Abstract:Technological advances and the COVID-19 have accelerated the shift from traditional learning to online learning. Educational institutions have no choice but to convert the classroom setting into online classes. When teaching online, EFL teachers may have encountered challenges. This paper aims to review some previous studies on the teachers’ perceptions of the challenges in online EFL teaching, in Indonesia and other countries. This study employs library research. The result shows that challenges occurred during the implementation of online EFL teaching and learning. In other countries such as Korea, Thailand, Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia, the challenges are mostly related to the students’ learning process including the time and class management. On the other hand, in Indonesia, the challenges are more complex. Lack of experience with the online teaching methods and the limitations regarding the adequate internet facilities become the challenges that are most complained by the teachers.Abstrak:Kemajuan teknologi dan COVID-19 telah mempercepat peralihan dari pembelajaran tradisional ke pembelajaran online. Institusi pendidikan tidak punya pilihan selain mengubah pengaturan kelas menjadi kelas online. Saat mengajar online, guru EFL mungkin menghadapi tantangan. Makalah ini bertujuan untuk meninjau beberapa penelitian sebelumnya tentang persepsi guru tentang tantangan dalam pengajaran EFL online, di Indonesia dan negara lain. Penelitian ini menggunakan penelitian kepustakaan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa tantangan terjadi selama pelaksanaan pembelajaran EFL online. Di negara-negara lain seperti Korea, Thailand, Iran, Cina, dan Arab Saudi, tantangannya lebih banyak terkait dengan proses belajar siswa termasuk waktu dan manajemen kelas. Di sisi lain, di Indonesia, tantangannya lebih kompleks. Kurangnya pengalaman dengan metode pengajaran online dan keterbatasan fasilitas internet yang memadai menjadi tantangan yang paling dikeluhkan oleh para guru.

This study examines the use of humor in the teaching process of the English Education Department as perceived by the students. Three main points are discussed in this study: (1) the kinds of lecturers that the students mostly expect to keep them engaged with English tasks in classroom environment, (2) the students’ perception on the use of humor as learning motivator, and (3) the students’ perception on the Lecturers’ Teaching Characters. The participants of the research were the students of the English Education Department at UIN Alauddin Makassar. This research is descriptive. The data were collected using a survey and depth interviews with the students. The results show that the most preferable lecturers are the ones who can make the class/course interesting. Also, while 96% of the students think that using humor in the classroom is important as a learning motivator, the researchers found that lecturers in the English Education Department rarely use humor in the teaching process.

This paper aimed at investigating the needs of occupational English for Purchasing Department in PT. Bosowa Lloyd, Makassar. The subject of this research was 12 employees working in Purchasing Department consisting 6 males and 8 females, including one head which is called Purchasing Manager. The data were collected through a questionnaire, interview, and observation. The findings of this research indicates that Purchasing Department are required to have high levels of English proficiency. In order to prepare language program, the information of PSA becomes the starting point to design course and instruction material for the students. To identify TSA, the needs analysis for employee of Purchasing Department was performed through analyzing the responsibilities which were taken from company manual. Moreover, to meet the demands, communicative functioning (which covers discourse communities, business genre, key communication events and function, grammar and lexis), specific expectation of the students and the role of cross-cultural communication are also important to explore.

The pronoun ‘we’ is understood only to refer to the first-person plural. In fact, the pronoun ‘we’ can also refer to other references. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the different uses of the pronoun ‘we’ by EFL teachers in classroom interaction. This study employed a qualitative approach by using three instruments: observation, audio-recorder, and interview in collecting the data. The subjects of this research are two English teachers and the second-grade students at a vocational high school in Makassar. The data were analyzed by formulating Miles et al.’s method of analysis. The result of this study shows that, in classroom interaction, the pronoun ‘we’ can refer to six distinct references: (1) ‘we’ that refers to speaker and more than one addressee, (2) ‘we’ that refers to speaker and more than one-third party, (3) ‘we’ that refers to speaker and indefinite group, (4) ‘we’ that indicates ‘you’, (5) ‘we’ that indicates ‘I’, and (6) ‘we’ that indicates “they”. From the interviews, the researchers found that both teachers have different reasons for using the pronoun ‘we’ in classroom interaction. The first teacher intends to use the pronoun to help him create an enjoyable learning environment and establish better relationships with the students. In contrast, the other teacher uses the pronoun ‘we’ to show politeness to the students. Despite the differences, they both seem to have the same intention of creating a positive learning environment.

This quantitative research is aimed to find out (1) the writing quality of both visual and auditory learners; (2) whether or not the writing quality of auditory learners is significantly different from that of visual learners; and (3) which type of learners has better writing quality. This research applied causal-comparative design in analyzing and comparing the writing skills between the visual and auditory learners. The research participants were the sixth semester students of English Education Department of UIN Alauddin Makassar in the academic year of 2017-2018. The data were collected using two kinds of instruments, namely Perceptual Learning Style Inventory and writing test. The results showed that both the visual and auditory learners are in normal criteria of writing quality, and also, there is not any significant difference in writing quality between auditory learners and visual learners. Nevertheless, auditory learners tended to outweigh the visual learners in terms of the total score regardless the insignificancy of the difference. On the other hand, the significant difference of the mean score found from the t-test result underscores the ideas that the learning styles and other contributing factors to writing production to satisfy students' learning are consistent with the theories used in this study. It proves that every individual's learning preferences differ significantly, and the stronger the preference, the more important it is to provide compatible learning and teaching strategies which involve students' strategies, knowledge and purposes.