IN TARAKANITA PRIMARY SCHOOL MAGELANG
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Lukas Andree Halim
112009090
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
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The Role Of L1 To Teach English For Primary School 5th Grade Students in Tarakanita Primary School Magelang
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THE ROLE OF L1 TO TEACH ENGLISH FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL 5th GRADE STUDENTS IN TARAKANITA PRIMARY SCHOOL MAGELANG
Lukas Andree Halim
Abstract
Pro and cons in using L1 in English language classroom has been discussed for many years. The pro sides argued that using L1 in FL classroom should be minimized for the learners in acquiring the target language. However, the cons sides revealed that using L1 in FL classroom had positive role in teaching-learning process, such as; to give instructions, to explain grammar concept or reading text, to explain the meaning of difficult vocabulary, to check the students’ understanding, and to give feedback to the students which could help the learners in acquiring the L2. Inspired by the pros and cons, this study has attempted to investigate the role of L1 the teacher used when teaching grade 5 primary school students. This paper is based on the classroom observations conducted in grade 5 English classes in Tarakanita Primary School, Magelang. It aimed at showing the frequency of L1 usage in Teaching English to Primary School students. The findings suggested that L1 usage still took important roles in teaching learning process.
Key words: Teaching English, Grade 5 Primary School, and The Role of L1.
INTRODUCTION
The use of mother tongue (L1) in English Foreign Language (EFL) classroom has been
debated for many years. As a proponent of monolingual approach, Khrasen (1989) argued that
the use of L1 should be minimized in English classroom, so that the English learners can acquire
the target language as well as their mother tongue (L1). According to Sharma, (2006: 80), the
benefit of using the target language in the classroom was that, “the more students are exposed to
English, the more quickly they will learn; as they hear and use English, they will internalize it to
begin to think in English; the only way they will learn it is if they are forced to use it.’’
In contrast to Khrasen’s and Sharma’s findings which were against the use of L1 in
English as a Foreign Language classroom provides positive effects in teaching new vocabulary
word and in discussing the English topic’ material. Harmer (2001) added that L1 could be used
in explaining things, so that it would help the lower level English learners to understand the
English material.
In some primary schools in Magelang, the teachers used L1 (Indonesian) in teaching
English to the students as the medium language in classroom, although actually there were
benefits and drawback of using L1 in teaching English. L1 had roles in teaching learning process
which could be useful in teaching-learning process. It was important to know the role of L1,
because it could help the teacher improving the teaching-learning to be better. The researcher
chose this topic because the role of L1 could support the teaching-learning process to be more
effective. Tang (2002) as cited by Morahan (2005) points out that L1 serves a supportive and
facilitating role in the classroom. This study intended to show and discuss what roles of L1 used
by the English teacher in EFL classroom for teaching English to Primary School students. In this
paper, the researcher also intended to know the teacher’s reason of using the L1’s roles in the
classroom.
Hopefully, the result of this study could help the primary school teachers in
understanding the role of using L1 in EFL classroom and use L1 appropriately for the success of
the student’s learning. The research question to be answered was ‘How often did the English
teacher in Tarakanita primary school use a particular role of L1 when teaching?’.
What is L1?
In general, L1 can be called as first language or mother tongue. Barnes (2006) explains
L1 as the first language children get right after their birth; they have not got any languages
their first language from their parents. First language is one's native language- the language
learned by children and passed from one generation to the next based on Jones (2010). In this
study, the L1 refers to all languages that learn at first by people.
The Relation between L1 and Young Learners
Barner (2006) states that for young learners in learning a new language, L1 can be a tool
which helps them in acquiring the new language.
According to Barner (Ibid), the roles of L1 in teaching-learning process are:
1. The mother tongue is learners’ linguistic schemata. The mother tongue is a
resource for the learners to draw their existing knowledge from and perceive
the new language. L2 learners refer to their knowledge of L1 in order to help
them to learn the L2. Their L1 is the resource in understanding the target
language.
2. L1 use is a preferred learning strategy. Atkinson (1987, p. 42) states that “The
mother tongue use in the form of translation technique is a preferred learning
strategy for most learners”.
3. L1 use reduces the affective barriers to L2 acquisition. Studies by
D’Annulizios (1991), Garcia (1991), Hemmindinger (1987), Shamash (1990),
Strei (1992), and Strohmeyer and McGrail (1988) as cited in Manara (2007)
show that the use of L1 lowers students’ language anxiety and enhances
positive affective environment for the students to make a progress in their L2
learning.
(i.e., mediate their thinking about) the structures, content and meaning of the
L2 texts they read”.
Why L1 is used in EFL Classroom
A number of role for using the L1 have been suggested in the literature done by
Prodromou (2000), Cameron (2001), and Cook (2001) as cited in Tang (2002). For
example, the roles of L1 are for:
• Explaining aspects of foreign language grammar
Cook (2001) and Liu et al (2004) as cited in Song (2009) explains that L1
can be used in explaining grammar. An investigation done by Burden (2001) in
Nazary (2008), showed that both teachers and students believe that L1 is
important in the development EFL classroom.
• Translating vocabulary or sentences
In teaching English to young learners, the learners’ L1 gives benefits to
explain new words. Besides, L1 help the teacher to explain the meaning of words
or new vocabularies for the young learners.
According to Zacharias (2002) L1 can provide a quick and accurate
translation and explanation of English words. If the new word is explained in
target language, there will be no guarantee whether the students can grasp the
explanation correctly or not. Indeed, the use of L1 in English classroom involves
saving class time. Instead of going through long explanations in the target
language, the explanation in L1 would sometimes be easier and more efficient to
give a translation of a vocabulary item or new words for the young learners.
Exploring the role of L1 in English language teaching classroom, Cook
(2001) as cited by Zacharias (2002) argued that the role of using L1 is useful to
give instruction about classroom activities. Tang (2002) adds teacher uses L1 in
beginning and intermediate classes to give instruction. In the primary level of
English language teaching, L1 takes an important part in giving instruction to the
students. Giving instructions in L1 has been considered to be effective in helping
the learners achieving the goal of classroom activities (Atkinson, 1987; Cook,
2001a; Lucas and Katz, 1994; Macaro, 1997 in Manara (2007). If the students do
not understand the instruction in English, the teacher can use the students’ L1 to
give the instruction.
• Checking understanding of the students
Checking students’ comprehension is very important in teaching learning
process. Checking comprehension is one of ways to check students’
understanding about the material. As Sasson (2012) views that checking
comprehension is one of the hardest areas for a teacher to master but by breaking
down teachers’ expectations. Throughout lessons, teachers have to ensure that
students are paying attention and understanding the material. Conducting
comprehension checks will highlight what students are struggling with and what
needs to be covered more thoroughly before completing additional activities or
moving on to the next topic. The use of L1 is helpful in checking comprehension.
Atkinson (1987) suggests using L1 in checking comprehension can be done by
asking questions to the students and it is often quicker and more accurate .Sharma
• Conveying Meaning
Teachers need L1 to convey the meaning of words or sentences in
delivering the materials. As Franklin (1990) states that teacher use L1 for
conveying word and sentence meaning recognizes that the two languages are
closely linked in the mind. In addition, Cook (2001) adds the use of L1 for
conveying meaning maybe efficient to help the learning and teaching process of
L2. Hassan and Jadallah (2011) demonstrate that L1 is useful to convey meaning
through giving the L1 equivalence of FL item and sentence.
• Giving feedback
Allowing the use of L1 in the classroom will help teacher to give feedback
to students. Manara (2007) highlights L1 is used to give feedback to students.
Giving feedback in L1 is necessary as it could help the students follow the lesson.
In this case, the kinds of feedback are (1) feedback about the task; includes
information about error whether something is correct or incorrect,(2) feedback
about the self as a person; show the students’ achievement and effort in learning
process ( Hattie and Timperley , 2007 in Brookhart, 2008).
• Disciplining and class control (Class Management)
Richard (1990) found that classroom management refers to the ways in
which student behavior; movement and interaction during a lesson are organized
and controlled by the teacher to enable teaching to take place most effectively. As
Fahmida (2007) states classroom management is concerned with maintenance of
discipline by keeping friendly relationship with the class. The use of L1 also takes
A study of investigating the role of using L1 (Arabic) in the elementary
English language classroom in an Oman context that was conducted by Al-Hinai
(2005), showed that Arabic was also widely used for class management and
control. Furthermore, Arabic was also more effective for dealing with discipline
problems than English. In his study, the discipline problem is when he should
control his students to stop making noisy in the classroom.
• Having informal, friendly talk with learners (Reducing student’s language
anxiety)
Meyer (2008) points out that the use of first language can reduce the
students’ language anxiety. Language anxiety can be divided into three
components; those are (1) communication apprehension, (2) fear of negative
social evaluation, and (3) test anxiety. Allowing the use of L1 in the classroom
will decrease those three components. Communication apprehension can be
reduced because the students’ first language allows them to express their thought
and ideas. Fear of negative social evaluation can be mitigated because the
students can communicate directly with each other.
The Advantages of L1 in EFL Classroom
A benefit of using L1 in ESL classes is students see differences between their mother
tongue and second language. Prohibiting the use of students’ mother tongue in the classroom will
not give them the opportunity to make a comparison between L1 and L2. Furthermore, avoidance
of L1 is a barrier to learners’ sense of security in second language learning (Mart, 2013). Nunan
and Lamb (1996) as cited in Mart, (2013) state that it is impossible to prohibit the use of L1
role of L1 in second language learning. In a study conducted by Schweers (1999) cited in Mart
(2013) about the use of L1, a great number of teachers and students advocated the use of mother
tongue in L2 learning. In another study by Tang (2002) about the use native language of students
in EFL classes, it was found that the use of L1 does not reduce students’ exposure to the target
language; on the contrary, it aids the learning of the foreign language. Similarly Brooks and
Donato (1994) cited in Mart (2013) encourage the use of L1 as it helps students with
comprehension and communication effectively. Moreover, the use of translation provides
students an opportunity to notice similarities and differences between L1 and L2. Particularly,
Ross (2000, pp. 61-63) as cited in Mart (2013) points out the importance of translation in foreign
language learning as: “Translation holds a special importance at an intermediate and advanced
level: in the advanced or final stage of language teaching, translation from L1 to L2 and L2 to L1
is recognized as the fifth skill and the most important social skill since it promotes
communication and understanding between strangers”. Ross states that translation develops three
qualities essential to all language learning: accuracy, clarity, and flexibility that will help
students learn effectively.
Cook (2001, p.413) suggests some factors in using the native language positively in
second language teaching: efficiency, if the use of L1 will be more effective in L2 learning;
learning, if the use of L1 will contribute to L2 learning; naturalness, if students will feel more
comfortable and confident when L1 is used in some cases, external relevance, if the use of both
languages will help students to learn L2 effectively then the use of L1 cannot be ignored.
Similarly, Harmer (2001, p.135) suggests some points that we can make in the use of L1.
a) Acknowledge the L1: It is widely accepted that the use of L1 in L2 learning is
b) Use appropriate L1, L2 activities: Through using L1 grammar and vocabulary
activities can be effectively done in the classroom.
c) Differentiate between levels: As they work more in L2, their need for L1 will get less,
but they may still need translation which is considered as the fifth skill.
d) Agree clear guidelines: Students need to know when the use of L1 is beneficial
e) Use encouragement and persuasion: Students may need encouragement to speak in L2.
Cook (2001, p. 418) suggests some uses of the mother tongue as:
To provide a short-cut for giving instructions and explanations where the cost of the L2 is
too great.
To build up interlinked L1 and L2 knowledge in the students’ minds.
To carry out learning tasks through collaborative dialogue with fellow students.
To develop L2 activities such as code-switching for later real-life use.
To ensure that students fully understand what to do, instructions should be given in L1
and the use of L1 is beneficial to convey meaning and explain grammar. Furthermore, it is useful
for students if they use L1 while comparing their answers in groups which will lead them to an
understanding of L2 better.
In particular, in some cases where learning and teaching difficulties arise, in learning
vocabulary fast and comprehension of difficult concepts both the teacher and the students need to
use the L1. Therefore, the use of mother tongue in foreign language teaching cannot be avoided.
Tang (2002, p.37) identifies the uses for L1: classroom management, language analysis,
presenting rules that govern grammar, discussing cross cultural issues, giving instructions or
prompts, and checking for comprehension. “in order to prevent the misunderstanding of the
meaning, especially in the learners' first language'' ( Bouangeune,2009:189). Using L1 in L2
classes facilitates both teaching and learning, aids understanding of ESL structures and inspires
meaningful learning.
Meaning Focused on L1 Usage
In Nation (2003), meaning focused tasks can carry a heavy cognitive load. Not only do
learners have to focus on what to say or what is being said, they also have to focus on how to say
it or how it is being said. Lameta-Tufuga (1994) as stated in Nation (2003) examined the effects
of having learners discuss a task in their first language before they had to carry it out in writing
in the second language. That is, they had the opportunity to fully understand the content of the
task through the medium of their first language, before they performed the written task in
English. According to Nation (2003), the first language discussion of the task had two interesting
features. Firstly, the learners were all very actively involved in coming to grips with the ideas.
Secondly, the first language discussion included quite a lot of the second language vocabulary
which would be used in the later task. Thus the discussion not only helped learners to get on top
of the content, but it also helped them gain control of relevant L2 vocabulary in a very supportive
L1 context. Knight (1996) also made a similar finding. As a result, the learners who did the
preparatory L1 discussion in groups did much better on the L2 written task than other learners
who did preparatory L2 discussion even though that discussion was in the same language as the
subsequent written task. There is thus a useful role for the L1 in helping learners gain the
THE STUDY Context of the Study
This study was conducted in one primary school in Magelang. The reason of choosing the
Primary School is that the Primary School teacher did not use English (the target language) fully
in the teaching-learning process, but still used L1 (Indonesian) as the medium in English
teaching learning process. The researcher chose one primary school in Magelang because it was
a private school which had good education rather than other private and state primary schools in
Magelang. In some private schools in Magelang, the teachers often used English, so the
researcher took this chance to do this study. The observations were done in three classes of
grade five, because the teacher uses both English- Indonesian in the teaching-learning process,
where in grade 1 to 4, the teacher almost used Indonesian many times in teaching. The table of
[image:16.612.72.543.309.716.2]observation schedule would be shown below:
Table 1: The Class Observation Schedule
Date Group Time Duration Class
17-01-2013
5A 07.00-08.10 70 minutes Reading
14-02-2013
5C 11.00-12.10 70 minutes Grammar
28-02-2013
5C 11.00-12.10 70 minutes Speaking
07-03-2013
5C 11.00-12.10 70 minutes Reading
14-03-2013
5B 08.10-08.35 continued
09.00-09.35 (Break 15 minutes)
70 minutes Grammar
21-03-2013
The English lesson in each class was not integrated which combines all the skills and sub
skills, but each class focuses on one skill or sub skill only in one meeting. One chapter of the
lesson included 5 skills which are grammar, reading, listening, speaking, and writing but for each
meeting the teacher only discusses one skill and continues the others in the following week.
Participant
The participant of this study was one English teacher in Tarakanita Primary School in
Magelang, named Ms. Yuli (a pseudonym), who had taught for 3 years there. She graduated
from the English Language and Education faculty and was the only teacher who taught English
in that school.
Data Collection Instrument
To answer the research question, the research methodologies used by the researcher for
this study was:
Observation
The reason for choosing observation as the research instrument was that the
researcher could see the whole teaching-learning process and what exactly happened
in the classroom (first hand sources).
The focus of this observation was observing the teacher what roles of L1 used by
the teacher in one meeting of lesson. An observation sheet which contained a list of
L1 roles was used during the observation in class. The researcher would use tally to
The following was the list of the roles when the teacher used L1 in the
teaching-learning process observed by the researcher which were taken from Zacharias (2003):
(The observation list could be seen in Appendix 1)
To explain the meaning of new words.
To explain grammatical concepts.
To explain the content of reading texts or dialogue.
To check the students' understanding.
To give feedback to individual students.
To give instructions and other functions.
Others (If there were other roles besides what was written above)
Data Collection Procedure
To collect the data for this study, the researcher conducted class observation in the
teaching learning process which took 70 minutes for six times for one teacher only. The
researcher only observed in the grammar, reading, and speaking classes. The reason of observing
in those 3 classes only was that the role of L1, which the researcher wanted to observe, could be
seen clearly in those three classes. The researcher used an observation sheet which contained the
roles of L1. There were two columns in the observation sheet, first was for the role of L1 and
second was for counting the frequency of each role. Every time the teacher used L1
(Indonesian), the researcher gave a tally ( ǀ ) based on the role of L1 the teacher used in the
frequency column and took observation note for supporting the observation with the examples
when she used that role.
The data from the class observation was classified based on the role of L1 and then the
frequency of each role from each observation was counted. The result from the highest and
lowest percentage point would be discussed also with some finding which showed different
result from other studies. The discussion for each role based on the percentage would be given
with the examples below. The teacher’s reason of using L1 would be added to support on the
discussion. The researcher gave supporting ideas for each from some relevant studies.
DISCUSSION
The result of six times observations in grade 5 class, done by the researcher was presented
[image:19.612.65.529.169.599.2]in the form of table and diagram below:
Table 2: The Class Observation Result in Six Times Observation
No. Role of L1 Number of
Occurences
Percentage
1. Check the students’
understanding
6 13%
2. Give instructions 10 21%
3. Explain the content of reading text/dialogue
4 8%
4. Explain the meaning of words/vocabulary
16 33%
5. Explain the grammar concept/pattern
2 4%
6. Give feed-back to individual student
8 17%
7. Other: Ask about the
student’s experience 2 4%
Diagram 1: The Role of L1 in the English Classroom and the Frequency of the Usage
After conducting six times observations in different classes, the researcher classified the
result based on each role of L1 and skill which was taught by the teacher. Based on the result
above, it showed that there were 7 roles of L1 that were used by the teacher in teaching English:
To check the students’ understanding, give instructions, explain the content of reading text,
explain the meaning of words/vocabulary, explain the grammar concept/pattern, give feed-back
to individual student and ask to the students.
The reason of why explaining vocabulary (33%) and giving instructions (21%) got a huge
percentage rather than the other roles was because those roles were mostly used in class.
Explaining vocabulary (33%) was shown in the class observation that the teacher used those
roles when the students felt confused about the material and explanation. For instance: When a
student asked an Indonesian meaning of ‘Habit’, it would be easier, more effective, and efficient
if the teacher give the Indonesian meaning so that it would help the student understand and
could understand the meaning. It also would not be time consuming for the teacher that was why
she used L1 to explain vocabulary to her students.
For giving instructions (21%), the students would understand the teacher’s instructions
clearly if it used Indonesian. In this observation, this role did not use a lot where in other studies
might be found that giving instruction was used a lot in teaching primary school students. It was
because the teacher only used Indonesian if there were some students did not understand what
she said in English. By doing that, the teacher could improve the students L1 knowledge and L2
knowledge. It would be effective and efficient using L1 in this case.
Not all of her students had good English skill; sometimes the teacher used L1 just for
helping the other students in classroom. L1 only was used when the students asked her and did
not understand her explanation in English. The teacher’s reason of using L1 was just to help the
students understanding the lesson more and easily. It was shown that by using Indonesian (L1)
could help her students in class.
Explaining the grammar concept got the smallest percentage in this observation (4%).
Usually teacher would use L1 a lot in this role, but this time was different. The reason was the
material the teacher gave was a remedial from grade 4; it was about Simple Present Tense. They
already got and understand it, but in this occasion they would go deeper about the material.
There were some students who also had good English background so they could
understand the teacher’s explanation although it used English. Only one or two students asked
when the teacher explained in English. From that, it seemed more effective if the teacher used
Indonesian in answering the students question in order to make them more understand about the
Asking to the students had the same percentage with explaining the grammar concept
(4%). It only happened two times in the last class observation. The teacher asked about their
experience while having trip to Borobudur in English, but no one answer it because they did not
understand what the teacher asked about. To make they understand it effectively and not time
consuming, the teacher directly gave the Indonesian to them. As the result, they could answer it
well.
After classifying and describing the L1 usage based on the biggest and smallest usage
frequency, the following was the description of each role of L1 used by the teacher in six
observations done by the researcher. The examples were also provided for each section by the
researcher.
1. Explain the meaning of words/vocabulary
Based on the six observations, the role to explain the meaning of
words/vocabulary had the highest frequency of usage by the teacher (33%). In fact, the
teacher explained the meaning of a word or a phrase or a complete sentence by translating
them into Indonesian. The pattern was used by the teacher in explaining the vocabulary:
(the English word) itu / itu artinya (the Indonesian meaning)
There was an example while the teacher used this role:
Extract 1 taken from class observation 1 on reading class (January, 17 2013 on group
5A). The material was about Unhealthy Habits, the teacher asked the students to read the
text together. After that, she started to explain the content of the text. While explaining,
Teacher: This is Budi’s unhealthy habit.
Danu: Unhealthy habit itu artinya apa, miss?
Teacher: Unhelathy itu artinya tidak sehat, sedangkan habit itu kebiasaan. Jadi unhealthy
habit itu kebiasaan yang tidak sehat.
The finding above was an example when the teacher used Indonesia to convey the
meaning of difficult vocabulary in English. The teacher used the above pattern to convey
the Indonesian meaning of Unhealthy Habits to her students. By saying the English word
then followed by the Indonesian words, it could help the students in memorizing the
meaning of the words. It was shown that the pattern was helpful in helping her students in
dealing with vocabulary.
The use of L1 such as the examples above which is to explain the new
words/vocabulary gave positive contribution to the efficient teaching when the teacher
explained or translated the new words to the students who did not understand about those
words in English. This could be efficient because the teacher just told the meaning in the
way that her students could understand and memorize it easily. The data showed that the
teacher used the same pattern to give the Indonesia meaning of the words.
From the example, the teacher used that pattern in explaining the words
‘unhealthy habits’ to the students. She gave the meaning in directly in Indonesian. The
teacher did not need a long time to help the students understand the meaning by giving the
Indonesian word (s).
The role of L1 used by the teacher was to directly translate the words into
and also to save the time (not time consuming). Zacharias (2002) found L1 could provide
a quick and accurate translation and explanation of English words.
2. Give instructions
Based on the six observations, the role to give instruction was used by the teacher
quite a lot (21%). This role was important because it helped the students in following the
lesson. The following was the example:
Extract 2 taken from class observation 5 on grammar class (March, 14 2013 on group
5B). The material was about telling the time; the teacher explained how to ask and
answer about time to others. Then, she gave an exercise about time to the students. After
she finished telling the instruction, one of her students asked about that.
Teacher: Okay students; please make the clock based on the time in your sentences.
Samy: Miss, berarti kita suruh tulis terjemahannya saja?
Teacher: Iya, Samy. Tapi kalian juga harus membuat jam sesuai kalimat2 tadi.
The data above was an example when the teacher used Indonesian to give
instructions to the students for their task. Sometimes the teacher used English to give
instructions, but she would give the Indonesian meaning if there were some of her
students who did not understand or asked about what they had to do. From the example
above, it showed that the teacher’s instruction was given for translating the sentences and
drawing the clock.
From the observations result above, it could be seen clearly that L1 (Indonesian)
was really helpful in giving instruction to the students. When the teacher gave
instructions, so they could not do their tasks liked in the example 1. It was slightly
different when the teacher used L1 to give instruction; the students were able to
understand and followed the instruction quickly.
Related to the finding above, it could be drawn to a conclusion that the language
instructions in the language classroom contributed on the success of teaching. The
students understood and followed the lesson when the teacher used clear language
instructions. In English language classrooms, the language instructions also took
important roles in the teaching learning process. Instead of using English, Indonesian
could be a useful language to give the instructions to the students. This finding supported
the ideas of Atkinson, (1987); Cook, (2001); Lucas and Katz, (1994); Macaro, (1997) that
was stated in Manara (2007). They agreed that giving instructions in L1 had been
considered to be effective in helping the learners achieving the goal of classroom
activities.
3. Give feed-back to individual students
The use of L1 to give feed-back to an individual student was used by the teacher
(17%). The following was the example from speaking class:
Extract 3 taken from class observation 3 on speaking class (February, 28 2013 on group
5C). The material which was being discussed was about having interview with foreigners.
In this occasion, the teacher told to the students how to make a conversation with
foreigners. The teacher explained what questions should be used in having a polite
the questions. The teacher chose one student and asked him a question. When the student
answered it incorrectly, the teacher directly corrected the student’s mispronunciation.
Teacher: Jeremy, what is your favorite food /fu:d/?
Jeremy: My favorite food /fut/ is beef steak,miss.
Teacher: Could you say the word’ food’ again?
Jeremy: /fut/.
Teacher: Jeremy, bukan /fut/ tapi /fu:d/ cara bacanya.Yang tadi kamu ucapkan itu /fut/ yang berarti kaki (foot). (This happened when a student mispronounced the word ‘food’).
Note: the phonetic words were made by the researcher.
From the example above, the teacher directly gave feed-back to the student’s
mispronouncing using Indonesian. The reason was to make her feed-back understandable
to the students, so he did not do the same mistake again.
From the finding above showed that the teacher gave feed-back to the students who
made error/mistake in writing, reading and speaking. The teacher did that in order to
make the students realize their mistake and did not do it again.
The finding proved the theory about L1 which was used to give feed-back to student.
Manara (2007) highlighted that L1was used to give feed-back to the students. Giving
feed-back in L1 was necessary as it could help the students to understand and follow the
lesson.
Giving feedback from the teacher to the students was one way to motivate the
students. Sometimes the teacher used English in giving feed-back to the students, but if
4. Check the student’s understanding
Based on the six observations, the role to check the student’s understanding was
also used by the teacher in the classroom (13%). Below was the example from grammar
class:
Extract 4 taken from class observation 5 on grammar class (March, 14 2013 on group
5B). The material was about telling the time; the teacher explained how to ask and
answer about time to others. After explaining how to ask and answer about time to others,
the teacher wanted to check whether her students had understood it or not by questioning
to them. She chose one student and asked a question to him.
Teacher: Sandy, apa kamu sudah paham arti kata a quarter dan half past?
Sandy: Sudah, Miss. A quarter itu untuk seperemat dan half itu untuk setengah.
Teacher: Can you the example for both?
Sandy: Okay, it’s a quarter to twelve now. I wake up at half past five every day.
Teacher: Good, Sandy.
The reason of why she used L1 for this role was to ensure all of her students
really understand about the material she gave to them. If there were some of her students
who still did not understand about her explanation, she would re-explained it again using
L1 which was easier to be understood by the students. L1 still had an important role for
checking the students’ understanding.
Checking the students’ understanding was essential to ensure whether the students
understand about the material or not. Scholar Atkinson (1987) suggested that using L1 in
checking understanding was by asking questions to the students. The use of L1 in
Sometimes the teacher used English to check the student’s understanding about
the teaching material, but if she found some students still did not understand what she
asked to them in English, she would use Indonesian to check their understanding. For
some students, they felt more comfortable if the teacher asked in Indonesian.
5. Explain the content of reading text
Based on the six observations, the role to explain the context of reading was used by
the teacher (4%). The example was:
Extract 5 taken from class observation 4 on reading class (March, 3 2013 on group 5C).
The text was about sites on TMII; the teacher asked the students to read together the text
and then asked questions the students related to the text. The teacher chose one student to
answer the question.
Teacher: Apa ada yang tau bacaan tadi tentang apa?
Beny: Bacaan tadi tentang TMII,Miss.
Teacher: Good, bisa dijelaskan lagi?
Vani: Tentang tempat2 hiburan di TMII,miss.
Teacher: Very good, Vani, Jadi bacaan tadi membahasa tempat2 hiburan di TMII.
Sudah paham semua?
That example was found in the reading class and the teacher used it for explaining
the content of the reading text to the students if some of them were still confused. At first
she would use English to explain the content of the reading text, but if she found the
students did not understand about the reading text, she would explain it in Indonesian. By
and easier was efficient; the teacher only explained once in Indonesia and the students
would understand it. Usually she checked by asking the students some questions related
to the reading text.
The reason of why she used Indonesian for this role was almost same as her
previous reason. It was to help the students understanding the material she gave to them
well. The data showed that the L1 that was to explain the reading content helped the
teacher to the student in understandable way. This role was beneficial to help learning
process in the classroom. Franklin (1990) stated that “Teacher use L1 for conveying word
and sentence meaning recognizes that the two languages are closely linked in the mind.”
This argument supported this finding that using L1 to explain the reading content could
help the students to understand the text.
6. Explain the grammar concept / pattern
Based on the six observations, the role to explain the grammar concept / pattern
was used by the teacher (4%). It was rarely used by the teacher, she only used it when the
students still confused about the material and needed easier explanation. For example
was:
Extract 6 taken from class observation 2 on grammar class (February, 14 2013 on group
5C). They were discussing Simple Present Tense and the teacher started to give the
pattern and rules used on Simple Present Tense. While explaining, one of her students
still confused and tried to ask it.
Axel: Miss, kenapa ada kata kerja yang harus ditambah –s/-es dan ada yg tidak pakai itu?
Axel: Bagaimana membedakan kata kerja yang harus ditambah –s atau –es, Miss?
Teacher: Untuk itu ada beberapa cara dan pengecualian. Salah satunya untuk kata kerja yg berakhiran s, sh, ch, x dan o mendapat tambahan –es.
From the example above, it showed that the teacher only used this role when
some of her students still confused about the material and the explanation. Actually at the
beginning, she gave the explanation and notes in English, but she directly switched to
Indonesian when the students asked her about the explanation because they still did not
understand it. If all of her students understood her explanation in English, she would
continue to use English for explaining the material to them.
The finding showed that L1 still has positive role in making the grammar pattern
easier to be understood to the students. Each of her students had different background
knowledge; not all of them were able to understand what she said in English well,
because of that sometimes she used Indonesian to overcome this problem. Garcia (2008)
stated that by using L1 in teaching grammar, the students felt less lost and more
understandable.
7. Ask to the students
Based on the six observations, this role to ask to the student was only found in the
sixth observation (4%). In the previous observations, the teacher always used English to
ask to the students such as: ‘How are you today?’, ‘Where is your book?’ or ‘Did you do
the homework?’. In the sixth class observation, the teacher used Indonesian (L1) to ask
questions about their experience, for example:
Extract 7 taken from class observation 6 on speaking class (March, 21 2013 on group
The teacher asked some questions related their experience but no one could answer it, in
that condition the teacher switched to Indonesian to ask the students like in the below.
Teacher: Bagaimana pengalaman kalian waktu pergi ke Borobudur minggu kemarin?
Students: Menarik tapi bikin capet, Miss.
Teacher: Bagaimana pendapat kalian tentang turis2 yang kalian wawancarai disana?
Students: Ada turis yang gak mau diwawancarai, Miss. Jadi dapatnya cuma sedikit.
The dialogue above was taken when the teacher asked the students about their
experience in Borobudur. At first she used English to ask those questions to the students,
but no one understood and answered it, so she used Indonesian in order to help them in
understanding and answering the questions. The teacher only used L1 to make her
questions understandable by the students. Morahan (2003) stated that asking by using L1
could be more understood by the leaners. It made the leaners less anxiety (Ibid).
It was shown that asking in Indonesian could make the students response quickly
about the questions. They looked more enthusiastic in participating in the class activity
such as answering the teacher’s question. So, L1 could help the learners in understanding
the material easier and more understandable.
CONCLUSION
The study set out to determine what particular L1 roles used in Teaching English to
primary school student grade 5 in Tarakanita Primary School in the city of Magelang. This study
found seven roles of L1 used by the teacher in the teaching learning process. They were to check
explain the meaning of words / vocabulary, explain the grammar concept / pattern, give
feed-back to individual student and ask to the student.
The teacher used English first and then translated what she said into Indonesian, just in
case some of her students felt confused. Her reason of using L1 for those roles was to help the
students in understanding the material more. If the material was easy to be understood by the
students, she would use English rather than Indonesian in the classroom.
The role of L1 mostly used by the teacher was explaining the meaning of
vocabulary/words (See table 2). The teacher knew that using L1 for teaching vocabulary could
be an effective way for them in understanding and memorizing each meaning. The role of L1
which were rarely used by the teacher was to explain the grammar concept / pattern and ask to
the student (See table 2). As stated above, if the students had already understood the material, the
teacher would use English. From six times class observation, the students rarely got difficulties
on grammar class. That was why the percentage was low, because on that class the teacher’s
explanation in English was quite clear for them, just only for some students who needed more
explanation in Indonesia to make them understood clearly.
The role of giving instruction did not get the highest percentage where in other studies
this role might be used a lot. In this study, the teacher only used Indonesia to give easier
explanation for the students. It could help the teaching-learning process become more effective
and efficient. The material could be understood clearly and not time consuming, so the teacher
could move to the next material.
Using L1 a lot could give the negative effect toward the development progress of the
would give positive influence to the learners. The result of this study was that the students were
able to understand the material and develop their L2 (English).
In this case, the teacher knew when she should use L1 in the teaching learning process
such as when the students asked her because they were confused about the material / what she
said in English. It happened because each student had different background knowledge about
English. The students with good background knowledge of English could understand the
material easier rather than the poor ones. Using the right role of L1 could make the learning more
effective for both teacher and students, especially to help the students with poor English
background in following the lesson.
Even though this study reached the aim, there were some limitations on it. For instance
about the time, it took only six class observations. It took place on one primary school, so the
result could not be generalized for other primary school with the same grade. Hopefully, this
study will give contribution on the other studies of the role of L1 in the English classroom.
At the end, as the suggestion for further research, researchers should find other roles of
L1 which used by the teacher in order to help the students understand the material and make an
effective teaching-learning atmosphere. Therefore, the future teacher would think that L1 roles
can help them in having an effective teaching-learning process, if it is used as a tool to help the
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First, I would like to give thanks to my Almighty God, Jesus Christ, for His grace and
blessing to my family and me, so that I can finish this paper. I wish to sincerely appreciate all
people who helped me to finish this study. I wish to express my gratitude to my supervisor Dra.
Martha Nandari, M.A., who was abundantly helpful and offered invaluable assistance, support
and guidance. Deepest gratitudes are also due Anita Kurniawati, S.Pd., M.Hum., without whose
knowledge and assistance this study would not have been completed thesis. I am also greatly
indebted to my parents, Kantinawati and Halim Buntoro, who are always support in my study
here. Special thanks also go to my participant, the English teacher of Tarakanita Primary School,
Magelang for her contribution for this study. I also thanks to all of my best friends for their
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APPENDIX Appendix 1:
The Observation Sheet
Class: Date:
Material: Skill:
When the teacher teaches English, she uses Indonesian to:
Role Frequency
Check students’ understanding Give instructions
Explain the content of reading text or
dialogue
Explain the meaning of
words/vocabulary
Explain the grammar concept/pattern
Give feed-back to individual student
Others:
[image:37.612.56.563.163.720.2]
Appendix 2:
Table 1: The Result of Six Times Class Observation
Role Frequency Total for Each
Role 5A Reading Class 5C Grammar Class 5C Speaking Class 5C Reading Class 5B Grammar Class 5A Speaking Class Check the students’ understanding
5 - - - 1 - 6
Explain the content of reading text or
dialogue
- - - 4 - - 4
Explain the meaning of words/vocabulary
6 2 5 2 1 - 16
Explain the grammar concept/pattern
- 2 - - - - 2
Give feed-back to individual
student
4 - 3 - 1 - 8
Others:
Ask to the students
- - - 2 2
Total in One Skill
20 4 10 6 3 5 48
