Teachers’ Use Of Own Language In An Indonesian EFL Senior High School
Own language (OL) use in new language (NL) classrooms has become the subject of intense debate in the literature in English language teaching. Around the 1880s, the discouragement or even the elimination of OL use was favoured in the teaching of NLs due to the belief that the more students were exposed to NL, the more quickly they learnt. Despite this dominant assumption, the theory underpinning it was “never clearly defined, nor was it substantiated with empirical study”. In this study, discussion of terminology surrounding OL use in NL classrooms is considered necessary as different terms are often used to refer to the same concept, while the same terms are also used in different senses. Regarding the two approaches to language teaching, the notion that a language should be taught without making reference to another language refers to the monolingual approach; and that two or more languages being used to learn a language refers to the bi/multilingual approach.
The terms ‘first language’ (L1) and ‘second language’ (L2) are deemed to lack accuracy in some contexts. Hall and Cook (2012) state that the term L1 defined as the language learnt first is problematic because the language students share is not always the ‘first language’ of all students. Davies (2003) further argues that this term is not always straightforward for multilingual contexts in which because students may have more than one L1. In addition, the term L2 may imply that all students know only one another language when many of them are probably bi/multilingual. Considering these limitations, Cook (2010) suggest the terms own language (OL), i. e. “the language which the students already know and through which (if allowed), they can approach the new language”, and new language (NL), i. e. “the language being learned”. This study uses Cook’s (2010) terms due to several reasons. Zacharias (2012) notes that Indonesian classrooms are mostly bi/multilingual where teachers and students speak two or more languages. Although Bahasa Indonesia is the first language of most Indonesians, it also coexists alongside more than 200 local languages. In spite of a philosophical question regarding the possibility of having several L1s at the same time, using these terms acknowledge that students might have been exposed to other L1s as they live in a bi/multilingual environment. In this paper, OL refers to Bahasa Indonesia, and NL refers to English. This case study aims to investigate teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the desirability of teachers’ OL use and their views on teachers’ purposes in using OL in English classrooms in an Indonesian immersion senior high school
Rationale for this research
My initial interviews with the teachers and some of the students in an immersion senior high school in Central Java, Indonesia has prompted this research. During English lessons where English was supposed to be used exclusively, both teachers and students admitted that they used to fall back on Bahasa Indonesia, their shared language. To my subjective view, although Bahasa Indonesia could be beneficial for learning English, the school’s policy had been flouted. This phenomenon has driven my interest to examine specifically teachers’ OL use within the context of monolingual teaching. Studies have extensively investigated teacher’s views on their OL use in English classrooms in various contexts. However, there is still a need for the incorporation of students’ perspectives in this matter. In addition, most studies in Indonesian contexts focus on teachers’ and students’ views on this subject at the university level.
The lack of empirical studies into teachers’ OL use in Indonesian senior high schools has become the rationale for this research. Due to the possibility of different levels of proficiency between university and senior high school students, teachers and students may have different perspectives on the desirability of teachers’ OL use and teachers’ purposes in using OL. Moreover, as small-scale research seems absent in this context, this study presents a case study to provide in-depth investigation of teachers’ and students’ perceptions of teachers’ OL use in an Indonesian immersion senior high school, where both teachers and students have a shared language, that is, Bahasa Indonesia.
Despite the challenge of the monolingual approach, in the practice, there seems to be a contradiction due to the fact that there is a growing global phenomenon of secondary schools which promote English as the medium of instruction. However, many of these programmes have been established without thorough considerations for the potential implications. Barnard and McLellan (2014) claim that wherever English-only policy is imposed, teachers and students actually resort to their OL on a regular basis. Following Kirkpatrick (2017), it is therefore important to examine these developments in relation to teachers’ and students’ perceptions of NL exclusivity with a critical eye. The focus of this research is on teachers’ use of Bahasa Indonesia rather than on students’ use. As Littlewood and Yu (2011) argue, students’ OL use is a major issue in itself since several studies found that some students might resort to OL as soon as they could and rarely initiated NL exchanges themselves (e. g. Carless, 2008; Crichton, 2009). As students’ OL use has its own challenges, it may require a separate study to examine more comprehensively how they use OL in classroom interaction.
Literature Review
- The monolingual language classroom
- The re-evaluation of the monolingual approach
- A shift to bi/multilingual classrooms
- Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the desirability of teachers’ OL use in various contexts
From around the 1880s, the dominant position in second language teaching was for NL exclusivity primarily aiming to prepare students to emulate NL as spoken by its native speakers. The proponents of the monolingual approach highlight its benefits. Some of them argue that OL omission makes the language real through classroom communication, meaning that exclusive use of NL promotes its natural use in authentic contexts. Chaudron (1988) adds that students in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts need more exposure to NL as they are rarely able to practise NL outside the classroom. Moreover, Chrichton (2009) supports monolingual teaching because it is assumed to improve mainly speaking skills. These arguments may indicate that OL use is considered decreasing authentic language use, resulting in poor learning outcomes. Additionally, some language learning theories seem to reflect the importance of monolingual approach. Input Hypothesis, for instance, emphasises comprehensible NL input so NL acquisition can take place. Krashen (1988) argues that NL acquisition is similar to how children acquire language for the first time. Therefore, its consequence is that NL should be taught in the same way as OL is acquired.
Furthermore, Swain’s (1985) Output Hypothesis states that in addition to the input, written and spoken NL output should be promoted to master NL. Although these hypotheses do not clearly mention OL exclusion, OL use is considered as deterring NL acquisition. Another theory such as language transfer views OL influence as “some potentially helpful, some potentially harmful” depending on the structural similarities and differences of both languages. Despite the possibility of positive transfers if structures are similar, behaviourists tend to regard language transfer as detrimental to NL learning due to the tenacious OL habits. Although the notion of language transfer does not explicitly touch upon OL use, it may encourage the minimising of OL use to prevent its interference on NL development.
The language compartmentalisation, expressed by Lambert in discussing French immersion, supports “two separate monolingual instructional routes” or what Cummins (2007) calls “the two solitudes assumption” which states that complete separation of languages in the mind may lead to successful language acquisition. Indeed, one of its pedagogical implications could be that NL learning should occur exclusively through NL rather than being linked to OL.
There are some theoretical arguments which can counter the justification for OL exclusion. Mitchell et al. (2013) maintain that morpheme studies that have demonstrated a similar order of grammatical morphemes learners acquire show that NL development is independent of learners’ OL. Despite the criticism regarding the assumption that accuracy of production indicates acquisition sequences, the research results remain valid because no matter what the learning contexts are, children and adults undergo a similar stage of grammatical morphemes. Although the theory does not specifically justify OL use, the rationale for monolingual teaching underpinning the idea of OL interference seems unfounded. More recently, the notion of translanguaging may have also contributed to opposing NL exclusivity in the classroom. This term is sometimes used interchangeably with code-switching, defined as going back and forth from one language belonging to one grammatical system to another. However, code-switching is different from translanguaging. While code-switching still constitutes the idea of two separate linguistic systems, translanguaging regards the languages in multilingual speakers’ repertoire as an integrated system. Thus, translanguaging is not merely a shuttle between two languages, but as Garcia and Wei (2014) argue, it views one’s language repertoire as complex interrelated discursive practices. It could be argued that translanguaging challenges the theory of language compartmentalisation as it considers bi/multilingual as having “one linguistic repertoire from which they select features strategically to communicate effectively”.
The re-evaluation of monolingual education has opened the door for the bi/multilingual approach. Researchers in the field of Socio Cultural Theory Theory argue that OL is needed for the practical demands of the classroom and for a scaffolding tool which can help students operate in the zone of proximal development (ZPD), that is, the distance between the level of actual and potential development that can be achieved under guidance. In other words, OL use enables students to engage in collaborative activities by providing scaffolded help to each other and mediates the cognitive processes that students use in problem-solving tasks. In addition, the issues of students’ linguistic and cultural identity in English language teaching (ELT) also contributes to supporting classroom bi/multilingualism.
Davies (2004) argues that the exclusive use of English can reinforce the basic tenets of English-only policy. These principles, what Phillipson (1992) calls as the five fallacies, include the belief that (1) English is best taught monolingually; (2) native speakers are the ideal English teachers; (3) English should be taught in early age, (4) the more English is used, the better the results (4) if OL is used, English standard will decline. Phillipson’s (1992) does not aim to show the falsity of these tenets, but to criticise that these principles have been disseminated and believed by many ELT professionals without thorough examination as unquestionable norms. As a result, these tenets may legitimate OL exclusion in the classroom, which can lead to the marginalisation of OL and threaten one’s sense of identity. Instead, incorporating OL may prevent a sense of denial of students’ identity and cultures.
Lin (1996, p. 79), who concerns about the domination of English particularly in Hong Kong schools, also argues that the OL use is a pragmatic response to the imposition of an English-only policy and suggests the application of balanced academic bi/multilingualism which recognises students’ bi/multilingual repertoire. Hence, OL use is not only a matter of how languages are learnt, but it can also “underpin learners’ sense of who they are and who they want to be in a complex multilingual world”. In their research in monolingual classrooms, some scholars found that OL use could be inevitable. For example, Lucas’ and Katz’s (1994) observation showed that teachers and students utilised OL although the policy was against it. Turnbull et al. (2011) also found that although teachers’ OL use was not explicitly incorporated in the interventions in their quasi-experimental study, they found that “it just happened”. In other words, OL use cannot be separated from language classrooms because it is a normal behaviour of bi/multilinguals and a natural process of learning as they tend to rely on their OL even if only in their minds.
In contrast, NL exclusivity may impose unnatural conditions where students restrict themselves to NL. Thus, OL use should be turned to pedagogic advantage, no longer seen as a hindrance to avoid. For example, some proponents of OL use promote the use of translation, which used to be considered as a hindrance to successful language learning, to allow students to experience what they naturally do in the learning process. As OL use may be unavoidable, language classrooms in bi/multilingual contexts may remain a bi/multilingual environment despite the imposition of monolingual approach. Considering the value of OL in the classroom, there are three teachers’ positions regarding language use. While the virtual position aims for NL-only use, the maximal position reflects conflict about OL use because on the one hand, teachers think that NL should be learnt through NL but it was unattainable because the perfect learning conditions do not exist, but on the other hand reference to OL leads to feelings of guilt. Additionally, the optimal position, which Macaro (2001) espouses, regards OL as a valuable tool to optimise language learning.
Despite these different positions, making informed decisions about using languages is important because as Lin (1999) notes, what matters is how teachers use them to help students enhance their language learning.
Some studies have investigated teachers’ and students’ perspectives on the desirability of teachers’ OL use. Liu et al. (2004) examined 13 teachers and 481 students in Korean monolingual high schools. The results revealed that while most teachers believed that the students expected them to only use English, many students expected the incorporation of Korean in English classrooms. This finding suggests that there was a mismatch between teachers’ and students’ perspectives on how both languages should be used. Nevertheless, the incompatibility between teachers’ and students’ perceptions does not seem evident in a survey included in Shuchi’s and Islam’s (2016) study involving 1000 university students and 30 teachers in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia. Although most teachers and students in both countries thought that OL exclusion might impede learning, they felt that English should be mainly utilised to provide input for the students. Research has also examined teachers’ and students’ views on teachers’ OL use separately. Regarding teachers’ perceptions, Tsukamoto’s and Tsujioka’s (2013) research on 95 Japanese senior high school English teachers revealed that many of them agreed with OL exclusion, whereas the others felt that they needed OL as English-only instruction was deemed challenging for low-proficiency students.
Like Romli’s and Aziz’s (2015) research in Malaysian senior high schools, this study showed that less experienced teachers were less amenable to utilising English because they had received less training. In recent survey research, Shabir (2017) investigating 23 EFL teachers from 10 countries found that the teachers had complex perspectives on their OL use. Like Macaro’s (2005) review on OL studies across different contexts, the finding revealed that although teachers believed that English should predominantly be used, many of them were not in favour of eliminating OL altogether. This might indicate that they considered the perfect conditions allowing OL exclusion were rarely found.
Moreover, some scholars have investigated students’ perceptions of teachers’ OL use although the research remains limited (Macaro & Lee, 2013). Brook-Lewis (2009) undertook qualitative-interpretative research on 256 Mexican university students. Similar to Thongwichit’s (2013) study on Thai university students, the result demonstrated that many students had positive perceptions of teachers’ OL use because it could lessen their sense of their identity being replaced.
