Developing Critical Literacy Practices using Speaking Tasks of
Tertiary Level Students
Novia Trisanti
English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Semarang
Keywords: Critical Literacy practices, Speaking Task, Tertiary students.
Abstract: Teaching English as a second language means that all skills from listening, reading, writing and speaking are
scoped. When a teacher focuses on reading, students need to learn how to analyse wide range of reading texts
as it is seen as response to the social construction of one’s peers, culture, communities and world (Lesley,
2004). This study suggests that lecturers can actively incorporate critical literacy practices into speaking task
as it can generate more meaningful learning experiences among their learners and encourages students to use
their voices and life experiences as valid sources (Hass-Dyson, 2001 as cited by Kaur and Shidu, 2014). Using
a qualitative paradigm, the subjects of the study were the 3rd semester students of English Department at
Universitas Negeri Semarang. The questionnaire was given to investigate students’ attitude in critical literacy
practices which were varied using current texts from various sources. The steps of critical instructions were
structured from asking the students to search information or texts, asking them to comprehend and report the
content of the texts. The findings showed that the tertiary level students were accustomed to reading texts and
commenting critically when they had the speaking tasks. Their critical opinion contains wide range of
vocabulary and grammatical awareness.
1 INTRODUCTION
Tertiary level education means that it is the level in
which the learners need to have wider knowledge. For
that reason, the students are expected to be
independent learners from the moment they start
entering the tertiary level education. The learners are
also expected to be self- motivated. While, in the
teaching and learning process in tertiary level, it
needs more effort on making the higher education
learners comprehend the texts well from all the
materials given to them. The need to understand,
analyse, comprehend and finally create their own
critical texts is very essential to be done by the tertiary
learners.
In addition, the tertiary level students are strived
for being able to develop their knowledge as much as
they can, without being guided by the lecturer. It is a
must for the students to read a lot of literature to
improve their knowledge. However, in receiving the
information, it is a must for the students to filter the
information that they get wisely. They have to be
critically aware of the idea that the author writes so
their ability of critical literacy can be improved.
The critical literacy is indeed needed by the
students in comprehending the text. When the
students are having the critical literacy on them, they
are able to find the rationale idea that the author tries
to inform the reader. The students are also able to
absorb and process the information that they get
wisely and effectively.
The critical literacy, furthermore, will make the
students able to think out of context by thinking the
other possibility of the idea given by the author. It,
however, trains the students’ brain to work over and
over again which simultaneously give them more
information than they firstly needed. The more
information that the students get, will, as a result, give
them many supporting ideas to be talked. If it is
related to the speaking skills, the critical literacy helps
the students to speak a lot of idea due to the many
literatures that they have already read.
From the background above, the purpose of
conducting this study was to be able to describe the
critical literacy process which was incorporated in
speaking class. The students of tertiary level were
tried to be given by the steps of comprehending the
texts until they can absorb the information and finally
Trisanti, N.
Developing Critical Literacy Practices using Speaking Tasks of Tertiary Level Students.
DOI: 10.5220/0007166503090312
In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference
on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 309-312
ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
309

able to create opinion or critical comments via
speaking task instructed by the lecturer in the class.
In applying the critical literacy process, the
students need to be a critical reader. According to
Goodwyn and Stables (2004) as cited by Kaur and
Sidhu (2014) for being able to be a critical reader, the
reader needs to:
 Consider the author’s purpose in writing the
account
 Seek to identify the main claims the authors
make in putting forward their argument
 Adopt a sceptical stance towards the author’s
claims, checking whether they support
convincingly what they assert
 Question whether the author has sufficient
backing for the generalizations that they are
making
 Consider whether and how any values guiding
the author’s work may affect what they claim
Related to this study, there were some previous
studies which also studied about the application of
critical literacy in the language classroom. For
example, the study which was conducted by Kaur and
Sidhu (2014) had found that the tertiary level learners
in Malaysia still had difficulties in reading strategies.
Those were understanding the author’s message,
distinguishing facts from opinion, understanding
main ideas, guessing meaning from context, and
making inferences. It was suggested in Kaur and
Sidhu’ study (2014) that university lecturer can
incorporate more literacy practices and theories to get
more meaningful learning for the learners. Another
study was conducted by Fajardo (2016), one of
findings described the reading process when students
address articles of local issues, represents that student
build knowledge from their real context likewise,
building that knowledge has a straight connection to
what students have experienced before. This means
all the inter-textual connections student create not
only from the previous knowledge they possess when
they are at school, but also, the connections they do
when they access technological platforms such as
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snap chat and else.
Another study then conducted by Jeong (2012) with
the title “Developing Critical Literacy through
English Newspaper Articles for High Intermediate
EFL Students in Korea”. It was found that However,
critical literacy class seems to be difficult for teachers
to implement in their teaching experiences. First,
English newspapers have not been instituted as part
of official English curriculums in current education
systems. Second, applying critical literacy to English
classrooms has been rare in EFL situations because
teachers are busy catching up with current schedules
which are already set up according to curriculums.
Third, EFL teachers may not have been educated in
the ways of critical literacy, or they may not be
interested. Unfortunately, many fields and subjects
such as science and social studies value and utilize
critical literacy in their classes more often than EFL
classrooms (Jeong, 2012)
From those three studies mentioned, this study has
almost the same research conducted. Dealing with the
speaking task, there is a need to be more interactive
and active in the class, the students were asked to
involve in various tasks based on the purpose of the
lesson. The tasks that are implemented in the class
should be appropriate with the adult’s characters. It is
not only dealing with the active one but also with the
matters of fluency and encompasses some other
aspect like pronunciation, vocabulary grammar and
accuracy.
2 RESEARCH METHOD
In this qualitative study, the data were collected from
the 3rd semester students of English Department at
Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES) in 2017. The
students were, firstly, instructed to make group and
found a topic, the lecturer gave some topics related to
their current discussion. Then, the students chose one
for each group based on their preference. They had to
discuss it with their group member then found texts
that supported the topic that they chose. The group
that they created consisted of roles such as group
leader, note taker, consultant, observer and group
member. The texts chosen then were varied.
However, it was led by the lecturer to find them by
considering on the facts and current issues related to
the topics they chose. It needed time, in fact, for the
students to find the appropriate texts outside of the
class.
When they found the texts, they had to implement
the process of literacy by reading the texts and trying
to understand and comprehend the content of the texts
also made notes of information that could be used by
them as their support in their speaking later on. After
all of them were ready, the students were asked to
simulate in a group discussion of the topic that they
were interested in. It was free for them to speak and
gave critical comments, based on the information
they got on the texts, about the topic that they chose.
The oral presentation, however, is used as an
evaluation of students speaking ability. The informal
interview also conducted in order to know whether
the literacy process practice can help them to speak
fluently that before.
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
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3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The major finding is related to the results of student
oral performance through speaking task namely
group discussion simulation. The finding of the
students’ performance in speaking task, that was the
group discussion simulation, was also discussed
based on the observation analysis results. Before the
students performed their group discussion simulation
as their speaking task, the critical reading activities of
texts given by the lecturer were done many times in
order to get more knowledge and various perspectives
when they had to deliver their ideas. Here is the
percentage of the improvement results from the
simulation.
Table 1: Result of group discussion simulation 1
(preparation).
GROUP DISCUSSION SIMULATION 1
(PREPARATION)
Pronunciation
50% of all students have
not achieved the
appropriate pronunciation
in their speaking
Fluency
80% of all students have
not achieved the fluency
rate as expected
Content of critical
comment
70% of all students have
not achieved the critical
comment practice to show
the knowledge and
comprehending of the texts
Table 2: Result of group discussion simulation (real
assessment)
GROUP DISCUSSION SIMULATION 2 (REAL
ASSESSMENT)
Pronunciation
60% of all students have
achieved the appropriate
pronunciation in their
speaking
Fluency
70% of all students have
achieved the fluency rate
as expected
Content of critical
comment
70% of all students have
achieved the critical
comment practice to show
the knowledge and
comprehending of the
texts.
From the findings of achievement results of
students via speaking task, it can be seen that there is
slight improvement on the aspect of pronunciation,
fluency and students’ critical comment on the texts
that they have read. The results indicate that the need
to practice and implement the steps of critical literacy
helps the students to be better in their aspects of
speaking ability, namely fluency and ideas.
Also, the learners feel that when they engaged in
paired and group, they can absorb more information
from the texts they have read from their peers. It
increases the self- regulated motivation to learn and
read some texts because there is interactive
communication between and among peers to argue,
discuss and solve the problems of the topics they have
already chosen to be discussed in the group.
From all the reading processes of the students did
in and outside the class, the lecturer can see that the
tertiary learners are needed to practice the literacy
process like inference, questioning, clarifying,
summarizing and giving prediction from the
problems or cases based on the texts they have
chosen. It was real finding to be able to see that the
tertiary level learners finally are able to give critical
comments in the class after they practice the critical
literacy process outside the class with their groups.
From the topics that they chose, the examples of
the texts are “the difference between past and
nowadays in terms of lifestyle”, “technology in
modern era”, and “the importance of having breakfast
for healthy”. They showed their self-motivation to
summarize by their own by using some reading
strategies like scanning and skimming, inference and
analysing. The learners seemed to have ideas to be
delivered in their speaking tasks based on the course
purpose that has to be achieved.
This study, thus, shows the potential impact of the
effectiveness incorporating the critical literacy
process in the Speaking class since it gives chance to
the tertiary learners to absorb more information from
the texts and practice to share ideas related to the texts
that they have read. Moreover, the responsibility of
the learners become increasing because the need and
effort to share information are assessed by the lecturer
through the speaking task activity formally and
informally.
Although sometimes in some meetings of the
class, the responsibility of the students is very
difficult to be seen. They are able to construct
knowledge in their groups because they have role to
be involved in the group discussion. Thus, the
lecturers need to be very careful in observing the
students activity when they have group discussion.
The assessment should be done continuously in order
to see and able to know the students’ improvement on
the critical analysis and ideas delivered when they
have speaking performance.
Developing Critical Literacy Practices using Speaking Tasks of Tertiary Level Students
311

4 CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, there are a lot of benefits of
incorporating the critical literacy process in teaching
Speaking. It can be said that because during reading
activity as the process of literacy, the students can get
more knowledge. It gives diverse learning and
opportunities to adults learners like the students of
tertiary level.
It can also strengthen the academic relationship
among peers in the class since it gives more
opportunities to the learners to interact one another
outside and inside the class using the target language
to be learned. It suggested to university lecturer to be
more often to give learning materials which contain
more and various texts related to the course purpose
in order to bring the tertiary students to think
critically. Some activities of critical reading practices
are also recommended to the teaching and learning in
tertiary level.
REFERENCES
Fajardo, M. F. 2016. A Review of Critical Literacy Beliefs
and Practices of English Language Learners and
Teachers. University of Sydney Paper in TESOL.
http://faculty.edfac.usyd.edu.au/projects/usp_in_tesol/
pdf/volume10/Article02.pdf
Jeong. M. 2012. Developing Critical Literacy through
English Newspaper Articles for High Intermediate EFL
Students in Korea. University of Wisconsin River Falls.
file:///C:/Users/hp/Downloads/MiokJeong.pdf
Kaur, S., Sidhu, G. K. 2014. Evaluating the Critical
Literacy Practices of Tertiary Students. Procedia-
Social and Behavioral Science, 44- 52.
Lesley, M. 2004. Looking for Critical Literacy with
Postbaccalaureatte Content Area Literacy Studies.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1598/JAAL.48.4
.5/full
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Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
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