English Department Students’ Opinions of NESTs Teaching Indonesian to English Translation Classes
Abstract
There are some Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) teaching at the English Department Satya Wacana Christian University where I study. They teach various courses including Indonesian to English Translation classes. When I took an Indonesian to English translation class with a NEST as the teacher, I experienced some misunderstanding in the learning process. This experience triggerd my curiousity on how other students view NESTs teaching Indonesian to English Translation classes. This study was aimed to find out the students’ perceptions of this matter. The participants of this study were a hundred English Department students of Satya Wacana Christian University. They are those who already took Indonesian to English Translation classes taught by NESTs. Questionnaire and interview were used to collect the data then analyzed quantitatively. The first finding showed that the majority of the participants found the explanation given by NESTs in Indonesian to English translation classes unclear. The second finding, related to the appropriateness of NESTs teaching Indonesian to English Translation, revealed that almost a half of the participants thought that NESTs were not appropriate for teaching Indonesian to English Translation classes. According to the participants, NESTs are better when teaching English to Indonesian Translation but not Indonesian to English Translation classes. The study suggests that Indonesian to English Translation classes at the English Department of Satya Wacana Christian University would be better if taught by Non-Native English Speaker Teachers (NNESTs) or NESTs (Native English Speaker Teachers) who really have a certain level of mastery of the Indonesian language and culture.
