On Saturday, 15 July 2023, the current coordinator of TEFLIN publication division, Yazid Basthomi, had the opportunity and honour to make an online presentation at the 5th UNNES-TEFLIN National Conference organized by the Department of English, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Semarang, in collaboration with TEFLIN Central Java Chapter. In the conference, Yazid Basthomi made a panel together with Dr. Raqib Chowdhury (Monash University), Dr. Siti Zaidah Zainuddin (Universiti Malaya), and Prof. Lies Amin Lestari (Universitas Negeri Surabaya).
Addressing the challenges faced by teachers in teaching a second or foreign language, the conference was organized under the theme of Coping with Current Challenges in EFL Teaching. Aligned with the theme, Yazid Basthomi’s presentation centred around his experiences in handling a course designed to help doctoral students majoring in ELT to get prepared for article publications in reputed international journals. The presentation was focused on his conviction that pedagogical instruction in ELT doctoral program in the Indonesian context needs to be directed to the stimulation of the Indonesian doctoral students’ awareness of comparative outlook, the establishment of which leads to the tutelage of the students’ self-regulated learning leading to success in publications in international journals. In his experience, the propagated notion of comparative outlook can be highlighted by identifying the typical writing orientations of the Indonesian doctoral students and juxtaposing them with the typical expectations of international journal editors and/or reviewers.
The responses from the seminar audience led to the construal that his main messages hit the potentially entrenched writing orientations of the Indonesian audience. As such, the conference was a crucial a platform to share ideas for the purpose of instigating and entertaining on further ideas for the betterment second/foreign language teaching, particularly that in the Indonesian context.
