1
Student-
Teachers’ Perception of Being NNEST
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfilment
Of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
FIONNA
NIM: 112012090
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN SATYA WACANA
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Native English Speaker Teacher (NEST) and Non-native speaker English
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Advantages of Being a NNEST……….. Switching into Mother Tongue………
NNESTs are good at Explaining Grammar………
Confident in Teaching………
Other Advantages………..
Disadvantages of Being a NNEST……….
Not Fluent as NEST………
Do not have the same Accent as NEST………..
Do not have the same Level as NEST in Speaking………
Other Disadvantages………..
CONCLUSION ………
APPENDICES ……….
9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all, I would like to give my biggest gratitude to the Almighty God and savior,
Jesus Christ. I am nothing without Him and I would never be able to finish this thesis without
His blessing, guidance and provision. I would also like to thank my supervisor, Ms. Anne
Indrayanti Timotius, whom I think highly as an educator. Her patience and willingness to
give her time to read and give inputs to my thesis was one of the most essential factors for me
in order to complete this thesis. As for my examiner, Ms. Anita Kurniawati Hadianto, a great
gratitude comes from my heart for her inputs and also willingness to examine my thesis in the
midst of her busy schedule.
I would also like to thank the Student-Teachers whom I have interviewed for the time
they gave me and for the answers which gave great contribution to this thesis. Last but not
least, I thank my beloved family even though we are only separate from different island but
my family always support and gave me the motivation to complete this thesis and to you, my
dear friends for supporting me and be with me for this couple of months, we climb this
mountain together with many obstacles in our way until we reach the peak. I might not be
able to express how grateful I am in an eloquent way but there is one quote from my favorite
author, C. Joybell C. who stated that “Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something
else is about to begin.” Finishing this thesis is not the last touch for the ending of my
university life but also a new start for me to become a person who is ready to face the world
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Student-Teachers’ perceptions of being NNEST which includes 10 participants with the
criteria that they already had a Teaching Practicum in Semester I/ Year of 2015/2016. The 10 participants were interviewed about their perceptions regarding the advantages and
disadvantages of being NNEST. The participants’ answers will be compiled and compared
with Medgyes’ (2001) theory. The result shows that most of the participants answered that the advantages and disadvantages of being NNEST were able to switch into mother tongue, good at explaining grammar, confident in teaching and managed to form a good relationship and the disadvantages of being NNEST were not fluent, not have the same accent and do not have the same level of speaking as NEST.
Keyword: Student-Teachers, NNEST, Teaching Practicum
INTRODUCTION
Every students in university are been giving a chance of getting opportunity on having
many kinds of experiences in Teaching Practicum, especially in the Faculty of Languages and
Arts (FLA) in Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana (UKSW). Teaching as students a second
language despite the culture background of being a native was a challenge that every
Teacher had to face when entering Teaching Practicum and during this process,
Student-Teachers that were in charge to teach English must at least have their own perceptions about
the advantages being a Non-Native English Speaker Teacher (NNEST) because they are
studying English as their second language and felt what it is like to be NNEST.
As the future of the English teacher, a certain event or phenomena would occur when
the Student-Teacher were in the middle of their Teaching Practicum and the fact that the
Researcher starts to do the Teaching Practicum in Semester I Year of 2016/2017 in the first
time, believed that it was a challenge to teach students an English language when the teachers
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students, and this brought into a question “What are the advantages and disadvantages of
NNEST?” Chambers (1999) stated that students often complain that L2 study is irrelevant to
them, and frequently describe it as boring and difficult, these were the problems that probably
appear when teaching English as the second language, this phenomenon probably occur for
Student-Teachers when teaching their student. The Student-Teachers probably had the
resolve on how to handle the situation and strategies to compensate the skills that cannot be
acquired based from the culture background.
This paper aim to see the point of view from the Student-Teachers’ own perceptions
of being NNEST and how did they perceive themselves as a NNESTs.
The study was conducted on FLA department in Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana,
located in Salatiga and the participants were the Student-Teachers that already had practicum
teaching in the Semester I/Year of 2015/2016. The study employed a qualitative research
method, by interviewing the Student-Teachers about their own perceptions of being NNEST,
the participant was the Student-Teacher that had been in charge of teaching in the senior high
school and junior high school and also used both Indonesian and English as their tool for
communication in the classroom.
The agenda of the discussion and interview was based on the Student-Teacher’s own
12 LITERATURE REVIEW
Native English Speaker Teacher (NEST) and Non-native speaker English Speaker
Teacher (NNEST)
The definition of NEST according to Bloomfield (1993) “the first language human
being learns to speak his native language; he is a native speaker of this language.” In other
words, a person is a native speaker who speaks the first language that he or she grew up with.
Stern (1983) suggests the following features that constitute a native speaker: (1)
they’re subconsciously knowledge the rule, (2) have an intuitive grasp the meanings, and (3)
have the ability to communicate within social settings a range of language skills and
creatively of language use. Davies (2003, 2004) offers a more appropriate stance that he cited
from Stern (1983) and argued that ‘nativeness’ is characterized by certain elements acquiring
the language during childhood which are, (1) have the ability to understand and accurately
produce idiomatic forms of the language, (2) understanding how standard forms of the
language differ from the variant that they themselves speak, and (3) have a competent
production and comprehension of fluent, and spontaneous discourse.
Native English Speaker Teacher (NEST) is a term of natives who speaks English
since birth or their childhood and applies the language in the education way by teaching the
pupils to learn and speaking English while Boecher (2005) stated that “non-native speaker are
generally conceived as speakers of a language that is not their L1.”that means the
characteristic of NNESTs is that they speaks and use other than their mother language or L1
depending on the situation, when speaking with other natives they will use the same language
the native use, while NNEST is an acronym that refers to English language teacher that use
English as their second language or as foreign language. Medgyes (1994) characterized that
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role models, (2) Effective provider of learning strategies, (3) supplier of information about
the English language, (4) better anticipator of language learning difficulties, (5) sensitive to
language learners’ needs, and (6) facilitators of language learning as a result of shared mother
tongue.”
NESTs and NNESTs’ Characteristics
Medgyes (1992) also attempts to differentiate between native speakers and non-native
speakers, arguing that “non-native speakers can never achieve a native speaker’s competence
because they can never be as creative and original as those whom they have learnt to copy”
(pp. 342-343). Although the statement is not wrong but, NEST and NNEST have a distinct
characteristic, which have either positive or negative effect when they engage in language
teaching.
First, as mentioned earlier, the difference between NEST and NNESTs was in
linguistic abilities, which means the major argument in favor of NESTs. Medgyes (2001)
also discusses the unique and insecure position of NNESTs, in which they play dual roles of
teaching and learning English at the same time, because no matter what NNEST is still in a
learning process when it comes to the second language and it will go on and on.
Second, differences in language skills lead to different teaching behaviors. Medgyes
(2001) mentioned that “NNESTs have a tendency to stress their accuracy, forms, grammar
rules, and formal registers. NESTs, in contrast are likely to emphasize fluency, meaning,
language in use, oral skills, and colloquial registers.”
Medgyes (2001) attempts to rationalize these difference by emphasis and concludes
that NNESTs may focus on the areas where they feel more secure and comfortable in
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English, they tend to focus on group work and pair work that full of linguistic trap, NNESTs
have the advantage of providing a better learner model and assistance to the students, as
opposed to the language model presented by NESTs.
Third, is based on NEST’s and NNEST’s construct, Cook (1999) comments that
“NNESTs can alleviate, if not eliminate, the learners’ language learning anxiety by
presenting an attainable model, while NESTs may intimidate the learners with their linguistic
perfection and unfamiliar cultural expressions.” NESTs has a confident characteristic, they
believe that they will have a good expectation from the learners, regardless their cultural
background and with their fluency since the teachers are natives, will add the anxiety for the
learners in order to surpass NEST’s expectation.
Fourth, NNESTs may be good at providing assistance to their students by sharing
specific strategy, which they already experimented by themselves and succeeded or what we
called as an experience however, different learners can employ different strategies. Therefore,
although the strategy provided by NNEST are not always worked, but by discussing any
possible strategy can increase the learners’ awareness about the strategy that fits with their
personality, language background and levels of motivation. The learners are feeling helpful
with the NNEST’s practical advice and caring encouragement based on he or she’s
experienced in learning the second language.
Fifth, NNESTs are skillful when it’s articulating the aspects of the English language,
since they deliberately learned, not acquired the language itself. Cook (1999) stated that
“native speakers tend to lacked metalinguistic skills or language awareness.” so, language
proficiency normally associated with NESTs while the language awareness ability tends to be
one of the strengths of NNESTs. Therefore, NNESTs can use their conscious learning of the
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easy to understand the instruction given from the NNESTs because they are perhaps
understand easily with an easy grammar or clear pronunciation.
Sixth, because they good on metalinguistic skills, NNESTs can predict better the level
of difficulty for the learners, which allow them to create effective syllabi and lesson plans to
anticipate the learner’s linguistic need. This of course based on their experience. Medgyes
(2001) states, “Whereas NESTs have better intuitions about what is right and wrong in
language use, NNESTs have deeper insights into what is easy and difficult in the learning
process”(p. 437). If the NNESTs have the experience of learning a foreign language, it is
even more beneficial since it indicates that they have an analytical view of language in
general. NNESTs have the advantage of a comprehensive and critical view of the language,
which benefits them in recognizing and relating to the students’ learning difficulties.
Seventh, although Medgyes (2001) raises the assumption that NNESTs are more
sensitive to their students than NESTs, it is rather an overgeneralization based on partial
evidence, and thus debatable. He claims that NESTs has an ambiguous idea of their students’
desires and objectives, as well as their linguistic and cultural upbringings but Liu (2001)
argues that NNESTs may have a better chance of developing greater sensitivity toward the
students’ learning challenges. Nonetheless, there are many empathetic NESTs as well,
regardless of their lack of experience in learning the target language as their L2. Therefore,
the sensitivity criterion should be attributed to neither NESTs nor NNESTs as their general
tendency.
Last, NNESTs can make the most of their ability to communicate in the students’
mother tongue, which, however, generally applies to the EFL context, NNEST can help the
learner by communicating with their mother tongue. Historically, Medgyes (2001) believes
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points of discussion in second language acquisition.” this is one of the strengths of the
NNESTs, by using their mother tongue to speak with the students who are in the same
background culture, it’s very helpful in order for the student to learn second language.
Previous Study or Research
Benke and Medgyes’ (2005) conducted a study of native speaker teacher and non-native speaker teacher’s competence with 422 Hungarian learners of English, the participants
revealed that native speaker teachers were viewed as good models for imitation however,
their speech could be difficult for L2 learners to comprehend. This means that the students in
Hungary preferred NEST as good model but they are not very good on delivering the
knowledge because the level of language they use when giving a speech or teaching in the
classroom was difficult for the students.
While in Lasagabaster and Sierra’s (2005) conducted a study at the university in the
Basque Autonomous Community in Spain and the result most of 76 learners preferred Native
speaker teachers for learning pronunciation, speaking and listening, but not for studying
lexical-grammatical aspects of the language. The students in Spain are preferring natives in
learning pronunciation, speaking and listening but, in grammar and lexical the students are
more comfortable when been taught by non-native teachers.
Pacek’s (2005) conducted a study at a British university with 89 learners revealed the
concern for teachers’ engagement, preparation, qualifications, and professional background
than for their linguistic background. This means that in British, not only natives teachers but
also non-natives teacher are need to do a better in engaging their students in learning, their
preparation before the teaching-learning session began, their qualification in teaching and
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natives teacher need to fix the mention problems rather to questioning their linguistic
background.
From the three previous study, it can be concluded that most of the students are
choosing NEST compare NNEST because their proficiency in speaking and good
pronunciation but, when the students need to learn grammar and lexical, the students are
more comfortable if they being teach by non-natives, because the level of language that the
non-natives teachers used are more understandable rather than natives teachers themselves.
THE STUDY
The study used a qualitative research method by interviewed the participant to gain an
understanding of their opinion about being NNEST. The participants were the
Student-Teachers that already had a practicum teaching in the Semester I/Year of 2015/2016, the
reason why the Researcher choose this method was to be able to gather the information and
the needed data by engaging a conversation and asking some question regarding the topic.
Context of the Study
The study was done in the Faculty of Languages and Arts (FLA) at Universitas
Kristen Satya Wacana, Salatiga (UKSW). The reasons why the place was chosen for the
study were as follows: (1) most of the participants are the students in Satya Wacana, (2) the
participant were already finished doing the Teaching Practicum from semester I Year of
2015/2016, it will be a good opportunity to gather the data, (3) FLA has a Teaching
Practicum program in which all the Student-Teachers are bilinguals, and (4) the location was
18 Participant/Materials
The participants were the Student-Teachers of FLA that taught English at high school
on the semester I/ year of 2015/2016, the participants were using Indonesian and also English
as their tool for communication with the students when teaching, there is no accurate
percentage for the Student-Teachers were allowed to use Indonesian and English. The reason
why this criteria was chosen as the participants for the interview was because it will be very
helpful for another addition of gathering data, when interviewing the Student-Teacher that
managed to balance using two language to teach their students and the reason why the study
choose teacher that teaching high school was because in this level, there was a possibility the
Student-Teachers face a challenging or unexpected event when teaching in high school.
The numbers of the participants were 10 participants, the Researcher also anticipated
the number of Student-Teachers that had been assigned to teach and were allowed to use
Indonesian and English when teaching. Some of the Student-Teachers are not allowed to
speak using Indonesian in the classroom and another case they are allowed only to use
English in the classroom.
Data Collection Instrument
The Researcher conducted a qualitative research, an interview was employed to obtain
data. The reason why the Researcher choose interview as the data collection instrument
because by interviewing each of the Student-Teachers’ perception, there is a possibility that
there will be different answers from every individual and the Researcher hoping by
interviewing the participants will be helpful in order know the advantages and disadvantages
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The question was an open-ended type, for not only the conversation has only based
the participant answering the question from the Researcher, they can explore more the
conversation into a deep conversation. The participants were allowed to speak English or
Indonesia, in order to make them more comfortable to express their answers and it might
encourage them in engage of deeper discussion when they using their L1 or mother tongue in
the middle of interview. A cellphone with a recording application was be used to collect the
data and transcribed verbatim, which means the Researcher transcribed the data exactly like
the original conversation as a solid proof.
Data Collection Procedures
The Researcher gathered the data about the lists of Student-Teachers that already had a
Teaching Practicum in the Semester I/ year of 2015/ 2016.
Second, the Researcher selects the participants that fits the criteria for gathering the data and
try to contact the Student-Teacher for agreement on having interviewing and make an
appointment of how will the interview be conduct. Before the interview session start, the
Researcher needs to ask permission to record the entire conversation for transcribe the data.
The last, the place to conduct the interview was flexible, the Researcher and participants can
choose any place that they considered is comfortable enough to do the interview, the good
suggestion is in Satya Wacana especially in F building where FLA students are studying and
also the place where the Researcher and the participants were studying.
Data Analysis Procedures
After the Researcher gather enough data, the Researcher transcribed the recordings
and based on the answer of the participants, the Researcher then found the Student-Teachers’
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result can be leaning toward a pro or contra answer, the Researcher then compile or grouping
the answer and try to match the participants’ answers according to the appearing themes.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This paper aims to see the point of view towards the Student-Teachers’ own
perceptions of being NNEST, that are their opinions about the advantages and disadvantages
being NNEST.
A. Advantages of Being NNEST
The advantage of being NNEST was the main essence of this study because it is closely
knit with the student teacher’s own perceptions as NNEST when they taught the English
language to their students. This section will discuss the result from ten participants who had
been interviewed about their perceptions of the advantages of being NNEST.
A.1. Switching into Mother Tongue
Based on the interview, four from the ten participants believes that the advantage of
being NNEST is they can explain materials to their students using different language. For
example, one of the participants stated:
Since NNEST can speak more than one language, if the students that usually being taught by the teacher using Indonesian, we can explain the students using the same
language and also the same background and culture can build a relationship without
making the gap is too far between the teacher and the student. (Participant 01, 2016,
My Translation)
The Participant 02 also had the similar thought about it. The participant stated that:
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Seeing from the two statements, Participant 01 stated that when the students did not
understand the explanation because NNEST kept using English to communicate, to handle
this kind of problem, the NNEST can switch the language into their mother tongue so, their
student can understand what the Student-Teacher said, not only that, it also can close the gap
between the teacher and the students. Participant 02 also mentioned that by using the same
language, the NNEST can be as a mediator in order to connect with student who had the same
background language and culture.
The two participants’ statement about switch language from English to their mother
tongue can help the student to learn English better had the same similarity with Medgyes’
(2001) that “NNESTs can make the most of their ability to communicate in the students’
mother tongue, which, however, generally applies to the EFL context, NNEST can help the
learner by communicating with their mother tongue.” Which means by using the same
language with the students can understand or using mother tongue can help the student to
absorb the English lesson better. The use of mother tongue in foreign language teaching has a
positive role. There was always a communication gap possibility between students and
NESTs but using the first language is a great advantage of NNESTs because they can
facilitate the hindrance. Students stand a better chance of comprehension if mother tongue
was used.
A.2. NNESTs are good at Explaining Grammar
The second advantage of being NNEST is that NNESTs are good at explaining
grammar, such as the pattern, structure and rules. Based on the interview, two out of the ten
participants believed that one of the advantages of being NNEST is that they were good at
explaining English grammar to their students. One of the participant stated that “As a
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tenses or these words, we are better in explaining this kind of things.” (Participant 08, 2016,
My Translation)” the participant 09 had the same answer, Participant 09 stated that “I think
the advantage of being NNEST is that we can understand the structure better, because we
learned the language and then we explaining it to the students. (Participant 09, 2016, My
Translation)”
Participant 08 believed that as a NNEST it is easy for explaining the grammar,
because NNESTs learns it by themself, thus this explained how they were good at giving an
explanation about the grammar rules to their students because they keeps learning, it’s not
something that can be achieve without any effort. Participant 09 believed that NNESTs are
good explaining the structure, because NNESTs learned it, not acquired the language itself
and as the result, NNESTs are good at articulating the aspect of English language, such as
grammar to their students. Medgyes’ (2001) stated “Whereas NESTs have better intuitions
about what is right and wrong in language use, NNESTs have deeper insights into what is
easy and difficult in the learning process (p. 437).” The same theory from Medgyes’ (2001)
about the unique and insecure position of NNESTs, he stated that “ In which they play dual
roles of teaching and learning English at the same time, because no matter what NNEST is
still in a learning process when it comes to second language and it will goes on and on. (Pg.
429-442)”
If the NNESTs have the experience of learning a foreign language, it is even more
beneficial since it indicates that they have an analytical view of language in general. NNESTs
have the advantage of a comprehensive and critical view of the language, which benefits
them in recognizing and relating to the students’ learning difficulties. NNEST can use their
conscious learning of the target language to explain specific linguistic rules, for example, in a
way that the learners are easily to understand the instruction given from the NNESTs because
23 A.3. Confident in Teaching
Based on the interview, two of the ten participants had the same opinion that they do not
feel the same level as NEST but they were confident at teaching skills, for the example one of
the participants stated that “…I don’t think I have the same level when it comes to speaking
like NESTs because I don’t think we have the same fluency and pronunciation but when I
teach the students from Tuntang, but I have at the same level when it comes to teaching
(Participant 02, 2016, My Translation)”. This statement was from Participant 02 and it
represents the other participant’s statement. Based on the data, Participant 02 was teaching in
Tuntang, she was placed in a school where English lesson was not very well-known.
Participant 02 mentioned that her speaking ability was not at the same level as NEST because
the differences were on the fluency and pronunciation yet she was confident that her level on
teaching was the same as NEST.
A.4. Other Advantages
Other than the four advantages mentioned above, four of the ten participants had
different perceptions of being NNEST which are (1) NNESTs knew their limitation in
learning English, (2) NNESTs can interpret what their student meant and easily get along
with their students, (3) NNESTs can easily explain the term that was not in English to their
students because the same background culture, and (4) NNESTs had the same experience as
their students in learning English and understand the challenge that the students had to face.
First advantage was found from Participant 03’s answer, Participant 03 stated that:
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Participant 03 believed that as NNEST, by learning English at the early age, NNEST
knew their limitations from the experience that they earned from learning, NNEST can focus
on the good part, it can be a skill and NNEST can increase their skills even better but they
were also aware in what part or skills that needs to be intensified. The Participant 03’s
perception has the same similarity with Medgyes’ (2001) theory, which he stated that:
NNESTs may focus on the areas where they feel more secure and comfortable in teaching but, it does not become a hindrance for the NNESTS to loosen their grip on teaching English, they tend to focus on work group and pair work that full of linguistic trap, NNESTs have the advantage of providing a better learner model and assistance to the students, as opposed to the language model presented by NESTs. (P.429-442)
This theory proves that Student-Teacher perceive themselves being NNEST is that
they knew their own limitation because they aware in what area that they were able to expand
their skills and strengthen it, so instead thinking the side that the Student-Teachers thought
that they cannot accomplished they tend to focus the area that they were already comfortable
and good at it and as NNEST, focus only the part where they can be secure and probably
confident at, it will not decrease any quality of NNEST when teaching English, they can
compensate it with a work that involves with many people such as group work and in this
part where Student-Teacher view themselves as NNEST is that they never thought other area
that out of reach was a hindrance instead they will strengthen the area they knew and to use it
for teaching English, the statements were also connected with Brown’s theory (2007) stated
that “ If you are a Non-NEST and are now teaching English, and you feel you have not quite
yet reached a point of “satisfaction” in your own oral production ability, you can quite easily
compensate for any slight disadvantage you might have.”
The second advantage was found from Participant 04’s answer, Participant 04 stated that
“…we know how to confront or respond the children in Indonesia for example we
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handle our students is different with the NEST. (Participant 04, 2016, My
Translation)”
Participant 04 believed that being NNESTs is that they can understand their students’
feeling thus deepening their bond as the teacher and the students, being NNEST is they can
understand the student’s joke and they can understand the student’s problem in learning
English, Participant 04 had mentioned that how Student-Teachers as NNEST handle their
students might not be similar with the NEST because, it might be from the background
culture, since it is the most reasonable for the NNESTs and the students can deepen their
relationship, NNESTs can understand the students’ problem and what they’re feel when
learning English.
The third advantage was from Participant 05’s answer, she stated that “In my opinion
the advantages on being NNEST is that we can understand what our students mean when they
we’re talking in English because we had the same background culture and a second language
user, so we can understand them (Participant 05, 2016, My Translation)”. The participant 05
gave an example about what kind of culture terms that she mentioned in the interview,
Participant 05 said that:
For example when they asked something related with Indonesian culture “Miss, what
is Tempe in English?” if the students asking this kind of question to the NEST, they
couldn’t possible knew the meaning because it’s not from their culture but if they asked us we’re just going to said “Tempe is Tempe” but also can be called as “Soybean.” (Participant 05, 2016, My Translation)
In this statement, Participant 05 believed that the advantage of being NNEST is that
they can understood what their students were trying to tell them, it can be a random jokes at
school or some culture terms that only the same natives can understand about it and because
they had the same background culture, the NNEST can easily understood and got the idea
about the topic. Participant 05 used the example of Indonesian’s traditional food, Tempe is a
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Participant 05 are in the same background culture, it is easy for her to answer the question.
Participant 05 assumed that not every NEST know what is Tempe and it is translation, so she
believed that the advantage of being NNEST is that they can understood when their student
tried to ask something related to their culture. This statement related with what Medgyes
(1994) had stated that “To be sure, the non-NEST teaching in a monolingual class has far
more background information as well-informed NEST can.” This theory proves that as
NNEST, Student-Teachers were well-informed with the subjects that relates with their culture
and can answer it easily, they even provided a good explanation about the subject more
accurately than NESTs, because the Student-Teacher familiar with the subject and the
students felt learns something about the subject. Student-Teacher can view themselves as a
source of information for their students, as long the topic or the subjects were something that
they knew well.
The fourth advantage was from Participant 10, Participant 10 stated that “As a
NNEST we can understand what our students has going through when learning English, how
they had to adjust their background culture with foreign language. (Participant 10, 2016, My
Translation)” To give an illustration, Participant 10 stated that:
When I was still school, I also learned and being taught English by my teacher, when I become the Student-Teacher, I realized that because my background knowledge and my students’ background knowledge are the same, we learn English from the square one, so being NNEST, the difficulty on learning grammar, how to read the vocabulary, etc. These kinds of difficulty are the same with my students had to face. I also notice when my students having the difficulties when learning English. (Participant 10, 2016, My Translation)
Participant 10 believed that being NNEST is that they can understand what their students
had gone through on learning English, she mentioned that when she was doing a PPL in
school, she saw the struggle that the students had gone through and she felt nostalgic when
seeing her student learning English from square one. Participant 10 knew how it felt when
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students had to face in school. This theory connected with Liu (2001) theory that “NNEST
may have a better chance of developing greater sensitivity toward the students’ learning
challenges.” Student-Teachers in this case view themselves to be sensitive about their
students, they knew the struggle that the students had to face in order to understand English
language.
Disadvantages of Being NNEST
This section discusses the result from ten participants who had been interviewed about
their own perceptions of the disadvantages of being NNEST.
B.1. Not Fluent as NEST
Based on the interview, four from the ten participants believed that the disadvantage
of being NNEST is they’re not fluent enough like NEST. For example, one of the participants
stated “The disadvantage of being NNEST is that not everyone is fluent in speaking, as
NNEST our fluency maybe are not fluent as the NEST, for example when we accidentally
mispronounced some words without realizing it. (Participant 02, 2016, My Translation)”
Participant 07 also had the same answer. Participant 07 stated that “We are not fluent enough
like NEST. I said some word but not really clear and it’ll take a few minutes after class that I
realized that I made a mistake when teaching. I had to apologize to my students in the next
meeting. (Participant 07, 2016, My Translation)” Participant 02 believed that the
disadvantage of being of NNEST is that they’re not fluent enough when speaking English and
sometimes they were slipped out of the tongue when mispronounced some words without
they realizing it, Participant 02’s statement has the same similarity with Participant 07, that
the disadvantages of being NNEST is that they tend to make a small mistake like slipped of
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that they mispronounced the word. The two participants’ statements were connected with
what Medgyes’ (2001) theorythat “non-native speakers can never achieve a native speaker’s
competence because they can never be as creative and original as those whom they have
learnt to copy.” This indicates even though the Student-Teachers as NNESTs never achieve
the competence that the NESTs had, yet the Student-Teacher never felt that they had to be in
the same fluency as NEST yet as long as they correct their mistakes, the Student-Teachers
never mentioned that they had to have the same fluency as NEST.
B.2 Do not have the same Accent as NEST
The second disadvantage of being NNEST is that NNEST don’t have the same accent
a NEST. Four of the ten participants had the same perception, for example Participant 03
stated that “We cannot be considered as same as the NEST when it comes to accent, because
as a NNEST we had our own accent or our pronunciations are not the same as NEST’s, we’re
also had different cultures with the NEST. (Participant 03, 2016, My Translation)” The same
perception had been stated by Participant 10, for example “We do not have the same accent
as NEST because English is a foreign language. English is not our mother tongue, we are not
born from Europe, and we still had an accent based on our culture and the influenced of our
mother tongue. (Participant 10, 2016, My Translation)” Based on this statement, Participant
03 believed that the reason of why NNEST didn’t have the same accent as NEST because
they had a different culture and NNESTs had their own accent when speaking but the
intonation would not be the same as the NEST,
Based on the statements from the two participants, both of them agreed that the cause
of why NNEST do not had the same accent as NEST was because English was not their first
language and they had different culture, similar when Javanese people speaks English they
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intonation, some of Javanese people probably could pronounce the word correctly without a
different intonation, in Participant 03 and Participant 10’s case not having the same accent as
NEST was a disadvantage for them, because when teaching it will confuse the student when
it comes to speaking or when they had to pronounce a new vocabulary from dictionary.
B.3 Do not have the same Level as NEST in Speaking
Based on the interview, four of the ten participants had the same opinion that they do
not feel have the same level as NEST with various reasons, which are, (1) The participants
current position as a college student, (2) The Participants were nervous and not used to speak
in a formal way when doing Teaching Practicum, and (3) The Participants had a difficulty
when speaking and need to consult with dictionary.
The first reason was based on Participant 03’s answer, Participant 03 stated that
“Since my current status as a college student aiming the bachelor degree, I considered myself
not having the same level as NEST, in order to be at the same level as NEST, I still need to
learn more to be able equal with NEST (Participant 03, 2016, My Translation)” based on
Participant 03’s statement, the reason why she thought that her speaking ability was not the
same level as NEST because due to her status as a college student, she had a perception that
her level was not enough and still had to learn more in order to be in the same level as NEST.
The second reason was based from Participant 04 and Participant 05’s answer, Participant 04
stated that:
This is my first time doing a Teaching Practicum, I need to teach my student in a formal way, using a simple language not the one I used in college where I used to speak in academic way and some of the vocabulary that I hadn’t familiar with it, the fluency and my pronunciation is not that very good when speaking (Participant 04, 2016, My Translation)
And Participant 05 stated that:
If it’s the same level with the NEST, I don’t think so, because in my first time doing a
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mispronounced words, so I’m not very sure if I have the same level as NEST when if it’s about speaking (Participant 05, 2016, My Translation)
Both of these two statements had the similarity, the Researcher found out that both of
the participants were in their first time doing Teaching Practicum although the two
participants were not in the same school when doing the Teaching Practicum yet they had the
same reasons that it was their first time to teach English. Participant 04 had the difficulty
when had to speak in formal way and had not familiar with some vocabulary, on the other
hand Participant 05 was nervous and always forgotten to speak in English and
mispronounced some words.
And the last reason was based on Participant 06’s answer, Participant 06 stated that “I
still confuse with some vocabularies and still look up in dictionary, and when my students
asked how to pronounce the word, I still having a trouble to pronounce it correctly, it’s like
we went to college for 4 years and I still need to learn a lot about the fluency and the
accuracy (Participant 06, 2016, My Translation)”
In Participant 06’s case, she believed that her English speaking ability was not the
same as NEST was because she had a trouble with some vocabularies and need to consult
with the dictionary, she also stated that she still had a difficulty in pronunciation and need to
learn a lot about fluency and the accuracy.
B.4 Other Disadvantages
Other than the two disadvantages mentioned above, two of the ten participants had
different perceptions of being NNEST, the participant stated that:
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Participant 01 stated that the disadvantage of being NNEST is not using the English language
to its fullest, which means that NNESTs are not often speaking English in the classroom for
the example, so the student will see there is no reason or a specific advantage for them to
learn the English if the teacher never use the language to encourage them, thus the students
probably lost the interest in learning English.
Participant 06 was also had a different perception about the disadvantage of being
NNEST, for example Participant 06 stated that:
I think in reading, some of the words that we aren’t familiar, so we need to list any
words that probably will come out and the student will ask the words to us, so here’s
the disadvantage being NNEST, even though we know those words but didn’t know
how to spelled or pronounce it to our student, it will be a shameful experience and we’re not 100% correct when it comes to vocabulary and pronunciation, we always depends on and consult the dictionary.(Participant 06, 2016, My Translation)
Participant 06 stated that when NNESTs learning a new vocabulary and did not know
to pronounce the word was a disadvantage for them, Medgyes’ (2001) mentioned that “The
unique and insecure position of NNESTs, in which they play dual roles of teaching and
learning English at the same time” (P. 346). To put it another way, NNESTs would also teach
and learn new things at the same times, because NNESTs had a never-ending cycles when
they learned L2. NNESTs probably managed to learned a new topic and teach the new lesson
to their student but in the middle of teaching and learning process, students will gained a new
lesson and NNESTs were also learning something from the students. In Participant 06’s case
when her student found a new word from the reading text, the student asked her how to
pronounced the word, Participant 06 knew the word but not sure how to pronounced the word
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students. Participant 06 probably not prepare enough at that time thus it was a bad experience
in her opinion.
CONCLUSION
The study was aimed to find the advantages and disadvantages of being NNEST
based the Student-Teachers’ perceptions and how do they perceive themselves as NNEST,
the participants were the previous Student-Teachers that already had their Teaching
Practicum in the Semester I/Year of 2015/2016.
The result of this study, the Researcher have found that most of the participants’
answers about the advantages of being NNEST were (1) NNESTs can switch to their mother
tongue and (2) NNESTs are good at explaining grammar and (3) NNETs are confident in
teaching. Other advantages that managed to be mentioned as an additional information about
the advantage of being NNESTs were (1) NNESTs knew their own limitation, (2) NNETS
knew the students problem in studying and how to handle the problem, (3) NNESTs
understand better about their students because the same background culture, and (4) NNEST
could understand what their student had been through when learning English. With these
advantages lead to the fact the Student-Teachers did not seems to have a problem with their
status as NNESTs, most of the advantages mentioned above were from Student-Teachers’
own perception and they view themselves as a teacher that not only balanced two different
languages but also mediator for their students for example, they can understand what the
students had been through and understand a familiar term that related with the background
culture.
On the other hand, the ten participants were prompted by a question about their own
perceptions about the disadvantage of being NNEST, the participants managed to listed the
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(2) NNESTs do not have the same accent as NESTs, (3) NNESTs not feeling the same
speaking level as NEST. Other participants were also gave additional information about the
disadvantages of being NNEST were (1) NNESTs not fully use the English language when
speaking, and (2) NNESTs mostly still need to consult with a dictionary. Most of the
disadvantages mentioned above were the NNESTs usually face in teaching and most of the
Student-Teachers does not seem to be dispute with these disadvantages because they can
compensate these kinds of disadvantages by correcting their mistakes immediately.
The result of this research could give implications on the education. First, the
Student-Teachers had the opportunity to teach English based from their perceptions of being NNEST,
from the data most of the results showed that the participants managed to teach their students
without facing any serious problem. Second, based from the Student-Teachers’ perceptions of
being NNEST, they can be a committed English teacher to their students and with the many
non-native teachers, the students are more motivated and reconsider their preferences when
been teach by NNESTs. The last based from the data, Student-Teachers are not only
emphasized aspects that normally NNESTs emphasized when teaching but they also
emphasized what normally NEST would emphasize when teaching, this result could be an
assurance for the Program administrator when recruiting an English teacher.
This research is still needs to be improved such as new additional question for the
interview, in order to make the research got a richer data from the participant. It also dug
deeper about the students-teachers’ perspective of being NNEST, if the participants were in
the same school in order to see the other perspective if the participants were shared same
perceptions or they might will had different answers from each other because this research
would only focused the ten participants that already had their Teaching Practicum in semester
I/Year of 2015/2016 and during conducting the research, the Researcher did not specified the
34
their Teaching Practicum thus the data based from the ten participants have many variation
because the condition they were in when placed to do a Teaching Practicum.
In addition, this research study could be conducted again in the future, it might reach
new additional findings of the advantage and disadvantage of being NNEST from the new
participants. The new findings might be occurred if the target for the new participants were in
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Appendix A
My name is Fionna, I am from batch 2012 and I am majoring English Language Education (ELE) of Faculty of Languages and Arts (FLA). Today I would like to do an interview with you, regarding about your perception as a Student-Teacher on being NNEST, this wouldn’t effect to any of your grades so, please answer the question as
honestly as possible.
Please introduce yourself, your batch and your major…
P1: My name is Oviera Maulia Gusti, I’m from the Faculty of Languages and Arts and I’m from batch 2012.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
1) Can you tell a bit about yourself, where do you do the Teaching Practicum
and what grade?
P1: I’m teaching in SMP Negeri 2 Salatiga and I’m teaching in 7thgrade. 2) In your opinion what is the advantages on being NNEST?
P1: Maybe, NNEST using two languages, the students that usually being taught by using Indonesian, we can explain the students using the same language and
also the same background and culture can build relationship without making the
gap is too far between the teacher and the student.
3) And what you think the disadvantages on being NNEST?
P1: as a non-native, we’re used to speak in both Indonesian and English but we’re not using the full English which makes the students are not use in using
36
teachers never using full English to encourage their students in class, they will
never have the potential of using English.
4) Do you tend to use English regularly or do you tend to use Indonesian or perhaps both?
P1: I used both, well we were told to use full English as much as possible so the students will get used to use English in the environment that requires them to use
English.
5) (if participants/interviewee uses “Indonesian and English”) In what situation
do you use Indonesian and English?
P1: When I explaining the material for example the pattern, the meaning or vocabulary, at first I used English to explain the lesson and if I see the students
are not understand what I’m talking about, I changed the language or translated it
into Indonesian.
6) (if the participants/interviewee uses “English”) When you used English in your classroom, do you think that your speaking ability have the same level as NEST?
P1: As a NNEST, if we’re talking about the same level as NEST, I think I haven’t
reached that level yet.
- Why?
P1: because sometimes when I tried to speak in English, I still stuttered some words or misspelled some words but, as a teacher I think my skills are quite
enough but, if I’m in the same level as NEST, I don’t think so.
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P1: Yes, of course. When we’re teaching not only our students that get to learn something, we’re too as a teacher; we’re learning something from the students.
- And what do you learn?
P1: for example, when the students felt bored at the lesson, from that point I start
to learn, what should I do as a teacher on how to attracted them listening and to
pay attention to my lesson.
- can you give me some examples?
P1: for example in vocabulary section, there are some vocabs that some of my students couldn’t understand the meaning and unfortunately, I also don’t know
the meaning. I learned from that mistake, so I need to prepare more for the next
meeting and prepare for any possibilities that could happen in my class.
8) Do you have any tendency on stressing your accuracy (forms, grammar rules, and formal registers)?
P1: on accuracy yes, for example if there a word that mispronounce or if my
students are pronounce it wrong at that time I have to fix or tell them it was
wrong and say the correct pronounce.
- Can you give some examples?
P1: For example when they tried to pronounce a Giraffe but ended up saying “a Girave.” it should be “a Giraffe”. I have to tell them when they made a mistake.
- What about the Form?
P1: Yes, I also tend to stressing on the form. When a student misspelled or wrote a sentence with a wrong form, I always remind him or her and asked her or him
to revise it again.
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P1: Yes of course, because as a teacher we need to pay attention on every little thing and every mistakes needs to be fix no matter how little it is because for
example in grammar section, if we as the teacher knew it was a wrong grammar
but didn’t do anything to correct them, the students will thought that it was a right
grammar.
- And what about Formal Registers, do you tend to stressing it too?
P1: When I was doing a Teaching Practicum, in my class I gave a clarification
for my student on how to differentiate a sentence for informal or formal situation.
So when I teach them about gratitude, a word of “Thank You.” for example, it
can be used both in informal or formal situation, while a word of “Thanks.” can
be used in an informal situation and not in formal situation.
9) What about the fluency (meaning, language in use, oral skills, and colloquial registers)?
P1: if it’s Fluency, it depends with the students that I teach, because I am
happened to be teaching only on 7th grade, they’re not that fluent and I think it
was something natural and to be understanding because if I was teaching on
senior high, I probably will be more focusing on the fluency.
- What about the Meaning, for example in reading section, the students are
acquired not only to read a sentence but they had to know the meaning of the reading?
P1: if it’s for reading, I do but not very detail, like each of the sentences must to be translated together, when we have a text reading, I often asked them are there
any words that they think it’s hard to pronounce or they don’t know the meaning.
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P1: yes, I always encourage them to be brave in speaking English because, in the first time e students are only learning English by theory but there aren’t any
practices, I always try to encourage the students or at least to be brave when
speaking English, even though they can only speak one or two sentences, at least
they already trained their oral skills.
- How about the Colloquial Registers?
P1: well if it’s Colloquial Registers, I only taught on 7th grade, I only told them
the general knowledge about it, the most well-known are British and
America, I taught them on how to write the date because British and
American had a different format.
10)Do you provide or give some of your students strategies in learning English? P1: When I was doing a Teaching Practicum, I don’t think so. If there’s an
English lesson for the next day, I always remind my students to read the new
material for the next meeting before class.
11) Do you find it easy to explain linguistic rules to your to students (such as grammar rule, etc.)?
P1: Actually, when I explained the concept it was easy but sometimes some of
the students are having difficulty on my explanation, so some of the students are
already understood and some of them had a slow respond about my lesson, I
think that is the challenge, because some of my students are having a difficulty to
absorb my lesson, so I need to find a good solution to help them.
12)When you’re teaching your student, can you easily predict your student’s level of comprehension?
40
enough because I can see clearly which students are not understand my
explanation, which one is active and passive in classroom. I often asked my
student if there are any questions and if I stumbled across with a student that was
passive in my class, I will approach him or her, I tried to explain the lesson as
slowly as possible. There’s a difference between the students who are very quick
when absorbing the lesson and students that needs a time to absorb the lesson.
13)Did you actually manage to make a good connection to your student?
P1: Yes, I did managed to make a good connection, because for as far as I have been teaching, most of the students are enjoying my lesson and some of them
commented “Being taught by Miss Ovie was fun.” So most of them are active on
responding and answering my questions, they’re very enthusiastic when doing
some activities that I’ve been given to them, from that way I can see that I
managed to build a good connection to my students.
14)When your students encounter some difficulty of understanding your explanation, do you tend to use your mother tongue in order to give some explanation to them?
P1: Yes, usually I do because, when I had already explained the lesson using English in many times but they still didn’t understand, I will changed my
language into an Indonesian to make it clear but not always in Indonesian, I
always do as best as I can to use English at first to speak and if my students are
really didn’t understand then I’ll change my language into a mother tongue.
41
My name is Fionna, I am from batch 2012 and I am majoring English Language
Education (ELE) of Faculty of Languages and Arts (FLA). Today I would like to do an interview with you, regarding about your perception as a Student-Teacher on being NNEST, this wouldn’t effect to any of your grades so, please answer the question as
honestly as possible.
Please introduce yourself, your batch and your major…
P2: My name is Novi Puspita Sari, I’m from the Faculty of Languages and Arts, I’m
from batch 2012.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
1) Can you tell a bit about yourself, where do you do the Teaching Practicum and what grade?
P2: I once do the Teaching Practicum in SMP Negeri Tuntang, on 7th and 8th
grade.
2) In your opinion what is the advantages on being NNEST?
P2: In my opinion the advantage of being NNEST is like for example I am
teaching in a school where in fact the children didn’t understand or speaking
English, even Indonesian language, they can only speak in Java, so I as a teacher
that had the same knowledge and knew how to speak Javanese language, I can
explaining them an English lesson by using the same mother tongue more easily,
I think that is one of the advantages as a NNEST. We can be the mediator for the
students who had the same background knowledge as us.
3) And what you think the disadvantages on being NNEST?
42
accidentally mispronounced some words without realizing. In my opinion of
being the NNEST is that we are not fluent enough and sometimes mispronounced
a wrong word without our noticing.
4) Do you tend to use English regularly or do you tend to use Indonesian or
perhaps both?
P2: the thing is, the place where I was appointed as a student teacher was in Tuntang, you see most of the people in Tuntang are villagers, the children seems
to have a difficulty even when speaking in Indonesia, they more preferred to
speak in Java. When I explained the material for example about present tense, I
used Indonesia and Java language as the aid instrument for my student to
understand the lesson because they don’t have any basic in English.
5) (if the participants/interviewee uses “English”) When you used English in your classroom, do you think that your speaking ability have the same level
as NEST?
P2: Honestly, if we’re talking about the same level as NEST, I don’t think I have the same level when it comes to speaking because I don’t think we have the same
fluency and pronunciation but when I teach the students from Tuntang, I think I
have in the same level when it comes to teaching.
6) When you’re teaching your students in the classroom do you feel that you’re learning something at the same time?
P2: Yes, of course.
- What do you learn?
P2: So it was like this, I was teaching on grade 7 and 8, compare to them, we already in college studying English in academically. When I was teaching my
43
were easy because I already studied it since I was already in college and it felt
like a flashback, like I was learning again what is it how to learn about the basic
grammar and I can understand how my student feel when they have to learn
English.
- So it was like you felt nostalgic when learning English in the first time? P2: Yes.
7) Do you have any tendency on stressing your accuracy (forms, grammar rules, and formal registers)?
P2: Well in accuracy not really, I also not too focus on grammar.
- And why is that?
P2: Because, the most crucial in this point was the fact that the students in Tuntang didn’t know any words in English or the meaning, so I focus on the
vocabulary, because I thought it will be pointless if I teach them about
grammar, the form, etc but they didn’t know any vocabularies.
- So that means you tend to focus only in vocab?
P2: yes, that’s right. Because they don’t have any background knowledge about English, like I said let alone Indonesian, they even have the difficulty in
speaking it.
8) What about the fluency (meaning, language in use, oral skills, and colloquial registers)?
P2: In fluency, I probably not to focus on it to my students, because of their poor background, but I do give them some information like a general knowledge to
them about some words.
44
P2: I tend to focus on the meaning, so every meaning in every words or probably more like a text reading, we’re mostly focus not on the tenses but more leaning to
the meaning of this text and don’t teach them grammar yet, because the students
in junior high school are still considered as a children and as an additional to their
basic in English, I don’t think teaching them grammar earlier will not help them.
- Why do you think so?
P2: Because it will confuse them more, when they don’t understand the
vocabulary and if you teach them grammar immediately it will be a shock for
the student.
- Okay what about the oral skills or speaking?
P2: Well sometimes, I teach them how to speak and build a self-confident in speaking English.
- Self-confident?
P2: yes, I think it was connected to each other by encouraging the students to be
confident, they will learn how to speaking in front of the class.
- Can you give some examples about it?
P2: So, I asked some of the students to come forward and read some dialogue in a text, they will practice the dialog together and when they’re ready, they will
get confident and it also help them to practice their oral speaking. I always
teach them how to spell the word, I gave them some examples and at that time
I had a partner that helps me to observe the students. For example if we had a
reading dialogue exercise, me and my partner gave a demonstrated at first, as
an example for the students, how do we read the dialogue and the intonation
that we used, after that I asked them to read the dialogue with the same
45
9) Do you provide or give some of your students some strategies in learning
English?
P2: Yes, sometimes I gave them some advices but more likely how I teach them without making them tense or stress out.
- Can you give some examples about your strategy?
P2: I often teach my students through games. This kind of strategy wouldn’t
work with some of the students and each of them has a different interest, so I
need to come up a game that can included all of my students, I often used the fun
learning, so the students are able to understand better with the materials that I
gave to them.
- If somehow your strategy is not worked on some students, how do you
handle it?
P2: if it doesn’t work, I will investigate about the problem, what seems to be the
problem with my game or my strategy, are my students understand about the
game or not? If this kind of problems occurred, I will compare my strategy with
the previous teacher that teach my class, most of the teacher in Tuntang will
focus on what’s written in books, so the teacher will only explain in front of the
class and the students only listening to their teacher, like the teacher as the centre
in classroom. But as far as I know, most of my strategy always works.
10) Do you find it easy to explain linguistic rules to your to students (such as
grammar rule, etc.)?
P2: in my opinion it wasn’t easy, moreover the students’ background most of them are villagers, in two meetings in classroom I have been explaining them
