KOMPETENSI PROFESIONAL: LEARNING TASK M1 LA4 PART 1 & 2

Learning Task M1 LA4 Part 1 & 2: Identifying Hortatory Exposition Texts

Text 1

In all the discussion over the removal of lead from petrol there doesn’t seem to have been any mention of difference between driving in the city and the country.

While I realize my leaded petrol car is polluting the air wherever I drive, I feel that when you travel through the country, where you only see another car every five to ten minutes, the problem is not as severe as when traffic is concentrated on city roads.

Those who want to penalize older, leaded petrol vehicles and their owners don’t seem to appreciate that, in the country, there is no public transport to fall back upon and one’s own vehicle is the only way to get about.

I feel that country people, who often have to travel huge distances to the nearest town and who already spend a great deal of money on petrol, should be treated differently to the people who live in the city.

(Source: Gerot, L., & Wignell, P. (1994). Making Sense of Functional Grammar)

Text 2

The Impact of Tsunami

The Asian 2004 tsunami was probably the worst natural disaster in human memory because of the numbers of people affected. Many studies have been written about its impact on human life, communities and livelihoods. In this context, the fisheries sector has featured prominently as one of the areas most affected by the disaster. This study focuses on the issue whether or not fishery resources were affected by the tsunami, particularly in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the two most impacted countries. The answer to this question is fundamental to promote necessary efforts to recover fishery livelihoods in the regions.

Data from the Aceh Province Fisheries Statistics Yearbooks (1995–2005 shows there was a general decrease then an increase in the overall number of boats from 1994 to 2004, but part of this was attributable to switching from many small boats to a smaller number of larger boats with inboard engines. Using only data on total number of boats, not the details of their capacity, the catch per boat increases from 4.4 tonnes/boat/year in 1994 to 8.4 tonnes/boat/year in 1998. Between 2002 and 2004 catch per boat decreased while the number of boats increased and production fluctuated. The number of vessels and the catch per vessel are almost mirror images and the best catches over the past decade tended to occur when the total number of boats was below 15 000.

Minimal provincial fisheries data are available for the period since the tsunami, but at Lampulo, Banda Aceh, it was possible to obtain some monthly data on catch, catch per boat, trips and number of boats between February 2004 and May 2006. These data show that catch per boat and total catch actually increased in 2005 and 2006 compared with 2004. This is considered to be related to the reduced number of boats and fishing trips after the disaster.

The quantity and productivity of marine fish resources in Sri Lanka is driven by the presence of a narrow continental shelf and the lack of significant areas of upwelling. Between 1977 and 1980, acoustic surveys of coastal waters were undertaken4 to estimate a potential yield of about 250_000 tonnes/ year. The yearly data give a good picture of how the fisheries were behaving over longer time frames before the tsunami. The monthly catch data show significant seasonal patterns that tend to repeat over the years and different responses to the tsunami which can be highlighted as follows:

• Monthly total catches in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, quickly rebounded after February/March 2005 so that catches were back in the normal range for that time of year. At Ampara catches rebounded but not back to the monthly equivalent levels of 2004.
• For small pelagic species one district showed an increase in catches after the tsunami, two districts had lower catches a year after the tsunami, while four districts showed no difference in catches and a continuation of long-term trends within a few months of the tsunami.

The available evidence shows that overall, impacts of the tsunami on fisheries are more related to ongoing and new tsunami-related “human” factors, rather than the physical or biological effects of the disaster on resources and ecosystems. That is, existing overexploitation trends had already brought many of the fisheries under severe stress before the tsunami.

(Adapted from http://www.fao.org/3/a-ai000e.pdf

Can you identify the two texts above? Are they, both, hortatory exposition texts?

 I think the first text is a hortatory exposition text, but the second text is analytical exposition text

Task 2

Now read the text below and identify whether or not its generic structure is similar with that of the two previous texts. Write your notes of identification in a table available in the attachment.

·         Use of tobacco products is the nation's deadliest addiction. Smoking cigarettes is the leading cause of avoidable death in the United States. More than 400,000 people die prematurely each year from diseases attributable to tobacco use. The toll of deaths attributable to tobacco use is greater than the combined toll of deaths from AIDS, car accidents, alcohol, suicides, homicides, fires, and illegal drugs.

·         Smoking is the main cause of 87% of deaths from lung cancer, 30% of all cancer deaths, 82% of deaths from pulmonary disease, and 21% of deaths from chronic heart disease. Use of smokeless tobacco is a cause of oral cancer. In a study of women who did not smoke but did use snuff chronically, the risk for oral cancers was 50 times greater than for nonusers.

·         According to a recent estimate by the Office of Technology Assessment, each smoker who died in 1990 as a result of his or her smoking, on average, would have lived at least 15 additional years if a non-smoker. For the population at large, this premature mortality translates into 6 million years of potential life lost each year.

·         It is difficult, of course, to calculate a dollar value for the human costs of tobacco-related diseases. The suffering of patients and families resulting from tobacco-related morbidity and mortality is   unquantifiable. Lost productivity and health care expenditures can be quantified, but the magnitude of the estimates depends on a variety of theoretical health care and technical questions, including whether the costs of should be offset by the "savings" in social security expenditures and health care costs not incurred because people died prematurely.

·         The Office of Technology Assessment put the social cost of smoking in 1990 at $68 billion. This high-end estimate includes $20.8 billion in direct health costs, $6.9 billion in lost productivity attributable to smoking-related disability, and $40.3 billion in lost productivity attributable to smoking-related premature deaths. Whatever its total magnitude, the social cost of smoking is substantial. Even based on conservative assumptions, expected lifetime medical expenditures of the average smoker exceed those of the average non-smoker by 28% for men and 21% for women. Each year, decisions by more than I million youths to become regular smokers commit the health care system to $8.2 billion in extra medical expenditures over their lifetimes.

·         (6) The nation has a compelling interest in reducing the social burden of tobacco use. This can be accomplished by preventing people from starting to use tobacco and by getting users to quit. The premise of this report is that, in the long run, tobacco use can be most efficiently reduced through a youth-centred policy aimed at preventing children and adolescents from initiating tobacco use. Moreover, because the prevalence of tobacco use among youths has remained stubbornly constant for 10 years, and may even be rising, a youth-centred prevention policy must be aggressively implemented if tobacco-related morbidity and mortality are to be significantly reduced.

(Adapted from  https://www.nap.edu/read/4757/chapter/3)

Table Identifiation

No	Text Resource	Identification
1	Text 1	Purposes à To persuade the readers that there should be different treatment between the people who drive in the city and in the country in the decision of removing lead from petrol. Generic Structure Analysis -           Thesis : paragraph 1 (In all the discussion over the removal of lead from petrol there doesn’t seem to have been any mention of difference between driving in the city and the country) -          Arguments Argument 1: paragraph 2 (The pollution in the country roads is not as severe as when traffic is concentrated on city roads) Argument 2: paragraph 3 (In the country, owning vehicle is the only way to get out) -         Recommendation: paragraph 4 (the old car should be treated differently dealing with the region both in country and city) Language Feature Analysis -          Focusing on the writer: using the first personal pronoun “I” -          Using abstract noun: discussion -          Using action verb: treat -          Using thinking verb: think, seem,feel -          Using passive voice: should be treated differently -          Using simple present tense: there doesn’t seem…, there is no public transport…, etc
2	Text 2: The Impact of Tsunami	Purpose à to tell the readers whether or not fishery resources were affected by the tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka Generic Structure Analysis -          Thesis: paragraph 1 (The answer to the question whether fishery resources were affected by the tsunami or not in Indonesia and Sri Lanka is fundamental to promote necessary efforts to recover fishery livelihoods in the regions) -          Arguments: paragraph 2-6 (catch per boat and total catch actually increased in 2005 and 2006 compared with 2004, catches were back in the normal range for 2005, two districts had lower catches a year after the tsunami, while four districts showed no difference in catches) -          Reiteration: paragraph 7 (The available evidence shows that overall, impacts of the tsunami on fisheries are more related to ongoing and new tsunami-related “human” factors, rather than the physical or biological effects of the disaster on resources and ecosystems) Language Feature Analysis -          Focusing on the non-human participants: using the data -          Using abstract noun: impact -          Using passive voice: is considered, be related, is driven -          Using simple present tense: the available evidence shows that overall, Monthly total catches in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
3	Text 3: The Need for a Youth-Centered Tobacco Control	Purposeà To persuade the readers to pay attention for a youth-centered prevention policy that must be aggressively implemented. Generic Structure Analysis -          Thesis: paragraph 1 (Smoking cigarettes is the leading cause of avoidable death in the United States) -          Arguments Argument 1: paragraph 2 (Smoking is the main cause of lethal disease) Argument 2: paragraph 3 (each smoker who died in 1990 as a result of his or her smoking) Argument 3: paragraph 4 and 5 (many costs are wasted because of cigarettes) -          Recommendation: paragraph 6  (a youth-centred prevention policy must be aggressively implemented Language Feature Analysis -          Focusing the non-human participants: using smoking. -          Using passive voice: must be aggressively implemented -          Using simple present tense: The nation has a compelling interest…….,etc

Based on the identification of texts above, it can be concluded that Text 1 and Text 3 are hortatory exposition texts while Text 2 is considered as an analytical exposition text.

Task 3: Writing Hortatory Exposition Text

Embedding Soft Skills in the Teaching-Learning Process

There is an old proverb that says “Knowledge is Power”. This causes all teaching and learning process just only focus on the knowledge as hard skill that students need to obtain. It seems that knowledge as cognitive skill is everything in the classroom activities without concerning other non-cognitive skills that students’ need to have successful careers in their future. Now, in this 21st century life, soft skills should be embedded in the teaching and learning process for some reasons.

First, soft skills are critical for someone’s success. In 2013, a report from the Seattle Jobs Initiative in Perspectives from Employers and Community Colleges reported that soft skills were as important as or more important than technical skills in securing entry-level employment. In addition, at Google, hiring managers don’t care whether a candidate received perfect grades, served as president of the chess club, or even finished university. What they do care about and what a rapidly increasing number of organizations care about is soft skills. Students need to have soft skills that are necessary for success in the workplace of the 21st century namely team work, cooperation and collaboration, oral and written communication, problem solving and critical thinking, and professionalism/work ethic.

The second is soft skills cannot be replaced by the technology developments. Now in this era, people’s activity depends on the machines. Some people or companies also have used robots to do or to produce something. Some physical components and human brain or knowledge have been partially replaced but we have to know that there are some things that are not replaced by technology in human beings namely emotion, enthusiasm, empathy, ambition, etc. Students need to have self-control so they can utilize the technology devices wisely. 

The teacher plays an important role in determining the direction and purpose of learning. Having students in a group work is one of arena where soft skills can be easily integrated into the classroom. Teachers also can apply problem based learning and project based learning in the class so the students can have great opportunities to improve their soft skills while they are learning. Since the soft skills are crucial for students’ success, teachers should embed soft skills in the teaching and learning process to shape good characters that they can use in their working field in the future.