Students’ Appraisal on Joining an English Course through Online

Learning System

Melania Wiannastiti

Language Center, Computer Science, Faculty of Humanities, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, Indonesia 11480

Keywords: Learning, Students, Online

Abstract: Online learning has become a more popular learning system in higher education especially in Indonesia.

Previous research studies on online learning system had been carried out, nonetheless most of them revealed

the result of its system in general but none focused on the specific course. By using a narrative discourse

approach, this study aims to find out the type of appraisal used by students joining English Professional

Course at BINUS Online Learning, to reveal the evaluative meaning of students’ appraisals on the course

and to find out the impacts of students’ appraisals toward the development of the English Professional

Course. WhatsApp (WA) was used as the media to get the data from six students joining the course from six

different learning centres. Appraisal theory is used as the approach to analyse the data. The results shows

that students’ attitude toward the course is more on positive feelings than the negative ones and some critics

have impacts toward the development of the course.

1 INTRODUCTION

Online learning has become more popular since the

internet provides opportunities for people to study

courses without obligation to do interaction

physically (Marija, 2012). Previous studies have

revealed students’ perception toward online learning

that they were motivated by the material designed

and its system of learning (Hart, 2012). Some

positive and negative attitudes toward the online

learning system were the result of joining this

program (Endut, Isa, Azis & Jono, 2012; Zamari,

Adnan, Idris & Yusof, 2012) a strong evidence that

online learning is as effective as the traditional

model of learning (Hannay, 2006; Nguyen, 2015;

Ni, 2015).

Bina Nusantara (BINUS) University Jakarta by a

decree of number 146/E/O/2014 issued by The

Ministry of Education on 10 July 2014 currently

offers five bachelor degree programs with four

credits of English Professional Course. The students

learn four language skills in 10 weeks which cover

16 sessions via Learning Management System

(LMS) which includes the discussion forum,

individual and group assignments and quizzes. They

meet the lecturer through video conference where

they can communicate virtually like in the real class.

This video conference is very effective in doing the

virtual class in online learning classes (Pandey &

Pande, 2014).

The main purposes of this research study are to

find out the type of appraisals used by students

joining English Professional Course, to reveal the

evaluative meaning of students’ appraisal on English

Professional Course after they join the course and to

find the impacts of students’ appraisal toward the

development of the English Professional Course.

This finding is significant for the Course Outline

Content development and its material, including type

of quizzes, personal and group assignments, and

final exam variations based on its better learning

outcomes. It is also significant for the lecturers and

tutors who are responsible to handle video

conferences and weekly discussion forum to prepare

and provide updated material needed by the

students.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Narrative Discourse

Narrative discourse is commonly used by

researchers to enable them both to describe the

482

Wiannastiti, M.

Students’ Appraisal on Joining an English Course through Online Learning System.

DOI: 10.5220/0010011300002917

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social Sciences, Laws, Arts and Humanities (BINUS-JIC 2018), pages 482-487

ISBN: 978-989-758-515-9

 2022 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All r ights reserved

research and to approach their objects (

Tomaščíková,

2009)

. It is used as an approach to get the data from

the respondents by using narrative that commonly

states the event and conveys contextual complexities

and helped to interpret other types of evidence

(Jameson, 2005; Lindgren & McDaniel, 2012).

Mostly, it is used to get the data by having

interviews or dialogues which nowadays some social

media can be used to communicate not only by face

to face dialogue but also can be used as the tools to

get the data (Shlezak, 2015).

2.2 Appraisal Theory

Eggins and Slade (Eggins & Slade, 1997) stated that

appraisal refers to the attitudinal colouring of talk

during a range of dimension and has attitude

containing affect, judgment, appreciation, and

amplification while Martin’s (Martin & Rose, 2008;

Oteiza, 2017) focuses on an analysis of meanings in

context then it moves towards rhetorical effects

(Martin & White, 2005; Martin & Rose, 2008).

Moreover, Martin and White concern on appraisal in

judgment, affect and appreciation which link to one

another with affect as the domain in between as it

can been seen in picture 1.

Figure 1. Judgment and appreciation by (Martin & White,

2005).

According to them (Martin & White, 2005), the

maps of feeling (affect, judgment and appreciation)

offered as a tool for those who need something to

manage the analysis of evaluation in discourse. They

also provides for analyses of those meanings by

which texts convey positive or negative assessments

(Arunsirot, 2014; White, 2015). Attitude in appraisal

theory by Martin (Martin & White, 2005) contains

affect which concerns with registering positive and

negative feelings whether feeling happy or sad,

confident or anxious, interested or bored,

appreciation that involves evaluations of semiotic

and natural phenomena. He related his theory of

appraisal to Halliday (Martin & White, 2005;

Halliday, 1978) by relating to these realizations

comprise modification of participants and processes,

affective mental and behavioural processes, and

modal Adjuncts (picture 2)

Figure 2. Type of Affect.

Figure 3. Types of appreciation (Martin & White, 2005).

The three frameworks are provided by Martin and

White (Martin & White, 2005) to analyse text that

related to affect as quality, processes and comment.

Martin in picture 3 divides the types of appreciation

into two categories positive and negative and

focused on the reaction, composition and valuation.

3 METHODS

Six students of BINUS Online Learning joined

English Professional class at the odd semester period

2 from September – November 2017 which were

selected based on the six different centres. (L) Lady

from Jakarta, (K) Karina from Palembang, (C)

Cathryn from Malang, (Y) Yohanes from Semarang,

(B) Baskara from Bekasi, and (E) Erwin from

Balikpapan - Borneo. The different locations may

contribute the different appraisal

Narrative discourse is used to take the data from

the participants which allows the researcher to do

semi structured interview by using WhatsApp (WA)

messenger as the semantic notification (Al-

Khawaldeh & Mashaqba, 2016; Sánchez-Moyaa &

Cruz-Moyab, 2015). The chat via WA was carried

out for a week and the result of the chat through this

application was used as the raw data of the research.

The sentences as the data was then jotted down into

the main data for analysis. The unit of analysis of

this study is the students’ appraisal which contains

Students’ Appraisal on Joining an English Course through Online Learning System

483

their attitude in joining the English class via online

learning.

4 FINDING AND DISCUSSION

In this discussion, the emoticons used by the

students during the discussion are omitted since the

emoticons sometimes do not support their ideas and

opinion written. Therefore, the discussion is mainly

about the words as semantic unit used in the

discussion.

4.1 Students Attitudes

4.1.1 Reason for Joining Online Learning

Online learning is mostly offered for those who want

to continue their study but has no time to join the

regular class that force them to join the classes

physically. This traditional system of learning does

not allow them to do both working and studying at

the same time (Matsunaga, 2016).

Table 1. Students’ attitude for choosing online learning

Table 2. Students’ attitude toward English Professional

Class

Table 1 shows that the three categories of appraisal

are used although not every aspect is used.

According to their responds, online learning is the

perfect way for them to study since they also work.

They choose the program with the positive feeling

about the flexibility of its method. Y states that for

busy people this program is a good option. A bit

different to Y, B points that one reason is he can

manage his own time by joining the program. The

other idea is stated by C that joining the program

means a consequence that she has double

responsibilities on both her work and the study. Only

one judgment is responded by B in a type of praise.

He shows his feeling of praising the institution in

which the program is held by stating “Hmm, the

other reason because Binus has good

accreditation”. On the contrary, C has a feeling of

insecurity by stating “Learning online does not

mean she can be relax like regular class”. She

shows her insecurity because of her experience.

4.1.2 Ideas on English Professional Course

Table 2 shows only two categories are responded by

the students that B has a positive attitude for a hope

that by learning this course he can speak English

fluently. A better hope is the realization of the

positive attitude. Different idea from B, a graded

feeling of happiness is shown by C by using the

word ‘excited’ instead of using the word ‘happy’ or

‘glad’ to reflect her happiness in joining the course.

Her reason of this attitude is because of her works

environment where most people use English. The

same as C, Y also states his positive feeling that the

course becomes a refresher for his previous skills

and knowledge of English.

The feeling of insecurity raised by B on his

thought of the time for final examination which

might be the same as his plan to go abroad. On the

contrary, he also shows his confident feeling that he

believe by joining this course, he can do good

presentation which can make him feel calmer, and

more powerful when speaking English.

Judgment toward this course are stated by L and

C. L shows her admiration on the place in Bali

where almost all speak English and by joining this

course, it helps her to practice using English which

later will help her with her job. C shows her

judgment by criticizing herself on not so often doing

English presentation and at the same time she

praises the course which she believes it gives her the

way to do good presentation and it will helpful for to

do in the future.

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4.1.3 Discussion Forum. Discussion Forum

Is a Weekly based Forum in Which a

Lecturer and Students Share Ideas

about the Material Learned

This forum plays important roles in online learning

since it is updated weekly. This forum is different

from the main materials which have already been

available and ready to access materials since the

course starts (Huss & Shannon, 2013).

Table 3. Students’ attitude toward discussion forum.

Table 4. Students’ attitude toward Quizzes and

Assignment.

Table 3 shows students’ appraisal in three

categories; affect, judgment and appreciation. From

the aspect of affect, L shows her positive feeling that

she can discuss the material with the lecturer or

tutor. Y also shows his positive feeling but criticizes

the content of the discussion in the forum

Apart from the negative and positive feeling they

share, B and E show their understanding by using

the word ‘know’ and ‘find it easy’ as mental

processes which show the feeling that they have

positive feeling about the forum. L uses the word

‘like’ with the intensity of low valued end (Oteíza,

2017) to show that from the forum she learns

something from the links given in the forum. In

judgment criteria, B criticizes the lecturer about the

topic and suggests that the topic should be updated

while he also appreciates the topics in the forum

which supports him to improve his English.

4.1.4 Quizzes and Assignments

Quizzes and assignments are components in online

learning processes (Buzzetto-More, 2008) to figure

out students’ learning achievement. Table 4 shows

students’ attitudes toward these two components that

only affect and judgment. All students show the

positive and negative feelings toward the quizzes

and assignments. L and B have the positive feeling

about the quizzes that are easy t do, while K shows

both positive and negative feeling. On the contrary,

K states negative feeling because of her bad score

due to the time limitation.

The feeling of insecure is shown by Y by stating

“Quizzes and exams are always nerve-wrecking but

I think it's fine”. On the contrary, C feels secure by

stating that “But at the end of the day, I realize that

it made myself learn a lot, I have to go thru every

process if I want to gain the result”. Only one

student admires the quizzes and assignment that is

appropriate with the curriculum (course outline). On

the contrary, K criticizes the deadline of the quiz

which changes by system while Erwin criticizes the

assignment by stating “But about the multiple choice

question, i think that is not effective, because we

searched answer on internet.” This indicates that the

assignment should be considered to change.

4.1.5 Final Examination

Online learning students have to do the test at the

end of the course (Buzzetto-More, 2008) by

attending physically to the campus or centres. Four

skills are tested; listening, reading, writing and

speaking. The three of them are done in campus’

computer laboratories except speaking test which is

done by video conference.

Table 5. Students’ attitude about Final Examination.

Table 5 shows that students share the feeling of

positive negative and feeling of satisfaction,

happiness and secure. They also state their judgment

by admiring and criticizing. Appreciation is the last

part stated by the students as a reaction to the final

test. Three students share different feeling about the

final test. L has negative feeling caused by the

Internet problem when she took the speaking test via

video conference, while K has both negative and

Students’ Appraisal on Joining an English Course through Online Learning System

485

positive feeling about the final exam. Her positive

feeling is on her writing test but not on her listening

and reading test. She felt nervous because of the

counting down time shown on the screen when she

did the test. The same as K, E feels the same thing as

when he did the test he felt that his time to do was

too short.

The feeling of confidence has been stated by two

students, L and E who have the idea that listening

test is the easiest parts but not the other skills,

especially reading. C feels insecure by being

nervous when she took speaking test via video

conference and when she did the listening and

reading test since it was her first experience. For

final exam. Only C states that she admires the

examiner because her examiner gave her good

feedback that motivated her to do the best and she

finally did it alright. On the contrary, two students

criticize the final exam, especially the listening one.

L felt that she did not focus in doing the listening

test since she needed a headset for the better result

while B criticizes the writing test by stating “the

time is limited and the questions is more than one”

The last is C’s feeling to praise the final

examination. And she appreciates the final exam

system which involves the four skills at once which

on her previous experience those skills are normally

tested separately.

4.2 The Impacts Of Students’

Appraisal

Students’ appraisal toward the English Professional

Course has impacts for the development of the

course, especially from the negative and positive

feelings and the judgment about the process of

running this course. The result of the appraisal

impacts in three parts; the discussion forum, the

quizzes and assignment, and the final examination.

The first is about the discussion forum which

suggests the necessity to pay attention on weekly

topic for discussion which should be relevant and up

to date. It is essential for the students to have the

newest and more interesting topics that can develop

not only their language skills but also their

knowledge. From the students’ appraisal, it can be

seen that they have more positive attitude toward the

quizzes and assignment. Besides, it is also crucial to

know the points the students criticize. The first point

to consider is the type of the quiz which currently

focuses on grammar in multiple choices type. It

needs to be revised or enriched.

The last is the final examination. From the

students’ appraisal, it can impact on the design of

the final test, especially on the speaking and writing

tests. For the speaking test, it should consider to let

the students know the way how to conduct the test,

so students can prepare not only the topics but also

the internet connection since the bad connection of

the internet will influence their performance. For

writing test, it should be consider the number of the

questions and the clear instruction to do it.

5 CONCLUSION

From the discussion, it can be concluded that the

most types of appraisal used by students in

presenting their attitude are in affect and judgment.

They rarely use appreciation point of view.

Moreover, their attitude toward the English

Professional Course is more in positive feeling that

they are happy to join the course and believe by

joining the course they can improve their English

which is very important for their job or future.

Students’ judgments on the English professional

Course create impacts in developing the course,

especially in the discussion forum topics which

should be up to date and in the quizzes and

assignments which should be updated as well since

students have known the key answer of the

assignments.

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