NELTAL 2013: Media in English Language Teaching

Glad to see tell you that I will be presenting paper entitled “Rethinking teaching materials: A study of analyzing newspapers as authentic sources in language teaching.”


The National English Language Teachers and Lecturers Conference (NELTAL) is a annual program by English Department, the Faculty of Letters, State University of Malang. At the very first time, this conference was initiative project by some prominent scholars in English Language Teaching in Indonesia, one of them is Prof. Bambang Yudi Cahyono, Ph.D.

Arts Building, The Faculty of LettersState University of Malang

This year, NELTAL 2013 will be held at 20 March 2013 at Auditorium Hall E6 Building the Faculty of Letters. There will be about 30 presenters by English language teachers and lecturers across Indonesia. There are also some keynote speakers from English Department of State University of Malang.

Here is my general abstract of my writing:

Presently,  the  use  of authentic written materials e.g. magazines  and  newspapers  in  language class is  widely acknowledged,  since  they  provide  stimulating  texts  full  of  cultural  information  to students who have a wide range of interests; the presence of authentic materials is also in line with the trend of communicative approach in our education. 

However, bringing authentic written materials means we bring wide perspectives and discourses, and even such issues may affect students’ emotion during the learning process as sensitive issues, violence, injustice, poverty, conflicts, and so forth, leading the learning process into hesitation and reluctance in engaging with the activities.

Just  because  a  text  is  authentic  does  not  mean  it  is  relevant,  and  authentic  texts  are  often  too  difficult linguistically. This study will discuss about the importance of the needs to reconsider the way we present authentic sources into the language classes by knowing proper procedures in bringing and adapting the authentic materials based on the needs of the classroom and learning objectives through addition, deletion, and modification, especially to the level of discourse aspects, of the materials.

Getting Success at College

The new classes begin this month and you might discover many freshmen coming through the aisle of library, classes, and many other spots; or, you are one of those freshmen wandering around adapting new environment at campus? Yes, you need to read these tips in opening your eyes how to get success at college.

Set your timetable

This is new life, this is new schedule, and this will be your future. Set your schedule to make your stuffs done in your new life at college. Living at dorms will make you stay in your comfort zone and never realize that the time is moving so fast. Get up! You need to set weekly, monthly, or even for the whole semester for your academic calendar.

This settled schedule will keep you on the right track; and you must set it toughly! Yet, tough schedule doesn’t mean you don’t have leisure time. You may set your academic moment, community services, holiday, side job, and party time. Make sure all those thinks are under your conscious setting. This is your life, you decide!

Live in the Academic Moment

Plenty of students complain about their work or obsess about their G.P.A., but that’s just wasted energy and time. Don’t get caught up in any academic ennui. Instead, focus on your timetable, your academic calendar, and your academic stuffs. Do your papers, journals, and any projects without waiting for tomorrow!

The academic record will follow your seriousness in having your academic moment well. Don’t waste your time by doing useless things unless you have done with your priority: academic!

Don’t Study in Your Room

If someone asks where the best place to study is, just say that that place will never be your room. Yes, your room is the worst place to study because of the comfort and the distractions.

You better find other spots at campuses to study. Library is the nicest place to study. You may find one corner in the library and call it as your “homework office.” You may find other place like unoccupied rooms; garden where there’re not plenty traffic, or any other place where you think that will boost your academic mood. One thing, make sure you have good internet connection!

Side-job in academia

Do you plan to look for side job during your college? That makes sense for your additional pocket money. Make sure you make a list for the side job vacancy before you sign up.

If your financial aid package includes work-study opportunities, look for employment in departments and libraries instead of going to dining services or the athletic department. The connections you’ll make outside the classroom could even lead to study opportunities.

Get Connected to Campus Life

You should jump in with both feet, even if it means getting outside your comfort zone a little bit. Community services are the best place in shaping your personality and your social awareness. You can find the further information on the student’s center or any other communities.

Mingling with great people will affect your networking and brighter future. Again, you have the schedule, you have the target for your academic, and this is the time to share your time with others through community services.

See your professor!

Professors like talking to students, seriously. If you go to office hours with questions, ideas or just to find out more about the course material, you’ll be surprised at how enthusiastic (most) professors are to sit and talk to you. More important, you may be surprised to learn how they’d like to get to know you beyond the paper or lab assignment you’ve handed in.

Take Care of Yourself

Part of college life is learning how to take care of yourself. Regulate your diet by eating healthy foods and resisting the temptations of the unlimited and unsupervised dining options. Exercise to maintain your physical health.

Are you ready for your college time? Yes, you decide. Good luck!

Malang Interfaith Community

“I would venture that in some cases tolerance is more important than freedom; it is tolerance that sets us free. It is through tolerance that we can attain genuine peace.”

President Bambang Susilo Yudhoyo

The Malang Interfaith Community (MICo) is as an affirmative action is established in Malang by some youth scholars, intended to be the media or forum for some parties (religion-based organizations) in order to promote the importance of postmodern life and build tolerance within the diverse society; especially in vast developing globalization and melting-pot area like in Malang.

This project focuses on the scholars and/or religion-based organizations at campuses in Malang and employs socio-academic approach in conducting the programs e.g. interfaith dialogue, conference, house of worship visit, etc. This project was at first established by some alumni of American sponsored program, and now more contributors are involving with this historical movement.

We are embracing the scholars to search the common ground within the diversity. Within these months, the MICo expects more contributions from society, especially from the varsity students. Please give your support and we invite you be part of this historical movement in building genuine harmony and peaceful life.


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Make it concise: some ideas for your college essay

When you are about to write for your college admission essay, something sticking in mind is that you will explain as detail as possible; this is true that you should write it with your personal creativity, telling the readers into a personal and original idea with impression. Yet, keep in mind that you just have 500 words at most for your essay.

Some students think they will conduct tens revisions for their final essay as they have drafted hundreds of words essay. This might be possible to write essay not to exceed the limit—or just few words to the limit! The question: why do we need to bother ourselves with this unprepared topic and essay? There are some ideas on how to write great and concise essay for your college admission.

First, know where to start for your essay. You cannot write about your vacation in Hawaii, and you start it from the time you wake up in your room. Get the points that matter most! There are many good stories; it is a matter of determining the most significant.

Your language style is very important. Just imagine when you look at someone at the very first time; you might not think about his/her hobby at first; the impression must go to the outlook! Yes, essay is just like this one. You may organize your essay as flowing as possible. Starting from impressive opening until concise explanation, just consider that the reader seems listening to your great story without any feeling of being lectured or even judged.

Mind the adjectives! It is very important to choose the precise adjective for your writing in order to explain the object you are talking about. But somehow many students put overuse adjectives just to talk about a thing; too many words count may be traced back to an overuse of word forms that often muck things up. This case is also applied for the qualifiers and adverbs. The point is the diction for these elements is very important to make your writing more witty and concise.

The last thing is your sentence structure. Don’t make people reading your essay confused with strange sentence structure! Try to make standard structure for your sentences. Take the ideal sentence structure is started by subject and predicate. Just as simple as that! The next thing related to the sentence structure is the grammatical aspect; this is the time for you to spend some moment to examine your grammatical aspect.

Keep those simple things when you think you are ready to start writing your essay. Revision for your words count is also important; but you just need to keep the ideas above in mind to avoid redundancy in revision and fear of overuse of words for your essay. Good luck!

Finding a topic for your college admission

As the college admission requires the candidates to write about 500-flawless-word essay, and then you should have smart strategy in order to make it the best. One of some considerations before getting started to write your essay is by determining the right topic for your essay; keep in mind that you must write it under your very personal circumstances, and also your study objective to get the college admission.

There are a lot of strange theories about what constitutes a good topic. For some students, they believe that the topic should be “sweet” one; but for me, it does not matter how sweet your topic is, it is your strategy in finding the topic and you can deliver it properly for your admission.

You may start observing something unique around you; essay topic need not to be the serious one. Again, this is your personal circumstances how to employ it. Some people claim that personal topic such as pets, grandpa, family are ridiculous ones; this is not right assumption. To help you find the proper topic for your essay, here are some steps that you may follow to empower your self-reflection in order to make great essay.  

Understand the parameters of the assignment. The main purpose of your essay is to connect you to the person who is reading it. In order to make such a connection, you’ll want to tell a compelling story that shows you as an authentic and caring human being. If you can make it, you will have great shot!

Know your limit. You just have short essay; you cannot find the bid theme or topic for your college admission essay. You may start from your personal experience in class or teaching and learning, small case study that you intend to know and understand and get involved in, and so forth. That might be a good topic, showing you as a person who is open to learning from others. Through that focusing-down process, potential topics should start to appear and take shape.

Ask yourself. Utilize yourself as the object and subject of observation in finding the personality, the topic, and the correlation between the two. The point is on how you can employ the topic into your personal perception and you can make it by having good delivery; start asking some questions to help you boosting your idea and your other side of personality—those are waiting for being written.

Keep in mind: Everyone has a story to tell. It’s just a matter of discovering that story.

The Global Challenges

Not all people realize who the current Pulitzer winning writer is. He is Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Thomas L. Friedman has been talking about foreign policy for two decades. Over the past couple of years, though, Thomas L. Friedman started to notice something different about their conversations.

Talking about the global issues especially the government policies, I can learn some important points related to the upcoming challenges. The youngsters, the generation that will face the challenges. Most of the challenges are as result of the global development and also international policies.

Friedman urges to us about the global challenges; the global development, the government policies are always and will always be correlated to the three essential aspects: the pattern of the energy consumption in America, our chronic deficit, globalization and the revolution in information technology.

These crucial and significant challenges will occur for the next generation of this nation. Why does Thomas L. Friedman warn the youth about these crucial issues? He believes that today’s youth generation is in the messing time. They never consider about the upcoming challenges that may devastate today’s paramount development occurring in America. The facts about the challenges are real even since today. The money is worthless, it is not easy to get job, and also the competition is harder and tougher.

The point of the messages from Thomas L. Friedman to the young generation is not just cliché. Those are real and that is why Thomas L. Friedman concludes that young people must be able to invent the new job rather than seeking for jobs. Innovation is a must.

College is not all about full-tuition

What do you think if you hear full tuition at college? Most students will say the same thing that full tuition at college means that you commit a suicide for your money. Is that severe the financial condition at college?

Yes, the common sense will say that attending college school without financial aid is terrible and completely expensive. But, you should not be dragged out by the public/common sense that there are not any opportunities for you attending college through the back up of financial aids.

The fact is different as we can see huge number of financial aids are available from various sponsors. You can apply for those ones and also get the lower price for your college tuition. The latest statistic by an economist of University of Columbia shows that only one-third of the college students pay full tuition. Here are some analyses from the study.

The most significant factor that contributes the financial problem for the college students is the financial aids. Most of the students at universities in the United States are receiving the financial aids from government grants or other scholarships. The increase number of the financial grants for the students is up to 40 percent since 2005, and also the availability of the tax-based aid that is up to 78 percent. As the result is that most of the students at the undergraduate level receive the financial aid with total averagely $6,500 annually in grant aid and nearly $1,000 in tax-based aid to help defray tuition and fees. 

The financial aids are available for most of the college level education in most of countries across the world. The easiness in getting the scholarships should be considered that this depends on the student’s competence to get the financial aids; but, the aids are available with enough amounts for the students.

At the last, however, we should remember that the highest spending for the college students is not for the full tuition at the college. This is for the living expenses. This is not supposed to be considered as the university policy; this is the real life when everybody needs to eat.