Podcast is a digital recording which contains a recorded programs from television, radio, and interviews. Many researchers have discussed about the podcast as an alternative teaching media to support students developing their speaking skills. This research article aims at finding out if there is a significant improvement on students' speaking skills by using this Podcast. Class XI IS3 was chosen as the sample of this study with total 30 students. This pre-experimental study employs pre-test and post-test. These tests are provided in the form of oral tests. The data from these tests were then calculated by using statistical formulas. The result showed that the post-test score was higher than the pre-test. The finding showed that there was a significant improvement of the students' speaking skills performance after undertaking treatments. Thus, podcast media can be used as one of the alternative media in teaching English especially speaking skill in EFL classes.

This study aims to find out the types and the most dominant illocutionary acts used by the main character in a fantasy movie, ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret’. A descriptive qualitative study was done by observing the utterances spoken by the main character in the movie. The spoken utterances were then analysed based on the types of illocutionary acts, namely: representative, directive, commissive, expressive and declarative.  The results of the study showed that out of the five, only four types of illocutionary acts were found in the movie, they are representative, directive, expressive, and commissive. The most frequently illocutionary act used is directive (47.64%), while the least frequently used is commissive (4.19%). The directive forces used by the main character are varied. Directives are used get the hearers to do something, where in the movie, he often used asking and ordering. Meanwhile, declarative is not employed by the main character since performing declarative act needs authorities and status; this act is used to change the world through utterances. But the main character in this movie do not have any certain status or authority in any position at the magic school he attended, he is a student, still new with the magic world and do not have much power. This is why declarative was not found in the utterances of the main character.

This study aimed to examine the EFL (English as a foreign language) students’ oral presentation of storytelling. The students performed retelling of narratives such as fables, legends, myths, and fairy tales using their smartphones and video recorder. The participants of the study were 19 students enrolled in the Drama in ELT (English Language Teaching) course at Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia. It employed participant observation and interviews to collect data. The results of the study revealed that for non-language aspects, the lowest score was for ‘dress code’ (M=2.1), meaning that the students did not make any efforts to dress and use props that were related to the stories they were telling. While for the language aspects, the lowest score was for ‘communicative abilities with the audience’ (M= 1.2). This shows that even though the participants recorded their performance, and there was no audience watching them directly, they still faced barriers and a lack of confidence when presenting the storytelling. The interviews further supported the findings from the observation such as not being able to use appropriate props for their performance, lack of eye contact, switching voices, use of gestures, difficulty in remembering the script, and needing somebody else to do the recording for them. Therefore, the students need more practice in front of audiences to overcome the problems in the future to ensure that the use of storytelling can improve their oral performance.

This study aims to find out the problems faced by student teachers in an internship program in designing lesson plans at schools. A lesson plan is one of the essential instructional designs that should be considered to achieve a successful teaching and learning process. For teachers, a lesson plan is a guideline that will be used in teaching to achieve learning objectives. This research used a qualitative method. The participants were selected by using purposive sampling. They were seven students of the English Education Department of Universitas Syiah Kuala who were taking an internship program. The data collection was carried out through document analysis and interviews. The results showed that all student teachers strived to design their lesson plans based on the 2013 Curriculum. There were several problems faced by the students, such as (1) formulating the indicators of competency achievement, (2) writing learning objectives, (3) finding suitable materials, (4) selecting learning methods, (5) choosing learning media and resources, (6) formulating activities, and (7) creating an assessment. The results of the interview also revealed the same. Thus, it is recommended that student teachers should receive more training, both theoretically and practically, in designing the lesson plan based on the 2013 Curriculum as required by the Ministry of Education in Indonesia.

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