only the consumers of the information, rather the students actively contribute their idea through micro-blogging as well as discussions on various forums. This idea might be beneficial to utilize Twitter timeline as speaking prompts in language classroom and the students are invited to deliver their idea through classroom discussion. There have been various studies that focus on the benefits of using writing and speaking prompt to improve language skills, but there should be further study in more specifics that there is huge potential of optimizing the practice of utilizing the most up-to-date topics such as headline news on Twitter timeline; the students are encouraged to optimize their strategic investment in gathering information beyond the classroom. The students will discuss the topics into as well as analyze the content into discourse level in order to boost their language communication competence.

This paper specifically discusses Twitter timeline of some various accounts, especially official newspapers and notable figures, as the speaking prompts and classroom discussion in language learning. The timeline of those accounts will be utilized as the daily activities, such as the base of classroom discussion. Secondly the paper also discusses about the justification to the emergence of Twitter timeline as the materials for the language learning and the suitability to the students. 

There are also some recommendations toward the applications and methods on how to utilize Twitter timeline in language classroom, including how the teachers deal with such sensitive and controversial issues from the Twitter timeline. Lastly, this paper will also provide the prospective utilization of Twitter on any other language classroom activities. 

The update from Sang Guru 2 international conference will follow soon. Have a great one!