1
THE USE OF L1 IN-A BILINGUAL EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR
PRESCHOOL
ABSTRACT
English language has become more important nowadays. People are competing to master that language, teach their children about English, and send them to the bilingual school. In fact, bilingual education allows the teachers teach using L1. By knowing that, this study conducted to investigate on when the teacher of preschool students switches into L1 in their teaching and learning process. This study is based on the classroom observation conducted in Satya Wacana Children Center Salatigaand it shows when the teacher use L1 in teaching preschool students. The discussion suggested that the purposes of using L1 still take important part in teaching learning process. As the result, the researcher found that the use of L1 in Satya Wacana Children Center preschool happened when: explaining material, giving admonition, giving instruction, and ensuring student understanding.
Key words: First language (L1), Bilingual education, Preschool
INTRODUCTION
In this 20th century, English has very important role to the future life. English is used to get a job, to operate the technology (e.g computer), and to communicate as it is an international language. Because of that, people are busy mastering English language nowadays. People who at least know to write and speak English will be easier to get a job than those who don’t. Therefore, from an early age, many parents choose bilingual school for
their children to school so that they can master English quickly. Many schools then open their
bilingual education program.Birdsong (1999) defines that children are better second language
learners than adults and in hope that they will be proficient in English quickly.
2 The use of L1, in this case Bahasa Indonesia, surely can help the learning process in bilingual class. Hammerly (1994) stated that a program that place an emphasis on the L2 and ignore the L1 are not successful in preventing or removing language errors.It means that both teacher and students use L1 in order to learn L2. According to Nation (1997), he stated that when the classes where learners all share the same first language or national language, teachers need to use a range of options to encourage learners to use the L2 as much as possible. It means to provide the sense of comfort for the students to learn L2. While Auerbach (1993) concludedher thought in the following way:"Starting with the L1 provides a sense of security and validates the learners’ lived experiences, allowing them to express
themselves. The learner is then willing to experiment and take risks with English."
It is true that using L1 may help the bitterly achievement in learning L2. However, there is a determined portion (30:70) to when to use L1, so that the teacher cannot use L1 all the time. Something that has to keep in minds, that as a teacher, they are assigned to know when they should use L1 or remain L2. Beside that determined portion, expectation from the parents that want their children to be familiarized with English also can be the consideration too. Teacheris welcome to use native language to avoid confusion in the learning process.
Based on the explanation above, the researcherwill conduct a researchin one of preschool in Salatiga and the researcher is curious in examining the class with 5-6 years old students in it. In attempt to further understanding, this research only focuses on thetime “when” the teacheruse native language in teaching. The researcher will investigate the “when” based on what he sees in the classroom interaction through observation. Moreover,
this study will answer the main question as follow: When does the teacher uses L1 in teaching bilingual to preschool students? I am interested in this study because I want to
3 contribution to the other study of the purpose of using L1 in the same or different contextin the future study.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Code switching and code mixing as a part of Bilingual Education
Code switching is different from code mixing. Code switching is the use of two languages as an alternative between sentences, while code mixing is the use of two languages within one sentence. (Winford, 2003). Code switching or mixing is a part of teachers’ talk that means to use two languages, in this case, English to Indonesia. This language feature can be used by the teachers to give the instruction (Kim & Elder, 2008; Macaro, 2001; Rolin-Ianziti & Brownlie, 2002), to ensure the students’ understanding (Gulzar, 2010), to explain
difficult terms (Duff & Polio, 1990; Kim &Elder, 2008), to shift from one topic to another (Gulzar, 2010),for making a joke (Copland & Neokleous, 2011), for giving hints (Copland & Neokleous, 2011), and also the classroom management (Canagarajah, 1995) that include: opening the class, negotiating, requesting help, managing discipline, teacher encouragement, teacher compliments, teacher admonitions, mitigation, pleading. As the addition, translation is included as apart of code switching, which means that to switch from one language to another language, it may be the same as to translate one language to another language. Based on research of this language feature, code switching is not a sign of lack of proficiency of language, but more in strategy of teachers’ talk (Li, 2000).
Teachers switch into L1 when they give instruction
4 Teachers switch into L1 to ensure the students understanding
The teacher will use native language to check students’ comprehension and to clarify
the materials given in the class. Usually, checking comprehension can be done by asking question related to the material to the student (Atkinson, 1987). Meanwhile, clarify means to check whether the students understandthe material or not.
Teachers switch into L1 to explain the material
When the teacher explains the material, truly they will find some or even many difficulties in presenting the material. The problem can be either the teacher cannot choose the best word to define the specific term or the students cannot understand about the explanation from their teacher. Therefore, the native language can be used since teacher and students who used L1 in L2 teaching will make less error than who use L2. (Duff & Polio, 1990;Swain & Lapkin, 2000).
Teachers switch into L1 as a transition
It is often found that in the middle of teaching, the teacher gives an announcement to their students. For example, the teacherannounces that tomorrow will use batik, etc. The teacher will use native language to avoid misunderstanding or to get the students’ attention.
(Flyman-Mattson & Burenhult, 1999). It also can be defined as a transition from one topic to another topic in class. (Gulzar, 2010).
Teachers switch into L1 for making jokes(Copland and Neokleous, 2011)
5 Teachers switch into L1 for giving hints(Copland and Neokleous, 2011)
If there is a word in English that is not understandable by the students, the teacher may scaffold their students using L1. Scaffold means to give some hints to stimulate the student about the intended things. By the using of L1 in scaffold, it can save the time teaching.
Teachers switch into L1 as classroom management (Canagarajah, 1995)
According to Canagarajah (1995), the teacher may use L1 to maintain classroom management. Classroom management includes: opening class, negotiating, requesting help, teacher encouragement, teacher compliments, teacher admonitions, mitigation, and pleading. Negotiation means the teacher may negotiate with the students if they complain. Teacher admonition means the teacher warn the students for whatever reason in the class. While mitigation, is when the teacher gives extended time to the students to finish their work or give flexible rules in the class. Pleading is when the teacher defends one or group of her students from the others.
METHODOLOGY Context of the Study
6 Participant
The participant in this studywas a teacher, Ms Sri (a pseudonym), who taught 5-6 years old students in Bloomers class. Ms Sri and her students would have a class with English and Indonesian as their communication. As the delivery of the materials happened, they would have interaction to each other. Through the interaction, the researcher would gather the data.The reason the researcher chose her was because she was the only teacher taught on that class and that class was the one that used more English language than the others.
Instrument of Data Collection
In collecting the data, the researcher used one instrument, which was observation. The researcher would observe the class, accompanying by video recorder, and not disturb the learning process in class.After the researcher finished with the observation, he immediately transcribed it and categorized it in themes.
7 T: ….
Table 1: A time-sampling protocol
The observation would be done first and then the researcher would examine “when” the teacher switch or mix with those language. The researcher would record the learning process from the beginning until the end of the lesson.
Procedure of Data Collection
To ease the researcher, the observation was conducted using a video recorder. There would be eight observations for the data collection.
OBSERVATION DATE TIME LENGTH OF TIME
1 18/2/2014 08.30-09.08 38.12 MIN
2 18/2/2014 09.50-10.30 40.56 MIN
3 25/2/2014 08.30-09.17 47.14 MIN
4 25/2/2014 09.57-10.26 29.37 MIN
5 26/2/2014 10.07-10.33 26.36 MIN
6 4/3/2014 08.30-09.19 49.15 MIN
7 4/3/2014 09.55-10.34 40.05 MIN
8 6/3/2014 09.55-10.35 40.36 MIN
Table 2: Observation data
After the researcher transcribed and gathered all the data, he analyzed it. Data Analysis
8 Furthermore, the total percentage of theme based on the data the researcher got, would answer the researcher’s question.
FINDINGS
In this discussion, I will present the data analysis that I get from the classroom observations about the use of L1 in a bilingual education program for preschool.
Based on the graphic above, the teacher switches into L1 when explaining the material got the highest occurrences (26.88%), followed by teacher admonition (20.94%), giving instruction (20.55%), ensure students understanding (15.42%) and the others only have not more than 6%.Each of those themes will be explained and discussed further below.
L1 is used mostly when the teacher explain the material
9 1. T: Makanannya tanaman apa sih?
S1: airrr
S2: menyiramin terus
T: oo menyiramin terus, oke Sesta, what else? Kalau ada tanaman menyiramin terus, disiram Sesta, bukan menyirami. (3th observation, 25th of February)
2. T: And then Kayra has to go to post office to put a package of bag… S: tidak hanya surat
T: iya, tidak hanya surat saja, paketnya itu kemudian diberikan ke pak pos… S: pak polisi
T: bukan pak polisi. Kemudian akan ditulis, mau kemana mbak? Ke tempatnya
Hanadel. Alamatnya? Itu yang ada di peumsat kartini. (6th observation, 4th of March)
Those examples above showed that the teacher used L1 when she explained the material. The data above showed that L1 helped the teacher to explain the material. The teacher would easily explain and deliver the material to her students. The example 1, the teacher explained about how to treat a plant. The example 2, the teacher explained about post office.
The use of L1 helped students understand easily, got the main point intended of the lesson quickly, and responded the teacher’s question accurately. It also helped the teacher in managing students to avoid confusion in learning process as it could be seen in example 1 and 2. The teacher switched into L1 to make sure that the students would follow her explanation so that there were no mistakes in learning process. According to Duff & Polio (1990) and Swain & Lapkin (2000), they found that both teacher and students used L1 in L2 teaching make less error than who use L2. Both examples above are the corrections from the teacher to the students’ error so that the next time the students will not repeat the same
10 L1 is used when the teacher give admonition to her students
The use of L1 here is also used when the teacher warned her students in the class. There are two kind of admonition that Idistinguish, admonition at the beginning of the class and at the rest of the class. I found that the teacher tended to warn her students 25 times in total (4.94%) at the beginning of class, whereas in the middle until the rest of the class, teacher admonition happened 81 times in total (16%). Here are some the examples of using L1 when the teacher gives admonition:
1. Siuation (teacher open the class) Ss: (noisy)
S1: miss, Rafael dipanggil nggak mau jawab.
T: anak-anak sudah, tidak banyak omong. Selesai. Sudah selesai berbicaranya, sudah selesai mainnya, stop talking. (4th observation, 25th February)
2. Situation (teacher warned two students who were talking when they were doing exercise)
T: yang kerja apanya sih ini? Ss: mulut, tangan.
T: kalau tangannya kerja, mulutnya diam. (1st observation, 18th February)
From those examples, it showed that teacher use L1 when she gave warning to her students. The teacher warns the students and they can directly get that warn. This also may avoid confusion between the teacher and her students. The example 1, happened at the beginning of the class. The example 2, happened in the middle of the class. In example 1, the teacher wanted to open the class after the break time. She found that her class was noisy and she warned the students. In example 2, the teacher gave exercise to her students, but they were busy with their own business. The teacher warned them and after that, the students kept silent and did their exercise.
11 L1 is used when the teacher give instruction
From the findings that I got, I found that the teacher use L1 also for giving instruction.
She gave the instruction at the beginning of the class 19 times (3.75%) while 85 times
(16.8%) at the rest of the class activity. Here are some examples in using L1 when giving
instruction:
1. T: (After moving some students) Sudah? Yuk sekarang dengarkan miss. Telinganya dibuka lebar-lebar, miss mau lihat.
Ss: (imitate)(1st observation, 18th February)
2. T: Can you drag the line the stethoscope to the doctor. Tarik garis dari gambar stetoskop ke gambar dokter. Done?
Ss: done.(6th observation, 4th of March)
Those examples above displayed that the teacher used L1 when giving instruction. The teacher asked the students to keep silent and pay attention to the teacher as stated in example 1.In example 2, the teacher asked the students to do something and she used L1 to let them to do it directly.
The use of L1 in giving instruction allowed the students to understand and followed the activity in class very well. In English language classrooms, the language instructions also took important roles in the teaching learning process. Indonesian language could be useful language to give the instructions to the students. Some scholars stated that giving instructions in L1 has been considered to be effective in helping the learners achieving the goal of classroom activities. (Atkinson, 1987; Cook, 2001; Lucas and Katz, 1994; Macaro, 1997 in Manara 2007).
L1 is used when the teacher ensure the students understanding
12 students understanding, the teacher used L1 in most of her teaching. In this case, teachers might use L1 when they checked the students understanding to make it easier and save the time teaching. Based on my observation, students tended to be passive and some of them were confused if the teacher used L2. Here are some examples of using L1 in ensuring students understanding:
1.T: sudah bisa?
Ss: sudah
T: yang dibuat apanya dulu yang pertama kali? Anak-anak buat?
Ss: lingkaran
T: iya (8th observation, 6th of March)
2. T: what about this one?(while holding a paper with picture on it)
S1: tas
T: kalau jaket itu yang zip. Apa namanya? Untuk buka apa namanya?
Ss: resleting (1st observation, 18th of February)
From those examples above, it showed that the teacher used L1 when she ensured the
students understanding. The conversation between the teacher and the students in example 1
showed that the teacher tried to check the student understanding of drawing a clock, while in
example 2, the teacher tried to check the student understanding about the word zip.
Checking students’ comprehension is very important in teaching learning process.
13 Conclusion
This study was proposed to determine:when the teacher uses L1 in teaching bilingual
to preschool students. In teaching bilingual to preschool students, the teacher used both code
switching and code mixing. The study has found that generally teacher used L1 when she was
explaining material, giving admonition, giving instruction, and ensuring student
understanding.
In explaining the material, the teacher used L1 to make the students understand easily
and in order to save time teaching. Moreover, some conversation between the teacher and the
students showed that there were some corrections from the teacher to the students’ errors with
hope that the students would pay attention on it later on. In giving admonition or warn, the
teacher used L1 to directly hit the target students and avoid confusion between them. For
giving instruction, the teacher used L1 to ask the students to do something. By L1, the
students could understand and avoid confusion in the class. In ensuring students
understanding, teacher used L1 to ask the students understanding based on the material given.
All these results implied that L1 takes important part in bilingual education in order to
get successful teaching and learning process in the Satya Wacana Children Center preschool
because not all the students familiar with English since they are only 5-6 years old. The
findings describe that L1 was really used to teach in bilingual education. From the study, the
researcher hopes that the study on the use of L1 in bilingual education will give general
overview about the teacher used L1 to teach in preschool.
From this research, teacher knew when they should use L1 in learning process.
However, there is limitation on this study. The limitation is on the findings. The findings
cannot be generalized. This study may have different finding with the elementary school,
15 Acknowledgement
First of all, I would like to say thank to my Almighty God, Jesus Christ, who has guide and give me His strength in doing this thesis. So, this thesis would not have been possible without the support of many people. Iwould like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Anita Kurniawati, M.Humwho was helpful and offered invaluable assistance, support and guidance. My gratitude also due toRindang Widiningrum, M.Hum,without her knowledge and assistance this study would not have been completed. I also thanksto my participant, the teacher of Satya Wacana Children Center for her contribution for this study.
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