relationship of this theory with the participants teachers situation, the teachers would be naturally forced to use Indonesian L1 when the slower learner students got difficulties to
comprehend their explanation in English L2. Therefore, the students could fully understand the materials.
From all of the statements above, we can also learn that there were two materials which needed Indonesian to explain. They were grammar and vocabularies. Other than materials,
sometimes the use of Indonesian was also needed to make students understand when teachers gave them complicated instructions in English. The use of Indonesian to certain materials and
complicated instructions are really well matched with the report from Atkinson 1987 and Deller Rinvolucri 2002 which stated that L1 was used to check for senses and explain
grammar as cited in Manara, 2007.
b. Students‟ use of Indonesian in EFL classroom
The students‟ use of Indonesian in classroom also depended on the teachers. It was because each teacher had different rules to allow students‟ use of Indonesian. Students in
Teacher A class rarely used Indonesian during teaching learning process. They used Indonesian only for certain words during the vocabulary section. When they wanted to use Indonesian they
had to say, “In Indonesian….” first. It was just like Teacher A‟s teaching style who wants the use of English in all activities and only allows the use of 5 Indonesian in her class.
A different situation happened in Teacher B classes. All of her students could use Indonesian freely during the English class. They used Indonesian to communicate with their
friends. They also used Indonesian to ask permission or ask questions to Teacher B, even though she always used English all the time in class
Students‟ use of Indonesian was also different in Teacher C classes. The students used Indonesian during the communication with their friends and doing group work in class.
However, they still remembered to use English to ask questions or to communicate with her Teacher C
From the students‟ use of Indonesian in class, we can learn that they had tendency to naturally use Indonesian even if they were in English class. It was because Indonesian is their
mother tongue. A study from Harbord 1992 supported this statement by stating that the tendency to use L1 was a habit that in most cases would occur without the encouragement from
teachers as cited in Harmer, 2001. Auerbach 1999 supported Harbord‟s statement by saying that to start classroom interaction using L1 provided a sense of security and validated the
students‟ experiences as cited in Usadiati, 2009. Despite of students‟ tendency to use Indonesian in the English class, teachers could still control student
s‟ use of Indonesian by always giving rules about their language usage in order to prevent the overuse of Indonesian in English
classroom.
4. Teachers‟ responses toward students‟ use of Indonesian.
Every teacher in that private Senior High School had different responses toward their students‟ use of Indonesian in English class. During my observation in Teacher A‟s X5 tenth
grade class, She gave ‘untrophy’ for each student who spoke Indonesian for more than two
words. ‘Untrophy’ is a kind of hat with strange shape which would be worn as a punishment for
students who spoke Indonesian too much. Teacher A really brought her belief about 95 use of English in her class. She made English to be a habit among students in her class. That was why
she used this „
untrophy
‟ method to limit students‟ use of Indonesian. During the interview, she also stated other purposes of „
untrophy
‟. She said, The purpose of
‘untrophy’ is to help teacher to reduce the students‟ noise. Students will not talk too much if we use
‘untrophy’ because they are afraid of wearing it. It is also to encourage students to be actively using English in class. Teacher A, October, 9 2012
However there was still a time when she didn‟t give ‘untrophy’ to her students who used Indonesian. It happened to her class in XII BAHASA language class. During the interview she
stated that she forgot to bring „
untrophy
’ in that class. However, I found out the real reasons why she didn‟t give untrophy to that class through her statement,
I also differentiate the students because XII BAHASA students are slower learners compared to IPA 1 or IPA 2 students. IPA is the term for science class Teacher A,
October, 9 2012
A different situation happened during my observation in Teacher B‟s class in XI BAHASA language class and XI IPA 1 science class. The students were allowed to use
Indonesian freely during the class. Only a few of them were willing to use English. Teacher B could not bring her believe, „English should be used constantly in class to make students become
accustomed to it ‟. During the interview, she stated that she would give warning, “Hey, speak in
English” to the students who used too much Indonesian. However, this method didn‟t seem to give any effect to change students‟ use of language in the reality. She also stated the reason why
she allowed students use of Indonesian in her class. She said, The students come from very different educational background. Some of them have high
intelligence and the others don‟t. Sometimes they wanted to speak in English, but they
