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The community service programme was conducted in the form of an English Club intended for high school students. The high school partner was SMA Immanuel Kalasan, Sleman, Yogyakarta Special Regency. A total of 13 students participated in this extracurricular activity. There were six online, synchronous meetings conducted once a week. Themed "Going Global", the programme aimed to not only facilitate the student participants to improve their English language but also to facilitate them to possess intercultural competence. It was hoped that they would consider globalisation era an opportunity to understand one another and to collaborate to achieve goals together. In practice, each meeting used the combination of a 60-90 minute synchronous Zoom session and asynchronous activities through tasks that should be completed and submitted before the next synchronous meeting. Seen from the indicators of attendance and submission of tasks, it could be stated that several participants were not very motivated to actively participate in the programme. However, seen from the qualitative testimonies of several participants, the programme was engaging and could provide them with meaningful learning. Based on the evaluation of the degree of success of the programme, several conclusions were suggested along with suggestions for future programmes’ improvements.

This community service activity was conducted in the form of online training, focusing on using English for designing virtual travel videos. Participants of this nation-wide training are 25 certified tour guides from various regions in Indonesia, out of 180 registrants. With Atourin as the training partner, the training aimed to facilitate the tour guide participants to be able to make virtual tour videos in English to promote tourism destinations to foreigners who would enjoy them from their homes during the Covid-19 pandemic. The training was conducted for two months in seven meetings via the Zoom platform with each meeting lasting for 120 minutes. At the end of the training, the participants were able to make virtual travel videos promoting tourism destinations in their respective areas. As seen from the participants’ enthusiasm for learning and their activeness in each meeting, it could be concluded that the training was a success. The training refreshed the tour guide participants’ English and improved their mastery before coming back to the tourism industry post-pandemic. Evaluation of the overall programme was conducted as an effort to improve the quality of a similar programme in the future, including conducting hybrid activities synchronously combining offline and online modes, allowing flexibility where participants can choose the mode with which they are more convenient., Kegiatan pengabdian kepada masyarakat (PkM) ini dilaksanakan dalam bentuk pelatihan daring Bahasa Inggris dan pembuatan video perjalanan virtual bagi para pemandu wisata tersertifikasi dari berbagai daerah di Indonesia. Terpilih 25 pemandu wisata dari 180 pendaftar menjadi peserta pelatihan ini. Dengan Atourin sebagai mitra kegiatan, tujuan pelatihan adalah memfasilitasi para pemandu wisata supaya mampu membuat video perjalanan virtual berbahasa Inggris sebagai promosi wisata yang dapat dinikmati orang asing dari rumah mereka di masa pandemi Covid-19. Pelatihan dilaksanakan selama dua bulan dalam tujuh pertemuan daring melalui platform Zoom dengan masing-masing pertemuan berdurasi 120 menit. Di akhir kegiatan, peserta mampu membuat video perjalanan virtual mempromosikan daerah wisatanya masing-masing. Sebagai kesimpulan, kegiatan pelatihan sangat berhasil dilihat dari semangat belajar dan keaktifan para peserta di setiap pertemuan. Bagi para pemandu wisata peserta kegiatan, hasil kegiatan menjadi bahan penyegaran sekaligus meningkatkan kemampuan Bahasa Inggris sebelum kembali terjun dalam industri pariwisata pasca pandemi. Evaluasi kegiatan dilakukan sebagai upaya meningkatkan kualitas kegiatan serupa di masa depan, misalnya pelaksanaan kegiatan PkM secara hybrid pasca pandemi yang memberi keleluasaan kepada peserta untuk memilih metode pembelajaran yang lebih nyaman sesuai kondisi.

The article reports a community service programme in the form of the English Conversation Club (ECC) for students of Kalam Kudus Senior High School, Surakarta, Central Java. It was conducted in the form of eight 40-50-minute online sessions via Google Meet from January 2022 up to May 2022. 30 students participated in the programme. The programme was mainly designed to introduce the participants to varieties of English such as Tagalog, Korean, Japanese, Australian, and Singaporean Englishes and to describe various places in Indonesia or abroad. Introducing varieties of English, more specifically, was intended to nurture positive attitudes towards varieties of English around the world and local accents with speaking English, including Indonesian accents, which in turn could motivate them to speak English confidently regardless of their accents. The participants reported generally positive attitudes towards the programme even though some participants still saw little relevance as to why they should learn varieties of English other than British and American. This slightly negative attitude may be attributed to the participants' limited previous exposure to varieties of English. The combination of limited duration, a big number of participants, and the online mode of the programme may also lessen the effectiveness and how well the materials on varieties of Englishes were delivered. Based on the limitations, it is suggested that to be more effective, future programmes were designed considering more carefully the duration of each meeting, the number of participants, as well as the participants' level of proficiency and previous background knowledge.

Teachers and students all over the world are now facing the biggest shift in their lives, from studying in the school to studying at home, from meeting their teachers and friends face to face to meeting them via technology, and from depending on teachers to give them knowledge to depend on themselves. This change is not easy to cope with, both teachers and students are at their wit’s end. They are confused what to do and if this continues, they will be frustrated and lose their motivation for learning. Many parentscomplain that their children have to do a lot of assignments that overwhelm them. As a result, they lose motivation. To remedy this situation, teacher needs to design activities which are relevant and meaningful to their students.

As institutions of higher education prepare graduates to strive for the more competitive job market, teachers of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) play a pivotal role to nurture and facilitate students’ English competence for career advancement. It is commonly hypothesized that ESP teachers require more than that of general English instructors are capable of in language teaching-related pedagogy. However, limited numbers of such studies have been conducted in Indonesia as a potentially developing country in the world. This quantitative study aims to portray ESP teachers' perceived qualifications, benefits of the program instruction, and its relevance to meet the challenges of the globalization. Initial findings of this study reveal that almost all of the respondents acknowledged the necessity of ESP teachers to demonstrate capacity in educational principle, language learning theory, Linguistics competence, material and media design, classroom management, intercultural understanding, language assessment, and classroom-based research inquiry. It is perceived that successful ESP teaching is significantly required for graduates to excel the job market, increase professionalism at work, and facilitate the nation competitive edge. Furthermore, ESP programs are considered relevant to meet the present and future challenges of globalization. More elaborative findings will be obtained, specifically addressing difference-variance of perceptions according to respondents’ education background and teaching experience.

The effects of submicron core-shell rubber (CSR) particles, nanoclay fillers, and molding parameters on the mechanical properties and cell structure of injection-molded microcellular polyamide-6 (PA6) composites were studied. The experimental results of PA6 nanocomposites with 5.0 and 7.5 wt% nanoclay loadings and of CSR-modified PA6 composites with 0.5 and 3.1 wt% CSR loadings were compared to their neat resin counterparts. This study found that nanoclay was more efficient in promoting a smaller cell size, larger cell density, and higher tensile strength for microcellular injection molding parts. A higher nanoclay loading led to more brittle behavior for microcellular parts. It was found that a proper amount of CSR particles could be added to the microcellular injection-molded PA6 to reduce the cell size, increase the cell density, and enhance the toughness of the molded part. However, CSR particles were less effective cell nucleation agents as compared to nanoclay for producing desirable cell structures, and a higher CSR loading was found to have diminishing effects on the process and on the properties of the parts. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 45:773–788, 2005. © 2005 Society of Plastics Engineers

This paper presents the effects of processing parameters and submicron core-shell rubber particle filler on the mechanical properties and cell morphology of microcellular injection molded polyamide-6 (PA-6) composites. Three types of materials are studied, namely, neat PA-6 resin, and 0.5 wt% and 3.1 wt% core-shell rubber polybutylacrylate-polymethylmethacrylate-filled PA-6 composites. This study shows that the addition of a small amount (0.5%) of core-shell rubber particles improved the ductility and impact strength of micro-cellular injection molded PA-6 samples. In comparison to the microcellular injection molded PA-6 polymer-clay nanocomposite, the samples with a small amount (0.5%) of core-shell rubber had much higher impact strength and ductility. The small addition of core-shell rubber also reduced cell size and increased cell density of the microcellular injection molded PA-6 parts, in comparison to their neat resin counterparts. On the other hand, at higher core-shell rubber loading, the cell size and density were found to be similar to that of the neat resin.

The crystallization behaviors of polyamide-6 (PA-6) and its nanocomposites undergoing the microcellular injection molding process are studied using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), X-ray Diffractometer (XRD), Polarized Optical Microscopy (POM), and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). The relationships among the morphology, the mechanical property of the molded parts, and the crystallization behavior are investigated. With the addition of nanoclays in microcellular injection molded parts, the growth of the γ-form crystal is suppressed and the formation of γ-form crystals is promoted. Both nanoclay and dissolved gas have a big influence on PA-6 crystalline structures. The existence of nanoclay increases the initial crystallization rate. But with extra addition of nanoclays in the polymer matrix, the increase of crystallization rate is reduced. Microcellular injection molded nanocomposites with proper amount of nanoclays possess the maximum crystallization activation energy and produce a finer and denser microcell structure which leads to better mechanical properties.