<p class="AbstractText">This study is aimed at exploring the voices of English teachers and students of a state senior high school towards the National Exam policy and its implementation in Indonesia. Several theories of psychology and language learning were applied in this study as the theoretical framework. This study used a descriptive qualitative method. The participants were chosen by purposive sampling technique. The data for this study were garnered through a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) conducted to the selected twelfth-grade students and semi-structured interviews done to two English teachers. Both data were analyzed descriptively. Upon the analysis, two paramount themes prevailed: (1) the negative response towards the implementation and accuracy of National Exam (NE) policy in Indonesia; and (2) unintended impacts of NE policy on teaching and learning activity, students’ motivation, and English Language Learning and Curriculum. This study offers information for the government as the policymaker, school leaders, teachers, and researchers to understand how the NE is implemented at the school level.</p>

This study investigates the errors made by Indonesian English learners within crosslinguistic interference between L1 and L2 (Indonesian and English). The data were gathered by making the respondents translate 6 Indonesian sentences which are commonly used during class presentation into proper English. Such task was aimed at investigating the   interlingual   preposition errors induced by the process of transfer between the target language (English) and the source language (Indonesian). The translation task was assigned in 22 October 2018 to 19 adult EFL learners of English Education Magister’s Program of Yogyakarta State University semester I. They were asked to translate the sentences from Indonesian into English within the allocated time. The task was conducted directtly by writing down the translation on a piece of paper. The data was then analyzed through Coder’s error analysis theory.  The findings suggested that these particular English foreign language learners made the fewest errors on preposition omission – and more errors on wrong use and redundancy of prepositions.

High-stakes testing has been controversial in many countries for several impacts and reasons surrounding its implementation. Teachers’ voices should be heard for well-rounded education policy. This study aims to investigate the voices of English teachers on the impacts of the national exam (NE) towards English language teaching at junior high schools (JHS) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It is a qualitative study involving three private JHSs and three state JHSs, chosen according to their NE-based ranks: low, mediocre, and high performing – for inclusive representation. The subjects are six English teachers from six JHSs. The data were collected through interviews and analyzed using the analysis model of Miles, Huberman, and Saldana, following the steps of data condensation, data categorization, data display, data interpretation, and conclusion drawing and verification. The findings show that NE leads to low order thinking skills, digresses from the goals of curriculum 2013, prioritizes only knowledge, focuses on English passive skills, induces favoritism between teachers, and disables teachers to vary their teaching strategies. Teachers’ involvement in education policy is necessary, and they are generally in favor of the NE abolishment plan. The implication of this study calls for implementing teachers' coping mechanism in transitioning from NE to the newly proposed assessment.

Abstract. Age and the choice of language learning strategies (LLS) have similarities with the relationship between the aspects of individual differences, social factor, and the LLS itself. This study aimed to investigate whether and how the learners’ starting age in second language learning affects their choice of LLS. 94 ESL learners of two age-based groups were involved in this study. A translated version of the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) version 7.0 proposed by Oxford and an interview guideline were used in data collection. Such version covers 50 statements designed for the learners of English as a second and foreign language. The SILL identified the learners’ strategy by asking them to give a response to a series of strategy statements. The data were then analyzed through inferential statistics. The results of the study revealed that learners’ starting age in second language learning affects their choice of LLS due to their different goals in learning English. The early-starting learners generally learn English to communicate properly while the late-starting learners do the same for specific purposes, such as for working and for studying abroad. Keywords: Starting Age, Language Learning Strategies, Second Language Acquisition