Teachers‟ use of English in EFL classroom.
I will insert in “In Indonesian….”. Therefore, if some students in class seem confused
about my explanation, I will use my magic words, “In Indonesian…..”. That way,
students will not complain to their teacher if heshe uses English in class. Teacher A,
October, 9 2012
Teacher B, who never used Indonesian in her teaching, gave agreement with Teacher A‟s statement and also added some details about the material which needed to use Indonesian. She
said, However, if the students really cannot comprehend our expla
nation, we can say, “In Indonesian meaning…..”. Therefore, the students who understand can guess the meaning.
We can also mix together the use of Indonesian and English for grammar teaching because grammar is difficult for students to understand. Teacher B, September, 26 2012
Teacher C also agreed with those two teachers‟ statements that Indonesian should be used if students really could not understand teachers‟ explanation. However, there was a different
opinion about the materials which needed Indonesian to explain. She said, The use of Indonesian is just for complicated instructions and vocabularies. I don‟t think
that grammar needs the use of Indonesian. Teacher C, October, 10 2012
From all of teachers‟ statement above we can learn that they would use Indonesian if the students really could not understand about their explanation. Woodal 2002 stressed that less
proficient L2 learners switched to their L1 more frequently than more advanced learner and that more difficult tasks increased the duration of L1 use in L2 writing as cited in Stapa, 2006. In
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.