This study investigated the EFL students’ strategies in answering the Listening section of the Paper-based TOEFL test. The samples of this research were purposively selected consisting of 30 English major students at Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The samples were selected based on their recent TOEFL scores. All the selected samples achieved low TOEFL scores, especially for the Listening section. The data were gained by means of closed questionnaire and interviews. The interviews were conducted with three students of the 30 students and they were selected randomly. The results of the questionnaire revealed that the top three strategies the students used when answering the TOEFL questions ranged from the strategies of (1) ‘before listening, I tried to anticipate the topic by looking at the answer in the test book’, (2) ‘while listening, I tried to determine the topic or main idea for each conversation, and (3) ‘before listening, I tried to anticipate what the questions would be and I listened specifically for the answer’. This imply that a majority of students used strategies only to answer part B (dialogues) and part C (monologues) of the TOEFL Listening section. These parts were considered more difficult since many students were not familiar with the topics. Meanwhile, strategies for part A were neglected. These students often forgot to choose answers in this section. Unfortunately, strategies for part A are also important because they can achieve higher scores if the 30 questions in this part are answered correctly.
Purpose of the study: This study was aimed at finding out the potentially disappearing adjectives in Acehnese and the reasons that may contribute to the disappearance by looking at the backgrounds of participants and their language use.
Methodology: This is a sociolinguistic study employing questionnaires, wordlist interviews, and focus group interviews (FGI) as methods of data collection. Fifty Acehnese adjectives extracted from the Swadesh list were tested to 10 younger speakers (age 13-14), who were selected out of 113 respondents who returned the questionnaires. The selection criteria are considered to include age, origin, and parents’ origin. The respondents were all students of years 7 and 8 of a junior high school in a suburban area of Banda Aceh, considered the hot spot for the contact between Indonesian language speakers and Acehnese language speakers. Responses of the 10 participants interviewed were qualitatively analyzed to get the insights and circumstances of the use of the targeted adjectives.
Main Findings: The findings of this study show that 50% of the number of tested words was only known to 50% of the participants interviewed. While the other half of the participants show varied knowledge and understanding of the tested adjectives, the questionnaire response also indicates that these young speakers’ rather negative attitudes toward the Acehnese point to the decreasing domains of language use.
Applications of this study: The finding of this study is expected to contribute to the field of sociolinguistics in the way that it informs about the status and vitality of Acehnese Language from the specific segment of its speakers, which can be taken into consideration in the language policymaking.
Novelty/Originality of this study: This study looks at which vocabulary items (from Swadesh list) are still known to the younger speakers of Acehnese. Specifically, this study focused on the adjectives in Acehnese, which are still familiar to the speakers and which are not.
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