Use of Mother Tongue in EFL Classes of Secondary Schools In Jabodebek: Students’ and Teachers’ Perception

Abstract

This study aims to investigate senior high school students and teachers’ perception of the use of Indonesian in their English classes. To achieve the objective, two sets of questionnaires were administered to gauge the perceptions of 556 students and 15 teachers of 10 senior high schools in Jabodebek (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, and Bekasi). The findings revealed: (1) the majority of both students and teachers preferred to use Indonesian in their English classes; (2) they believed Indonesian is helpful in language skills development, language components learning, learning materials understanding and classroom interactions; (3) the students preferred the predominantly use of Indonesian, while the teachers preferred the predominantly use of English during the class hour; (4) the higher their grade, the higher amount of English the students would like to have in their English classrooms; and (5) teachers with longer teaching experience tended to expect the use of bigger proportion of Indonesian in English classrooms.

Students� Perceptions of Teachers� Use of Bahasa Indonesia in the English Classroom

“…This supports the finding that the higher their English mastery, the more frequent they use (or expect to use) English during the learning process. This finding, that students with lower levels of mastery tended to accept the use of their first language, elucidates the findings of some previous studies (Pardede, 2018;Prodromou, 2002) that the lower the students' English mastery, the higher their preference in the employment of first language in English classes. Table 2 indicates that the participants viewed the use of Bahasa in Indonesia in their English class positive because they found it easier and safer to understand difficult concepts explained in Bahasa Indonesia.…”

“…This study employed a mixed-methods design which, according to Creswell and Clark (as cited in Pardede, 2019) is "a procedure for collecting, analyzing, and "mixing" both quantitative and qualitative methods in a single study or a series of studies to understand a research problem". It began with quantitative data collection and proceeded with qualitative data collection intended to elaborate the previously obtained quantitative results.…”

“…In Indonesian context, since e- ISSN: 2622-4224 | p-ISSN: 2087 the majority of English teachers speak Bahasa Indonesia as their first language, it is frequently used in English classrooms. Pardede (2018) reported that more than three fourth (79%) of secondary school students in Jabodebek "agreed" and "strongly agreed" to use not only English but also Indonesian, and almost half of them (46%) disliked the idea of using English only. The English teachers who participated in the study also had a relatively similar view.…”

“…Various current studies (Alenezi, 2010;Hsieh, 2000;Pardede, 2018) revealed that since students recognize their first language as a tool to assist their learning and to raise their understanding of materials, they view teachers' code-switching or use of first language positive. Studies investigating teachers' perception (Anh, 2010;Pardede, 2018) supported the judicious use of the first language in some situations in the English classes. Usadiati's (2009) study revealed that Bahasa Indonesia is used interchangeably with English for explaining concepts and rules for teaching writing English sentences to improve the students' achievement.…”

“…Related previous studies (Julianti, Atmowardoyo & Mahmud, 2016;Resmini, 2019;Usadiati, 2009;Zacharias, 2003) were conducted in tertiary education level. Only a few studies (Anggrahini, 2019;Hasrina, Aziz & Fitriani, 2018;and Pardede, 2018) focused on senior high school students. The participants of Nursanti's (2016) study were junior high school students.…”