Communicating in the classroom Giving opportunities for students to cooperate more in the class Reviewing materials or tasks

e. Reinforcing the students

Giving reinforcement is important in teaching learning proc ess as it could reduce students‟ anxiety by giving them a „motivational reward‟. Thus, by using L1 for reinforcement, it will decrease the anxiety felt by the students. Atkinson, as cited in Bouangeune 2009 stated that one of the uses of L1 in L2 classroom is to improve reinforcement.

f. Communicating in the classroom

In this role, the L1 is likely being used as the medium of instruction. The communication is done between teacher to student or student to student. The interaction using the students‟ first language to talk about the material will make the lesson running well. By doing so, the learning process will be better as what Butzkamm 2003 stated, the L1 use will make more “comprehensible input and faster acquisition”. This argument is also supported by Serrano 1999, who stated that as students develop their L2 vocabulary and using the language communicatively, they will „increasingly demonstrate‟ their L2 knowledge as well as the L1 knowledge.

g. Giving opportunities for students to cooperate more in the class

Nowadays, teachers are required to provide classroom activities that give more opportunities for students to work by themselves and to cooperate with their pairs or groups. Here, the role of the teacher is changed from a lecturer to a facilitator. When the students‟ work with others, they will have unbalanced capability among them. Thus, it is allowed to use the L1 in the discussion to keep the conversation and interaction going. Nation 2001 believes that if L1 is used in class discussions, the learners will involve actively and they will understand the L2 vocabulary. Furthermore, Cook 2008 states that when students who have the same language background are grouped into one, it is difficult to keep the activity going if the L1 is not allowed to b e used. Later, she said that the students‟ first language is „a part of the scaffolding processes that happen within the discussion.

h. Reviewing materials or tasks

By reviewing the materials and tasks using the L1, the students will understand more about the topic being discussed. It is because the students are more familiar with the L1 and they can absorb the lesson better when the L1 is used to reviewing the material. This statement is supported by Lameta-Tufuga 1994 who claims that when the L1 is used to explain more about the content of the language, the students have more oppostunities to understand more about the language.

i. Discussing cross culture