TRANSLANGUAGING IN INDONESIAN CONTEXT

INTRODUCTION

In Indonesia, English is taught as a foreign language. Students start to learn it in the

junior high school. Prior to entering the level of education, most students in Indonesia never

formally learn English. Therefore English as a subject to learn for them is a new thing.

The novelty of English in a classroom setting may be problematic for both teachers

and students. On one hand, teachers need to introduce English as soon as possible. On the

other hand, students may have difficulties in even understanding the words that their teachers

say. Indeed, the issue of English as a language of instruction, and also the subject content, has

been the concern of both academicians and practitioners of education.

The students’ basic skill didn’t allow them to understand all teaching instructions

sufficiently. The longer they listened to the teacher’s instruction using English, the farther

they were lost in trying to figure out what the teacher was talking about. Consequently, there

are three problems that may occur. They are: (1) the reluctance of the students to speak, (2)

the lack of understanding of the students toward the teacher’s instructions in English, and (3)

the boredom the students have after failing to be effectively in the teaching learning activities

due to the previous mentioned problems.

The teacher in my position needs an alternative to teach the students with this basic

level. One of the alternatives is a practice which is called “translanguaging.” Translanguaging

makes possible for the teacher to use various ways to help teaching the students and one of

them is to use the students’ first language (henceforth, L1) in such a way to make learning

activities easier. This is not to say, however, that a teacher should abandon the use of the

target language (henceforth, TL) altogether. The following section will provide rationale

what makes this study is worth conducting.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

In Indonesia, there is a common question being asked by people who find out that

graduates of high schools are not able to use English fluently. The question is “Why are they

not able to use English after spending 6 years learning it?” The answer to this question may

vary. Yet, one particular possible cause is either they didn’t learn effectively or their teachers

didn’t teach them effectively.

There are a lot of factors indeed but one factor that I have been experiencing since the

first year of my teaching career in junior high school is that the students are not exposed to

English before attending the junior high school and that leads to their minimum skill of

English. Each time I give an instruction in English, they don’t know what to do.

This situation does not only happen in my school but also in many schools in

Indonesia where the teachers are teaching English using the TL exclusively. The result is that

there are more students whose skills are minimum. The suggestion to use English exclusively

needs to be reconsidered and this study seeks to make the case that translanguaging is a

reasonable alternative.

UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS

In Indonesian context, English is learnt as a foreign language. It is taught since Grade

7 in the junior high school. The belief that is held in the teaching-training universities is that

in teaching, English should be used as a sole language of instruction.

This fact might be related to “the misconception that separation of languages helps

students develop the target language without the interference of their home language”

(Hardigree & Ronan, 2019). This misconception might also root from the over-generalization

of Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis, in which “proponents argue that

exposing learners to extensive periods of comprehensible TL input will ensure

mastery of the target language” (Moeller & Roberts, 2013). Some proponents of this

hypothesis interpret this idea by stating that the FL is abandoned totally in the English

classroom.

In relation to the input hypothesis, there is an interesting comparison between the

terms input and intake. Input is referred to “the linguistic data that learners are exposed to”

while intake is “minimally a subset of input that the learner attends to in some way” (Wong,

2018, p. 1). In addition, teachers must make sure that input is attractive, because “the more

meaningful it is to the language learner, the more encouraging it is for language acquisition”

(Brands, 2011, p. 11). Therefore not all that teachers expose to learners will be taken in. One

of important language features that need to become input is chunks that are often used in the

daily routine of teaching learning activities (Boers & Lindstromberg, 2009, p. 9). These

chunks are important because they are spoken over and over again throughout the course of

English lessons.

However, contrary to the belief of total use of TL, recently there is a suggestion to

turn to a new practice called “translanguaging” which allows a teacher and students to use

various ways to get things done in the teaching learning activities. Translanguaging originally

“referred to a pedagogical practice where students are asked to alternate languages for the

purposes of receptive or productive use” (Garcia & Wei, 2014, p. 20). However, it also

includes other ways of helping the students in their learning as Garcia (cited in Zein, 2019)

states further that,

the process of translanguaging incorporates purposeful and systematic discursive

modes such as comparative hypothesis-testing, translation, code-switching and

navigating in-between spaces as well as note-taking, sighing, and discussing to make

sense of learning.

(p. 49)

Further, it is said also that in translanguaging “all users of language, select and deploy

particular features from a unitary linguistics repertoire to make meaning and to negotiate

particular communicative contexts” (Vogel & Garcia, 2017, p. 3). It means that when a

teachers and/or the students have difficulties in expressing the intended meaning in the TL,

they can use other ways to get the message across.

It can be said therefore, by translanguaging teachers will be given a variety of ways to

make their goals achieved. Students also can have many channels to express their ideas. The

practice of translanguaging has been found useful in several contexts, for example in the

CLIL classrooms in Finland, Spain and Autria (Moore & Nikula, 2016) and a primary school

in Indonesia (Zein, 2019).

This shows that translanguaging apply across contexts as long as the teachers hold on

to what Luk and Yin (2015, p. 17) state that “a principled bilingual approach, when carried

out systematically and judiciously, is beneficial to both teaching and learning.” This is

especially true when this relatively new concept will be applied in the contexts where the

belief that only TL must strictly be used has rooted deeply.

The next section will discuss some problems that arises from the strict use of TL.

There will be also several ways translanguaging may help to solve the problems.

Problems and Solutions

As mentioned, the problem posed in this study is related to the suggestion to use TL

(English) as extensive and strict as possible as the language of instruction and content. This

problem in turn gives rise to at least three embedding problems. They are: (1) the lack of

understanding of the students toward the teacher’s instructions in English, (2) the reluctance

of the students to speak and (3) the boredom the students have after failing to be effectively

in the teaching learning activities due to the previous mentioned problems. Each problems

will be described and sought to be solved through translanguaging below.

The first problem, the strict use of TL in the classroom in which the students have

basic skills such as in my school will leave the students confused. Even though, the topic of

the first sessions is usually the most basic or simple topic, for example, greetings as the

language content, still a teacher will use English as the language of instruction to carry out

his teaching plans. For beginner students, the much exposure of input such is mentioned by

Moeller and Roberts (2013) is a source of problem because they cannot turn it into intake.

However, translation as one form of translanguaging (Garcia, as cited in Zein, 2019)

may help the teacher to make his/her instruction clear. This is not to say that the teacher

translates all instructions because each choice of steps of translanguaging must be carefully

planned (Luk & Yin, 2015). Translation is usually a contingent effort to bridge understanding

between the teacher and the students. When it does happen, the teacher should make sure that

the most common instructions will be gradually understood by the students in the long term

and will not be translated again because the students are already familiar with them.

The next problem is the reluctance of the students to speak and express their ideas. In

my context, the students’ speaking skill is on the basic level. Expecting to speak English is

something difficult. The vocabulary they have built is minimum and to make a decent

presentation usually they need time to consult their dictionary. I remembered in one

workshop a speaker was opposed to the use of dictionary in the classroom and I couldn’t

argue much because she came up with some supporting theories.

At that moment, I was confused because I pictured myself standing in front of a class

of students and asked them to speak and forbade them to use any dictionary. Yet, now by

translanguaging students can consult their dictionary or even me in FL whenever they need

to. They will have various ways to express themselves. It is hoped that they are more

comfortable in the class and confident to speak in English.

The last problem to be addressed here is the boredom that the students feel when

they are stuck in the classroom without knowing what they are supposed to listen and what to

say. They are in the classroom looking at the teacher who talk much but whose words they

don’t understand. The input that the teacher works hard to give them is fruitless because it

does not become intake for them.

Such boredom is not desirable. Translanguaging offers various activities that a teacher

can do with the students. Teaching English is no longer confined to listening to a taperecorder or reading a book. Discussion, pictures, or other activities can be done. Of course all

those activities might have been done before in a class with a strict use of English but now

code-switching can be done (Garcia as cited in Zein, 2019) to allow the students to refer to

their own prior knowledge using their FL. Any activities that are carefully planned to achieve

a pedagogical goal can be done (Luk & Lin, 2015).

In conclusion, the problems that occur as the undesirable effect of the strict use of

English as the language of instruction in my context can be overcome with a carefully

planned practice of translanguaging. Without having to exclude either FL or TL in the

classroom activities, through translanguaging, teachers and students can negotiate meaning

successfully and the goals of the teaching learning activities can be reach accordingly.

LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTION

This study is basically a theoretical framework of the activities which are yet to be

done in my own context. It is a review of theories and a reflection of my own teaching

experience. Therefore, this study cannot be generalized nor even used as reference. There are

still many things to be planned, done, analyzed, and reported. Another thing to add here is

both a limitation and a suggestion. There needs to be more studies and research in Indonesia

which apply the practice of translanguaging. The limited number of research and studies

makes translanguaging an unknown phenomenon to the practitioners of education and

especially teachers of English. Translanguaging is actually an oasis in the vast desert for

English teachers who have been wondering for years the way to justify their similar practice

of translanguaging, those teachers who have been suggested to abandon their practice to

make way for the more widely shared belief of comprehensible input.

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