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comprehension, teacher used L1 in most of her teaching. In this case, teachers needed to use L1 when they checked students’ comprehension to make it easier and save the time. When teachers
used L2 in checking students’ comprehension, students’ tent to be passive and some of them were confused. Here is an example of checking comprehension in classroom observation taken
from 6
th
observation; March 14, 2013:
1. T: Kalau subjeknya my mother and my mother itu drink atau drinks? Ss: Drink Miss.
The conversation between teacher and students above shows that the teacher was trying to check the students’ understanding about the right verbs they should use in a sentence. When
checking students’ comprehension, the teacher used L1 to make it easier and the students will understand about their teacher intention. It would make the students easier to answer or give
respon when the teacher used L1. Checking students’ comprehension is very important in teaching learning process.
Checking comprehension is one of ways to check students’ understanding about the material. Sharma 2006 points out that L1 might be used for checking learners’ comprehension. The use
of L1 is helpful in checking comprehension. Atkinson 1987 suggests using L1 in checking comprehension can be done by asking questions to the students and it is often quicker and more
accurate.
2. Giving Instruction
Based on my six classroom observation, the finding showed that the teacher used L1 when give instructions. Here is the example in using L1 to give instruction:
1. T: Ayo ditulis kesimpulannya. Ditulis yang besar biar jelas kalau belajar.
18 Ss: Ok Miss. 4
th
observation; March 6, 2013
The finding above displayed that the teacher used L1 to give instruction. As stated in the example above, the teacher asked the students to write the summary of the lesson they learnt that
day and they should write it in a big size, so that when they are studying, it will help them to study easily.
From the classroom observation and example above, it could be seen clearly that L1 was really helpful in giving instruction to the students. Students would pay attention more if their
teacher gave instruction using L1 than L2. Not only pay attention, but the students also did what their teacher had asked quickly. The students followed and understood the lesson when the
teacher used clear language instructions. In English language classrooms, the language instructions also took important roles in the teaching learning process. Instead of using English,
Indonesian could be useful language to give the instructions to the students. Cook 2001 as cited by Zacharias 2002 argued that the purpose of using L1 is useful to
give instruction about classroom activities. Tang 2002 adds teacher uses L1 in beginning and intermediate classes to give instruction. In the primary level of English language teaching, L1
takes an important part in giving instruction to the students. Giving instructions in L1 has been considered to be effective in helping the learners achieving the goal of classroom activities
Atkinson, 1987; Cook, 2001; Lucas and Katz, 1994; Macaro, 1997 in Manara 2007.
3. Translating
The use of L1 in L2 teaching was also used in translating. Teacher sometimes translated what they said. It could be in giving instruction, checking comprehension, even explaining the
