AN EXPLORATION ON EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF EFFECTIVE 21st-CENTURY PEDAGOGICAL COMPETENCIES

The need for preparing highly qualified teachers with all the quintessential pedagogical competencies has been acknowledged as a preeminent priority in the educational world. This present study is intended to scrutinize the EFL teachers’ perspectives and preferences in the 21st century pedagogical competence. The study was qualitatively conducted as a case study to retrieve a reputable understanding of the phenomenon. A semi-structured interview and a five-Likert scale questionnaire were used to collect the necessary data. The data of this study were taken from the purposively chosen informants regarding their familiarity and apprehension with the issue of this study. The results demonstrated that the teachers perceived the rapid development of technology and information as the key feature of the 21st-century learning, which is beneficial to furnish more comprehensive learning. Moreover, they predominantly conceived that the term 21st-century pedagogical competence focused on how teachers assimilate technology in the classroom and how to facilitate the students’ creativity due to the widely opened sources of information which positively affect students’ proficiency. It is suggested to consecutively provide more courses and training about confronting the 21st-century education to keep teachers voguish of any adjustments, innovations, and modifications in education.


INTRODUCTION
As a matter of contention, the need for qualifying teachers with all the quintessential pedagogical competencies and knowledge has extensively emerged as a principal priority in the educational world. Such an issue corresponds to the pivotal role of teachers in education. Besides being the heart and soul of the classroom learning activities, teachers play an incalculable role and share noteworthy accountability to lead students to succeed in their educational lives.
In playing such role, undoubtedly, it is mandatory for the teachers to get hold of certain competencies to effectively accomplish their duties and to provide for qualities (Amosun & Kolawole, 2015). Such extent is affirmed by  who mentioned the challenges of being a professional teacher. They acknowledged that teachers have responsibilities in the case of clarifying values, promoting moral development, transferring knowledge, and assisting students to optimally develop the potential. Since teachers have significant impacts on leading students to become successful learners, it is necessary for them to understand and continuously develop their quality in terms of their competence, or pedagogical practice (Ismail & Jarrah, 2019). It is further affirmed that to be effective, a teacher should be competent, motivated, and comprehensive of what makes a good teaching practice.
One of the key elements to establish successful learning, teachers' quality is considered as one of the absolute factors affecting the students learning (Wichadee, 2010). Teachers are irrevocable to ensure and facilitate students to be their best version and encourage students to have a better future. In a similar way, Richard (2002) added that creating a desireable classroom situation, planning various learning activities, and using materials of instructions effectively are teachers' responsibility.
Furthermore, with respect given to Indonesian educational system, it is stated in the Act of the Republic of Indonesia number 14 in 2005 about Teachers and Lecturers, article 10 verse 1, that a professional educator must have four major competencies; pedagogical competencies, personality competencies, social competencies, and professional competencies. Moreover, in conducting professional work, teachers should also consider the students' interests and abilities. In regard to the social changes, teachers are required to cover themselves both as professional and society members. They not only have to serve for students' request and needs, but also to fulfill the stakeholders' demands. In other words, teachers should perform and show their best under any situation. Therefore, it is clear that teachers are indeed holding a doubtlessly pivotal role in education due to their role as "architects" of the future generation (Sisman, 2012). Above all, a teacher is a critical factor in students' learning, and his or her power can notably impact students' life. Teachers, therefore, should always improve or develop their professionalism or quality in order to be effectively educating the students.
Although pedagogical competence has been an ongoing topic of interest among teachers and educational researchers, there has been no wide exploration of such notions regarding the challenges, particularly in the view of 21st-century education. By putting considerations on the aforementioned studies, with all these things in mind, this unique case was taken into a study aimed at filling the gap under the theme by exploring teachers' perceptions of effective 21stcentury pedagogical competence. This present study also aimed at investigating EFL teachers' views about 21st-century learning. Furthermore, participants' viewpoints about the most mandatory competencies were listed in the study.

LITERATURE REVIEW
With regard to students' needs in the recent era, renowned as the 21-st century, it is a common belief that there is a significant difference in terms of the needs. In other words, students from the past years required different needs than do the students from the current era. This is strongly affirmed by Bedir (2019) who described the differences in some sorts of terms, such as millennial students or Siregar, R.A., Fauziati, E. & Marmanto, S. (2020). An exploration on EFL teachers' perceptions of effective 21 st -century pedagogical competencies. 4 21st-century learning. Furthermore, Bedir (2019) in his study justified that 21st-century education demonstrates more projection on promoting pivotal skills. He certified that such skills are important to learn and to sustain the learning which does not meet the needs of contemporary students since the curriculum was not initially designed to meet the societies' demands. In line with this, Trilling & Fadel (2009) shared similar thoughts that current education should also focus on developing the next generation -the students, to acquire both skills and knowledge to mobilize the virtue of digital technologies in broadening their opportunities.
Additionally, 21st-century education should adequately furnish students with compulsory skills that they can work with to become successful in the globalized world. To capably conquer the threats and to accomplish the 21-century educational goals, it is a constitutional consideration for teachers to willingly accommodate themselves with information and skills which are adjusted to the present situation. Moreover, as Ball, Thames, and Phelps (2008) asserted, it is a requirement for teachers to proficiently solve problems in the classroom and to comprehensively understand the technological, pedagogical and content knowledge.
As one of the most substantial competencies, pedagogical competence is not merely about how teachers can delicately use teaching techniques or methods. However, it covers the acquisition of routines which every teacher undoubtedly needs to save time and energy for more significant aspects of the works. As cited in the Act of the Indonesian Republic in 2005 number 14 about educators (teachers & lecturers), pedagogical competence refers to the ability to effectively manage the students learning. The pedagogical competence has been overlooked both as an ensemble of potential behaviors or capacities allowing for the efficient manifestation of activity and as a minimum professional standard particularized by law, which should be reached by professional teachers (Suciu & Mata, 2011). Also, Amosun & Kolawole (2015) suggested that effective pedagogical competence will assist teachers in manifesting skills in establishing curricula that are designed to build on learners' present knowledge and understanding and move those learners to more sophisticated and in-depth abilities, knowledge, concepts, and performances. Furthermore, in the case of foreign language teacher education, there have been discussions among researchers discoursing about effective teacher characteristics by virtue of the goal of teacher education which is to produce qualified teachers (Bernhardt & Hammadou, 1987;Freeman & Johnson, 1998;Vélez-Rendón, 2002). The discussion has been specifically centralized on teachers' knowledge base in terms of both subject matter knowledge and pedagogical knowledge.
Essentially, it is thoughtful not to undervalue the significance of displaying pedagogical knowledge and competencies due to the fact that it will help teachers to think about the best choice of possible methods, strategies, materials, and resources to be utilized for the learning situation. Also, it supports teachers to recognize how to use various forms of play; different strategies for grouping learners; different types of media and materials. Pedagogical knowledge and skills turn teachers into facilitators, coaches, models, evaluators, managers, and advocates (Amosun & Kolawole, 2015). Furthermore, it helps teachers employ appropriate evaluation schemes. Thus, an effective teaching depends upon pedagogical skills so that the teaching is remarkably accomplished and results in the maximum output in terms of the expected teaching outcomes. In the final analysis, mastering pedagogical competence is profoundly necessary to get a reputable teaching-learning process.
Related to the issue of pedagogical competence, there have been known some researchers who conducted studies under the similar subject matter. Firstly, Liakopoulou (2011) conducted a research entitled 'Teachers' pedagogical competence as a prerequisite for entering the profession'. This study was aimed at mapping 'the professional knowledge' of secondary school teachers that is considered a prerequisite to enter the profession in Greece. In a particular way, the aims were classified into exploring the kinds of pedagogical knowledge assessed through the teachers' exam and investigating types of qualifications which prospective teachers need. The study found that almost all of the exam topics are related to the teachers' training in teaching methodology and, mainly, lesson planning, the selection of suitable teaching aids and techniques, and student evaluation. Despite the large percentage of questions on lesson-planning, only a small amount of candidates' knowledge is actually checked with regard to this field, as teacher training has a very limited scope. Regarding the types of qualifications that prospective teachers needs, the study found that the exam questions do not seem to comprehensively assess teachers' abilities and attitudes. In conclusion, the study stated that the criteria set by the State do not appear to be based on any obviously defined philosophy of pedagogical competence.
Secondly, Amosun & Kolawole (2015) conducted a research to identify the level of pedagogical knowledge and skill competencies of Nigeria's pre-school teachers. The study involved 58 pre-school teachers randomly chosen from public schools in Ibadan city. By adopting a descriptive survey research design, the results of this study revealed that the level of pedagogical knowledge and skill competencies displayed by the pre-school teachers in Ibadan, Oyo state Nigeria was low.
Thirdly, one of the newest works of literature, Astuti et al. (2019) conducted a research about pedagogical competence. The study was aimed at investigating the English teachers' beliefs on pedagogical competencies in teaching English to young learners and exploring how their beliefs were reflected in the teaching-learning process. By focusing only on one of the aspects of pedagogical competencies that is the ability to develop students to actualize their various potentials, the study revealed that teachers encountered several challenges in applying their beliefs on pedagogical competencies. The study, further, suggested professional development programs which should be organized by every school in Indonesia to develop the teachers' pedagogical competencies.

METHOD
To probe into an in-depth description of an issue, this study was conducted as a qualitative case study research. The underlying consideration in using a qualitative method was because this study, instead of merely summarizing narrow views appertaining to the data, worked on conducting an in-depth investigation into the expected data and attempting to discover the particularities as well as the unlikeness of data.
The case study research design was chosen due to the uniqueness of the phenomenon attracting the researcher to do an exploration. In line with such extent, Stake (1995) and Yin (2009) in Creswell (2009) contended that a case study enables researchers to develop an in-depth analysis of a case, a program, event, activity, process, or one or more individuals. In conclusion, a qualitative case study tends to deeply explore a phenomenon and to bring the best understanding of a research problem based on extensive data collection (Creswell, 2008). The following details explain about the participants, instrument, procedure, analysis of data, and the trustworthiness of this study.
The participants of this study were purposively chosen due to the research goals. They were selected with careful consideration; First, they are adequately knowledgeable regarding the topic or any English teaching theories. Second, they have sufficient experience and exposures regarding the topic. The participants were four EFL teachers in one of the universities in Central Java, Indonesia. Two of them were male, and the rest were female. They were different in terms of their teaching experience. The teaching experience ranged from 7 to 30 years.
The data of this study were obtained from both a semistructured interview and a questionnaire. The semi-structured interview format was preferred as it provides flexibility for both the participants and the researcher to go beyond the forethought questions while preserving a focus and consistency which assist with the interview comparison and analysis (Hamilton & Corbertt-Whittier, 2013). The instruments of this study were adapted from Wichadee's framework of effective EFL teachers' pedagogical competence and the framework of 21st-century pedagogical competence of National Educational and Technological Standard (NETS) cited in Indonesia Teachers Professional Development Module (2019).
Concerning the trustworthiness, method triangulation was used as an effort to increase the credibility of the study by employing a combination of data sources, investigators, theories, and methods of collecting data in one research that is focused on a single phenomenon (Guba, 1981). Firstly, the semi-structured interviews were conducted to the four participants by considering their choice of the appropriate time. Such consideration was aimed at reducing external impediments so that the participants could share the expected unequivocal data.
The Indonesian language was chosen as the language to execute the interview processes in order to facilitate the participants in furnishing the suitable and constitutive details with regard to the focused data. Each process of the interview was digitally recorded to assist the researcher in data transcription. The result of the interview transcriptions was sent back to the subjects of the research. It is used to clarify whether or not what is obtained from the interview is appropriate to what the research subjects meant. So-called as member checking, this step was also done to pursue the degree of trustworthiness.
Secondly, the researcher disseminated a questionnaire to the interviewed participant right after the interview process. The data gained from the questionnaire were examined after analyzing the interview data. Furthermore, additional observations were conducted to clarify the data obtained through the interview process. Yin (2003: 93) affirmed that observation can provide factual evidence about supplementary information about the topic which is being examined. In other words, the observation provides a reality check (Robson, 2002).
The obtained data were analyzed by employing Miles & Huberman's (1984) interactive model of data analysis. The procedures encompass the data collection, data reduction, data display and data conclusion drawing (figure 1). The interview was employed to collect the data in the form of information in regard to the teachers' shared perspectives of 21-century learning and effective pedagogical competence in the paradigm of EFL learning. In the data reduction process, the whole collected data were classified systematically. The grouping was based on the coded themes to portray any mandatory information relevant to the study problem. With regard to the data display, the properly grouped theme-based data were displayed into conceptual charts. In addition to this, the details of the interview transcriptions were also presented. At last, the findings of this study were carefully discussed.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
This section elaborates on the encountered findings which are extended on the adjustment which is relevant to the study focus. The details of the findings are interpreted in the following issues; teachers' perceptions of 21st-century learning, teachers' perceptions of effective 21st-century pedagogical competence, and teachers' preferences of most necessary traits of the pedagogical competence of the 21stcentury pedagogical competencies.

Teachers' Perceptions on 21st-century Learning
The participants of this study, based on the interview results, elaborated positive perceptions towards the notion of 21st-century learning. The participants highlighted the rapid development of technology and information as a challenge to conquer in 21st-century learning. They asserted that the widely open sources of information and technology have significantly assisted themselves in giving a more comprehensive explanation and demonstration of the learning topics. The subjects affirmed that the rapid and massive development of the technology has shifted the traditional learning culture, in which a teacher is the only source of information. Conjointly, such a viewpoint is in line with Parvin & Salam (2015) who noticed the importance and the value of technologies, especially in language learning.
With regard to the digital or technological era, participant 1 underlined two major concerns that should be carefully considered by both teachers and schools. Firstly, participant 1 emphasized the standard of technology access and how accessible the technology for the students is. She asserted that the acceptable standard of technology will positively affect the students' performance.
Regarding the access to technology, the subject pinpointed that students' economic issues will influence their accessibility to technology significantly. In a detailed description, the participant visualized that students with a better economic background automatically get more exposure to the technology rather than those with lower economic backgrounds. The participant considered that such indicative differences of exposure will surely impact the students' performances and result in a discrepancy.

The technology integrated in the classroom should be in an acceptable standard. All students should have equal opportunity to access it. If not, there will be a significant difference between students with contrasting economic background. (researcher's translation, participant 1)
Secondly, the subject asserted that the virtuality of the media can not expose many aspects of life which are not virtually based. There are many aspects of life which can not be described by using digital media. Concerning language learning, it is considered difficult to express feeling, anxiety, imagination, expectation, and fear. Therefore, it is considered fundamental that reality-based learning and virtual learning should be given to students in a similar portion.

Not all of the students' experiences can be well exposed by the media, for instance feeling, anxiety or imagination. (researcher's translation, participant 1).
Considering the development of technology, that is one of the exclusive features of the 21st-century learning, participant 2 and participant 3 contended that teaching and learning process has been much more manageable in the 21st-century era since it is effortless to find information. They admitted that there are various facilities and tools provided by schools or institutions. Such facilities allow teachers to explore more information and have absolutely assisted teachers to prepare a better lesson for the students. On the other hand, 21stcentury learning is considered challenging by participant 4 as the rapid growth of information and technology requires them to learn brand-new things to catch up and to adjust with the students' ability.
Teaching has now been easier. There have been more facilities that can be used in teaching. Also, internet has helped to find more information and references more easily.

It is really helpful to have technologies like what we have tday, yet it is quite challenging. The rapid development of technology and information requires teachers to learn many new things to catch up with the students. It seems hard, especially for old teachers. (researcher's translation, participant 4)
This finding confirmed the conception of Yavuz- Konokman et al. (2013) in Ozdemir (2016) who acknowledged that due to the expeditious and innovative changes in science and technology, all individuals with no exception are required to have digital or technological competence, including teachers. In other words, teachers should be open to new ideas and take suggestions to keep nourishing their skills and preserving their excitement in teaching.
Moreover, the participants were in a common perception that regarding the 21st century, the learning process, particularly in English language learning, should not be in the form of face-toface learning. This kind of teaching style is considered conventional and inappropriate to be endlessly used in the classroom. In the term of the 21st century, teachers are demanded to create dynamics in the learning process. This has become the reason underlining the importance of utilizing technological media in the classroom.

Nowadays, teachers should be aware of the media literacy.
Teachers should be capable of using media to boost the learning quality. In the future, we might not need to teach in front of the classroom because of the digital media. (researcher's translation, participant 1) This finding is in line with Warschauer's (2000) which stated that the language teaching style has been changing over the years. Hence, teachers in this era should possess the ability to prepare to learn any kind of material, which could be possibly delivered with or without the physical presence of the teachers. Additionally, participants underlined students' necessity of understanding the ethics of communicating through media. Such ethical values should always be considered by students when communicating with teachers.

Teachers' Perceptions on the 21st-century Pedagogical Competence
In general, this study found that all participants share positive perceptions towards the extent of 21st-century pedagogical competencies. They highlighted teachers' ability to utilize digital media (technology) as a prerequisite in the current era of education. Furthermore, the participants further accentuated teachers' ability to facilitate the students' learning. Their perception was based on their awareness of their role as the backbone of education. They emphasize the importance of mastering such competencies due to the huge responsibility handled by teachers in terms of the development of national education quality. As revealed, they affirmed that it is teachers' fundamental responsibility to always improve themselves for the sake of students' refinement.
However, some different convictions were also found among the participants. Such distinctions could be caused by their contrastive amount of teaching experience. In the term of 21st-century pedagogical competencies, the first participant ratified that being media literate has been the most crucial competence which all teachers should acquire in regard to the 21st century. Teachers should be able to take advantage of the development of digital media. The participant underlined the need to acquire such skills and to thoroughly comprehend how the use of digital media can assist the students' learning. The acquirement of such skills is also expected to escalate the learning quality. In addition, the participant suggested that teachers who involve the use of media should ensure students' active engagement in all activities given in the class. In doing this, teachers should always keep in mind that media, regarding its form, is only a tool utilized to help teachers. In other words, it was asserted that what matters most in the classroom is the existence of teachers. Teachers' astuteness of choosing, delivering, manipulating and exploring the learning materials is one of the crucial circumstances to provide for a more interesting learning experience for the students. Related to this finding, Hennessy (2005) also suggested that technology should only act as a catalyst to stimulate teachers and students to work in modern ways.
Regarding the competence in this 21st century, all teachers should be media literate. However, media is only a tool. The use of media highly depends on the teacher. If teachers know how to use it, the learning will be much more interesting (researcher's translation, participant 1) Besides, participant 1 pointed out that teachers, in implementing the pedagogical competencies, should properly reckon with students' uniqueness and characteristics. Such notion confirmed Cameron's (2001), which previously acknowledged that teachers' awareness of students' needs in learning is essential to effective teaching. Also, participant 1 accentuated the worth of teachers' acceptable competencies in all levels of education. Accordingly, the subject highlighted the need of the government to hire certified teachers who have gone through standardized tests (not in a form of the paper test) focusing on the competencies.
On the other hand, the rest participants (2, 3 & 4) emphasized that the 21st-century pedagogical competence is undoubtedly pertinent to teachers' ability to fully facilitate the students' learning. Also, they suggested that all teachers in this era should totally change their traditional viewpoints about the role of teachers as the only source of knowledge and information who transfers everything to students and demands them to adopt it. So-called teacher-centered learning, such a traditional way of teaching seems no longer appropriate to conduct. This is due to the rapid development of technology which enables students to easily access knowledge and information. In other words, students by utilizing the available devices can conduct the learning process on their own. Accordingly, to cope with such issues, teachers and students are suggested to collaboratively work to discover the knowledge.
The traditional teaching put teacher as the core of the classroom from which information comes. (researcher's translation, participant 2) Students nowadays should be able to build or to get knowledge by their own because there have been many devices that can help doing it. (researcher's translation, It is not teachers who should provide knowledge and information like it used to be. Now, students should be willing to find the knowledge since there are plenty of resources out there. (researcher's translation, participant 4) Moreover, the participants highlighted the necessity to run the classroom by disposing of the students as the core of the class, socalled students-centered learning. The student-centered learning approach is considered able to lead to an improvement in students' academic achievement and attitudes as compared to the more traditional approach in which teachers performed as knowledge provider models (Armbruster, et al., 2009;Derting & Ebert-May, 2010). Additionally, this finding is in accordance with Froyd & Simpson's (2008) in Adedokun et al. (2017) which underlined the importance of putting students in the center of a teaching-learning process where teachers should provide the students opportunities both to learn individually and to learn cooperatively. Similarly, Meece (2003) emphasized the noteworthiness of student-centered learning as it could support the classroom environments to promote both positive and caring connections.

Preferences of the Effective 21st-century Pedagogical Competence
Anchored from the data of this study, there were obtained five preferred traits of the pedagogical competencies considered fundamental by the participants. Based on the five-Likert scale of importance, the total of five traits were believed and chosen by 75% of the participants as very important things (scale 5) to implement in the classroom. The aforestated traits are portrayed as follows: As clearly shown in the table, the participants share their common perception that focusing on the learning process and outcomes (number 1) is valuable to do in the classroom since the process and the outcomes will evidently show how much the students progress. This kind of trait was chosen by 75% of the participants. However, it is asserted that it would be more beneficial to give equal recognition between learning content and outcomes. The equal consideration is expected to be able to procreate better learning.
Both contents and outcomes are pivotal in learning. They should be given in the similar portion. (researcher's translation, participant 2) The content should be well delivered to the students, and the students should be able to understand the concept and to apply it. Both are inseparable. (researcher's translation, participant 4) With regard to the contents, the participants emphasized the necessity to have well-structured or theme-based learning contents in order to assure the degree of continuous learning. In other words, if teachers do not consider the content of the study or teach the students as they want, there will be no continuity between the current and future topics. There will be no obvious achievement standard. Moreover, in the context of the Indonesian educational system, teachers should make use of a curriculum and syllabus as their teaching guidance. It should be underlined that the curriculum is a legitimate framework to guide and monitor teaching (Richards, 2017). Furthermore, it is undeniably true that such documents -a curriculum and syllabus, are certainly content-oriented. Therefore, this becomes the underlining reason why considering one of the two aspects (outcomes & content) is ungrounded.
Another worthy trait asserted by the participants is the role of teachers in classrooms (number 2). Regarding the rapid development of technology which enables students to easily access any kinds of information, the existence of teachers as the information provider has come to an end. Accordingly, teachers are demanded to remodel themselves by playing other roles, such as a facilitator or an inspirator. In this phase, teachers, as facilitators, are required to have the ability to accommodate students with corroborative materials. Teachers should know how the learning takes place as well as their students' level of intellectual, physical, social and emotional development. By ensuring the accessibility of such materials, teachers will assist students to develop themselves. In terms of promoting critical thinking, the participants suggested assimilating particular learning instructions that enable students to develop their ability to implement processes and strategies for solving problems.
In addition, the participants noticed the importance to inspire or motivate students to learn. It is considered beneficial since students' inner motivation can significantly affect their learning. As stated by Siegel (2015), motivation is an empirically vital affective factor which notably prompts any success or failures in language learning. To add, the notion of motivation has served both as an inner drive and a psychological factor to learn something (Ustuk, 2018). The participants' view of motivation is in line with Dörnyei & Ushioda's (2011) which stated that motivation is remarkably responsible for why people (students) agree to do something, how long they willingly sustain such activity, and how hard they are going to chase it. Additionally, this finding confirmed the research conducted by Ustuk (2018) about the importance of motivational strategies in EFL teaching.
The study also found that the participants highlighted the need to promote the principle of communicative learning in the language classroom (number 3). Not only among students, communication should also be established between students to the teacher. Such conviction is based on the participants' experience and belief about the role of language as a fundamental means of communication through which people can associate to the society. Teachers need to consistently encourage their students to articulate their thoughts.
Besides, the ability to put students into equal pairs or groups is considered pivotal in language learning (number 5). This is due to some of the language skills which require interaction between students as previously mentioned. Additionally, group work or discussion is useful to habituate students to think critically. In line with this, the research conducted by Wichadee (2010) also found that teachers are demanded to possess abilities to provide well-designed activities and discussions to develop the students' language and communication skills.
Furthermore, the participants emphasized the worth of maintaining a good classroom atmosphere (number 4). So-called a learning environment, this situation serves as a vital factor in the learning process. According to the participants, a supportive classroom environment will significantly affect students' achievements. They affirmed that being a lovely person in the classroom can automatically reduce the students' anxiety and make the learning process more enjoyable. Regarding the cultural difference in Indonesian classrooms, the participants also underlined the necessity of teachers to embrace the diversity both in the school and in the society. In addition, the participants suggested that teachers should be well-engaged with the students so that teachers can genuinely understand the students' condition. Pertaining to this finding, a study by Wichadee (2010) also considered the notion of maintaining a good classroom atmosphere as one of the most crucial aspects of teaching.

CONCLUSION
Based on the findings and discussions of the study, it is concluded that the participants of this study demonstrated positive perceptions towards 21st-century learning. They agreed that the rapid development of technology and information which is known as the key feature of 21st-century learning has benefited themselves to furnish more comprehensive interpretation and demonstration of the learning topics.
Corresponding to the 21st-century pedagogical competence, it is also presumed that the participants of the study shared positive perceptions that underline teachers' ability to utilize the digital media (technology) as a prerequisite in the current era of education. At last, some critical traits of the 21st-century pedagogical competencies were also revealed by the participants. The traits were extended to; setting the learning growth and outcomes as the main priority, not the content taught, being both a facilitator and an inspirator to students, building a discussion habit to promote communicative learning, establishing and maintaining good classroom atmosphere and arranging students into pairs or groups to develop their language and communication skills.
Considered fruitful for teachers to develop their professionalism, this study could serve as a citation or reference for other teachers, particularly for those with little teaching experience, to straighten up their pedagogical quality. Regarding the findings of this study, it is suggested to incessantly provide more courses and training about confronting the 21st-century education to keep teachers voguish of any adjustments, innovations, and modifications in education.

FUNDING
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article: We received funding from The Indonesian Endowment Fund of Education, which is also known as Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan Republic of Indonesia.