THE ROLE OF TEACHER’S INTRODUCTORY LANGUAGE IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
A Thesis
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By
Pramusinta Korniawati Student number: 041214040
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ART EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
THE ROLE OF TEACHER’S INTRODUCTORY LANGUAGE IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
A Thesis
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education
By
Pramusinta Korniawati Student number: 041214040
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
2009
Proverbs 23:18
For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be
cut off.
Philippians 4:6
Be careful for nothing; but in every thing
by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
let your requests be made known unto God.
This thesis is dedicated to: My late father Yohanes Sugito
My beloved mother Sutini My lovely sister Yunita
All English Teachers
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I thank my Lord, Jesus Christ for His greatness and
love. I praise Him because of His blessing so that I can finish my thesis well.
My deepest and sincere gratitude goes to Gregorius Punto Aji, S.Pd., M.Hum., my thesis sponsor, for his willingness to read my thesis and patience to guide me in writing my thesis. I really thank him for his support, advice and
guidance in helping me to finish my thesis.
I would like to express my gratitude to all of teachers and staff SMA Negeri 1 Klaten, especially Drs. Widiyarto, M.Pd.,Drs. H. Ridwan, Mrs. Etik, Mr. Val Bambang and Mr. Tri Jatmiko who have allowed me to conduct the observations. My gratitude also goes to Mr. Agus Djumadi who has given recommendation to conduct the research in SMA Negeri 1 Klaten.
I would like to express my special gratitude to my beloved parents, my late
father Yohanes Sugito and my mother Sutini for their never ending love, support, prayer, and understanding as well as patience in finishing my thesis. I also thank
my sister Mbak Yunita, my brother in law Mas Agus, my niece Dik Valerie and
all family members who have given encouragement, support and prayer for me.
I would also like to thank my best friends: Anas, Wulan, Wida, Lia, Dias, Mita, Markus, Alit, Endang and Kresen for the wonderful friendship and encouragement. I also thank all of my friends in PBI Sanata Dharma University
whose name could not be mentioned one by one for the friendship and cheerful
moment during my study in Sanata Dharma University. I would also like to thank
Ms. Iin, Ms. Nikma, Mr. Herujiyanto, Yuni and all kids in Sanggar Plura Talenta for giving me support and advice. I thank my friends in Asrama Putri Brojowikalpo 1 for friendship that we have had for six month. My gratitude also goes to ABDIEL crews and Sunday school family in GPdI Pesu (Nanto, Rita, Abeth, Nita, Nike, Mia, Budi, Agus, Ida and Hana) for prayer and support.
Last but not least, my special gratitude goes to Ferry Wahyu Adhi for the wonderful care, love, attention, help, encouragement as well as understanding
during my difficult time in finishing my thesis. May God bless all of them.
Pramusinta Korniawati
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
TITLE PAGE... i
PAGE OF APPROVAL... ii
PAGE OF ACCEPTANCE……….… iii
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY... iv
PAGE OF DEDICATION …... vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS... vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS... viii
LIST OF ABBREVIATION... xi
LIST OF APPENDICES... xii
ABSTRACT... xiii
ABSTRAK... xiv
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION A. Research Background... 1
B. Problem Limitation... 5
C. Problem Formulation... 6
D. Research Objectives... 6
E. Research Benefits... 6
F. Definition of Terms... 8
CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW A. Theoretical Description... 10
1. Cognitive development... 10
2. Linguistic Development Stage... 14
a. First Language Acquisition... 14
b. Second / Foreign Language Acquisition... 14
3. Teacher’s Introductory Language... 15
a. Characteristics of Teacher’s Introductory Language... 18
1) Language Used... 18
E. Data Gathering Technique... 33
F. Data Analysis... 34
CHAPTER IV. ANALYSIS RESULTS A. The teacher’s Introductory Language... 37
1. Indonesian... 38
2. English... 43
B. The Role of the Teacher’s Introductory Language... 48
1. Giving Explanation... 49
2. Asking Questions... 50
3. Correcting Error... 53
4. Providing Feedback... 55
C. Other Findings... 58
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS A. Conclusion……... 60
B. Suggestions……... 61
1. Suggestions for English Teachers... 62
2. Suggestions for Future Researchers... 62
REFERENCES... 63
APPENDICES... 65
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Page
L1: First Language... 14
L2 : Second Language... 14
FL: Foreign Language... 14
CLT : Communicative Language Teaching... 25
LIST OF APPENDICES
Page
APPENDIX 1: The Request Letter to Conduct the Research... 65
APPENDIX 2: Interview Questions for the Teachers... 67
APPENDIX 3: Tape Script of Tenth Grade Teacher... 68
APPENDIX 4: Tape Script of Eleventh Grade Teacher... 72
APPENDIX 5: Tape Script of Twelfth Grade Teacher... 77
APPENDIX 6: Interview Tape Script of All Grades Teachers... 86
ABSTRACT
Korniawati, Pramusinta. 2009. The Role of Teacher’s Introductory Language in Teaching English to Senior High School Students. Yogyakarta: English Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.
The teacher’s introductory language is quite central in the roles of the teacher in teaching and learning activities. Therefore, considering the fact that teacher’s introductory language plays important roles, this research is conducted to answer the problems related to the teacher’s introductory language. The problems investigated are: (1) What is the language used mostly by the Senior High School teachers? (2) How is the role of teacher’s introductory language in teaching English to Senior High School students?
The research gathered many books and electronic sources that have supported to answer the research problems. This research was a descriptive qualitative research in which the source of the data was gained in a natural setting. In addition, descriptive method was useful for getting problem variation which concern with educational and human behavior The source of the data was three English teachers of Senior High School from different grades. The data were taken using audio recordings and interviews. The audio data recordings from the observations and interviews were transcribed to analyze the language used mostly by the teachers and the role of the teacher’s introductory language. In addition, this research also employed classroom note to record all important things during the observations.
The first result showed that the Senior High School teachers used English for almost in the teaching and learning activities, especially for the eleventh and twelfth grade teachers. However, the tenth grade teacher used Indonesian in teaching students. It showed that the tenth grade teacher perceived the students having a lower level than the other grades. In addition, the teacher combined the use of both English and Indonesian to make the students understand what was explained by the teachers. In the twelfth grade, the teacher sometimes combined the use of English and Indonesian because of certain reasons.
The second result showed that the role of teacher’s introductory language was categorized into four parts namely, to give explanation, ask questions, correct mistakes and provide feedback to the students. Therefore, it could be concluded that the role of teacher’s introductory language was a means to facilitate the students in speaking English, motivate the students to do better than they did before by providing a positive feedback and correcting error, prepare an English knowledge by giving explanation related to the lesson and maintain the classroom by asking question related to the lesson so that the students can study well.
This research give recommendation to the English teachers, especially Senior High School teachers to use the target language in teaching English to the students. In addition, this research also recommend to the future researchers to conduct the same research. The findings can be used for the additional data or it can be refused if the future researchers do not agree with the findings.
ABSTRAK
Korniawati, Pramusinta. 2009. The Role of Teacher’s Introductory Language in Teaching English to Senior High School Students. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Aktivitas belajar mengajar masih berkaitan erat dengan peranan guru, khususnya peranan bahasa guru. Oleh karena itu, berdasarkan fakta bahwa bahasa guru masih berperan penting dalam aktivitas belajar mengajar, adapun tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menjawab permasalahan yang berkaitan dengan peranan bahasa guru di kelas bahasa Inggris. Masalah yang diteliti adalah (1) Bahasa apa yang paling sering digunakan oleh guru untuk mengajar bahasa Inggris? (2) Apa peranan bahasa guru dalam mengajar Inggris murid SMA?
Penelitian ini menggunakan berbagai buku dan bahan dari internet yang telah mendukung untuk menjawab permasalahan dalam penelitian. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian deskriptif kualitatif dimana datannya bersumber dari pengamatan yang natural. Tambahan pula, metode penelitian ini berguna untuk menjawab masalah yang diteliti yang berhubungan dengan pendidikan dan tingkah laku manusia. Sumber data dalam penelitian ini adalah tiga guru bahasa Inggris yang mengajar ditiga tingkatan kelas yang berbeda. Data yang diperoleh berupa rekaman suara guru dalam observasi dan wawancara. Data dan rekaman tersebut di transfer ke dalam bentuk tulisan untuk menganalisa bahasa yang sering digunakan oleh guru-guru dalam mengajar bahasa Inggris dan peranan bahasa guru dalam aktivitas belajar mengajar. Sebagai tambahan, penelitian ini menggunakan catatan kelas yang berperan untuk mencatat setiap hal penting yang tidak dapat terekam dengan alat perekam.
Hasil pertama dalam penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa guru-guru SMA menggunakan bahasa Inggris dalam proses belajar mengajar, khususnya guru kelas sebelas dan kelas duabelas. Mereka menggunakan bahasa Inggris karena bahasa Inggris merupakan target bahasa yang dipelajari. Namun, guru kelas sepuluh sering menggunakan bahasa Indonesia dalam mengajar. Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa guru menganggap murid kelas sepuluh berada di level yang lebih rendah daripada tingkat kelas yang lain. Guru juga terkadang menggabungkan pengunaan kedua bahasa supaya murid memahami apa yang dijelaskan oleh guru. Hal ini dapat dilihat dari kelas duabelas, guru terkadang mengombinasikan penggunaan bahasa Inggris dan Indonesia karena alasan tertentu.
Hasil kedua menunjukkan bahwa peranan bahasa guru dikategorikan dalam 4 hal, yaitu untuk memberi penjelasan, pertanyaan, mengoreksi kesalahan murid dan memberi komentar yang membangun kepada murid. Meskipun demikian, peranan utama yang terdapat dalam bahasa guru SMA adalah alat untuk memasilitasi murid dalam proses pembelajaran bahasa Inggris, memotivasi murid untuk melakukan hal yang lebih baik lagi dengan memberi umpan balik dan membetulkan kesalahan murid, menyediakan pengetahuan dalam berbahasa Inggris dengan memberikan penjelasan sesuai dengan pelajarannya dan mengatur
kelas supaya kondusif dan terarah sesuai dengan pelajaran yang sedang dipelajari dengan memberi pertanyaan sesuai dengan pelajarannya.
Penelitian ini memberi rekomendasi kepada guru bahasa Inggris, khususnya guru SMA untuk menggunakan target bahasa untuk mengajar bahasa Inggris. Tambahan pula, penelitian ini merekomendasikan kepada peneliti yang mendatang untuk mengadakan penelitian tentang bahasa guru. Hasil temuan penelitian ini dapat digunakan sebagai data tambahan atau ditolak bila tidak sesuai dengan peneliti mendatang.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents research background, problem limitation and problem
formulation. In addition, this chapter also states research objectives, research
benefits and definition of the terms.
A. Research Background
The introductory language of the teacher is well-known as teacher’s talk.
According to Krashen (1985), the language that students have as comprehensible
input, is the language which students can understand the meaning of the language
spoken which is still on their own level of understanding. Therefore, the best input
in language teaching is from the teacher’s talk.
The teaching and learning activities are quite central in the roles of the
teacher. It is because the teacher plays an important role in delivering the
materials to the students. According to Hoyle (1969), the teacher has two main
roles in the classroom. The first role corresponds with the functions of instruction,
socialization and evaluation. Then, the second role concerns on motivating
students, maintaining control, and creating an environment for learning. The latest
curriculum in Indonesia requires the students to use English not only in written
but also in spoken. It means that the objective of the teaching and learning
activities is not only a matter of graduation but also the students’ ability in using
English as the medium of international communication. In other words,
Indonesian’s school should not only think about how to make all the students pass
the final examination but also prepare them with a means of international
communication that is English.
A teacher is a person who is responsible for teaching and learning processes.
Even though the latest curriculum says that the teacher has less chance to talk in
class because it is a student-centered activities, the teacher still plays a vital role in
teaching English. Wattenberg (1951) in The Role of the Teacher also says that there are many sub-roles of teacher in the classroom, one of which is as resource
of knowledge. it means that the teacher possesses knowledge and skill.
Consequently, as a teacher of foreign language in Indonesia, the teacher has to use
the target language so that the students would become more familiar to the target
language and they are used to using English in daily conversation in the
classroom.
Teacher’s introductory language or teacher’s talk plays an important role in
conveying the lesson to the students. According to O’Neill (1994), the teacher’s
talk is a matter of what the teacher talks in the classroom. There is a controversy
whether the teacher’s talk is a good or bad thing. However, a language classroom
cannot be separated from teacher’s talk since this is the main source of
teaching-learning activities. Therefore, a teacher has to be able to assess the students with
English and transfer the knowledge to the students because the teacher is the only
person who can provide comprehensible input in the classroom.
Teacher’s talk is related to the language acquisition. Language acquisition
language or second language. The first language has been learned by the students
since they are babies, whereas, the second language or target language are
commonly learned in school. Therefore, the teacher has to work hard in teaching
English and make English become easier to be understood for the students. In the
processes of acquisition, teacher’s talk is the source of target language which will
be attained by the students. In this case, the students’ target language is English.
Teacher’s talk can be divided into two major parts. They are talk in the first
language or mother tongue and talk in the target language. The teacher may speak
in both languages, as in linguistics area is known as a code switching. The
purpose is to help the students acquire difficult vocabularies while studying
English. In fact, many teachers in Indonesia often use the first language that is
Indonesia rather than the target language in teaching. Code switching is often
made by the teacher to make his explanation clearer to the students.
Nunan (1989) says that teacher’s talk cannot be separated from speech
modifications made by the teachers. In a language classroom, teacher modifies the
speech to non-native speakers in different ways to make the language more
comprehensible. Therefore, his or her speech becomes more comprehensible. An
investigation done by Pica and Long (1986) says that the language which has been
modified by the teachers is meaningful and interesting to the students and can
help the students to acquire the target language. Besides, it can facilitate the
language acquisition process faced by the students.
Teacher’s introductory language in classroom includes the teacher’s
the teacher’s talk is a valuable source in a language classroom. The teacher’s
questions aim to determine whether students know the basic information of
subject learned or not. Whereas, Chaudron (1991) shows that declaratives and
statements are used by teachers more than the use of questions in the language
classrooms. Declaratives and statements are often found in the teacher’s
explanation, feedback and error correction. Therefore, it is not surprising if
declarative sentences take a big part of teacher’s talk.
In this research, it refers to the teachers who teach Senior High School
students. Morever, the Senior High School students are included in adolescence
stage of psychological development Therefore, the teacher’s talk will be less
dominant than the students’ talk. According to O’Neil (1994), some lessons
maybe good if they are carefully organized in such a way that students do a good
deal of the talking and at the same time get a lot of feedback, both formally and
informally, from the teacher about their performance. It depends on one belief that
the teacher’s talk is a good or bad thing. It means that if the teacher thinks and
believes that the students can learn better by actually practicing in the target
language, the teacher could try to organize classroom activities so that the amount
of the students’ talk is increasing. On the other hand, if a teacher thinks that
teacher’s talk is a vital source or a comprehensible input, the teacher’s talk will be
more dominant.
Concerning the statement above, this research would investigate the
teacher’s introductory language and the role of teacher’s introductory language in
have already known English well, so that is not necessary for the teacher to talk
too much. However, not all students understand English well. Moreover, English
lesson becomes a terrifying lesson since it is considered as a difficult language.
Therefore, teacher’s talk is still important to deliver the materials and explain the
lesson to the students. Through teacher’s talk, Senior High School teachers can
take advantage on songs, language games, role plays and problem solving tasks
(Larsen-Freeman, 2000) so that students will not be bored in studying English.
Consequently, they will be accustomed to spoken and written English.
B. Problem Limitation
According the latest curriculum implemented in Senior High School, the
method that is generally used in Senior High School is Communicative Language
Teaching. This method is considered relevant because English is seen as a means
of communication. Therefore, the teacher is also demanded to practice English in
the talk, especially in teaching the students.
Therefore, this research limits its investigation on two major problems.
They include the language used mostly by the teachers and the role of the
teachers’ introductory language in teaching English for Senior High School
students. Particularly this research explores the implementation of teachers’
introductory language in teaching all grades of Senior High School students.
These problems are discussed because this research would show how the teacher
C. Problem Formulation
Based on the research background and purposes, the researcher formulated
two major problems in this research. The questions to be solved in this research
are:
1. What is the language mostly used by the teacher in teaching English?
2. How is the role of teacher’s introductory language in teaching English
to Senior High School students?
D. Research Objectives
This research is conducted to find out whether the teachers speak in English
or Indonesian in English classroom. It means that this research would find out
when the teachers talk in English and Indonesia in English class.
This research also aims to know the role of the teachers’ introductory
language in teaching Senior High School students. It can make this research clear
that the teacher’s introductory language still plays an important role in English
classroom.
E. Research Benefits
This research is expected to give benefit to English teachers, especially
1. English Teachers
The teacher will be more encouraged to use English in delivering the
lesson to the students. The teacher can become a facilitator for the students if
they want to practice English in daily conversation. Besides that, the teacher can
know that how important the teacher’s talk in the language classroom. This
research is also expected to encourage the teachers to use English as the medium
to transfer knowledge in the foreign language classroom and they can use the
appropriate language in classroom. Therefore, the students can practice English
not only in written but also in spoken remembering that the students will face
the university life or work life after the graduation which demands to use
English as the medium of international communication.
Even though, the curriculum in Indonesia tells that it should be
students-centered activity the teacher’s talk is still needed in the teaching learning
process. The teacher should become more creative in designing an English
material so that the students become enthusiastic in learning English.
2. Future Researchers
For the future researchers, this research is expected to encourage the
researchers to dig out deeper on teacher’s talk. It is hoped can bring any
information about teacher’s talk. Therefore, the next researchers are interested in
F. Definition of Terms
This section describes all the key terms appear in this research. They are:
1. Teacher
A teacher is a person whose job is teaching. A teacher has a responsibility
to the whole teaching learning process in the classroom.
2. Teacher’s introductory language or teacher’s talk
The teacher’s introductory language which is known as teacher’s talk is
language used by the teacher in classroom to teach the students whose
complexity varies according to the level of the learners. Language is for
communication. It means that the teacher’s introductory language is a tool to
communicate between the teacher and students in the classroom. In addition,
according to Ellis (1985) teacher’s talk is a means to deliver the lesson and all
kinds related to the learning to the students Therefore, the teacher needs to
adjust the language he uses to the students level.
The teacher’s introductory language consists of all speeches of the teacher
which occur in the teaching and learning activities. In this research, the speeches
refer to the explanations, questions, error corrections, and giving feedback to the
students.
3. Senior High School Students
Senior High School students are those young people between the ages of
15 and 18. They are included in the formal operational stage as proposed in the
cognitive development theory. They can be considered as independent learners
to Harmer (2001), Senior High School students are adolescents who have
learned secondary school and they are called as teenagers.
4. The role of teacher’s introductory language
There are many roles of the teacher’s introductory language in teaching
English to Senior High School students. The role is to facilitate the teaching
learning activities. By teacher’s introductory language, the teacher can control
the classroom and the teacher can create conducive classroom because the
teacher adjusts the talk on students’ proficiency level. The other roles as said by
Nunan (1989) in Language Classroom, they are to organize the students and classroom, assess the students using the target language, to provide the best
source of the target language since the students meet the teacher every day, to
explain the materials to the students, to give questions, to correct students’
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter discusses the theories related with the research. This chapter
is divided into two parts, the theoretical description and the theoretical
framework. The writer explores the theories that support the research from the
books, journals and articles downloaded from the internet. By finding out the
theories, it is expected to have strong base for the research. The theories explored
are the theories related with the theory of cognitive development and the theories
of language acquisition. In addition, this chapter also uses the theory of teacher’s
talk, theory of a teacher’s talk purposes, theory of language teaching methodology
and theory of discourse analysis.
A. Theoretical Description 1. Cognitive development
This theory will deliver to the understanding of children characteristics. As
stated by Piaget in electronic source, the Senior High School students are included
in Adolescence stage or in the formal operational stage. He also said that the
students at Senior High School are egocentric. It means that they create their own
environment which they do like. In this stage, they also try to find their goal of
life and their personality since in this stage their emotional are unstable.
Piaget as written by Suherman, et al (2003) adds that cognitive
development occurs to each individual since he is a boy until an adult. This theory
also says that the thinking way of children is not same as adults. Cognitive
development stage or thinking ability of each person depends on the age. The
more a person is grown up the more the thinking ability increases.
As a teacher of young adults, the teacher has to consider the students’
emotional. Therefore, the teacher does not only play role as an educator but also
as a mediator or facilitator for the students. In this case, the teacher’s talk is not
only a medium for teaching but also a medium for facilitating the conversation
between the teacher and students. In other word, the students are used to using
English in daily conversation.
Piaget identifies four stages in cognitive development from each
individual:
a. Sensorimotor stage (Infancy, 0 to 2 years).
In this period, children still use their intelligence through motor activity
without using a language as used by adults. In the children concept, world is
limited but it is still developing because it is based on physical interactions or
experiences. Children at the age of seven month can use their mind to memorize
some objects. Motor activity which is done by children allows the children to
begin developing new intellectual abilities. They start to define some physical
object into symbols, for example they can imitate animal voice or car engine
sound. Some language abilities are developed at the end of this stage.
b. Pre-operational stage (Toddler and Early Childhood, 2 to 7 years).
In this period, children intelligence is demonstrated using language. This
in this stage means that cognitive actions, such as classifying object, arrange
objects position in sequence and counting. Their memory and imagination are
developed, but their thinking is done in a non-logical way because the children’
thought is based on concrete experience. Therefore, when children see different
objects they will also think it differently. In addition, the children in this stage
are egocentric.
c. Concrete operational stage (Elementary and early adolescence, 7 to 11 years). In this stage, children start using their concrete thinking because
operational thinking develops. It means that the children can do mental action as
not done by children at lower stage. Intelligence is demonstrated through logical
and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. Children’s
egocentric diminishes in this stage because they start socializing their life with
other children.
d. Formal operational stage (Adolescence and adulthood, from 11 through adolescence).
This stage is the last stage as proposed by Piaget cited by W. Huitt and
Hummel, J. (2003). In this stage, intelligence is demonstrated through the
logical use of symbols related to abstract concepts. Therefore, children in this
stage are not related to the existence of concrete objects but they are related to
thinking type. The Senior High School students whose age around 15-18 are
included in this stage. Early in the period, they return to egocentric thought.
Only 35% of high school graduates in industrialized countries obtain formal
entering non formal education or Vocational school because they will face work
field life. However in Indonesia, some adolescence prefer to enter vocational
school and the rest choose common Senior High School.
As in the cognitive development stages above, Senior High School
students are included in the stage of formal operational stage. In this stage, it can
be concluded that the children have already been mature and can be independent
in learning. In other word, unlike children the Senior High School students have
more creative and abstract thinking. In this stage, thinking becomes more
formalized and their thinking deals increasingly in abstractions. Senior High
School students are at a stage in life when they increasingly want to start taking
responsibility for their own lives, including forming views about their own
education, and the manner in which it is conducted as said by Ur (1996) cited at
Asian EFL journal.
In other word, the Senior High School students can learn the target language
in the classroom by themselves without being forced as children. Even though
they can learn by themselves, they still need an input from the teacher which is
believed as an influential input. Therefore, a foreign language teacher has more
complicated duty in teaching the lesson than kindergarten or elementary school
teacher has. In the Senior High School, the students have more chance in speaking
since it is a student-centered classroom. Thus, the teacher lets the students to be
2. Linguistic Development Stage a. First Language Acquisition (L1)
Language is the main instrument by which one knows about other people's
thoughts. Learning the first language is easy for children and they do it
successfully even without formal education because it is their mother tongue. In
the early age, children have learned and mastered their native language well. A
native language foundation can serve as a support for learning English as a second
language. Cummins (1984) as cited at Journal of Education says that it can make
the learning process easier and faster. Therefore, knowing how the students learn
their first language can help the teacher to teach them a foreign or second
language. The first language acquisition concerns on the development of language
in children.
All students, especially Senior High School students, can speak well at least
two languages. The first language, Indonesia or Bahasa, is their native language
which they have learned since their childhood. Consequently, the use of the first
language in the English classroom should be practiced less frequent considering
the demand of the recent curriculum.
b. Second or Foreign Language Acquisition (L2/FL)
Second Language Acquisition is the process by which people learn
languages in addition to their native language. The Second Language Acquisition
here is the language studied after the native language or mother tongue.
acquire not only the first language but also the foreign language." It is clearly
explained that children can learn new language as they learn their first language.
English in Indonesian school is taught widely since kindergarten. Thus, Senior
High School students who learn English as second or foreign language have
already had good knowledge of the target language. The teacher has to realize that
each student has different characteristics. Therefore, the teacher can adjust his or
her talk to the background knowledge of the students in order to teach English as
second or foreign language.
There is a belief saying that the earlier children learn the second language
the better they master it. It is a true statement because according to it, brain of the
young learners is still elastic so they can easily learn the target language.
However, it is also not late for the adult learners, such as Senior High School
students, to learn the second language. The most affected facilitation to learn the
second or foreign language is a teacher’s talk. The teacher’s talk or the teacher’s
introductory language is believed as not only influential source for teaching and
learning activities but also it is an easy thing to get since the teacher and students
meet in the classroom and school environment regularly.
3. Teacher’s Introductory Language
The teacher’s introductory language which is known as teacher’s talk is the
language used by the teacher in classroom to teach the students whose complexity
varies according to the level of the learners. The theory of teacher’s talk is used to
classroom. Some kinds of the teacher’s talk according to some researchers are
bad. Other kinds of the teacher’s talk are good and essential in language
classroom. The teacher’s talk is perceived as a negative because there is a belief,
as stated by O’Neil (1994) says that the less the teacher talks and the more the
students talk the better the class goes. However, in order to achieve the goal of the
classroom management, i.e. to create a classroom atmosphere conducive to
interact in English in meaningful ways, the teacher need to talk in class. It is
through meaningful interaction that the students can make progress in learning
English.
There are so many roles played by the teacher in language classroom as
written by Harmer (2001: 57). They have many roles such as a controller who
control the teaching learning activities or the teacher takes charge on the teaching
learning processes, as an organizer who organizes the class activities. In other
word, the teacher as an organizer acts to give the students information, tell them
how they are going to do an activity in classroom, put the students into pairs or in
groups and finally close the activity down when the time is up. Another role is as
an assessor who assesses the students which knowledge is vary, gives feedback to
the students and grade them in various ways according to the students’
performance. The teacher, overall, plays all those roles which are believed
providing comprehensible input in the language classroom.
Considering the statement, the teacher is the most influential input in
teaching-learning activity. The teacher’s talk is a means to deliver the lesson and
the teacher’s talk plays an important role because it is essential in the organization
of the teaching learning processes in the classroom and the processes of second
language acquisition. The teacher’s introductory language can be used as a
determiner for the teacher failure or success in implementing his or her teaching
through the language. However, in the processes of acquisition, the teacher’s talk
is the main input or source of target language which will be gained by the
students.
Not surprisingly, the classroom observations have found that the
teachers tend to do much of the talking.
In content classrooms...it has been found that teachers tend to talk for about two-thirds of the available class time, leaving just a third for the learners. In some language classrooms, it has been shown that teacher talks for up to 89 per cent of the available time. Nunan (1991: 26)
It is a good thing or not that the teacher’s talk is more dominant than the
students’ talk in the teaching learning activities depends on what one believes
about the role of the language input in acquisition. If a teacher believes that the
students learn best by actually practicing in the target language, the teacher
probably tries to manage classroom activities so that the amount of the students’
talk is increased. On the other hand, if a teacher believes that the teacher’s talk
is a valuable source or comprehensible input, the teacher will be much less
a. Characteristics of Teacher’s Introductory Language 1) Language Used
The languages used by the teacher when he or she taught a foreign
language to Senior High School students are target language and mother
tongue. The teacher speaks both languages to deliver the lesson to the students.
The role of the target language is important in providing learners with the
only substantial live target language input which the students will learn. It is
expected that the teacher talks English in the classroom as the main language
for communication. The teacher should talk a lot in language classroom to
the students because the students need to practice English. The more English
the students hear, the more the students will learn.
Nevertheless, the teacher also uses mother tongue to teach the foreign
language to the Senior High school students. The use of mother tongue also helps
the teaching learning activities. According to Slattery and Willis (2001: 12), the
teacher uses the mother tongue to support when teaching a new activity or if
no one understands. The teacher also lets the students use their mother tongue
for communication because many Senior High School students often need to talk
it in order to learn the target language.
In English classroom, the teacher often switches the use of both
languages which is known as a code switching. Zilm (1989) states that code
switching is affected by the following factors:
• The nature of the activity in the classroom. It means that teacher should
• The teacher's perception of how the students learn. It means that the
teacher has to recognize how the students learn the lesson, i.e. they have
full concentration on the lesson taught or not.
• The teacher's perception of the role and functions of the target and native
language. It means that the teacher should use the target and native
language wisely while he or she taught in the language classroom.
The switching of the languages is expected to make the students acquire the
target language easily.
2) Speech Modifications
A number of studies have shown that native speakers (teachers and
non-teachers alike) modify their speech to non-native speakers in a number of different
ways. These modifications are believed to make the language is easier to
comprehend and help the learners acquire the target language. Many investigators
have studied a wide range of speech phenomena, including modifications to
phonology, lexis, syntax and discourse. Chaudron as cited by Rod Ellis (1994) in The Study of Second Language Acquisition summarizes the research on the teacher speech in language classroom which shows that the following modifications occur:
•The teacher, like native speakers in general, slows down their rate of speech when
talking to the learners. The teacher usually speaks slowly in English to the
students in order to make the students get the main point of the teacher’s talk.
•The teacher often makes use of longer pauses when talking to the learners. The
teacher gives more time for the students to understand the lesson which
questions. This is often called as a wait time.
•A lower type-token ratio of vocabulary used. The teacher often uses the most
familiar vocabulary in teaching English to Senior High School students so that
the students can understand easily.
•More declaratives and statements than questions are used in comparison to
natural discourse. The teacher usually produces declarative sentences and
statements in teaching English because the main function of the teacher
teaching is to explain the material learned. Therefore, the teacher often
produces those kinds of sentences rather than the questions.
Some of the teacher’s talk characteristics, such as shorter and simpler sentences,
slower and clearer speech are found while teaching second or foreign language
learners. They are often called as speech modification.
b. Purposes of Teacher’s Introductory Language
The introductory language of the teacher or teacher’s talk in classroom aims
to give explanations, questions, error correction, and feedback to the students.
1) Giving Explanation
Nunan (1989: 27) says that the major pedagogic function of teacher talk is to
provide explanation. By giving the explanation, the teacher gives information
about the lesson the students studied. The teacher gives explanation as detail as
possible. However, if the teacher gives long explanation, some students will get
bored and turn into passive condition. They accept English as a subject in which
the teacher’s teaches are beyond comprehension. They get bored and are not
In order to avoid students’ boredom, the teachers can use English
purposefully and selectively to answer students’ questions, give instruction,
explain homework assignments and explain new topic by relating to an amusing
story that students can comprehend. Moreover, the teachers can give modeling
when explaining. By modeling, the teacher can transfer the knowledge to the
students easily. It also strengthens what teacher means in his or her explanation. 2) Asking Questions
The teacher's questions have received quite a lot of attention. Gebhard (1996:
71) says, "My own observations show that EFL/ESL teachers also ask a lot of
questions." It implies that questioning behaviors can benefit ESL/EFL teachers who
want to provide chances for students to interact in English classroom in
meaningful ways. The way to focus on the questioning behaviors is to consider
the purposes of questions.
Gebhard (1996) also states that there are five types of teacher’s behavior in
asking questions. Those are display question, referential question, comprehensible
check, confirmation question, and clarification check.
Display question is a question in which the teacher already knows the
answer and requires the students to demonstrate the knowledge of something. For
example, "What is the title of our handout and what is about, Valerie?" The
teacher has already known of the title but he wants his student shares the
knowledge about what in the student’s mind when reading the title.
Referential question is a question in which the teacher does not know the
communicate with the students, for example, the teacher forgot to use his
watch. Then, he asks the students, "What time is it now? or another example, "Who
has gone to Bali?" simply to know who has and who has not gone to Bali.
Referential question is the opposite of display question because it urges the
students to answer what the teacher does not know.
Comprehension question is a question to find out whether a student
understands the material taught or not. The teacher uses the comprehension
question such as, "Do you understand?" Sometimes the students reply "yes" if
they have already understood or “not yet” if they need more explanation.
Confirmation question is a question to verify what is said by the teacher.
For example: "We are going to have a test on Wednesday, right?" asks the
teacher to confirm something that he believes is true. Whereas, clarification check
is a question to further define or clarify. The clarification sentence such as, "I am
not sure. When are we going to have a test?" aims to clarify in what day the test
is going to be hold exactly.
The questions which are addressed to the students cannot be separated
from the wait time needed by the students to think about the answer. According to
Celce-Murcia (2001), wait time refers to the length of the pause which follows a
teacher's question to one student or to the whole class and this lasts until either the
student answers or the teacher adds a comment or asks another question. The wait time
can also be applied to the period between one student's answer to a question and
The wait time is believed as an important thing for the students to have
sufficient time to think about the questions after they have been asked before
attempting to answer the questions. Some teachers never manage to extend their wait
time more than one or two seconds. However, wait time should be increased. It is
obviously important in language classroom, not only because of the greater
processing time required to comprehend and interpret questions in second or foreign
language but also because of the findings that acquisition will be maximally
facilitated when learners are pushed to the limit of their competent.
3) Correcting Error
A traditional belief says that a teacher should correct every student’s error,
while a more current view emphasizes the importance of the students obtaining
feedback when meaning the teacher wants to convey, is not understood. In fact,
the students need feedback in order to differentiate between acceptable and
unacceptable target language use.
Error correction is the classroom activity when most people think of as one
of the language teachers’ most important function. Nunan (1989) states that
second or foreign language students’ errors are not necessary to be corrected if the
errors are not fatal. In addition, according to Larsen & Freeman (2005), the
teacher must let the students speak in English on what they want to speak and
correct the students’ mistakes when they stop their speaking.
However, the students’ fatal errors should be corrected immediately. If it is not
corrected, it will fossilize. In other word, the errors seem not to change even after
extended exposure or instruction in the target language. It can become a habit for
the students.
4) Providing Feedback
Feedback from the teacher can be classified into positive and negative
feedbacks. A positive feedback is more effective than a negative feedback in
changing students’ behavior. According to Nunan (1991), positive feedback has
function to let students know that they have performed correctly and to increase
motivation through compliment. On the other hand, a feedback which conveys the
lack of understanding is known as a negative feedback. The teacher‘s feedback
often seems to be rather automatic. The positive short interjections which are often
used by the teachers are 'Good', 'All right', 'Right', `Excellent', 'Very good', 'Okay'.
The negative feedback consists of the teacher repeats of students' response
with a rising intonation. All students, although low proficiency students, have no
trouble in recognizing this as a mark that indicates students' answer is wrong. On
the other hand, the negative feedback will cause negative effects on the students'
performances. It causes students to have lack confidence. Therefore, the teachers
4. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
There are many teaching methodologies used by the teacher in teaching
English. One of them, which still relevant applied until nowadays is
Communicative Language Teaching. This methodology aims
“...to apply theoretical perspective of the Communicative Approach by making communicative competence the goal of language teaching and by acknowledging the interdependence of language and communication”. Larsen-Freeman (2005: 120)
In short, CLT requires communicative competence in teaching English. The
teacher has to use English as the vehicle of communication not only a matter of
object study. This means both the teacher and students communicate in the target
language in the classroom. Moreover, the communication is done in the target
langauge in order to make the students acquire the target langauge easily.
CLT focuses on the real language use and it emphasizes on the process of
communication rather than the mastery of language forms. The role of students is
more dominant according to CLT in which the teacher gives more opportunities to
the students in communication among them. Nonetheless, the teacher still plays an
important role as a facilitator of communication in the language classroom. The
teacher’s main responsibility is to establish good situations in the students’
communication.
Concerning to the theory of CLT, the classroom should be a
student-centered class. However, the task of the teacher cannot be ignored. According to
this methodology, the teacher is someone who acts as an adviser, answers to the
teacher also takes a big part on presenting some part of the lesson, such as when
facing with linguistic accuracy and evaluating the students’ performances.
B. Theoretical Framework
This section presents the theoretical framework used in this study. There are
four theories discussed to answer the research problem. Each theory supports the
other theories. Therefore, they complete each other because all theories have each
role in collecting the data to answer the questions formulated in problem
formulation.
1. Teacher’s Introductory Language
The theory of teacher’s talk is related with the other theories. They are theory
of cognitive development by Piaget (2003)) and the theory of the teacher’s talk by Nunan (1989). The Senior High School students as said by Piaget in Educational Psychology Interactive cited by W, Huitt & Hummel (2003), are in the age of around 15 above which are included in the stage of formal operational stage. In
this stage, they have an abstract thinking so they can understand the material
taught well. They actually can speak English but have a little understanding on
pronunciation, diction and grammar so they still need an English teacher who can
be the source of the knowledge. The teacher’s introductory language which is
known as the teacher’s talk is a language used by the teacher in classroom to teach
the students whose complexity varies according to the level of the learners. It
means that the teacher needs to adjust the language the teacher uses to the students
The theory of teacher’s talk by Nunan (1989) involves the way the
teacher organizes the teaching learning activities in the classroom and it is used to
know the role of the introductory language of the teacher. The teacher’s
introductory language characterizes of how the use of language in teaching English,
whether in the mother tongue or the target language. In addition, the teacher
sometimes modifies the speech in order to make the students understand what is
taught. Therefore, the theory of speech modification by Chaudron as cited by Rod
Ellis (1994) is used to find out the modification made by the teacher. The use of
each language in teaching Senior High School students depends on the perception
of how the teacher notices the students act to the lesson taught. Therefore, the
teacher should adjust the way the teacher speaks to the students’ cognitive
development. It will make the teacher easy to teach the lesson. In other word, as
proposed by Nunan the teacher should notice in what level the students are so that
the students can understand the lesson.
Moreover, the teacher’s introductory language in teaching English to Senior
High School students is not always using the target language but the teacher also
speaks in Indonesian, the mother tongue, because of certain reasons. This case is
called as code switching in which the teacher speaks both English and Indonesian.
The code switching can also be analyzed by knowing discourse analysis. Code
switching is a phenomenon where bilingual/multilingual individuals move from
one language to another within a single utterance and sometimes even within a
sentence because of certain reasons. In short, by combining the use of English and
2. The Role of Teacher’s Introductory Language
The teacher speaks in classroom for certain reasons. The theory of teacher’s
talk which majored at purposes is divided into four main points. They are
explanation by Nunan (1989), questions by Gebhard (1996), error correction by Nunan (1989) and Larsen-Freeman (2005) and providing feedback by Nunan (1991). However, the questions are still divided into five major question types. They include display question, referential question, comprehensible check,
confirmation question and clarification question.
The teacher’s introductory language has purposes on how the teacher asks
questions to know the students knowledge, gives feedback to make the students
become more confident and corrects the students' mistakes to let the students
know their mistakes and never repeat it, gives instruction and explanations to
keep the students focus on the lesson taught, and makes the target language
comprehensible to the students. The question types which are analyzed using
question theory by Gebhard (1996) can deliver to the understanding of the role of
the teacher’s introductory language.
3. The English Language Teaching
According to the latest curriculum in Senior High School,
ommunicative Language Teaching methodology is the most relevant method
applied since the major purpose of teaching learning activities is a real
communication using the target language. The theory proposed by
Larsen-Freeman (2005) gives clear explanation that the teacher is demanded to apply a
real language to communicate between the teacher and students. In addition,
this theory is also employed to find out the role of the teacher’s introductory
language.
In implementing this method, the teacher views the language acquisition
acquired by the students. It is noticed that Senior High School students have already
known the first language well. Therefore, the teacher gives more attention to the
second or foreign language acquisition. This can help the teacher to adjust the role
of the teacher’s introductory language and by applying this theory, the teacher can
teach the students according with the students’ proficiency level.
As a conclusion, by implementing all theories this research can find out
the language used by the teacher when she or he taught the Senior High School
students and describe the role of the teacher’s introductory language when the
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
This chapter discusses the methodology used in this study. The discussion
includes the research method, research participants, setting, research instruments,
data gathering technique, and data analysis.
A. Research Method
In choosing the appropriate research method, the researcher has to see the
problem formulation in the chapter one first. The reason is that the research
method will provide the way to answer the research problems formulated.
According to Ary, Jacob, Razavieh (2002) the research methods refer to the
general strategy providing the data necessary for answering the research problem.
According to Nasution (1988: 5) qualitative research is a research method
which has the objective to see human being in their life, interact with them, and
try to understand their language and their interpretation about their life. On
particularly, this research aims to know what the language used by teacher in
teaching English to Senior High School students and the role of the teacher’s
introductory language in teaching English.
This kind of research method is usually employed to investigate
descriptive data. In this study, descriptive research will be employed to obtain the
data. According to Best (1982:119) descriptive research is a research method
which has objective to describe and interpret the data. This type of research is
often called as non-experimental research, because the research is not meant to do
controlling and manipulating research variable. Generally, descriptive research
aims to describe the facts and characteristic of the research object or subject
studied systematically.
There some reasons which make many people do descriptive research.
These reasons also made the researcher do this type of research. The first reason
was that from empiric observation is found that most of research reports are
written in descriptive. Then, the second reason is that descriptive method useful
for getting problem variation which concern with educational and human
behavior. Another reason why descriptive research was employed to obtain the
data is because it is a simple research which easy to be understood without using a
complex statistic technique.
In addition, according to Arikunto (2000:310), descriptive qualitative
method does not mean to examine certain hypothesis but it only means to draw
real condition on certain variable, phenomena or circumstance. Therefore, the
researcher does not make a hypothesis for this research. In addition, the data
obtained from the teacher’s acts in teaching English was not in the form of
number or statistic data. The other reasons was that the data was collected in a
natural setting as said by Ary Jacob Razavieh (1979) the qualitative research was
a kind of research study which focuses on understanding social phenomena from
the perspective of human participants in the study. Therefore, the teacher as the
naturally during the study. In other words, it could be said that this study
investigated the subject naturally.
B. Research Participants
In order to find the data from the teacher’s introductory language or
teacher’s talk in English classroom, three teachers were used as the research
participants. The participants of this research were taken from three English
teachers of Senior High School of all graders.
C. Setting
The source of the data from this research was teachers of Senior High
School. It took place in SMA N 1 Klaten located on Jalan Merbabu, Klaten. Three Senior High School teachers from different grades were chosen to obtain the data.
The direct observation was done in one week started from 14 – 16 April 2008. It
was conducted three times a week. Before conducting the observations, the
researcher made an observation in one week in the Senior High School to dig out
deeper about the teachers. After doing the classroom observations, the researcher
conducted interviews on October, 27 2008 to the three teachers used as the
research participants. SMAN 1 Klaten was chosen because this Senior High
C. Research Instruments
The instrument of this research is a direct observation and interview. Ary,
Jacobs, Razavieh (1979: 191) said that by using observation, the researcher
identified the behavior to identify, categorize and record in either a natural
situation. This research observed how the teacher taught English in classroom.
The observation was supported by using another instrument in getting the
data to solve the first research problem. This instrument was the audio recording
of the teacher’s talk in teaching English and the data was backed up by
note-taking. The data was recorded using MP3 player. In order to gain the result, the
data was transcribed to make it easier to analyze. These instruments helped to
obtain the valid data about the teacher’s introductory language. Implementing the
observations, this research could identify the language used by the teacher in the
classroom and the purposes of the teachers’ introductory language.
In collecting the data to answer the second research problem, the researcher
conducted the interviews with the teacher that served as the research participants.
The interview was used because this research needed supporting data to identify
the role of the teacher’s introductory language in teaching English directly. The
question for interviewing the teachers is provided in appendix 3. This instrument
was meant to support the data collected from the classroom observations. It served
as the additional data to the first data. This strengthened the data needed for this
E. Data Gathering Technique
The research started with the several steps in data gathering techniques
conducted in this research:
• Formulating the research problems to solve through the research.
• Deciding what research method adopted to answer the research problems.
As stated above, this research employed a qualitative research in which the
data was in the form of descriptive data.
• Developing the suitable instruments used for this research. In order to
collect the data, direct observations and interviews were employed as the
research instruments. Either the observations or the interviews were
supported by the use of MP3 player to record the teachers’ talk in the
teaching learning processes. The data was obtained by observing the
teachers when they were teaching the students. The aim of doing the
observations and recording the lesson was to find out the language mostly
used by the teachers in teaching English to the students.
• Transcribing the data obtained using the MP3 player into descriptive data
and analyzed the data on what language used mostly by teacher in teaching
English and its purposes.
• Conducting the interviews to investigate the role of the teacher’s
introductory language in teaching English to support the data obtained from
the observation. It strengthened the finding of the teacher’s role in teaching
notes taken during the teaching learning processes in order to get the detail
data.
• Making conclusions based on the finding of the data collection. This
research later could determine what the language mostly used by the teacher
in teaching English and the role of the teacher’s introductory language in
teaching English to Senior High School students.
F. Data Analysis
The data from the observations in English classroom was transcribed into
written form. The researcher admitted that the recording had two weaknesses
which could make the data became not valid. The first weakness was the unclear
voice. The voice which was recorded in MP3 player sometimes was not clear.
Therefore, the researcher also employed note taking to make the data became
more reliable. The second weakness was the voice which often distracted by other
voices. The observations were sometimes distracted by the voice of car engines
and other people’s talk. Moreover, the school was near with the main road in the
town.
Consequently, note taking was used to support the data. Therefore, the
researcher could write all important things from the classroom observations.
Moreover, the researcher could write some important circumstances happening
during the teaching learning activities, i.e. eye contact between the teacher and
The first data analysis was classified into three parts. They were the
teacher’s talk in both English and Indonesian from each grade teacher. It also
included the code switching made by each grade and the teacher’s talk purposes in
teaching senior high school students. The data was classified from each grade
teacher so that the teachers’ talk could be analyzed from different grades.
The second data analysis was obtained by the interviews which were
conducted to have deeper findings from each grade teacher’s opinion about the
teacher’s talk role in teaching English to Senior High School students. Then, the
researcher combined these two kinds of instruments to obtain the final result. The
data taken from the observations which was strengthened by the interviews
determined the roles of the teacher’s introductory language in teaching English in
classroom. Finally, it could show the importance of the teacher’s introductory
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS RESULTS
This chapter discusses the answers to the research problems. This chapter
is divided into three main parts, namely the teacher’s introductory language, the
role of the teacher’s introductory language in teaching Senior High School
students and the other findings. In the first part, the writer analyzes the language
used by the teachers while they were teaching in classroom and describes the code
switching made by the teachers. In the second part, the writer analyzes the role of
the teacher’s introductory language in teaching Senior High School students
which were the purpose of the teacher’s talk. Meanwhile, the last part reveals the
other findings from the data obtained. The analysis from each part, excluding the
last part, gives examples of the teacher’s talk taken from the data transcript which
is provided in the appendix
.
A. The Teacher’s Introductory Language
The teacher’s introductory language or the teacher’s talk could not be
separated from the language used. It included talk in Indonesian as mother tongue
and in English as the target language. However, the teacher also made code
switching when he or she taught the Senior High School students (see appendix
3-5). In addition, in English as second or foreign language classroom, the teachers
modified their speech or talk in such a way so that the target language was easy to
acquire by the students. Therefore, this research discussed the language used both
