Friday, November 13, 2026

The provided documents detail the systematic persecution and mass internment of ethnic minorities, particularly Uyghurs, by the Chinese government in the Xinjiang region. Witnesses and former officials describe night raids, forced disappearances, and the destruction of religious sites like mosques and graves. Leaked government files further expose a comprehensive strategy of surveillance, mandatory political indoctrination, and forced labor. Additionally, individuals face severe restrictions on privacy, travel, and cultural practices under the guise of counter-terrorism and deradicalization.

Academic Writing Tips for Beginners: Finding Research Ideas

A. Finding Ideas from Everyday Experiences

1. Record “Small Moments That Bother You” (Noticing)

Carry a notebook (or simply use your smartphone) and write down anything that makes you feel surprised, annoyed, or curious. For example:

“Why do students remain silent when asked to speak English in class, even though they communicate fluently on WhatsApp?”
“Why do I understand learning materials better from YouTube than from textbooks?”

2. Turn Complaints into Research Questions

Complaint: “The reading materials are boring.”

Research question: “What types of texts do students find interesting, and why?”

This can be the starting point for identifying a research problem.

3. Observe Your Immediate Environment

Pay attention to your classroom, campus, social media, textbooks, friends' conversations, and learning or teaching experiences. These everyday experiences are valuable because you have direct access to them and understand their contexts.

4. Apply the Three-Step Pattern: Observe → Question → Investigate

Observe a phenomenon, formulate a question using why, how, or what impact, and then check whether previous studies have addressed it.

5. Remember: Personal Experience Is Not Research Data

Personal experience is only a starting point. To develop it into academic writing, you must support it with relevant theories and previous research and then investigate it using empirical data.

B. Finding Ideas from Previous Studies

1. Start with Keywords Related to Your Interests

Search Google Scholar, Scopus, ERIC, DOAJ, or Garuda (for Indonesian journals) using two or three keywords. For example, “intercultural content” + “EFL textbook.” Try different synonyms and alternative English terms to broaden your search.

2. Select 5–10 Relevant Articles and Read Them Strategically

Do not read every article from beginning to end immediately. Follow this reading sequence:

Abstract → Introduction → Conclusion → Methodology and Findings.
Focus on the research gap and suggestions for further research.

3. Make Use of the “Limitations” and “Suggestions for Future Research” Sections

These sections are among the easiest sources of research ideas for beginners. Authors often explicitly state: “Future research could investigate...” This may provide an opportunity for your own research topic.

4. Create a Simple Literature Synthesis Table

Author (Year)	Topic	Theory	Method	Participants/Data	Findings	Research Gap/Limitations

After reviewing and filling in information from 8–10 articles, you will usually begin to recognize research patterns and identify potential gaps.

5. Identify Common Types of Research Gaps

Contextual gap: A topic has been investigated in the United States or China but has not yet been explored in Indonesia or your local context.
Participant gap: Previous studies have focused on university students, but not on junior high school students.
Methodological gap: Previous studies have employed quantitative methods, but qualitative research is still needed, or vice versa.
Theoretical gap: A phenomenon can be examined using a different theoretical framework.
Temporal gap: Previous findings are outdated and need to be updated.
Contradictory findings: Researchers A and B have reported conflicting findings that require further investigation.

6. Follow the Citations (Citation Chasing)

Blog Dr. Faizal Risdianto: A.R.G.I: SFL appraisal, register, genre, and ideol...

Blog Dr. Faizal Risdianto: A.R.G.I: SFL appraisal, register, genre, and ideol...: The most important proposition in SFL Appraisal framework is that it is a system of interpersonal meaning that concerns evaluation, focusing...

The nature of Qualitative research

Qualitative research is an inquiry approach that explores how people experience, interpret, and give meaning to social or educational phenomena. In linguistics and English Language Teaching (ELT), it is especially useful for studying classroom interaction, learner beliefs, teacher practice, and language use in real contexts.leedsbeckett.ac+1

SOURCE: https://www.perplexity.ai/session/1cd7eee3-bee4-4f9a-9770-17c16a02cae1

Definition

Creswell defines qualitative research as an approach for exploring and understanding the meanings that individuals or groups assign to a social or human problem. Its process involves emerging questions, data collected in participants’ settings, inductive analysis from particular cases to broader themes, and researcher interpretation.leedsbeckett.ac+1

C. R. Kothari describes qualitative research as research that seeks depth and context through non-numerical evidence, such as interviews and observations, rather than primarily through statistical measurement.nuevo.ieem.edu

Bogdan and Biklen characterize qualitative research in education as naturalistic: it uses real settings as the direct source of data, produces descriptive data, focuses on process, analyzes data inductively, and treats participants’ meanings as central.idr.uin-antasari.ac+1

Nature of qualitative research

Feature	What it means in practice
Natural setting	Data are gathered where the phenomenon occurs, such as an English classroom, school, or online learning environment. fenix.iseg.ulisboa+1
Researcher as instrument	The researcher observes, interviews, takes field notes, and interprets participants’ experiences. cjc-rcc.ucalgary+1
Descriptive data	The main data are words, conversations, documents, field notes, and images—not only numerical scores. fenix.iseg.ulisboa+1
Process orientation	Researchers study how something develops, such as how learners improve speaking confidence or how teachers scaffold vocabulary. cjc-rcc.ucalgary+1
Inductive analysis	Themes, categories, and explanations emerge from the data rather than being imposed entirely from a prior hypothesis. leedsbeckett.ac+1
Meaning-centered	The focus is participants’ perspectives: what an experience means to them and why they act as they do. leedsbeckett.ac+1

How it works

A typical qualitative study follows a flexible but systematic sequence:

Identify a meaningful problem. For example: “How do Indonesian EFL students experience anxiety when speaking English in class?”
Choose a qualitative design. Common options include case study, ethnography, narrative inquiry, phenomenology, and grounded theory.fenix.iseg.ulisboa+1
Select participants and a site. A researcher may work with one class, several students, teachers, or a school community, using purposive sampling to select information-rich participants.
Collect data. Common methods are semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, reflective journals, audio/video recordings, documents, and open-ended questionnaires.
Analyze data inductively. Following Miles and Huberman, researchers engage in data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification; these activities are iterative rather than strictly linear.businesssciencedaily+1
Develop themes and interpretations. The researcher codes transcripts and field notes, groups related codes into themes, and explains patterns in relation to the research questions.obssr.od.nih+1
Ensure trustworthiness. Researchers use strategies such as member checking, triangulation, thick description, peer debriefing, and an audit trail to strengthen credibility and dependability.
Report findings. The report usually presents rich description, participant quotations, themes, and an interpretation grounded in the data.

Miles and Huberman’s analysis model

Miles and Huberman view qualitative analysis as a continuous, interactive process rather than a simple sequence of steps. Their model has four connected activities: data collection, data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification.businesssciencedaily

Data condensation means selecting, focusing, simplifying, and coding large amounts of interview or observation data.iies.gusec.edu
Data display organizes condensed data through matrices, charts, networks, or thematic tables so patterns become visible.theculturelab.umd+1
Conclusion drawing and verification means forming provisional interpretations and repeatedly checking them against the full data set.businesssciencedaily+1

For example, after interviewing EFL students, a researcher may code comments such as “I am afraid of making mistakes,” “my friends laugh,” and “I avoid answering” into a theme called fear of negative evaluation.

Examples in linguistics and ELT

Research focus	Possible qualitative design	Data and analysis
Students’ experiences of speaking anxiety	Phenomenological study	Interviews with EFL students; themes such as fear of mistakes, peer judgment, and low confidence
Teacher questioning in English classrooms	Classroom ethnography or case study	Observation notes, lesson recordings, transcripts; analysis of question types, wait time, and student responses
Learners’ beliefs about vocabulary learning	Case study	Interviews, learning diaries, and reflective journals; thematic analysis of learning strategies
Use of English in multilingual classrooms	Ethnography	Field notes, recordings, and interviews; analysis of code-switching, language choice, and identity
Teacher professional development	Narrative inquiry	Teacher stories and interviews; analysis of how teachers interpret changes in their teaching
Digital tools in ELT	Case study	Observations of online lessons, student reflections, and teacher interviews; themes on engagement and barriers

A concrete ELT example: a researcher studies why low-proficiency senior high school students avoid speaking English. They observe lessons, interview eight students and two teachers, collect students’ reflective journals, then identify themes such as fear of peer criticism, limited vocabulary, teacher correction practices, and classroom participation norms. The findings could help design a more supportive speaking classroom.

Scholarly foundations

Creswell emphasizes meaning-making, natural settings, emergent procedures, inductive analysis, and interpretation.leedsbeckett.ac+1
Bogdan and Biklen emphasize the naturalistic, descriptive, process-oriented, inductive, and meaning-centered nature of educational qualitative research.idr.uin-antasari.ac+1
Miles and Huberman provide a practical model for managing and analyzing qualitative data through condensation, display, and verification.theculturelab.umd+1
Kothari highlights the use of non-numerical data, such as interviews and observations, to achieve depth and contextual understanding.nuevo.ieem.edu
Douglas Brown is relevant in ELT because his work on language learning and teaching encourages researchers to examine learners’ affective factors, classroom interaction, motivation, and communicative language use—areas well suited to qualitative inquiry. His perspective supports studying language learning as a human, contextual, and interactive process rather than merely as measurable test performance.

In short, qualitative research in linguistics and ELT asks how and why language learning and teaching happen as they do, using rich contextual evidence to explain participants’ experiences and meanings.

Friday, November 6, 2026

Kebenaran selalu sederhana dan jujur

"Kebenaran selalu sederhana dan jujur. Kebohongan selalu rumit dan berkelok-kelok."

by Leo Tolstoy, Sastrawan Rusia

HAPPY UAS ASSIGNMENT OF ACADEMIC WRITING 2026

Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

Dear students,

Please carefully read the following instructions and guidelines for your Final Examination (UAS) assignment in the Academic Writing course.

1. Assignment Description

You are required to develop a research proposal employing a qualitative research approach. Your proposal should clearly identify the anticipated research participants or respondents and/or the written or spoken data that will serve as the primary sources of your research.

2. Required Components of the Research Proposal

Your research proposal must include the following seven components:

a. Research Title
Provide a clear, specific, and academically appropriate title that reflects the focus of your proposed research.

b. Research Problems and Rationale
Identify the research gap, explain the significance of the research, and highlight its potential theoretical contributions. You should demonstrate an academic concern or research problem (keresahan akademik) that justifies why the study is worth conducting.

c. Research Locus and Primary Data Sources
Specify the anticipated research setting, participants/respondents, and/or sources of primary data. These may include written texts, spoken discourse, interviews, conversations, or other relevant qualitative data.

d. Research Questions / Problem Statements
Formulate at least two research questions or problem statements that will guide your investigation.

e. Theoretical Framework
Identify and explain the relevant theories or theoretical frameworks that will underpin your research analysis.

f. Research Methodology
Describe the research methods you intend to employ. Your study must adopt a qualitative research approach using a case study design.

g. References / Bibliography
Provide a list of relevant academic references that support your research topic, theoretical framework, and methodological approach.

For further guidance, please refer to the following document: Focus the Locus of Your Research UAS Assignment Dec 2022.pdf (available on Google Drive).

3. Submission Link

Submit your completed research proposal through the following Google Forms link:

https://forms.gle/rqi9PrNFy9yw26UP8

4. Submission Deadline: Saturday, December 19, at 11:59 PM (midnight).

Please ensure that your assignment is submitted before the deadline. Late submissions may not be accepted.

5. Video Explanation and Further Guidance

For a more comprehensive explanation of the Academic Writing final examination assignment, please watch the following instructional video:

https://youtu.be/IJmGUUbyKRo

Please pay close attention to all the requirements and ensure that your research proposal demonstrates a clear research focus, a well-defined academic problem, an appropriate theoretical foundation, and a coherent qualitative research methodology.

I wish you all the best in completing your final examination assignment.

Wassalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

Thursday, November 5, 2026

French offers various ways of saying hello

French offers various ways of saying hello depending on the level of formality, time of day, social relationships, and communicative situations. The most common expressions include Bonjour (Hello/Good morning), a polite and universal greeting; Bonsoir (Good evening), used in the evening; and Salut (Hi/Hey), an informal greeting among friends, classmates, and family members. Other expressions, such as Bonjour à tous (Hello, everyone) and Bonjour, Monsieur/Madame (Hello, Sir/Madam), are appropriate for addressing groups or showing respect in professional and formal interactions.

French also has several friendly and context-specific greetings. Coucou expresses warmth, affection, and familiarity, while Ça va? and Comment ça va? mean "How are you?" and help establish interpersonal connections. Quoi de neuf? (What's new?) invites people to share recent experiences, whereas Enchanté(e) (Nice to meet you) is commonly used when meeting someone for the first time. Other expressions include Allô for telephone conversations, Rebonjour for greeting someone again, and Bienvenue for welcoming guests. Regional variations also exist; for example, Bon matin (Good morning) is particularly associated with Quebec French, while French greetings in Senegal may coexist with local expressions such as the Wolof Nanga def?.

From a sociolinguistic and pragmatic perspective, French greetings communicate more than simply acknowledging someone's presence; they reflect politeness, social distance, solidarity, familiarity, respect, and cultural conventions. The choice between Bonjour and Salut, for instance, indicates differences in formality and interpersonal relationships, while Coucou conveys emotional closeness and Bonjour, Monsieur/Madame demonstrates respect. In France, saying Bonjour when entering shops, restaurants, or offices is an important politeness convention, as beginning a conversation directly with a request may sound impolite. Therefore, understanding these expressions helps language learners develop pragmatic competence, appropriate register selection, and intercultural communication skills.

Tuesday, November 3, 2026

MATERI KULIAH PAK FAIZAL

1. New eBooks

2. For Your Information: AI dan Analisis Data

Blackbox AI – AI assistant untuk membantu pekerjaan berbasis data dan pemrograman.
Web Tools, Aplikasi, Software + AI untuk Analisis Data Kuantitatif – tautan artikel pendukung.
AI Research Assistants dan Pencarian Research Gap and Novelty

3. Materi Perkuliahan dan E-Books

4. Only for Skripsi Fighters

collocation vs adjacency pair

Collocation is a habitual combination of words within language, while an adjacency pair is a two-turn conversational structure in which one speaker’s turn makes a particular kind of response expected. They belong to different levels of analysis: collocation is lexical, adjacency pairs are interactional.[ladal.edu][studocu]

Core difference

Feature	Collocation	Adjacency pair
What it is	Words that commonly occur together	Two related turns by different speakers
Level	Lexis / phraseology	Conversation / discourse
Focus	Word combinations	Social interaction and turn-taking
Example	make a decision, heavy rain	Question → answer; greeting → greeting
Relation	One word predicts another word	First turn creates an expectation for the second turn

Collocations are recurrent word partnerships, such as strong tea rather than normally powerful tea, or make a decision rather than do a decision. They may be adjacent, but they can also occur with words in between.[ladal.edu][files.eric.ed]

Collocation

A collocation is a combination of two or more words that co-occur more frequently than chance would predict. It is about which words naturally go together.[ladal.edu][ucrel.lancs.ac]

Examples:

heavy rain — not usually strong rain
make a decision — not usually do a decision
fast food
take medicine
commit a crime

In text analysis, you might identify provide information as a collocation; it can even appear non-adjacent, as in “provide some of the information.”[files.eric.ed][site.uottawa]

Adjacency pair

An adjacency pair is a sequence of two conversational turns: a first pair part and a second pair part. The first turn creates an expectation that the next turn will perform a related action.[studocu]

Examples:

Question → Answer: “Where do you live?” → “In Salatiga.”
Greeting → Greeting: “Good morning.” → “Good morning.”
Invitation → Acceptance/declination: “Would you like coffee?” → “Yes, please.”
Complaint → Apology: “You arrived late.” → “I’m sorry.”
Compliment → Response: “I like your presentation.” → “Thank you.”

The two turns are linked by their conversational function, not by word frequency.[studocu]

Quick illustration

A: “Could you close the window?”
B: “Sure.”

Here, request → acceptance is an adjacency pair. Within A’s utterance, close the window is a natural word combination, but the key interactional pattern is the request followed by an appropriate response.[studocu]

In short: collocations link words; adjacency pairs link speakers’ turns.[ladal.edu][studocu]

COHESION VS. COHERENCE

COHESION VS. COHERENCE

Cohesion is the visible “glue” that links words and sentences; coherence is the reader’s sense that the ideas form a meaningful, logical whole. A text can be cohesive but incoherent, or coherent despite limited cohesion.[web.unica][files.eric.ed]

Main difference

Aspect	Cohesion	Coherence
Level	Micro-level: sentences and clauses	Macro-level: whole text or paragraph
Nature	Linguistic/grammatical links	Logical and conceptual unity
Where it appears	On the surface of the text	In the reader’s interpretation
Examples	Pronouns, repetition, connectives, substitutions	Topic development, relevance, sequence of ideas
Main question	How are these parts formally connected?	Do the ideas make sense together?

Cohesion uses explicit cues such as pronouns, repeated words, and connectors like because, therefore, and however. Coherence depends on those cues but also on background knowledge, context, and the reader’s ability to infer relationships between ideas.[files.eric.ed][acikders.ankara.edu]

Cohesion in text analysis

Cohesive devices include:

Reference: “Ani bought a book. She read it all night.” — She refers to Ani.
Lexical repetition: “The storm damaged the roof. The storm also knocked down trees.”
Connectives: “He was tired; therefore, he went to bed.”
Substitution/ellipsis: “Would you like tea?” “Yes, I’d like one.” / “I will go if you will.”

These devices help readers track participants, topics, and relationships across sentences.[files.eric.ed][eapfoundation]

Coherence in text analysis

Coherence concerns whether the text has a clear central idea and whether its sentences are relevant and logically ordered. It is not always marked by explicit connectors; readers infer it from content and context.[web.unica][ub]

Example of a coherent paragraph:

Remote work has changed how teams communicate. Employees now rely more on written updates, video meetings, and shared documents. As a result, clear writing has become an important workplace skill.

The ideas move logically from a general change to its effects and then to a conclusion. There is some cohesion—as a result—but the coherence comes mainly from the unified topic and logical progression.[eapfoundation][awec.ntu.edu]

Examples showing the contrast

Cohesive but not coherent

My brother likes football. Footballs are usually round. Round objects include oranges. Oranges contain vitamin C.

The text uses repetition and related nouns, so it is fairly cohesive. But it does not develop one clear point, so readers may find it incoherent.[web.unica][journal.unnes.ac]

Coherent but not highly cohesive

Husband take gun shoot. Go outside die. Call police. Emergency 911.

This lacks polished grammatical linking, but a reader can reconstruct a sequence of events and understand the overall situation. It is therefore relatively coherent despite weak cohesion.[journals.sagepub]

In analysis

When analyzing a text, ask:

For cohesion: Which pronouns, repetitions, substitutions, and connectors link clauses or sentences?
For coherence: What is the main idea? Are all sentences relevant? Does the order of ideas help the reader understand the message?

In short, cohesion is about surface connectivity, while coherence is about underlying meaningfulness.[acikders.ankara.edu][uni-saarland]

Pages