Likewise, Piasecka 1988 as cited in Auerbach 1993 suggests that L1 can be used in the following occasions: Negotiation of the syllabus and the lesson; Classroom management;
Presentation of rules governing grammar, phonology, morphology, and spelling; Discussion of cross-cultural issues; Instructions or prompts; Explanations of errors; Assessment of
comprehension. In Addition, Atkinson 1987 as cited in Bouangeune 2009 states that L1 is used to
check students‟ comprehension, give instructions, give opportunity for students to cooperate more in the class, improve presentation, and as reinforcement. Cook 2001 as stated in Widagdo
2010 confirms that the teacher‟s use of L1 in L2 classroom can increase the students‟
comprehension in the classroom By the experts‟ arguments regarding the use of L1 in the classroom, the writer compiled
those into ten roles of L1:
a. Explaining grammar concept
One role of L1 that is likely used by the teacher in the classroom is in explaining grammar concept. The most traditional method in second language acquisition is the Grammar
Translation Method GTM. Here, the use of L2 is not exposed and the teacher mainly uses the students‟ L1. Many experts believed that by using L1, the grammar concept of L2 will be more
understandable and comprehensible. As Al Nofaie 2010 stated in Jadalah and Hasan‟s journal, using L1 is very useful in learning a second language. He added that the reason is
because explaining grammar means explaining the language rules in which the rules require student‟s understanding. Thus, it can be concluded that the L1 will help them to acquire the
concept of the grammar.
Another statement regarding this role of L1 is by Gass and Selinker 2008 who quoted Lado‟s statement, who believes that if the grammar in students‟ L1 and L2 has the same
structure, it will make them understand it easier. Furthermore, Gass and Selinker wrote in his book entitle
d “Second Language Acquisition: an introductory course” about the issue. They claimed that the L1 can arbitrate grammar knowledge for the learners. They believed that rules
of language nowadays are learned not by imitation, but by being exposed to the language. However, they also mentioned that not all the learners can reach the complete state of
understanding L2 grammar if the learners depend on using the L1 p.166.
b. Translating new English words
Translation seems to be one of the important parts of acquiring a new language. According to Bell 1991, p.6, translation is „the replacement of a representation of a text in one language
by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language‟. In this matter, the use of L1 can not be avoided since the purpose of translation is to find the equivalent wordphrasesentence
from one language to another language, in this case from the second language to the first language vise versa.
The term „language transfer‟ is likely used to describe L1 as the „bridge‟ of transferring
second language lexis. Nation 2001 claims that when L1 is used to translate new vocabulary, the learners will expand their lexical input faster. His argument is supported by Cook 2008,
p.184, who claimed that the L1 „speeded things up‟. Here, both experts agree that L1 is very useful in translating new words in L2.
c. Checking students’ comprehension
