T1 112009134 Full text

INTRODUCTION
As an English learner at the English Department (ED) of Satya Wacana
Christian University, I had to take Indonesian to English Translation class because
it is a required course. I was often confused in deciding whether to choose a native
speaker teacher or non-native speaker teacher. My consideration is when I was
taught by a native speaker lecturer, it forced me to speak English more often
because the lecturer only understand English. Therefore, I could practice my
speaking more with the native speaker teacher. Since tens years ago, there have
been many researchers who studied about Native English Speaker Teacher. One
of them is Chomsky (1965) who thinks that a native speaker is the ideal model on
language use. However, I often didn‟t understand the materials or instructions
given because they spoke quite fast and the pronunciation was sometimes not
clear enough. When I was taught by a non-native English speaker teacher, I could
understand the materials and instructions clearly. Therefore, I often spoke and
asked questions in Indonesian in class because the lecturer could understand the
Indonesian language.
Last semester, I took an Indonesian to English Translation class with a
Native English Speaker Teacher. Sometimes, my teacher and I had a different
perception and opinion about the meaning of a word in Indonesian which was
translated into English. My classmates and my friends in the different classes with
different native English speaker teachers also experienced the same kind of

misunderstanding like me. I think it could happen because there are some words
in Indonesia which have no meaning or cannot be translated into English. That is

why I am curious to know about the English Department students‟ opinions of
Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) in Indonesian to English Translation
classes. In his study, Lee (2000) also questioned about Native and Non Native
English speaker teachers. The major question asked in his study was, “Can a nonnative English speaker be a good English language teacher?” Yusuf (2004) says
that the issue of who is more competent in the classroom, Native English
Speaking Teachers (NESTs) or Non-Native English Speaking Teachers
(NNESTs) isn‟t easily answered. Therefore, how good teachers in teaching are
also influenced by the subjects and their language abilities.
Previous research studies show that there are many perceptions and
different results of researching about Native English Speaker Teachers. Some
studies discuss the status of language teachers in ESL and EFL programs and find
out that NNESTs are not preferred is because ESL students do not want NNESTs
as their teachers. However, perceptions of EFL students must be different
especially perceptions of EFL students in the English Department. Cook (2000)
who studied about the ideal language teacher found out that although students
prefer native speaker teachers, students in various countries themselves have
many perceptions for NESTs. He believes that „nativeness‟ is not a major factor in

influencing students‟ views. Every student in different countries has their own
ideal criteria of a good language teacher. Mahboob (2004) in his journal “Native
or Non-Native: What do the students think?” focus of work on NNEST issues
examines the self-perceptions and personal histories of NNESTs themselves. His
study related to my study that has the same idea to find out what are the students‟

perceptions of Native and Non Native English Speaker Teachers, but my study
only focus on Native English Speaker Teachers. His study was conducted in
United States with ESL and EFL participants that surely would have different
results with my study at the English Department where the students are EFL
students. Another study is Lipovsky and Mahboob (2007) study that focused on
students‟ attitudes towards their native and non-native English language teachers
(NESTs vs. NNESTs) and discussed the language that students use when
commenting on their teachers. This study resulting in how the students‟ answer
and attitude toward their teachers, both Native and Non Native while learning
English. The relevancy of this study is about its focus on the students‟ attitudes
while learning English and my study focus on how the students‟ opinions of
teachers‟ attitude while teaching English. It includes how the teachers‟
explanation, teachers‟ instructions, and teachers‟ feedbacks.
This study aims to find out English Department students‟ opinions of

Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs) teaching Indonesian to English
Translation Classes. This study will be useful for the students to choose between
NESTs and Non-NESTs who they think more helpful in teaching the Indonesian
to English Translation class. Since there are many people and countries in the last
few decades consider that Native English Speaker Teachers are better than Non
Native English Speaker Teachers, it caused my couriousty about ED students‟
perceptions about them as language teachers. Cook (2008) states that one of the
confirmations often put forward are that the students themselves require native
speakers. More than half of learners for children and adults prefer natives. The

Research Question to be answered in this study was what are the English
Department students‟ point of view of Native English Speaking Teachers in
Indonesian to English Translation class. It will give ideas whether it‟s really true
that the students themselves demand Native English Speaking Teachers or not in
Indonesian to English Translation class.

LITERATURE REVIEW
This part discusses the theoretical framework underlying this research. It
covers five areas, which are: the definition of Native English Speaker Teachers
(NESTs), the provision of an ideal language teacher, strength and weaknesses of

Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs), and description of Indonesian to
English translation class.
Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs)
Consulting the dictionary, a native speaker is a person who has spoken the
language from earliest childhood. It is similar to what Cook (1999) said that an
individual is not a native speaker of a language unless the individual acquired it in
childhood. He said “Everyone is a Native Speaker of the particular language
states that the person has grown in his/her mind/brain. In the real world, that is
all there is to say” (p.188). There are also many experts who define what a native
speaker is. Holliday (2005) defines native speakerism as “an established belief
that „native speaker‟ teachers represent a „Western culture‟ from which spring the
ideals both of the English language and of English language teaching

methodology” (p. 6). Then Cook (2008) says “The first language a human being
learns to speak is his native language; he is a native speaker of this
language.”(p.13) He thinks that a person who raised and learned L1 since his
childhood, means that he is the native speaker of that L1. This statement is
supported by Mufwene (1994) who believes that a native speaker of one language
is someone who was born in that language country; learned it during childhood;
and speaks it as a first language. Meanwhile, Jaeger (2001) uses the term „the

intercultural speaker‟ as a replacement for „the native speaker‟ as the ideal the
language learner has to strive to attain in language teaching. The intercultural
speaker is not required to erase his/her own social and cultural identity when
assuming the role of a near native speaker of the target language. Therefore, a
“Native Speaker” (NS) of English in this discussion, is someone whose main or
first language (L1) is English and who has learned it first as a child. It should be
noted that the term NEST coincides with this description with the native speaker
being a teacher of English.
Thus, many experts say that a native speaker is the person who mastered
the language of the place they originally came from as their mother tongue.
However, the theory can be refuted by the fact that many children nowadays are
taught English as their first language by their parents even though they were not
born and raised in England. Whereas being born in a certain place does not
guarantee that the person will be a native speaker of that place, because the
languages that each individual has been taught and speaks at home are different
depending on how their parents teach them. At theEnglish Department (ED), we

call Native English Speaker Teachers for teachers who teach using English as
their first language and Non-Native English Speaker Teachers for teachers who
teach using English as their second language.

The Provision of an Ideal Translation Teachers
Ideal teachers could be divided into two groups: the ideal NEST and the
ideal NNEST. It is especially important that the NEST learns a foreign language,
in particular the students‟ Ll. Therefore, the stereotype that takes for granted that a
native speaker is by nature the best language teacher is not always true. On the
other hand, the ideal NNEST is one who has achieved a near-native proficiency of
English. Research done by Yusuf (2004) reveals that one of definition of terms of
a good language teacher is that he or she is a bilingual. That means a person who
knows and uses two languages. In everyday use the word bilingual usually means
a person who speaks, reads, or understands two languages. Native speakers are
also highly valued and are defined as those who are capable of giving valid
judgments on their language and of identifying ill-formed grammatical
expressions in their languages although they may not be able to explain exactly
why they are ill-formed. Therefore, this study reveals that an absolute requirement
for teaching translation classes is bilingual. It is easier for bilingual people to
teach because they can understand at least the language to be translated and the
translation language, in this case is Indonesian and English. Hamers and Blanc
(2000) called this individual bilingualism “bilinguality” and distinguish it from
societal bilingualism. Accordingly, bilingualism can be defined as psychological
and social states of individuals or groups of people that result from interactions

via language in which two or more linguistic codes (including dialects) are used
for communication. So, bilinguality only uses languages that they master for
interaction and communication. That‟s why bilinguality more or less will also
understand the culture of those languages that they know. In addition, before the
teachers master the language to be translated, they must first truly master their
native language. If they had mastered their own language they could use the
words according to the meaning and the situation.
However, the existence of differences in terms of Indonesian and English
such as idioms and metaphors might be confusing. Since idioms and metaphors
are expressions which function as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be
worked out from its separate parts, therefore we cannot translate them one by one.
While the terminology and vocabulary in each country must be different. For
example in the sentence „He washed his hands of the matter‟ means that he
refused to have anything more to do with the matter. “The usual semantic rules
for combining meanings do not apply” Fromkin and Rodman (1998, p. 189). In
my previous Indonesian to English Translation class when I was taught by a
native English speaker teacher, her translation and my translation are often
different, such as in the phrase „Kemudian Tince menyemprot pembantunya‟
which was translated into „Tince then sprayed her maid‟ whereas the word

„menyemprot‟ here doesn‟t mean „spray‟ but „yell angrily‟. This is why I would
argue that an Indonesian to English Translation Class needs teachers who truly
understand both languages, in order to avoid misunderstandings between teachers
and students.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs)

Benke and Medgyes (2005) study showed some top-rated features of
teachers by Hungarian students. The strengths of the Native English Speaker
Teachers (NESTs) are that they focus primarily on speaking skills, are happy to
improvise, provide extensive information about the culture, are interested in
learners‟ opinions, and apply group work regularly in class. While, Cook (2008)
also highlights the drawbacks of native speakers, who are not models of L2 users,
cannot talk about L2 learning strategies from their own experience, are often not
explicitly aware of the features of the language as much as non-native speakers
are, cannot anticipate learning problems, cannot empathize with their students‟
learning experience, and are not able to exploit the learners‟ first language in the
classroom.

Whether NESTs are better English teachers has been widely discussed in

the TESOL literature. Phillipson (1992) questions whether NESTs are
“intrinsically better qualified” than NNESTs, and his view has been supported by
Kra-msch (1997) and Canagarajah (1999). Although NESTs have linguistic
competence in a language, it does not automatically make them good teachers. In
contrast, NNESTs‟ experience of learning English as an additional language
enables them to be good learner models and they can teach language learning
strategies more effectively. Their formal learning of knowledge about English
helps them develop language awareness and enables them to provide adequate
linguistic information about the language to learners (Medgyes, 1994). Even

NNESTs can be more sensitive to students‟ learning problems and can anticipate
their learning difficulties, especially when sharing the same first language (L1)
with learners (Medgyes,1994; Phillipson, 1996). Moreover, they can be more
empathetic to learners‟ needs and can set realistic learning goals. Boyle (1997)
adds that cultural affinity with students also favours NNESTs in an EFL context.
Despite having all these strengths, NNESTs are sometimes regarded as less
proficient users of English than NESTs and are seen as unable to achieve native
speaker competence, although in reality some NNESTs have very high English
proficiency levels (expert users) and their English may be more appropriate
linguistically for learners because of their shared linguistic background. NESTs

gain a special status of being a linguistic model (Cook, 1999;Luk & Lin, 2007),
and their English knowledge, proficiency, or competence is regarded as a point of
reference. However, the validity of the NESTs as a linguistic model for foreign
language learning has been questioned. Additionally, NESTs may not have the
necessary insights into lesson preparation and delivery. When teaching grammar,
they may have native intuition of what is grammatically acceptable and what is
not, but may not have that intuition when teaching translation.

METHODOLOGY

This study was a qualitative descriptive research. Sandelowski (2000) says
that the qualitative descriptive study is the method of choice when straight
descriptions of phenomena are desired. The writer wanted to describe about the

English Department students‟ opinions about Native English Speaker Teachers
competence in teaching Indonesian to English Translation classes.

Context of the study

The study was conducted at the English Department of Satya Wacana

Christian University which is located in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia. The
reason why the writer chose this place is that there are many Native English
Speaker Teachers teaching at the English Department of Satya Wacana Christian
University, including teaching Indonesian to English Translation classes. These
classes are taught by both Native English Speaker Teachers and Non-Native
English Speaker Teachers. Among ED students, there are also pros and cons about
Native English Speaker Teachers as good language teachers.

The Participants

The subject of this study is the English Department students who learn
English as a foreign language. They learn about everything related to English and
English is used as the main instruction in all courses. They can be from any
semester as long as they have taken or are currently taking Indonesian to English
translation classes. Since I was conducting a study on native speaker teachers, I
selected my participants who were taking classes which are taught by Native
English Speaker Teachers. Therefore, this study used purposive sampling of
strategies because the participants were selected purposefully based on a certain
criteria: English Department of Satya Wacana Christian University students who

had taken or are currently taking Indonesian to English translation classes which
are taught by Native English Speaker Teachers.

Research Instruments

The instruments for collecting data are questions and recorder. The questionnaire
items used are in the form of close-ended questions.In each questionnaire, there
are ten close-ended questions and participants can fill them in by putting a tick for
the choice that represents their answer. There are 5 options in each question. For
the interview, I took sample 10 people from 2 or 3 classes with different teachers.
The interview was a semi-structural interview. I provided 13 questions in every
interview, but during the interview sometimes I did improvisation by giving
additional questions related to the participants answers.

Data collection procedure

The data were collected by questionnaire and interview. The study had
been analyzed in qualitative descriptive method. Firstly, I made the questionnaire
and did piloting to make sure that the participants can understand the questions
and to see whether my questions are effective or not. Zacharias (2011) says that in
doing piloting the data, you should give it to approximately ¼ of your total sample
size. Since my total sample size is a hundred participants, I took sample 20 to 25
participants. Secondly, after I was sure that my questionnaire is understandable
and effective in answering my research questions, I distributed it to a hundred
participants. I distributed the questionnaire in the beginning of the class and gave

them several time to fill the questionnaire then I collected them again. I also asked
who were willing to be my interview participants. I took a note and used a
recorder while interviewing so that I could transcribe when it was necessary to
attach the transcription, and it helped me to find some information that might be
missed while I was taking notes.

Data analysis procedures

After the data were collected, I gave numbers for all questionnaires that
had been distributed so that I wouldn‟t lose any questionnaire and made sure that
all questionnaires could be collected. I started to analyze the data by making two
categories from the questionnaire items and interview that supported and
answered my research questions. Those two categories are the performance of
Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) and the appropriateness of Native
English Speaker Teachers (NESTs). The first category were answered from closeended questions from the questionnaire and has sub-categories based on the
teachers‟ performance in class. Then I analyzed more details by doing an
interview, so that I could get the reason and explanation of each participant‟s
answers. Then I categorized it into the sub-categorizes until finally I counted and
got the percentage for each sub-categories. The second category was answered
from the last question in the questionnaire. I also interviewed to some students to
get the answer whether they think NESTs are appropriate to teach Indonesian to
English translation classes or not.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This study found that the majority of ED students‟ think that Native
English Speaker Teachers‟ (NESTs) performance are not really good in teaching
Indonesian to English Translation classes. Most of the participants also said that
Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) are not appropriate to teach Indonesian
to English Translation classes. They prefer Indonesian or Non Native Ebglish
Speaker Teachers (NNEST). The data were analyzed according to the categorizes;
the performance of Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) and the
appropriateness of Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs).
The first category about the performance of the teacher had some subcategories based on their explanation, instruction, assignment and proficiency
while teaching Indonesian to English translation classes. The second category
about the appropriateness of NESTs teaching Indonesian to English Translation
classes will affect students preference of choosing a teacher.
The performance of Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs)
The ED students‟ opinions toward Native English Speaker Teachers‟
(NESTs)

performance

include

explanation,

instruction,

assignment

and

proficiency while teaching Indonesian to English translation classes.

Explanation given by the teacher

What I found from my research is that most of English Department
students think that NESTs‟ performance in Indonesian to English translation
classes is not really good. 42% of them said that their teachers‟ explanation was

not clear. After I did interview to 10 students, 5 of them said that the explanation
was not clear, boring, and sometimes the teacher spoke too fast.

Extract1
Interviewer
IV (Interviewee) 2

: Then, what do you think about the explanations given by the
teacher? Was it clear?
: Mmmm...not really clear and it was boring.

Some students have the same opinion because the teachers spoke so fast that the
students could not understand well and got confused.

Interviewer
IV (Interviewee) 3

: OK. Then what do you think about the explanations given by
the teacher?
: I think the explanation was not clear because he spoke very fast.
It‟s difficult for me to understand what he was talking about.

The different accent also may cause difficulty to the students.
Interviewer
IV (Interviewee) 5

: The next question, what do you think about the explanations
given by the teacher? Was it clear?
: I think the explanation was not really clear, his accent was
sometimes confusing

Mahboob (2004) says that NESTs express their feeling that “although they know
how to use the language, they are not aware of its rules explicitly. This lack of a
grammatical understanding appears to be noticeable to the students.” Sometimes
Native Speaker Teachers know the meaning of a sentence, but they cannot translate
it with the correct grammar so that it causes misunderstanding to the students. They
seem to lack of vocabulary and grammar rules caused by less awareness of the use
of the language. It might be because they haven‟t live in Indonesia long enough and
have not mastered the Indonesian language yet.

Instruction given by the teacher

The next finding in this study is that 38% participants admit that the
instruction given by the teacher is not clear. 4 out of 10 students said that they
experienced misunderstanding of theteachers‟ instruction because sometimes it was
unclear.

Extract 2
Interviewer
: And then what do you think about his instruction in class?
Interviewee 3 : Actually the instruction was not clear. He only distributed the material
to be done by the students and he gave the instruction orally.

Besides the explanation, the instruction given by the teacher must be clear
so that the students can do well. However, some teachers sometimes do not realize
and do not explain more. Although the instruction itself has already been stated in
the paper, sometimes it is not clear enough for the students.

Interviewer
Interviewee 7

: And how about the instructions given by the teacher?
: I think no, sometimes I didn‟t get what she asked me to do.

The instruction given by the teachers is sometimes confusing and the students don‟t
know what they are supposed to do. That‟s why the teachers should give a clear
instruction before giving an exercise and make sure that the students understand the
instruction clearly.

Assignment given by the teacher

The understanding and performance of students while being taught by
Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) can be seen in this study. 39% of

students experienced that the assignment given by the teacher is not clear and
difficult. After asking the interviewees, 7 of them said that they often found
difficulties on the assignment. Some of students found difficulties in technical and
specific terms.

Extract 3
Interviewe
Interviewee 1

: And what do you think about the assignment? Was it easy or difficult?
: Eeee... I think it was quite difficult, for example when I was asked to
translate news and I didn‟t know about the specific term like Komisi
Besar Polri and other specific terms.

On the other hand, there also some students that feel challenged by the difficulties
that they found.

Interviewer
Interview 4

: Then what do you think about the assignment? Was it easy or difficult?
: I think it was not easy, but it‟s challenging. The assignment given was
usually a written text, and also translating a movie for the final project.

It shows that students do not always feel burdened with difficult assignments.
That‟s why sometimes teachers should give interesting and challenging
assignments to the students. However, other students expect Indonesian to English
translation class to be as easy as English to Indonesian translation class.

Interviewer
: Then, what do you think about the assignment? Was it difficult or easy?
Interviewee 7 : It‟s difficult and I didn‟t know that translation class would be so
difficult.

Proficiency of the teacher
Another finding is that 31% participants said that Indonesian proficiency
of the teacher is not clear. When I asked the interviewees, 5 of them have the
same opinion.

Extract 4

Interviewe

: And then, what do you think about the Indonesian proficiency of the
teacher?
Interviewee 5 : Not really clear. His accent is weird.

It seems that the students saw the Indonesian proficiency of the Native English
Speaker Teachers (NESTs) is not clear and fluent. Accent can also be one of the
factors why students prefer Non Native English Speaker Teachers (NNESTs).
This understanding of students‟ preference for „native‟ accent might also be a
reason why Flynn and Gulikers (2001) list „accent‟ to be the most important
criteria in hiring NNESTs. However, while a number of students find teachers‟
pronunciation and accent to be important, it should be noted that other students do
not give it the same importance.

Thus, this category describes that the majority of the participants think that
class performance of Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) in Indonesian to
English Translation classes is not clear. Some NESTs also learn and understand
more in line while they are teaching. So, they are teaching and learning at the
same time. “Most native teachers I know never really came across grammar until
they started teaching it. So you have to learn it as you go along.” (Arva &
Medgyes 2000, p. 361)

ED students’ opinions about the appropriateness of Native English Speaker
Teachers (NESTs)

From the last but the most important question about the appropriateness of
Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) teaching Indonesian to English
translation classes, 41% of students think that Native English Speaker Teachers
(NESTs) are not appropriate for teaching Indonesian to English Translation
classes. When I asked the interviewees, 4 of them had several reasons why they
prefer Non-Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) teaching Indonesian to
English translation classes. Some students expect the teacher who masters
Indonesian terms.
Extract 5
Interviewer
Interviewee 6

: All right, the last question is do you think that Native English Speaker
Teachers are suitable to teach Indonesian to English translation class?
: I think they are not suitable because the students and the teacher will
find many difficulties if the teacher do not master Indonesian vocabulary
and idioms.

The students prefer Non Native English Speaker Teachers (NNESTs) or in this
case Native Indonesian teachers to teach Indonesian to English Translation classes
because they know Indonesian terms better and speak Indonesian fluently. It is
similar to the opinions of Interviewee 7 who have taken Indonesian to English
translation class twice.
Extract 6
Interviewer

: OK, the last question is do you think that Native English Speaker
Teachers are suitable to teach Indonesian to English translation class?

Interviewee 7

: I think no. I repeated the class with Non Native English Speaker
Teacher and I think she‟s better.

Another finding was that 37 students of 100 and 30% of my interviewee neither
agree nor disagree that Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) are suitable for
teaching Indonesian to English translation classes. They think that it is suitable as
long as he/she knows a lot of Indonesian grammar, culture, and the terms. It also
depends on the teachers‟ ability and proficiency. The above example shows that
some students perceive that they cannot acquire an understanding of Indonesian
culture from NESTs.
Students expect teachers who really know Indonesian context and term
better than them. Interviewee 2 said “They have to know well about Bahasa
Indonesia before teaching us, because we‟re Indonesian who know Bahasa
Indonesia since we‟re born.” Since the students are mostly originally Indonesian,
they must know Indonesian culture, terminology, and vocabulary. That‟s why the
teacher for Indonesian to English translation class should know a lot about
Indonesian. The appropriateness of the teacher teaching this class depends on the
teacher itself. Lipovsky and Mahboob (2007) emphasizes “not only objective
values such as judgements or appreciations about their teachers‟ ability to teach
or perform, but also subjective values such as their own feelings vis-a-vis their
teachers and their teaching.” Teachers‟ ability and performance can be
measurement of appropriateness of the teacher teaching Indonesian to English
translation classes. Besides, based on my interviewees information, mastery of the
Indonesian terms and vocabulary is also important. She thinks that it is suitable
because although the teachers‟ pronunciation and proficiency is not very clear,

they master the Indonesian terms and vocabulary. Griffin and Mahboob (2006)
apply the grounded approach to their study. Strenghtening ealier findings, they
found that students‟ comments could be placed into three broad categories:
linguistic factors, teaching styles, and personal factors. the first group,linguistic
factors, includes oral skills, literacy skills, grammar, vocabulary, and culture; the
second group, teaching styles, includes ability to answer questions and teaching
methodology; and the third group, personal factors, includes experience as an ESL
learner, hard work, and affect. So, there are many measurements and
considerations to determine whether Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs)
are appropriate to teach Indonesian to English translation classes. This study
found that ED students prefer Non Native English Speaker Teachers (NNESTs) to
teach Indonesian to English translation. Non Native English Speaker Teachers
(NNESTs) here mean Indonesian teachers that they assume to be more
appropriate and master Bahasa Indonesia better than Native English Speaker
Teachers (NESTs). It is similar to Kamhi-Stein et al. (2001) study shows that
NNESTs were also slightly more positive about their instructional abilities than the

NESTs were.
This differences in perceptions between students with NESTs may cause
misunderstanding in the teaching and learning process. NESTs‟ lack of mastery in
learning a second language and weakness in their teaching methodology make
students assume that they are not appropriate to teach Indonesian to English
translation classes. From this category, it can be summarized that ED students
think that Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) are not appropriate for

teaching Indonesian to English translation classes. 41% students and 40%
interviewee admit that they prefer Non Native English Speaker Teachers
(NNESTs) rather than Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs). In each of these
categories, one teacher is evaluated as having a better performance/skill than the
other one. According to the English Department students, Non Native English
Speaker Teachers (NNESTs) have better performance and skills for teaching
Indonesian to English Translation classes rather than Native English Speaker
Teachers (NESTs).

CONCLUSION
The aim of this study was to see English Department students‟ opinions of
Native English Speaking Teachers Teaching in Indonesian to English Translation
Classes. The findings of the research study revealed important points related to
students‟ opinions and the appropriateness of Native English Speaker Teachers
(NESTs) teaching Indonesian to English tanslation classes according to the
English Department students. Based on the data gathered and analyzed from the
questionnaire and interview, the first finding showed that the majority of the
participants said that class performance of Native English Speaker Teachers
(NESTs) in Indonesian to English Translation classes is not clear and Native
English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) are not appropriate for teaching Indonesian to
English translation classes. Finally, the students‟ opinions reveal that Indonesian
to English translation class is better to be taught by Non Native English Speaker

Teachers unless Native English Speaker Teachers are familiar and master the
Indonesian language well.

There were some limitations of conducting the study. There were only 2
classes that were taught by Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) in this
semester and I had to wait until the end of the semester because there were some
questions about the effects after taking this class. Another limitation in this study
is on the result. Since it was conducted at the English Department Satya Wacana
Christian University, the data cannot always be similar to other study which were
conducted in different universities. The time also can cause differences in the
finding of the study. Maybe in the future, the English Department will hire Native
English Speaker Teachers who master Bahasa Indonesia better that can lead to
better results. Different participants, different teachers, different opinions, and
different time of the study must also cause different results. That is why this study
is only valid at the English Department Satya Wacana Christian University in
2014.

The suggestion for further research in order to get richer data, firstly the
future studies could use a broader sample population from the English Department
students of other universities in Central Java-Yogyakarta or Indonesia. Secondly,
use interview because it is very helpful to strengthen the data and the transcription
will be very helpful while collecting the data. Finally, I would like to re-state that
most English Department students think that Native English Speaker Teachers
(NESTs) are not suitable for teaching Indonesian to English translation classes.

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APPENDIX
Appendix 1
Dear EDers,
I‟m conducting a research about “What are English Department Students’
Opinions of Native English Speaker Teachers (NESTs) Teaching Indonesian
to English Translation Classes?” I would be very grateful if you would kindly
answer this questionnaire. You can answer it freely because it will not affect any
grades.
Please choose the best choices that really represent your answer by putting a tick
() in the provided small box.
Bach (Angkatan)

: ____________________

Age

: ____________________

Sex

: M / F (circle yours)

No

Statement

1

The explanation given
by Native English
Speaker Teacher in
this class is clear.
The instruction given
by Native English
Speaker Teacher in
this class is helpful.
The
kind
of
assignments given by
Native
English
Speaker Teacher in
this class is clear.
The feedback given by
Native
English
Speaker Teacher in
this class is helpful.
The
teacher„s
feedbacks
improve
your
translating
ability.

2

3

4

5

Strongly
Agree

Agree

Neither
Agree nor
Disagree

Disagree

Strongly
Disagree

6

7

8

9

10

The
Indonesian
proficiency of the
teacher is clear.
Your
translating
ability after taking this
class is improved.
Your expectation is
fulfilled after taking
this class.
After
taking
this
translation class, your
skills in other classes
is increased.
Native
English
Speaker Teacher is
suitable
to
teach
Indonesian to English
translation class.

 Thank You 

Appendix 2
These are questions for Interview:
1. Who was your teacher?
2. Why did you take his/ her class? In purpose or not?
3. What do you think about the explanations given by the teacher?
4. What do you think about the instructions given by the teacher?
5. What do you think about the assignments given by the teacher?
6. How was the assignment usually given?
7. What do you think about the feedbacks given by the teacher?
8. How was the teacher feedback usually given?
9. What do you think about the Indonesian proficiency of the teacher?
10. What do you think about your translating ability after taking this class?
11. Do you think your expectation is fulfilled after taking this class?
12. Please describe the difficulties you have ever experienced when taking this
class!
13. Do you think that Native English Speaker Teacher is suitable to teach

Indonesian to English translation class?