T1 112009047 Full text

ENGLISH DEPARTMENTS STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES TOWARD THE
ROLE OF FIRST LANGUAGE IN THEIR GUIDED WRITING

THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan

Finna Kristiningrum
112009047

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2013

ENGLISH DEPARTMENTS STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES TOWARD
THE ROLE OF FIRST LANGUAGE IN THEIR GUIDED WRITING

THESIS

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan

Finna Kristiningrum
112009047

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2013

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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any

course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the
best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or
written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text.

Copyright@ 2013 FinnaKristiningrum and Dra. Martha Nandari, M.A

All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the
permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty
of Language and Literature, SatyaWacana University, Salatiga.
Finna Kristiningrum

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE

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APPROVAL

ii

COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

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PUBLICATION AGREEMENT DECLARATION

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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ABSTRACT

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INTRODUCTION

1

A.
B.
C.
D.
E.

Definition of First Language and First Language Acquisition
First Language and Second Language Acquisition
Language Transfer in SLA
Teaching Writing
The Role of First Language

THE STUDY
A.
B.

C.
D.
E.

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Contexts of The Study
Participants
Instruments of The Study
Data Collection Procedure
Data Analysis

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10
11
11
12

FINDINGS
A.

B.
C.
D.
E.

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5
6
6
7

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Facilitate Generating Idea
Foster to Write on Familiar and Unfamiliar Topic
Assisting Vocabulary Learning
Improve Creative Writing
Lead to Errors

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15
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CONCLUSION

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

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REFERENCES

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APPENDIX A

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APPENDIX B

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ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES TOWARD THE ROLE
OF FIRST LANGUAGE IN THEIR GUIDED WRITING
Finna Kristiningrum
Abstract

Pro and cons of L1 use in L2 writing have been debated for many years. On the one
hand, L1 was very advantageous to make L2 learning easier. On the other hand, L1
caused errors in L2 learning. However, L1 use was still questionable whether beginner
learners needed their L1 to support L2 learning. Inspired by the pros and cons, this
study was held to explore English Department students’ perspectives toward the role of
L1 in their guided writing. There were 15 English Department students of Satya
Wacana University who have passed guided writing course. They were chosen
randomly and they were interviewed using unstructured interview method. The finding
showed students’ positive responses toward L1 use. They used their L1 to generate

idea, help vocabulary learning, develop content on a certain topic, and improve the
quality of writing creatively. Despite the positive roles, the students often made
grammatical errors due to L1 use.
Keywords :first language, language transfer, positives roles, negative roles

INTRODUCTION
The issue of how learners acquire the target language is interesting to discuss in
the English Language Teaching area. One of the issues is the ability of learners to write
in a foreign language. According to Williams ( 2007, p.12 ) writing is a
multidimensional skill which concerns on the text generation, the synthesis idea, the
organization of discourse, the control of sentence structure, the vocabulary, the spelling
and the mechanics. Those components will be compiled into information and then
transformed it into a written text production.

Moreover, writing is a part of

communication between a writer and a reader. The writer will convey his ideas to the
reader in order to make them understand (Yu, 2012). For that reason, to be able to
create a smooth production of writing, the learners need a lot of practice.
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Reflecting on the complexity of L2 writing, as EFL beginner learners who set
English as their foreign language in their environment, guided writing’s students may
find many difficulties in the foreign language writing such as constructing grammar,
getting some ideas, arranging well-formed paragraph, and so on. Therefore, they tend to
transfer directly their first language to foreign language, whereas language transfer can
cause positive and negative transfer (Xia, 2008).
Based on the writer’s experience in Guided writing class, the writer experienced
that foreign language writing was difficult. The writer often used L1 to compose the
ideas before writing. At that time, the writer brainstormed ideas using Indonesian; my
first language before writing in English. Even, the writer wrote the ideas in Indonesian
first and then translated it to English. From that example, the role of first language was
to help get the input when the writer thinks about some ideas before writing in L2.
However, the writer was not aware that translating directly from first language caused
an error. After the writer had been studying English structure in deep manner, the writer
realized factors that caused error in L2 writing.
Brown (1994) in Darus and Ching (2009) clarified that at the early stages of L2
learning, the learners use their native thought or first language pattern thinking in their
writing. The reason why they rely on their first language is that they lack of L2
knowledge and experience. For example, they have not read enough sentences or

language to begin with. Therefore, the learners should learn a language in all packaged.
It means that the learners do not learn English separately by studying just about noun,
verb, adverb or other language components. Studies showed native thought pattern or
first language patterns accounts 80 % in process control and over 50 % in content (Liu,
2004). It proved that EFL learners depend on their native thought in the writing
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process. Knowing the fact that L1 gives significant influences to L2 writing, the writer
is eager to reveal the validity of that theory in my study whether L1 gives the same
effect on guided writing students.
However, the belief is that if the learners use their first language, it will be a
hindrance in L2 learning due to transferring from the first language. This idea is
strengthened by Krashen (1988) who claimed, “First language is several sources error
in target language performance” (p.88). He means that the first language can cause
interference in L2 learning, especially when the learners translate directly from the first
language to the target language. Because the target language pattern and the first
language pattern are different, translating directly is not permitted. If the students still
use their first language pattern in L2 writing, it means that they have not acquired the
target language well.
Like what happened to guided writing students in English Department, they
often make grammatical error such as the use of adjectives, preposition, tenses, and
etc.This fact is strengthened by Nugrahaeni (2008) who conducted study about
grammatical error analysis on guided writing students. She mentioned that one of major
reasons why guided writing made error was that interferences from their first language.
In fact, her participants had been studying English in a formal setting for about seven to
eleven years. In this case, although they had studied English for a long time, they still
made grammatical error. Thus, it can be assumed that they have not succeeded yet in
learning L2.
On the other hand, previous studies show that L1 played an important role in L2
writing. Brook (2001) said the composing idea from L1 to L2 was very useful for a

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writer who has lower proficiency in second language, because their first language
would facilitate their learning. Similar to Brook (2001), Lay (1982) as stated in Jun
(2008) believed that L1 facilitated their process thinking and writing in L2. L2 learners
who have limited English should be encouraged to use their L1 to generate ideas. From
Brook’s and Lay’s statements, it seems that first language should be addressed for
lower language proficiency.
Many studies have shown the pros and cons of first language use in L2 writing.
The writer is interested in knowing whether the pros and cons of first language use are
applicable to guided writing students in Satya Wacana Christian University or not. This
study is aimed at investigating ED students’ perspectives toward the role of first
language (Indonesian) in their guided writing class. The research question, “What are
ED students’ perspectives toward the role of first language in their guided writing?”
This study is worth studying because it provides more knowledge about first
language use in guided writing process. The writer hopes for students who are going to
enroll Guided Writing course anticipate the effect of L1 use, later they could reflect
whether first language is beneficial or not in their writing process. Second, the study is
crucial for the teacher to rethink the usage of first language in the classroom, especially
when he/she explains specific terms/ an unfamiliar topic in English, in order to improve
the students’ performance in writing class. Furthermore, the result of the study will also
contribute to better understanding the role of L1 in L2 writing.

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LITERATURE REVIEW
Definition of First Language and First Language Acquisition
According to Gass and Selinker (2008, p.7) first language is one’s native
language. It refers to the language that the learners learn or use first time since they
were children. First language is also known by mother tongue or primary language.
The process of a child learns and masters his native language is called first language
acquisition. For instance, how the children produce some words and then make it into a
sentence. That language acquisition is not an instant process, but the language is learnt
by a process of habit formation. The main components of habit formation are that the
child will imitate the sound and practice to what they hear (Gass and Selinker, 2008, p.
90).
First Language and Second Language Acquisition
According to Nunan (2001), second language acquisition refers to the ways in
which the learners acquire a second or foreign language. In other words, the learners
learn a second or foreign language after their first language. There is an important
relationship between first language and second language acquisition. The first language
has functions as a tool to make the process of L2 acquisition easier (Urdaneta, 2011).
The learners use their first language as the reference in L2 learning. Moreover, the
learners learn how to form a sentence and how to speak from their native language. In
conclusion, first language cannot be separated with L2 learning.
Language transfer in SLA

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According to behaviorism principles, language transfer takes place from the
first to the second language. Cook (1991) defines that language transfer is an effect of
the learners’ first language on L2 learning. The transfer can be a positive transfer and a
negative transfer. According to Cook (1991), “positive transfer is as the use of the rules
that coincide in both L1 and L2”. Therefore, positive transfer may occur if the structure
of L1 and L2 are the same. For example, the Indonesian pattern (Santi makan
hamburger) can be transferred directly into English (Santi eats hamburgers). According
to Nunan (2000), “negative transfer is as the use of first language rule in the learning
of L2 although such rules do not exist in the latter.” If the structure of L1 and L2 are
not the same, it will cause an error. Negative transfer usually happens when the learners
transfer every single word to the target language, because translating every single word
in L2 may result in unintelligible sentences. Due to the differences structure between
L1 and L2, it can be concluded that transferring native language gives benefit and
drawback to L2 writing. Therefore, the students have to comprehend L2 structure well
in order to avoid error.
Teaching writing
Hyland (2003) proposed some concepts in teaching writing for beginner
learners of English. First, the teaching should focus on language structure. In this case
learning how to write in a foreign language involves linguistic knowledge, vocabulary
choices, syntactic patterns, and cohesive devices. He also emphasizes on language
structure as the basis for writing teaching which covers typically four-stage processes
as following:
1.

Familiarization : learners are taught certain grammar and vocabulary through a text

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2.

Controlled writing

: learners manipulate fixed patterns

3.

Guided Writing

: learners imitate model texts

4.

Free writing

: learners use the pattern they have to develop to write an essay,

letter. (p.22-23)

Second, teaching writing focuses on text functions. The aim of focusing on
functions is to help the students to develop an effective paragraph by making topic
sentence, supporting sentences, transitions and to developing another type of
paragraphs. Teaching by focusing on text functions is preparing students to academic
writing at college or university.
Third, teaching writing focuses on creative expression. This orientation takes
more on the writer rather than the form. Hyland (2010) adds that creative expression in
writing is like sharing personal meaning to the readers; whereas, the course of writing
itself stresses the student to construct his or her own view on a topic. He believes that
all the writers have a similar innate potential to express their own ideas creatively. In
this case, guided writing students do not pay attention to grammar only, but they are
given chance for writing to some feature such as style, clichés, and developing creative
paragraph and so on.
The role of first language
The role of first language is very important to the development of learner’s skill
in writing, due to the fact that first language can influence positively and negatively.
Krashen (1988) regarded that, “the first language as a substitute initiator utterance”
(p.64). He means that the learners might substitute L1 knowledge when the learners
have to produce writing in the target language. However, the learners have not enough
acquired L2 well. As a result, the learners make an error. Krashen (1988) added that
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first language influence appeared in word order error. Word order refers to the incorrect
placement of words in a sentence. For example, “John wants to be a basketball player
like Michael Jordan” instead of “John wants to be a player basketball like Michael
Jordan. “

The sentence John wants to be a “player basketball” is the result of

Indonesian direct translation; John ingin menjadi pemain bola basket seperti Michael
Jordan. In addition, Ellis (1996) asserted that when L1 and L2 form share the same
meaning but are expressed in different ways, an error is arisen because the learners
transfer their L1 to L2. For example the word “di” in Indonesian is more or less share
the same meaning as the word “at” in English. “I spent my vacation in selecta garden;
the flower is beautiful in there”. The word “in” means disana; However in English
preposition “in” is not needed. Realizing the negative role of first language, the writer
wants to know whether guided writing students make errors and what kinds of errors
that they often make.
Another study was conducted by Lay (1982) who studied about the use of first
language while composing ideas. Lay (1982) as stated in Friedlander (1990) claimed
that L1 helped to write about an uncommon topic. Moreover, L1 use was more likely
with certain topics which are related to the learners’ background. In agreement with
Lay, Friedlander (1990) found that translating from the native language to English
helped the writers to develop the content, especially when the topic area was in the L1.
Other studies about the relationship between L1 and L2 writing was conducted by
Wand and Wen (2004) in Jun (2008). Her finding was that L1 was used for generating
ideas, monitoring and lexical searching purposes. In fact, knowing that L1 gives much
positive roles to L2 writing, it is very beneficial to my study to know more about the
role of L1 in monitoring students writing from pre-writing until process writing.
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Besides the negative effects of the L1 use, some study asserted that L1 gives
positive effects in the target language. Nation (2001) developed four strands of first
language use in learning L2. The four strands are:
1.

Meaning focused on input

2.

Meaning focused on output

3.

Meaning focused on learning

4.

Fluency development

Meaning focused on input and output means the learners have to know both on
what to say and on how to say it. She gave an example of the effectiveness of
discussion through the first language before performing in L2 writing. By doing the
discussion, the learners gripped many ideas, so they could fully understand the content.
For that reason, it is needed to investigate what kinds of ideas or topics that can
stimulate guided writing students to develop content of writing.
The result was those who did preparation in first language performed better rather
than those who did not. Meaning focused on learning emphasizes on conveying the
meaning of unknown words. At this stage, the learners are persuaded to notice the
strategies to learn L2 vocabulary which is related to L1. For example borrowing and
loaning words from L2 to help the vocabulary learning is effective. Learning
vocabulary could be done through reading, visual pictures, memorizing or L1
translation. The learners should have much vocabulary knowledge because lack of
vocabulary leads to writing difficulty (Lee, 2003).
Last, the role of L1 for fluency development is in a situation when the language
item is already familiar to the learners, so the learners need to perform faster than usual.

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For example, they could remember the L1 stories or information which later be used for
the L2 task.
THE STUDY
Context of the study
This study was conducted at Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana
Christian University which is located in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia. The subjects
of this study were English Department Students who have taken Guided Writing
course. Guided Writing’ students are beginner learners of English at the University
level who have passed Integrated Course which is a sort of basic English proficiency
course.
Participants
The participants of this study were 15 students who have passed Guided Writing
course in the second semester of academic year 2011/2012. Because they have passed
that course, it was assumed that they had already had much knowledge and experience
in guided writing tasks. The participants ranged in age from 17 to 18 years old. There
were 14 females and 1 male in this study. The method used in selecting participants
was random sampling.The participants would get an equal chance being included in the
survey. All the participants were Indonesian students who set English as a foreign
language because they rarely use English for their daily communication.

Instruments of the study

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The writer used interview as the instrument for this study to get the data toward the
students’ perspective toward the role of first language (Indonesian) in their guided
writing. In order to know students’ perspective deeper, the semi-structure interview
was selected. It was because the writer could follow up the question, so the writer could
get more information. There were 10 questions in the interview (which could be seen in
appendix A and B). The interview atmosphere was warm and less formal. During the
interview, the writer used Bahasa Indonesia. According to Husada (2007) conducting
an interview with the participants’ native language would avoid problems in
communications. The participants were interviewed on different days because not all
the participants could be interviewed on the same day due to their schedule.
Data collection procedure
First, the writer made an appointment and then contacted the participants. Second,
the writer gave the interview questions to each of participants 5 minutes earlier before
the interview time. The reason the writer gave interview question earlier was to give
them time to think first, so they would answer in detail during the interview. Third, all
the participants were interviewed one by one. During the interview the writer took
notes for some important points from the participants’ response. The interviews took
around 10 – 15 minutes for each participant. Finally, all the students’ interviews were
recorded, transcribed and then translated into English for data analysis. The writer used
a clean transcription which focused only on the content of the interview.
This study used qualitative data analysis, whereas, the data were taken from the
interview transcriptions. The procedure of data analysis took three steps. First, the
writer read the interview transcriptions to get more understanding about participants’
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responses. Second, the writer decided on theme or categories that emerged from data.
Third, the writer analyzed the data by using content/thematic analysis (Riessman, 2008
in Zacharias, 2011:103). It began by assigning categories to participants’ transcript, and
then based on the participants’ responses the writer classified similar responses into the
same categories. Last, after all the data had been analyzed, the writer drew conclusion
and provided the finding for this study.
Data analysis
After interviewing the participants, their responses were analyzed and discussed
in order to answer the research question. From the data, the writer developed five
emerging themes for the study of ED students’ perspectives toward the role of first
language in their guided writing. The first theme was facilitating in generate idea, the
second theme was fostering writing on familiar and unfamiliar topic, the third theme
was improving a creative writing, how creative and artistic any types of writing could
be. Creative writing is important, Hyland (2003) defines, “expressivism is an important
approach as it encourages writers to explore their beliefs, engage with the ideas of
others, and connect with the readers” (p. 29). Elbow (1988) in Hyland (2003) added
that the goal of exploring students’ creative ability was to improve their creative
abilities and persuade them to dig their own way to produce a creative text. The fourth
theme was assisting vocabulary learning and the last theme was leading to error. Each
theme was presented and discussed below.

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FINDINGS
1. Enhance generating idea
Generating idea is a crucial step in writing process in which the learners deliver and
develop more ideas on the topic that they have chosen. The learners generate ideas by
brainstorming, listing, outlining, searching the source, etc. The result showed that the
learners thought that their first language helped them in generating idea. The following
table is extract interview of the participants who agreed that first language was
beneficial in generating ideas.
Table 1. Extract Interview of Participant A, B, G, and H
No
1

Participants’ statement

Name
Participant A

“Actually, I used my first language to transfer the idea. In
my opinion, it will be easier if I use Indonesian rather
than English. While I was in guided writing, I lacked of
vocabulary and my grammar skill was not good; so I
often made many mistakes.”

2

Participant B

“I used my L1 to think about a certain topic. Then, I
looked for the supporting ideas by searching the source in
L1 which was related to the topic.”

3

Participant G

“In my opinion, my first language is used to elaborate the
idea or additional information which supported the main
idea itself.”

4

Participant H

“Indonesian is my first language, so I used it for
brainstorming and listing the ideas. Personally,

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the

purpose of using Indonesian was as a tool to remember
the ideas.”

From the data, it was found that most of the participants used Indonesian to
generate ideas. The writer concluded they believed that L1 could facilitate generating
ideas. Their ways in generating idea were various; some of them did brainstorming,
listing, and outlining, while others generated ideas by searching and gathering suitable
information. Although their ways in generating ideas were different, they did it based
on their preferences, which one was more suitable with their own writing style.
In my analysis, the reason why the participant chose Indonesian was that
Indonesian was easier than English, because Indonesian is their first language and they
use it for daily communication. They really understood how Indonesianwas used. In
addition, L1 gave background knowledge or previous experience to L2 writing.
Learners had much experience in their L1, so they would come up with many ideas
from their L1. As participant G said, if she used her L1, she could elaborate more ideas
to support the main topic. Here, we could see that first language was used to keep the
idea in mind. In other words, L1 served as a fundamental role when the learners were
thinking about the ideas.
Another reason why first language could facilitate generating ideas was that the
learners could transfer the ideas easily to L2. In this case, transferring ideas meant the
learners got the idea from their L1 and then transferred the linguistic structure to L2. In
other words, after getting the ideas, they wrote the idea in L2 structure. Participant A’s
experience showed that it seemed she relied on her L1because she did not have enough
knowledge about L2 structure. As a result, she chose Indonesian and later transferred it
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to English structure. Regarding to that issue, L1 was beneficial for beginner learners of
English, especially for those who have not acquired English proficiency well.
The finding indicated that L1 gave much contribution to the pre writing stage,
which facilitated the idea process of thinking and provided an easier way to transfer the
knowledge. Because the learners grasped many ideas, they could develop the content as
well as they develop the idea. This finding was similar to (Weijen et al., 2009) who
found that L1 appears to be positively related to L2 text quality for goal setting,
composing ideas and structuring.
2. Foster to write on familiar and unfamiliar topic
Topic selection may determine how good the quality of writing is. The learners
must have a clear purpose in writing whether they wanted to describe something, tell a
story, argue an issue, or persuade people. Learners sometime spend much time on
thinking what they are going to write. Thinking just for a familiar topic is difficult,
even the learners cannot think as well as they expected.Furthermore, itis more difficult
to think of an unfamiliar topic than the familiar topic. The following table gives
information about the participants’ response that used their L1 to write about certain
topics in their guided writing tasks
Table 2. Extract Interview of Participant D, G, H and I
No
1

Participants’ statement

Name
Participant D

“I rarely used Indonesian in my writing. However,
when I was asked to write about a culture topic, I often
used Indonesian. As we know,there are certain terms to
describe culture. That’s why I have to think in
Indonesian first whether I like it or not.”

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2

Participant G

“I forgot, but at that time I was asked to write a text;
the text was taken from one of my ideas in my free
writing draft. At that time, I wrote about rice, I meant I
wanted to describe how ‘Indonesian rice’ and ‘Indian
rice’ looked like. Then, I found a difficulty to describe
it, I didn’t know, I was so confused.”

3

Participant H

“Perhaps, I used Indonesian to write about a
knowledge topic, which is a little bit complicated. For
example UV ray actually contains vitamin D, but it can
cause a skin cancer. So, Indonesian helped me a lot to
write on an uncommon topic.”

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Participant I

“I usually wrote about my personal experience or a
story related to my daily life. I think I could write
easily and quickly, if I used Indonesian in writing
something which happened close to my life.”

The finding showed that L1 played a role in writing on unfamiliar topic. The
purpose why they used their L1 was to overcome their difficulty in defining the
unfamiliar topic or issue. The examples of the unfamiliar topic are medical, invention,
science, cultural history, and etc. Writing on unfamiliar topic might be an obstacle for
beginner learners because they rarely used and discussed that information in their daily
life. In agreement with participant D who said that culture has a special term for certain
meaning or word, it was possible if we did not know that term in L2.

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Participant G also found difficulty in describing “Indian rice”. Because the term
that she wanted to describe was foreign culture. She used her L1 to clarify the
description of Indian rice. L1 was acceptable to clarify in L2 writing, yet the learners
had to know first the concept of the things that they wanted to describe in order to
avoid error or misunderstanding. Similar to participant D and G, participant H was
confused when she was asked to write about a scientific topic. Because she was in
English education field, she did not much know about science. If that case happened,
the learners might search supporting information in their L1. After that, they transferred
the information to L2. Here, information transferring could be in a form of L1 meaning
transformation or L1 word transformation.
The writer concluded that the learners found L1 as a perfect tool for the learner to
get some information, because they have not found much information or insufficient
knowledge about an unfamiliar topic in the target language. It meant that the learners
did not have much L2 knowledge as they had in their L1. Hence, learners’ L1
memories were advantageous to support or explain the meaning interpretation from L1
to L2 writing.
Another finding was that L1 was an influential factor for the learners to help them
to write on familiar topics in a narrative genre. Most participants agreed that they
performed better when they were asked to write their personal experience. Some of
them produced a well informative content; it meant that they gave much information to
the readers. Because the learners were the one who experienced the event by
themselves, they knew exactly the chronology of the event. Furthermore, if the event or
experience happened recently; obviously the memory was still fresh in mind.
Therefore, they could retrieve as much information or ideas from their L1.
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3. Assist vocabulary learning
Vocabulary determines the quality of writing. The more varied vocabulary, the
better writing would be. Therefore, it is a must for learners to have much vocabulary in
order to improve their writing quality. The following table provides the participants’
statements that thought that their L1 was very advantageous in learning L2 new words.
Table 3. Extract Interview of participant A, B, and K
No
1

Participants’ statement

Name
Participant A

“I could not make a good and well-formed sentence in
English directly, so I used Indonesian first then
translated it to English. To write a higher quality of
writing in Indonesian, perhaps, we could not do. So,
how can we write complex sentences in English? For
example, I want to describe ’that brown window frame
is beautiful and it has spiraled and rounded pattern.’ If
I wrote that sentence in Indonesian, It was easier.
However, it would be hard, if I wrote it in English.”

2

Participant B

“If I did not know the meaning in English, for me it is
better to translate it directly or look up in the
dictionary to find the meaning. I usually translated
some phrase that I did not know.”

3

Participant K

“I often used my L1. It has become my habit to write
the word that I did not know in L1 first, then I would
translate it and later on I would know the meaning of
18

that word.”

We could clearly see from the data that L1 was a translation tool to search for L2
word. L1 translation generally arose when learners were stuck with L2 word. Then
again, they used their L1 to look for L2 vocabulary. Furthermore, their tendency of L1
use would increase when they wanted to create a complex sentence. Referring to the
participant A’s experience, she got trouble in forming L2 word. As a result, she might
translate directly to L2 or create L2 word by L1 translation. It was like a productive
skill because the learners learned a new vocabulary by creating L2 word, which was
from the concept of L1. This problem was commonly experienced by beginner learners.
Another problem was that the word that the learners wanted to describe did not exist in
the target language, so the learners might transfer directly to L2. Even, direct
translation was weird which was caused by L1 literal translation. To create a wellformed complex sentence in L2, the learners should have a good vocabulary
comprehension on how they used the words in appropriate ways. In order to maximize
their

vocabulary

comprehension,

learners

might

improve

their

vocabulary

comprehension by learning in monolingual dictionary. This dictionary provided extra
information about meaning of a word in a particular context. To deepen the
understanding of vocabulary, reading L2 text was necessary. Unconsciously as learners
read the L2 text, they would recognize some words. If they did not know meaning of a
word while they were reading, they could figure out the meaning by guessing the
meaning from the context. This way was very beneficial because learners could
memorize the meaning of those words for a long time. The last step to improve their
vocabulary use was that by doing writing practice and improving sentence structure. In
19

this case, learners put a certain word with others language components in a sentence. It
was a way to test intelligibility of the sentence. In conclusion, it could be drawn a
conclusion that L1 translation was not enough to support L2 vocabulary learning.
Therefore, learners need to know about vocabulary use on how to put words in writing
appropriately.
4. Improve creative writing
It is true that learners need to understand grammar and vocabulary in writing.
However, L2 writing was not only these things. They should consider about creative
ability in sharing or expressing their ideas or thought. The following table is interview
results that show guided writing students’ creativity in L2 writing.
Table 4. Extract Interview of Participant C and H
No
1

Participants’ statement

Name
Participant C

“When I wrote about my experience that I liked the
most, I added a poem in my narrative writing task.
Thats’true I translated some word in the poem to
English.”

2

Participant H

“Because my first language is Indonesian, I often used
it. It will be easier when I shared my ideas, even, the
idea is more expressive and the content of the writing
itself would also improve. The habit of L1 writing
helped me to share the idea expressively, but do not
translate to English literally.”

20

The writer was surprised that beginner learners did produce a sort of aesthetic
text in their narrative task when they were in Guided writing course. Perhaps only the
learners who had much experience in L2 writing wrote creatively. Typically, creative
thought emerged from the habit of writing and sharing the idea. That was true when the
participants were asked about their habits in writing and some of them said they often
wrote in L1. Therefore, they could come up with such an idea. From the data, the
writer concluded that the habit ofL1 writing affected to L2 writing. The sharing of the
idea both in L1 and in L2 was the same, but in L2 writing the learners had to deal with
a suitable language structure. Because the learner had much experience in L1 writing,
they knew how they played the language. Later on, they transformed the knowledge
from the L1 to L2 writing.
Creative expression could be expressed through the poem, proverb, vocabulary
variation, personal belief and so on. As participant C said she expressed the idea
through the poem. Putting poem in writing gave a different nuance, so it aroused the
readers’ curiosity to read more. Here, different nuance meant different vocabulary,
different tone, and the way the writers told their story was different too. As the poem
was an art that contained a cliché meaning such as metaphor, the reader might interpret
differently. This finding was similar to Cumming’s study, (2003) in Hyland (2003) that
He challenged his students to be creative in expressing themselves. Some of his
students showed the poem to express themselves in writing. Here we can see that
participants of the present study, as well as the participant of Cumming study (2003)
were aware of role poem which gave artistic touch to write in order to express someone
belief. In addition, the learner could produce creative writing when they were writing

21

based on their interest. Since many ideas that they got, they were forced to find their
ways on how the idea would be expressed.
5. Lead to error
Despite the fact that L1 gave many roles for guided writing students, the
participants also admitted that L1 caused an error when they performed in L2 writing.
This following table is interview result from the participants who experience errors.
Table 5. Extract Interview of Participant C and J
No
1

Participants’ statement

Name
Participant C

“Yes, I’ve experienced negative errors. At the
beginning of the first or second semester I didn’t know
the English term for ‘terimakasih sebelumnya ‘, so at
that time I translated it to ‘thanks before.’ It is totally
incorrect because of my first language translation,
whereas the correct one is ‘thanks in advance’.”

2

Participant J

“I often make mistakes when I write ‘interested with’,
in fact it should be’ interested in.’ Another example
was ‘related with’ or ‘related to’. That sounds
Indonesian. I also have experienced making an error in
tenses, too. You know Indonesian does not have
present, past, perfect etc. To write aku sedang
menonton TV ( I was watching TV), sometimes I was
still confused of what tenses I should use”

22

The following table shows the distribution of grammatical error that often be
done by the participants.

tenses
5%

spelling
11%
word choice
17%

preposition
59%
word order
11%

Table 6. Learner's Error

The finding showed out of 18 errors, from that total error, 1 or 5 % was error in
tenses, 2 or 11 % were error in spelling, 3 or 17 % were error in word choice, 2 or 11 %
were error in word order, and 10 or 59% were error in preposition. Those errors were
interlingual errors which were caused by interference from the first language. As
(Nunan, 1991; Ellis, 1996; Myles, 2002) has proved that interlingual error or negative
transfer is the result of L1 influence due to the use of the L1 rule in learning L2.
From the participants’ response, they often failed applying their knowledge in
preposition. The error preposition happened because L1 and L2 shared the same
meaning but express in different ways. For instance participant J’s experience, she
wanted to write “interested in”, but she wrote “interested with.” Interested with was the
result of direct L1 translation “tertarik dengan”. Because English has many
prepositions, which are used or set by other words based on the context, the learners
23

often got confused of how to use the preposition properly. In contrast, Indonesian
preposition are constant; it means that there is no different meaning if it is set with
other words.
Second, the word error also had been experienced by the participants. Lack of
grammar comprehension led to word order error. For example “ruang tunggu” was
translated to “room waiting”, whereas the correct pattern should be “waiting room.”
Referring to that example, there was English pattern, which could be reversible.
Sometimes the learners were confused to differentiate what word should come first, for
example “ I don’t have enough money” not “ I don’t have money enough”, here the
adjective should come first and then followed by the noun.
Third, the word choice error was also often made by beginner level of English.
Thus, they translated the vocabulary and sometime the translation worked. However, it
also turned to error because English has many kinds of vocabulary whose meaning is
contextualized. Participant C translated “terimakasih sebelumnya“ to “thanks before”.
It seemed that participant C did lack of vocabulary comprehension, so she just
translated directly. If we looked literally, the translation was correct, but the meaning
was uncommon in English.
Fourth, tenses error happens when L1 and L2 have a different structure. English
has many tense rules and usually tenses are used based on when the event happens. In
other words, we may say English tenses deal with time but Indonesian does not have
such rules. Because of the differences of Indonesian and English structure, participant J
made an error. The sentence “Joni sedang menonton television”, in Indonesian was
correct. However, it would be different if it was written in English. The correct

24

sentence should be “Joni is watching television.” Furthermore, whether Joni watches
television in the morning, at noon or in the evening, the grammar would change also.
We could clearly see that all the errors above were caused by direct first
language translation. The two main reasons why they translated directly was that first,
they did not know the term in English, so that they transferred it to L2. Second, they
probably knew the term in the target language but they did not know the usage of that
term properly.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of this study was to investigate ED students’ perspectives toward
the role of first language in their guided writing. To examine students’ perspectives,
semi-structured interview technique was used. The study revealed that first language
was considered as essential factor which gave many positive roles instead of negative
one in foreign language writing. The finding also showed that first language was
permitted for beginner learners especially in giving many ideas.
Each participant had their different perspectives toward the L1 use. As found
from the interview results, first, enhancement of generating ideas was achieved by
using L1. L1 facilitated the participants to get the ideas easily. After getting the ideas,
they hoped their first language also developed the content. Second, first language was
often used for writing on both a familiar and an unfamiliar topic. The participants
mentioned that they could elaborate the ideas more when writing on familiar topics,
whereas, they needed L1 to help them in describing an unfamiliar term. Third, first
language encouraged the participant to dig their creative abilities. Some of them stated
that they expressed their thought, belief or opinion through poem, expressive ideas, and
25

vocabulary variation. Fourth, L1 translation was really useful for searching L2 word
especially in forming a complex L2 sentence or word. The participants learnt new
vocabulary from L1 translation, whether they looked up in the dictionary or translated
directly to L2 word. Last, first language was one factor which caused error. The
discussion has shown that the most common error was preposition. The participants
also made errors in word choice, tenses, word order, and spelling. Those errors were
interlingual error or L1 interferences.
It can be concluded that the tendency of first language use depended on how
much their L2 knowledge or how successful they learnt the target language. If the
participants always relied on the first language, it meant that they have not succeeded
enough in learning the target language. Conversely, if they have enough L2 knowledge,
they would reduce their tendency of L1 use. This finding was similar to the previous
study by Husein and Mohammad (2010) who found:
At the lower level proficiency of writing can be a very complex activity due to difficulties
students face in generating ideas in the second language, identifying the linguistic structures
and using the appropriate vocabulary. In most cases students refer to their L1 in order to carry
out the task. However, it is always believed that at lower levels of proficiency students tend to
use L1 during L2 writing more than intermediate or advanced levels of proficiency
students.(p.185)

Reflecting to the result of this study, which supports and opposes for the L1
role, it gives consideration for the English department teachers whether L1 should be
addressed in their classroom or not, especially when designing the classroom activities,
selecting suitable material and the teacher’s explanation. By doing so, the guided
writing students’ may use their first language to support their learning, for example the
teacher gives opportunity to use L1 in the group discussion in order to grasp the ideas
26

more. However, the teacher must give limitation of L1 use in the classroom or in the
writing process to avoid error, so the students will not rely too much on L1. In other
words, this study suggested that the teachers should adjust with their students’
proficiency. For whom and when the first language should be maximized and
minimized.
Nevertheless, this study cannot be generalized to all contexts. In this case, the
limitation of the study is on the finding. The role of the other Indonesian, which is the
context of this study, may result differently. Because someone’s first language may be
different from others. Moreover, the participants are university students from second
years who still are in the beginner level. Thus, the result will be different if L1 was
used by university students who are in intermediate or advanced level because they
have much experience in L2 learning. For that reason, it is suggested that further
studies are needed to investigate more about how first language influences L2 writing
done by intermediate or advanced level students. It is interesting to know how
wonderful ED students' creativity in writing. Therefore, study on L1 composition which
can foster the students’ creative ability is also needed. Later, the students will not only
produce a well text but they can also perform their creativity in L2 writing.

27

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

With the completion of my thesis, I am extending praise and thankfulness to
Jesus Christ for his love, blessed and guidance in accomplishing my study. I also give
special thanks to my beloved parents who always support in several ways. I would like
to acknowledge my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dra. Martha Nandari, M.A,
who always gives guidance, suggestions, time, patience and extra help in doing my
study. Also, I would like to express my appreciation to my examiner, Sesilia Rani
Setyo Sari, M.Hum, for her willingness to examine my study, without her help my
study would not have been finished. In this opportunity, I give thanks to my
participants, 2011er (eleveners) who spend time to be interviewed. Finally, I want to
express my love to my beloved best friend, Zilpa, Pembayun, Herinta, Arinta and etc,
because their help and support, I can finish my study.

28

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