Scripta : English Department Journal

Improving Students’ Speaking Skills Through Contextual Teaching and Learning Model of Students' 21st Century

2025-10-19T06:05:26+07:00

This classroom action research aimed to improve the speaking ability of first-year students at SMP Negeri 1 Kebumen through the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) model, targeting the enhancement of student’s 21^stcentury skills. The study was conducted in class VII A, involving 30 students as the sample. The research was implemented in two cycles, each consisting of planning, action, observation, and reflection stages. Data were collected using both qualitative and quantitative methods, including speaking tests, observation sheets, and student interviews. The instruments employed for data collection were validated for reliability and consistency. The implementation of the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) model can significantly improve students’ speaking skill as well as foster their 21^stcentury skills, such as engagement, critical thinking, and communication. The results indicated a significant improvement in the students' speaking skill, as evidenced by the increased mean scores from the pre-test to the post-test in both cycles. Additionally, the students demonstrated enhanced engagement, critical thinking, and communication skills. Findings confirm that the CTL model is effective in improving student’s speaking skill and simultaneously strengthening their 21^stcentury skills. Therefore, the CTL model can be recommended as a valuable strategy for enhancing both linguistic proficiency and essential competencies in junior high school students.

Role Play as Pedagogical Tool to Enhance Speaking Skills: Students’ and Lecturer’s Perception

2025-10-19T15:16:00+07:00

The research aims to explore the students’ perception and to know the lecturer’s perception of role play as a pedagogical tool to enhance English speaking skills. Then, it explores the perceptions of the third-semester students and a Public Speaking course lecturer as its respondents. The use of role-play as a pedagogical tool to enhance English speaking skills in the Public Speaking course at Universitas Muhammadiyah Purworejo is the main topic of this research. Employing a qualitative descriptive design, data were collected through questionnaires and in-depth interviews involving 50 students and one lecturer. The results revealed that both students and the lecturer viewed role play positively, highlighting its effectiveness in improving speaking fluency, boosting confidence, and increasing engagement. Role play provided realistic and interactive contexts for students to apply language skills while reducing anxiety and promoting active participation. However, challenges such as nervousness and lack of preparation were noted, indicating the need for supportive learning environments. These findings suggest that role play should be integrated more frequently into speaking classes to foster communicative competence and real-life speaking readiness.

English Teachers’s Readiness in Implementing Deep Learning Approach at the Elementary School Level

2025-10-19T15:46:19+07:00

English education in elementary schools is crucial for equiping students with early communication skills in the global era. The Indonesian education curriculum continues to develop, including the implementation of a deep learning approach that is believed to improve students' critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills. This study analyzes the readiness of elementary school English teachers on the southern coast of Central Java and Yogyakarta to implement deep learning in learning activities. The instrument in this study was an interview containing eighteen questions that had to be answered by fourteen elementary school English teachers. The results show that teachers have a positive understanding of this approach and implement it through methods that are relevant to student conditions, interesting media, and the use of technology. However, increasing the English teachers’ readiness is still needed through training and workshops, especially for teachers without an English education background.

Tutors‘ Perspectives on Camera-Off Behavior in Online English Classroom

2025-10-21T06:12:46+07:00

This research explores the camera-off behavior affects teacher-student interaction (TSI) in online English classroom. While previous research has mainly focused on studnets‘ perspective in formal institutions, this study investigates how English tutors perceive and manage challenges caused by limited visual engagement. This study addresses two research questions: (1) How does camera-off behavior affect TSI in online English classroom, and (2) What strategies do tutors employ to manage this behavior. Drawing on Transactional Distance Theory, data were collected from 18 tutors via questionnairies, interviews and classroom observations. Findings revealed that camera-off practices hinder reciprocal communication, weaken classroom atmosphere, and contribute to emotional fatigue and demotivation among tutors. Tutors reported difficulties in maintaining instructional flow, detecting dishonesty, and fostering engagement. Despite institutional limitations, tutors implemented flexible approaches such as personal check-ins, name-calling, and relaxed camera rules. The novelty of this study lies in its focus on freelance tutors in a non-formal online classroom, where institutional authority is limited, yet the pressure to retain students remains high. The findings offer important pedagogical implications for online language instruction, emphasizing the need for flexible engagement strategies, institutional support, and ethical digital practices to address the challenges of camera-off behavior in non-formal contexts.

The Influence of Motivation and Self-Confidence on Students’ Speaking Skills at Vocational Schools

2025-10-21T06:31:52+07:00

This study explores the perceptions of eleventh-grade students at SMK N 1 Purworejo, SMK PN 2 Purworejo, and SMK TKM Teknik Purworejo regarding the influence of motivation and self-confidence on their English-speaking skills. Employing a qualitative case study approach, the research involved 30 student participants through semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The findings reveal that students with high levels of motivation and self-confidence generally demonstrate stronger English-speaking abilities. However, a number of these students continued to experience anxiety and apprehension during speaking tasks. Conversely, students with low motivation and self-confidence face significant challenges, such as self-doubt, public-speaking anxiety, limited vocabulary, and fear of mispronunciation. Despite these barriers, many of them express a strong desire to improve through consistent practice. These results highlight the importance of fostering both motivation and self-confidence to support students in developing their English-speaking skills.

Students’ Writing Ability on Descriptive Text: An Analysis of Generic Structure-Based

2025-10-21T06:47:55+07:00

The study aims to describe students writing ability in descriptive text based on a generic structure for seventh-grade students. Finding out how well understudies can write descriptive content and whether they are currently well-organized are the two main objectives of this study. This study employed a qualitative research method. The participants were the seventh-grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah Purworejo. There are twenty-five students in all, eleven are female and fourteen are male. This study uses students’ writing descriptive text work as its instrument to find students' level of understanding of its generic structure. Furthermore, it also aims to find the category of students writing ability in descriptive text. The result of the study was that 12 students (48%) have a low level of understanding of writing descriptive text based on its generic structure. Then, the students' descriptive text writing skills categorized as good is 10 students (40%) and fair is 15 students (60%). From the mean score that is 65, it can be concluded that the students have a poor grasp of the generic structure of descriptive text, and they have fair category in writing descriptive text.

Perceptions of EFL Students Regarding English Broadcasting Learning for Their Communication Competence

2025-10-24T00:11:13+07:00

This study explores the perceptions of EFL students at Universitas Muhammadiyah Purworejo regarding English Broadcasting learning and its impact on their communication competence. A mixed-method sequential explanatory design was employed, starting with a structured survey involving English Education students who participated in broadcasting courses, followed by in-depth interviews and video content analysis using a standardized rubric. The findings showed that students perceived English Broadcasting as engaging and motivating, but improvements in speaking confidence and communication structure were still moderate. While many developed good communication skills, only a few reached excellence, revealing a gap between perceptions and actual performance. Overall, English Broadcasting enhanced students’ motivation, language competence, and professional readiness, but highlighted the need for more practical experience.

Skimming and Scanning Techniques in Teaching Students’ Reading Comprehension

2025-10-24T06:44:29+07:00

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of using skimming and scanning techniques in teaching students’ reading comprehension of descriptive texts. The study employed a quantitative method through a pre-experimental design involving a one-group pre-test and post-test. A total of 31 students from the eleventh grade of the Teknik Sepeda Motor department at SMK Ma’arif NU 1 Bener. This data collection was carried out using a reading comprehension test. The results from the pre-test revealed a mean score of 50.32, while the post-test showed a mean score of 69.03. The data analysis involved descriptive statistics, a normality test, and hypothesis testing using SPSS version 25. The analytical findings demonstrated the effectiveness of skimming and scanning strategies in teaching students to comprehend what they read. Following these techniques, there were significant variations between the pre-test and post-test scores, as indicated by the paired sample t-test’s significance value of 0.000 (<0.05). Therefore, the alternative hypothesis (Ha) was accepted, and the null hypothesis (Ho) was rejected.