<p>Vygotsky is the father of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) theory who claims that a leaner can do what he can almost do alone with the presence of assistance. This literature study aims at investigating what factors need to be present for developing someone’s potential. From the literature study, it was found that there are six factors that need to be present, including assistance, mediation, cooperation, imitation, target and crises. With the presence of assistance from the more capable other and keeping attention to the six important factors, a learner will be able to do what he/she can almost do alone.</p><p><strong>BAHASA INDONESIA ABSTRAK: </strong>Vygotsky adalah penemu konsep Zona Perkembangan Proksimal yang menyatakan bahwa seseorang yang belajar akan mampu melakukan apa yang hampir dapat dilakukannya secara mandiri dengan tersedianya bantuan. Studi kepustakaan ini bertujuan untuk meneliti unsur apa saja yang penting untuk membantu perkembangan potensi seorang pelajar. Dari studi kepustakaan ditemukan bahwa ada enam unsur yang penting yakni bantuan, mediasi, kerjasama, kemampuan untuk meniru, sasaran dan masa sulit atau keluar dari zona nyaman. Dengan adanya bantuan dari orang yang lebih mampu dan kehadiran dari enam unsur tersebut, seorang pelajar akan mampu melakukan apa yang hampir dapat dilakukannya sendiri.</p>

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) has been started since 2015, yet Indonesia is not ready because many Indonesian graduates are not ready with adequate English competence. This means many students graduated from universities with poor English proficiency. To investigate this unpreparedness, this study was carried out to one of the universities in Indonesia by doing documents analysis towards the university’s curriculum and the graduates’ English proficiency as measured by TOEFL ITP test. After the analysis, this study found out that the university was not yet ready to produce graduates who are competent in English because the graduates’ TOEFL ITP average score for all years was 457. From 944 graduates batch 2001 to 2013, there were only 2 percent who could achieve a TOEFL ITP score of 550 or more. These research findings will be very useful for stakeholder and any other universities for reflection on their preparation for producing graduates who are competent in English.   ABSTRAK Masyarakat Ekonomi ASEAN (MEA) telah dimulai sejak 2015, namun Indonesia belum siap karena banyak lulusan Indonesia belum memiliki kompetensi bahasa Inggris yang memadai. Ini berarti banyak siswa lulus dari universitas dengan kemampuan bahasa Inggris yang buruk. Untuk mengetahui ketidaksiapan ini, penelitian ini dilakukan pada salah satu universitas di Indonesia dengan melakukan analisis dokumen terhadap kurikulum universitas dan kemampuan bahasa Inggris lulusan yang diukur dengan tes TOEFL ITP. Penelitian ini menemukan bahwa universitas tersebut belum siap untuk menghasilkan lulusan yang kompeten dalam bahasa Inggris karena nilai rata-rata TOEFL ITP lulusan untuk semua tahun adalah 457. Dari 944 lulusan, angkatan 2001 sampai 2013, hanya ada 2 persen saja yang bisa meraih nilai TOEFL ITP 550 atau lebih. Temuan penelitian ini akan sangat bermanfaat bagi pemangku kepentingan dan universitas lain untuk merenungkan persiapan mereka untuk menghasilkan lulusan yang kompeten dalam bahasa Inggris.How to Cite: Silalahi, R. M. (2017). Indonesian University Graduates’ English Competence for Facing the Asean Economic Community (AEC). IJEE (Indonesian Journal of English Education), 4(1), 71-83 doi:10.15408/ijee.v4i1.3457DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15408/ijee.v4i1.3457

Students’ error analysis is very important for helping EFL teachers to develop their teaching materials, assessments and methods. However, it takes much time and effort from the teachers to do such an error analysis towards their students’ language. This study seeks to identify the common errors made by 1 class of 28 freshmen students studying English in their first semester in an IT university. The data is collected from their writing assignments for eight consecutive weeks. The errors found were classified into 24 types and the top ten most common errors committed by the students were article, preposition, spelling, word choice, subject-verb agreement, auxiliary verb, plural form, verb form, capital letter, and meaningless sentences. The findings about the students’ frequency of committing errors were, then, contrasted to their midterm test result and in order to find out the reasons behind the error recurrence; the students were given some questions to answer in a questionnaire format. Most of the students admitted that careless was the major reason for their errors and lack understanding came next. This study suggests EFL teachers to devote their time to continuously check the students’ language by giving corrections so that the students can learn from their errors and stop committing the same errors.

Critical reading was not a new term for university students but the levels to how students understand it and how it could help them develop in many aspects had seldom been studied. Therefore, this study tried to explore the levels of students’ understanding towards the meaning of critical reading, what possible problems could be present in the implementation, what activities could be carried out for practicing critical reading, and what benefits critical reading could bring to students’ lives. This study; conducted by survey questionnaire, was focused on IT students who had just finished a Reading course and were indicated not in favor of reading. From data analysis, it was found that the IT students did not know well that critical reading required interpreting and criticizing, did not realize potential problems in implementing critical reading and was not aware that critical reading practices could help improve their academic achievements.  ABSTRAKMembaca kritis bukanlah sebuah istilah baru untuk mahasiswa tetapi masih jarang dilakukan penelitian terhadap tingkat pemahaman mahasiswa terhadap makna dari membaca kritis dan bagaimana dengan membaca kritis dapat membantu mahasiswa dalam banyak hal. Oleh karena itu, penelitian ini dilakukan untuk melihat tingkat pemahaman mahasiswa terhadap makna membaca kritis, terhadap masalah yang mungkin muncul ketika melakukan kegiatan membaca kritis, terhadap contoh kegiatan yang dapat mengembangkan kegiatan membaca kritis, dan terhadap manfaat dari membaca kritis terhadap kehidupan mahasiswa. Kajian ini, yang dilakukan dengan metode survei kuesioner, difokuskan kepada mahasiswa IT yang baru saja menyelesaikan mata kuliah ‘Membaca’ dan yang diidentifikasi kurang berminat dalam membaca. Dari kajian yang dilakukan ditemukan bahwa mahasiswa IT tersebut tidak mengetahui dengan baik bahwa membaca kritis membutuhkan kemampuan untuk menafsirkan dan mengkritik, tidak menyadari berbagai macam tantangan yang muncul dalam pelaksanaan kegiatan membaca kritis, dan tidak menyadari bahwa dengan membaca kritis mahasiswa dapat meningkatkan prestasi akademik mereka.     How to Cite: Silalahi , R. M. (2018). Assessing Students’ Understanding Towards Critical Reading and Its Impacts Towards Their Lives. IJEE (Indonesian Journal of English Education), 5(2), 191-203. doi:10.15408/ijee.v5i2.9532.

This is a qualitative study trying to find out the students’ ability in applying the critical thinking skill while doing the TOEFL ITP reading test. The student participants were 140 university students in one of the private universities in Indonesia. In order to find out the answer, this research was firstly done by looking at the relationship of critical thinking and reading comprehension skill and investigating the level of students’ reading ability by contrasting their reading score to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The study found out that there was an inseparable connection between the students’ critical thinking skill and reading competence and that majority of the student participants were very weak in critical thinking and reading competence skills and so placed at the bottom level of the CEFR.