This sub-section presents and discusses: 1) PSETs responses to questions: Did you use students’ L1 when teaching? Why? and 2) The responses of LTEs and MEBs to questions: What are the needs of primary school English teachers in terms of their skills? What are they lacking?; and 3) Data from classroom observation sheets on Using students’ first language.
Evidence from this study highlights all teachers used the first language of the students when teaching with varying degree of frequency. First, the extent to which teachers conduct the lesson in English seems to be parallel to their language proficiency. Teachers who were not confident with their English tended to use the first language of the students, be it Indonesian or the local language, as the language of instruction. This was evident from observation sheets in the cases of teachers without an English background such as PSET3, PSET2, PSET7, and PSET8. Whereas Indonesian was primarily used by PSET3, PSET9, and PSET7, the local language was more frequently used by PSET8 and PSET2 who both spoke Minahasa. These four teachers admitted that they were not confident with their English language proficiency. LTE1 confirmed this as she stated that this group of teachers were “not confident with their own knowledge of the language” and are “malu or embarrassed to use English” (LTE1: 140 & 158).
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The rationale for using the first language of the students was however not entirely due to teachers’ self-confessed limited proficiency. Some teachers found their students did not feel comfortable with listening to an English only instruction. Such circumstance requires the adaptability of the teachers to the situation and to use Indonesian before moving slowly to English or to use English only when necessary. As argued by PSET5, code switching was necessary because “sometimes students did not understand” her instruction and because having an English-only instruction often results in “students not understanding the lesson” (PSET5: 369). This was confirmed by PSET9:
173 : ... Eh, it happened to me once when I taught the first time 174 : that I used English all the time, but the students protested it (.)
175 : they didn’t understand, so they decided to code-switch to Indonesian. (PSET9)
Language specialists argued for the use of first language in language instruction for a number of reasons. Judicious use of the first language can greatly facilitate the management of learning process, particularly where grammatical and lexical explanations were concerned (Nunan & Lamb, 1996). Such advantage rings true in most foreign language contexts with multilingual communities like Indonesia. Teachers who used the national language or Indonesian (PSET9 and PSET5) or a local language (PSET2) could actually offer a great deal of assistance to students whose confidence in the target language reception is low. Moreover, in classes with more complex classroom interactions, using the students’ first language could also place students’ anxiety at ease (Pasaribu, 2001).
Data from the observation sheets shows that teachers such as PSET1, PSET4, PSET5, PSET9, PSET10, and PSET13 quite frequently asked questions to their students in English. When students were able to respond to the questions appropriately, the teachers did not translate the questions. On the other hand, when the students seemed to have not understood the questions or could not provide the desired responses, the teachers translated the questions into Indonesian. Teacher cognition seemed to have played an important role as to when teachers may speak Indonesian language or even the local
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language in giving instruction. Their professional judgment on the circumstance seemed to have been a predominant factor. This was evident in the case of PSET13 and PSET12:
255 : for students at higher level, this could be effective because they have good grasp of the language. 256: But for students at lower level it is not, because yeah, their level is still totally beginners. (PSET13) 472 : ...Yes, what I mean is that.. If everything is taught using Indonesian then
473 : students are not trained to listen to English, they don’t get the exposure to the language (PSET12)
The two teachers were teaching at lower classes and they thought that using the first language of the students was useful to ease the understanding of the students. They however believed that it was necessary to use more English when dealing with students at higher levels because the students had already had good grasp of the language. This finding demonstrates that the two teachers were able to prioritize the language of instruction, that is, when to use English and when to use students’ native tongue to help instruction. Teachers’ lack of confidence with English that caused them to use the first language only in the classroom needs serious attention, but the fact that most of the teachers observed were capable of code switching from Indonesian to English and vice versa when giving instruction deserves appraisal.
Such pedagogical preference finds a place in an era when native speakers are no longer the norm in language teaching as suggested by proponents of Intercultural Language Teaching (see Crozet & Liddicoat, 2000; Corbett, 2003; and Crozet, 2005). It indicates more active participation in multicultural societies like Indonesia where the first language of the students is seen as an asset rather than a liability. What missing is however the integration of Anglo-Saxon cultural perspectives that are inherent within the English language into language pedagogy in the Indonesian linguistic landscape that houses 741 local languages and one national language. Integrating cultural perspectives into language pedagogy is a challenge that clearly needs to be fully addressed in language teacher education (Crozet & Liddicoat, 2000).
Teachers need to be prepared to utilize the first language of the students for the full development of their English language proficiency while at the same time enable learners
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to “view different cultures from a perspective of informed understanding” (Corbett, 2003, p. 209). This is most relevant to the Indonesian linguistic landscape in order to unleash its “potential political role of contributing to positive interethnic relation” (Crozet & Liddicoat, 2000, p. 13) amongst the 400 or so Indonesian ethnic groups with various sub- cultures.