confidence by giving encouragement such as assisting the students when they encountered difficulties in learning, complimenting their progress, and never
underestimating their ability though how little improvement that they had made. Hereby, maintaining their confidence in learning English was needed to be kept in
order to reinforce the students to practice the target language.
3. Another Finding
Second language L2 learning required learners to us e the target language as often as possible. The purpose behind this was of course to make them able to
communicate in the target language. It would be different when the learners were novice students. In this study, the participants were novice learners. In other
words, they were categorized beginners. The researcher saw in the learning experiences during the study that they were not accustomed to using the target
language. It was mainly caused by the reality that they had limited background knowledge and little language proficiency on L2.
The fact found in classroom was that the students often used their mother tongue, bahasa Indonesia, in class activities for instance to perform the tasks and
to collaborate with their friends in discussing certain tasks in their group-work. It seemed that the use of mother tongue was seen as a common feature in L2
learning especially for beginners. During the study, the researcher did not ban mother tongue use since it brought positive contribution to the learning process
when it was employed wisely, for example, to convey the meaning of particular unfamiliar vocabularies to the students. It was then crosschecked through
interview. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Kamu suka enggak kalau arti kata sulitnya dikasih tahu Miss pas ngerjain soal? Maksudnya kamu jadi ngerti gitu.
Do you prefer to be given the meaning of certain unfamiliar vocabulary when you are performing the task? I mean you will get
clearer after I provide you the meaning. Geri
: Mm…seneng. Yes, I do.
Chelsea : Senang Miss. Yes, I do.
Abraham : Hmm….ya seneng. Yes, I do.
Josha : Iya senang. Yes, I do.
Louren : Enggak tau, hehe… I do not have any idea.
Ruth : Iya Miss. Yes, I do.
Okan : Senang dong Miss. Yes, I do.
Kenapa senang? Why do you think so?
Geri : Ya kan jadi tau.
Because I can understand better. Chelsea : Apa ya? Kalau Miss ngasih tau artinya kan Chelsea jadi tau
artinya. Because when you tell me the meaning, I can catch the point.
Abraham : Biar enggak bingung. Because I will not get confused.
Josha : Kalo di kasih tauin artinya aku mudeng Miss. Because when you give me the meaning, I can understand better.
Louren : Bisa tau ya Miss? Because I will get the point?
Ruth : Aku pokoknya seneng Miss. I just like it, Miss.
Okan : Ya kan jadi ngerti gitu. Because I will understand better.
Carless 2002: 392 also voiced the contribution of mother tongue use in L2 learning. He said that mother tongue use served a number of functions such as
offering opportunity for the students to clarify the conveyed meaning of L2, to discuss the requirements of the tasks, to create a sense of group cohesion, and to
reduce students’ anxiety. It was found out in the study that in teaching novice students, it was difficult to use the target language most of the time. The common
case seen was that they looked perplexed with the information conveyed in the target language, except some vocabularies in which they were familiar with that
were often heard in daily environment. The example could be seen in the following. The researcher could notice
the students’ confusion when doing the tasks. It was encountered even in the first meeting of the course. Most of the students did not know what to do with the tasks
at the first time. It was because the task instruction was in English. In order to make them clear with the task instruction, the researcher had to translate it in
bahasa Indonesia. Another example was when the students had to discuss in group-work to accomplish particular tasks. The tasks in the lesson of Animals
required them to collaborate with other students to be able to finish the tasks in the given time. Hereby, they made job description in their group using mother tongue
to accomplish those tasks in time. It influenced the succession of the discussion among the students. In short, mother tongue was used in this study particularly
because of little language proficiency possessed by the students. Also, it was used to clarify the meaning of the conveyed information in L2 so that the students were
able to accomplish the tasks in the limited given time. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
79
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
