Teachers’ Perception of Using First Language (Indonesian Language)

as A Medium of Instruction in Teaching English

La Ode Masaalu1, Asrun Lio2, Siam3

1,2,3
Halu Oleo University, Indonesia
Email: alunode19@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
This study aimed to examine the teachers’ perception of using the Indonesian
Language as a medium of instruction in teaching English at Senior High Schools in
Kendari City. In order to find a clear understanding of this subject matter, the study
focused on 19 teachers who were teaching English at five senior high schools in
Kendari City. This study employed a descriptive qualitative design. The data were
collected by using a close-ended questionnaire and an open-ended questionnaire.
The closed-ended questionnaire was analyzed using the SPSS 16.0 version, while the
open-ended questionnaire was analyzed descriptively. The results of this study
showed that most of the teachers had a positive response that the Indonesian
Language should be used as a medium of instruction in teaching English. Following
this result, there were some reasons why teachers thought that the use of the
Indonesian Language was very important as a medium of instruction in the teaching
and learning process in the classroom, namely, to explain a difficult concept or
material about English grammar such as tenses, preposition, etc., to explain a new
term or vocabulary that made students still confuse, to check the student's
comprehension of how far they knew about the lesson, to give instruction on what
the students were going to do in the classroom, and classroom management to make
the students comfortable while learning English, such as dividing them into some
groups, etc.

Keywords: perception, TEFL, first language, Indonesian language, medium of instruction

INTRODUCTION
Philosophically, language is the king of all disciplines. Without language, many
people will find it complicated to describe anything to make others understand what
they are talking about. According to Johnston (2008), language is a process or set of
processes used by people to make sure there is an agreement between sender and
receiver in a certain meaning for each communication. It means that language is a
process of interaction used by people to create good interactions with each other.
People have many languages in the world, including English, Japanese, Urdu,
Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Croatian, Arabic, etc. These languages are used to interact
with other people around them. As a language, English is used as a tool of
communication to build interaction with other people, and it is an international
language. Therefore, people should know and speak English to communicate with
others in a different country.
As a global or international language, English has become the reason many
people know and learn for communication. Many people need to learn this language
to enter global communication. Thus, English is taught as an essential subject in
schools. Especially in Indonesia, English is taught in every school because it is a
foreign language, while the Indonesian Language is a first language (Arung, 2015).
For example, people only learn English in school, but they never use it in their daily
lives. Besides, the first language means a language learned by people from their
mothers. We often call it our mother tongue. They learn what their mother teaches
them. For example, if a child is born in Indonesia, the mother tends to interact with
the Indonesian language daily. We can say that their first language is Indonesian
Language. It depends on the language a child learns from a very early age.
A study from Lawes & Shirley in Arung (2015) mentioned the importance of
the use of the first language, and identifying the purposes for foreign language
should be taught is important because this confirms that it is useful to share ideas in
communication for academic study. The teachers should be able to create a good
atmosphere and good interaction with their students to teach the target/foreign
language (in the case of English) successfully. Teachers should know how the
students can understand well and easily if they learn a second language or foreign
language in the classroom. That is why teachers should teach English as a foreign
language to students’ first language. Inbar-Laorie in Mohebbi & Alavi (2014)
mentioned that teachers generally use students’ first language for three main
purposes; one of them is students’ first language as instruction. The purpose of the
first language as instruction is mostly for teachers to facilitate the students’
comprehension, to explain English grammar, to explain a new term or concept such
as vocabulary, managerial such as classroom management, to provide feedback, and
for effective purposes. It is also supported by a study by Naka (2014) & Holthouse
(2006); there are several reasons and functions for the use of the first language in the
EFL classroom, including classroom management, checking comprehension, giving
instruction, explaining difficult material or concept such as English grammar, etc.
and explaining unfamiliar vocabulary.
In recent studies, some researchers have found that most teachers in the world
still use the first language as a medium of instruction when teaching English. In
Pakistan, Arab, Vietnam, and Croatia, they use the student's first language (Urdu,
Arabic, Vietnamese, and Croatian) in their teaching English classroom. Ahsan et al.
(2016), Machaal (2012), Anh (2010), and Dujmović (2007) found that teachers should
be allowed to use the first language in the classroom in some situations, such as to
translate a new vocabulary, to give instruction what students are going to do in the
classroom, to check students' comprehension, to motivate students in learning
English, etc. Kitjaroonchai & Lampadam (2016) stated that students favor English
teachers who know the student's first language so that the teachers can use it
whenever they need such as to explain complicated grammatical points, check the
students' understanding, clarify difficult concepts or ideas and to give the instruction
about the activity. Therefore, using students' first language is very important to use
in teaching and learning English in the classroom.
However, using the first language as a medium of instruction when teaching
English in the classroom has been controversial. According to Qadri (2006), two
research findings resulted in two opposing views about this issue. One of the two
supports using only English and prohibits using the first language in teaching
English classrooms. This might also divide the teachers' perceptions into different
points. If they used only English in the classroom, they would perceive the first
language as a negative aspect of their teaching and avoid using the first language.
On the contrary, the teachers who support using the first language would perceive it
as a positive aspect of their teaching.
 Even though it might be true that they use only English in class, the students
would get more exposure to the language and be able to become more familiar with
the language faster. Nevertheless, if the student's language proficiency is not high
enough, they will not be able to understand what the teachers explain to them. This,
in return, might make the students dislike or even hate learning English since it is
hard to understand.
By looking at the issue, the use of a first language is still necessary and
unavoidable for teachers in some situations when teaching English. As an English
teacher in Indonesia, the use of students' first language (in the case of Indonesian
Language) should be allowed to give classroom instruction, define an unfamiliar
word, and check the student's comprehension (Agustin et al., 2015 and Pasaribu,
2001). Then, Knight in Nation (2003) found that teachers who do the preparatory
first language discussion made the students do much better on the second language
written task than other learners who did preparatory second language discussion,
even though that discussion is in the same language. Teachers should avoid the
extensive use of the first language because if teachers use it in teaching English, it
makes students highly dependent on the first language itself. For example, in
translation matters, most of the students will wait for the teacher to translate
everything into their first language rather than make an effort to think hard about it
at first. Therefore, why teachers' use of first language in developing students' skills
becomes a major issue in English language teaching classrooms.
Relating to the issues about the use of first language as a medium of instruction
in teaching English above, the researcher did an observation to look at what
happened in the real situation, especially at some senior high schools in Kendari city.
By looking at the result of this observation, the researcher found that most English
teachers still use the Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction in teaching
English, and others do not. That is why the researcher is interested in carrying out a
study about teachers' perceptions of using the Indonesian Language as a medium of
instruction in teaching English at some senior high schools in Kendari City. In
conducting this study, the researcher examined the teachers' perceptions and then
reasons why they use this language as a medium of instruction when teaching
English in the classroom.

LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Perception
Perception is an evaluation to respond positively or negatively toward persons,
objects, issues, and situations. It is a process of someone's understanding and
comprehension of the environmental situation. Perception, besides evaluation,
shows a psychological tendency to view behaviors and feelings (Albaraccin in
Farmawati, 2016). Besides, Davidoff in Farmawati 2(016) stated that perception is a
complex process that depends on the environment. During perception, knowledge
about a world is combined with the perceiver's constructive abilities, psychologies,
and experience. Perception is an important concept in how we judge or accept
certain objects, events, and other people and how they affect responses to a broad
range. Bootzin (1983) stated that a person's attitude is affected by their expectations,
motivation, and previous experience. Aiken, (1997) mentioned three characteristics
of perception, which consist of three components:
 a) Cognitive (knowledge or intellective). The cognitive component of attitude is
how we perceive objects, events, situations, beliefs, or ideas about something
around us. Cognitive is what we can see or feel and employ in our thinking.
b) Affective (emotional and motivational). It consists of the feelings or emotions
the actual object, events, or symbolic representation evokes within an
individual, such as sympathy, pity, anger, and love.
c) Behavioral (performance and action). The behavioral component is a tendency
or disposition to act in certain ways concerning some objects or events, and a
person acts in a formal meeting, which shows his formal behavior.
Therefore, based on the three characteristics above, knowledge, affective, and
behavior have represented the three aspects of perception that will be used as the
indicators to measure the perception. Eagly and Chaiken in Farmawati (2016) stated
that the cognitive response is a cognitive evaluation of the entity that constitutes an
individual’s belief about the object. The affective response is an emotional response
that expresses an individual’s degree of preference for an entity.

2. Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)

Teaching English as a foreign language means teaching students who are the
first or main language of their language, not English. This also refers to teaching the
English language to the students by using a different language ((Broughton et al.,
2003). It means that teachers teach students in their first language when teaching
English in the classroom.
The way English teachers and learners are instructed depends on their level of
English proficiency and the programs provided in their school or district. In some
programs at their school, instructions are taught in both English and their first
language. In other programs, instructions are only in English but in a
comprehensible way to the students (Wright, 2015).
For example, Arabic, Japanese, Spanish, Pakistan, etc., have their own
language, and English is taught at their state schools, colleges, and other institutions.
To make the teaching process of learning English as a foreign language enjoyable
and to make the target language that students learn successfully, many teachers use
the students' first language as instruction. Inbar-Laorie in Mohebbi & Alavi (2014)
mention that teachers generally use the student's first language for three main
purposes: instruction, particularly encouraging, and providing comfort for the
learners. For the purposes of first language as instruction, most teachers facilitate the
students' comprehension, explain English grammar, explain a new term or concept,
especially in vocabulary, managerial such as classroom management, providing
feedback, and for effective purposes.
Using the students' first language when teaching English in the classroom is
very important and should be used in teaching and learning English in the
classroom. Teachers should make the students understand well and quickly about
the lesson what they are going to learn. By using a first language, it can help both
teachers and students to build interaction and transfer information to make the
target/second language can be successful. Therefore, the first language has
important roles and functions in teaching and learning English in the classroom.
Some researchers have conducted research on the use of the first language in
teaching and learning English in the classroom. Even though it is very controversial,
the use of this language has several reasons and functions and cannot be avoided
because both teachers and students need it to build a good interaction and make the
transfer of information can be successful. In a study by Naka (2014) & Holthouse
(2006), there are several reasons and functions for using the first language in the EFL
classroom: classroom management, checking comprehension, giving instruction,
explaining difficult concepts/material, and explaining unfamiliar vocabulary.

3. First Language
The first language is most useful at the beginning and low levels. If students
have little or no knowledge of the target language, the first language can be used to
introduce the major differences between the first language and the second language
and the main grammatical characteristics of the second language that they should be
aware of. This gives them a head start and saves a lot of guessing. Later on, the
difference between first and second languages can illustrate how basic utterances
like "What's the matter?" cannot be directly translated (Weschler, 1997). Besides, he
also showed how, in creative information gap activities, students can learn many of
these utterances, which convey useful ideas.
The first language means a language that is learned by people from their
mothers. We often call it mother tongue. They learn what their mother teaches them.
For example, if a child is born in Indonesia, the mother tends to interact in
Indonesian Language in daily life. We can say that their first language is Indonesian
Language. It depends on the language a child has learned from a very early age.
Commonly, the first language is the teacher’s language used when teaching the
target language in the classroom. Teachers use this language to make the students
understand the message that they are given. By using that language, the students
find it based on their second language acquisition on what they have had. According
to Cole in Adnan & Mohamad (2014), the first language is the most useful for
novices since students at this level have little or no knowledge about a second
language. This means that the first language can also be used to explain the basic
differences between the first and second languages, save a lot of interpretation,
motivate students, and decrease their anxiety when learning. Besides, Krashen and
Terrell in Mahadeo (2018) stated that the use of the first language is a barrier to
learning a second language, and it may also prevent the student from acquiring
valuable input in the second language.

4. Indonesian Language
The Indonesian Language is a national language of Indonesia. It is used by
people to build communication and interaction in their daily activities. By following
this definition, Thompson (2014) described that the Indonesian Language is the
official language of government administration and serves as the medium of
instruction in Indonesia at all levels of education, although English textbooks are
used in specialized university courses.
In the Indonesian context, the Indonesian Language is the first language used
by the teacher as a medium of instruction in the teaching and learning process.
Hidayah (2016) and Fahrurrozi & Wicaksono (2016) also support in their book that
the Indonesian Language has become the Language of more than 200 million people
in the Indonesia Archipelago, and most of them have used it as the first Language to
communicate with each other.
 The Indonesian Language is mostly used in learning activities, such as English
subjects. According to Agustin et al. (2015) found that most teachers in Indonesia use
the Indonesian Language (L1) as a medium of instruction to define a new
vocabulary, give instruction activities, and help the students understand difficult
concepts in English.

5. Medium of Instruction
In the teaching and learning process, teachers should use language that makes
the students understand what the teacher explains. In some situations, to transfer
information, the medium of instruction is very important to use in the teaching
process because this way helps students get information easily from teachers. A
medium of instruction is a language used in teaching. It may or may not be the
official language of the country or territory. If a student's first language is different
from the official language, it may be used as the medium of instruction for part or all
of schooling. Heinich et al. (2002) also stated that media are considered as
instructional media when they carry messages with an instructional purpose, i.e., to
facilitate communication in classroom activity.
Medium of instruction is the language used by teachers in the teaching and
learning process. By teaching the language, or educational content, through the
target language increases the amount of exposure the learner gets to it, and the
opportunities they have to communicate in it, and therefore to develop their control
of it. BBC (2008) described a medium of instruction as the language used by a
teacher to teach students. Simply put, it is a means of conveying information to
students. In an English-speaking country like the United States, the medium of
language used by teachers to teach students is English. Any immigrant coming to
the United States from another country would have to learn the language to join
other students in class. In some types of education, such as multilingual or bilingual
education, teachers may use more than one medium of instruction to teach the
students.
In deciding which language to use for instruction is important because it can
affect the way the students learn. Someone who grew up speaking French or Russian
might not adapt easily to the concept of learning English. In this situation, a
combination of the mother tongue and the chosen medium of instruction will work
better until the person is more confident in the new language. For instance, if it is a
bilingual type of education and the students are a mixture of Spanish and English,
the medium of instruction will not be only English but rather a mixture of Spanish
and English. In multilingual education, the language of instruction will not be just
one language; it will also include two or more other languages. In the Indonesian
context, the medium of language used by teachers to teach students is the
Indonesian Language, which is the student’s first language and the official language
in Indonesian. It is supported by a study from Inbar-Laorie in Mohebbi & Alavi
(2014), which mentioned that teachers generally use students’ first language for three
main purposes, including students’ first language as instruction. The purpose of first
language as instruction is mostly for teachers to facilitate the students’
comprehension, explain English grammar, explain a new term or concept such as
vocabulary, managerial such as classroom management, provide feedback, and
effective purposes.
RESEARCH METHODS
In conducting this study, the researcher employed a descriptive qualitative
design. This design was used to find out the teachers’ perceptions and reasons for
using the Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction in teaching English. The
researcher took English teachers as participants of this study at some senior high
schools in Kendari City who knew and used the Indonesian language as a medium
of instruction when teaching and learning English in classroom activities. There
were 19 teachers as the participants of this study. These teachers came from SMAN 5
Kendari, SMAN 6 Kendari, SMAN 7 Kendari, SMAN 8 Kendari, and SMAN 10
Kendari. The instrument of the study was questionnaires. The questionnaires were
employed open-ended was adapted from Tang (2002)with 4 items, and the close-
ended questionnaire was adapted from Machaal (2012) and Ahsan et al. (2016) with
20 items and required the teachers to choose one of the options, namely strongly
disagree (SD), disagree (D), neutral (N), agree (A) and strongly agree (SA) which
provided by Likert’s scale.
In order to analyze the data, the researcher employed descriptive inferential
statistics for all questionnaire items in closed-ended. Frequencies and percentages
were used. It was measured based on how many samples there were who gave
responses to the item. Then, the researcher reported the statistical result, followed by
the conclusion. The researcher applied SPSS version 16 as the suitable application to
calculate the result of the closed-ended questionnaire and to collect the statistical
data from the closed-ended questionnaire. Another part involved an open-ended
questionnaire that was analyzed descriptively. The researcher read the data and
highlighted each category written on the questionnaire. The researcher identified
and categorized each line of sentence based on the teachers’ answers so that the
researcher could draw a conclusion from the extensive answers from the teachers.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

1. Findings
Since the questionnaires are adopted from Machaal (2012) and Ahsan et al.
(2016) in order to measure perceptions and reasons that relate to the use of first
language as a medium of instruction in teaching English, there are three aspects
from the questionnaire in this study included Cognitive Aspect, Affective Aspect,
and Behavior Aspect are going to be analyzed separately.

a) Cognitive Aspect
There are 7 items that have been questioned to teachers to measure the
Cognitive Aspect of using the Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction in
teaching English. The following graph summarizes the result of teachers’ perception
of the Cognitive Aspect of using the Indonesian Language as a medium of
instruction in teaching English:
 Q2 10 4 5
Q6 7 5 7
Q9 5 2 12
Q8 4 2 13
Q3 3 9 7
Q10 2 3 14
Q7 0 11 8

Figure 1. The Result of Frequency Distribution of Teachers’ Perception in Cognitive Aspect

The chart above presents which items had a high level of positive response.
The result shows that more than half of teachers believed that the use of the
Indonesian Language can help the students to be better at communicating in English
(item 2), and then the students will benefit from feedback when it is given in the
Indonesian Language (item 6). Besides, teachers disagree that the Indonesian
Language is ineffective and that the target language students learn is successful
(item 9). They also disagree that the use of this Language can prevent the students’
knowledge from learning English (item 8). Moreover, it can be seen that teachers
think that students will become proficient in English when this Language is used in
the classroom (item 3). Then, teachers disagree that there is no situation for them to
use this Language as a medium of instruction in the classroom (item 10) because
they think that this Language is very important to use in some situations, especially
when the students face difficult material so that the teachers should use the
Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction. In the last statement, teachers
think their students should watch movies about English courses presented in
Indonesian Language dubbing (item 7).
The following chart summarizes the result of teachers’ perception of the
Cognitive Aspect of using the Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction.
Cognitive Aspect
Positive Neutral Negative
29% 44%

27%

Figure 2. The Result of Percentage Distribution of Teachers’ Perception in Cognitive Aspect

This pie categorizes the teachers’ responses into positive, neutral, and negative
as the summary of 7 questionnaire items from the Cognitive Aspect. Regarding
teachers’ perception of the construct of Cognitive Aspect, about 44% of teachers
respond positively, 27% of the students respond with neutral, and 29% of teachers
respond negatively to using the Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction in
teaching English.
b) Affective Aspect
There are 8 items that have been questioned to teachers to measure the
Affective Aspect of using the Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction in
teaching English. The following graph summarizes the result of teachers’ perception
towards the Affective Aspect of using the Indonesian Language as a medium of
instruction in teaching English:
Positive Neutral Negative
Q20 16 1 2
Q18 16 0 3
Q16 13 3 3
Q19 11 3 5
Q14 9 5 5
Q15 4 9 6
Q17 0 12 6
Q4 0 6 12
Figure 3. The Result of Frequency Distribution of Teachers Perception in Affective Aspect

The chart above shows which items have a high level of positive responses.
Those items from the questionnaire aim to measure the Affective Aspect of using the
Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction in teaching English. The result
shows that almost all teachers give a highly positive response about this aspect. They
prefer to use this language in explaining some new vocabulary in their class (item
20), in correcting the students’ mistakes in pronunciation (item 18), in describing the
topic that the students are going to write about (item 16), in dividing class into some
groups (item 19), in correcting the student’s written work (item 14), in noting to
comment the students’ writing (item 15), in writing on the whiteboard while
teaching writing (item 17) and then the students will be more motivated in learning
English if teachers use this language in the classroom (item 4).
The following chart summarizes about the result of teachers perception to
Affective Aspect for using Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction in
teaching English:
Affective Aspect
Positive Neutral Negative
27%
47%

26%

Figure 4. The Result of Percentage Distribution of Teachers’ Perception in Affective Aspect

This pie categorizes the teachers’ responses into positive, neutral, and negative
as the summary of 8 items of the questionnaire. Regarding teachers’ perception to
construct of Affective Aspect, it is about 47% of the teachers respond positively, 26%
of teachers respond with neutral and 27 % of teachers respond with negative to the
use of this language as a medium of instruction in teaching English in the classroom.
c) Behavior Aspect
There are 5 items that have been questioned by the teachers to measure the
Behavior Aspect of using the Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction in
teaching English to draw a conclusion of teachers’ perception towards 5 items of the
questionnaire from the Behavior Aspect. The following graph summarizes the result
of teachers’ perception towards Behavior Aspect of using the Indonesian Language
as a medium of instruction in teaching English:
Positive Neutral Negative
Q12 17 1 1
Q13 15 2 2
Q11 14 2 3
Q5 11 2 6
Q1 10 2 7
Figure 5. The Result of Frequency Distribution of Teachers’ Perception in Cognitive Aspect

The chart above presents which items have a high level of positive responses.
The result shows that almost all teachers think that the Indonesian Language should
be used to explain tests, quizzes, and other assignments appropriately (item 12), to
check the student’s comprehension of the lesson (item 13), to learn about English
grammar such as tenses, etc. and its usage properly (item 11). Besides, teachers think
that the use of this language can save time and make the English process easier (item
5). Then, in the same case, teachers also believe that the Indonesian Language is very
important and should be used as a medium of instruction for all cases when teaching
English in the classroom (item 1).
The following pie summarizes the result of teachers’ perception of the
Behavior Aspect of using Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction in
teaching English:
Behaviour Aspect
Positive Neutral Negative
20%
9%
71%

Figure 6. The Result of Percentage Distribution of Teachers’ Perception in Cognitive Aspect

This pie categorizes the teachers’ responses into positive, neutral, and negative
as the summary of 5 items of the questionnaire from Behavior Aspect. Regarding
teachers’ perception of the construct of Behavior Aspect, about 71% of the teachers
respond positively, 9% of the students respond with neutral, and 20% of the teachers
respond negatively to the use of the Indonesian Language as a medium of
instruction in teaching English.
In order to know the teachers’ reasons of using the Indonesian Language as a
medium of instruction in teaching English, the researcher decided to administer an
open-ended questionnaire. The open-ended questionnaire consisted of 4 questions in
which each question referred to getting information about the use of the Indonesian
Language as a medium of instruction in teaching English.
Item Q#1 is constructed by the question, “Do you like using the Indonesian
Language as a medium of instruction in teaching English?”. There are 5 teachers
(26.31%) who respond “No,” while 73.68% of teachers give their respond “Yes.” This
result explains that a high number like to use this language. It also explains that the
majority of teachers like to use the Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction
in teaching English. Based on this explanation, there were 5 main reasons why they
like using the first language. These reasons are based on the explanation from Naka
(2014) and Holthouse (2006), who mentioned that the reasons and functions of L1 in
teaching English as a foreign language consist of classroom management, checking
the students’ comprehension, giving instruction, explaining difficult concept or
material such as English grammar etc. and explaining unfamiliar vocabulary.
Item Q#2 is constructed by the question, “Do you think teachers should use
Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction in teaching English?”. There are 13
teachers (68,42%) respond with “Yes” while 6 teachers (31,58%) respond with “No”.
This result shows that the majority of teachers think that Indonesian Language
should be used as a medium of instruction for English. The total number of
respondents who give their responses in Q#2 is 13 teachers, but the teachers who
give their responses based on the explanation from Naka (2014) and Holthouse
(2006), it is found just 8 teachers, and the answers of other teachers are unidentified,
means, it does not relate with the explanation from them. Based on the result, the
majority of teachers gave their reasons why Indonesian Language should be used as
a medium of instruction in teaching English because it is very important in
explaining a new term or unfamiliar vocabulary that students found while learning
English, explaining a difficult material such as tenses, preposition etc., giving
instruction what the students do in the classroom, checking their understanding
about the lesson and the last is classroom management, how the teacher manage the
classroom to be comfortable for students and they can enjoy while learning English.
Item Q#3 is constructed by the question, “When do you think it is necessary to
use the Indonesian Language as a medium of instruction in teaching English?”
Based on the result, there are 4 main situations in which the Indonesian Language
should be used in teaching English, and the majority of them reported it. First, there
are 8 students who reported that the Indonesian Language is very important to
check the students’ comprehension of the material.
Item Q#4 is constructed by the question, "Do you think the use of the
Indonesian Language can have a negative impact on students' English proficiency?".
There are 13 teachers (68,42%) who respond with "No" while 6 teachers (31,58%)
respond with "Yes". This result shows that the majority of teachers think that the use
of the Indonesian Language does not have a negative impact on English students'
proficiency.

2. Discussion
The questionnaire has been distributed to the teachers as a sample of this
study. The result of the Cognitive Aspect is 44% positive, 27% neutral, and 29%
negative. Then, the result of the Affective Aspect is 47% positive, 26% neutral, and
27% negative. Last, the result of the Behavior Aspect is 71% positive, 9% neutral, and
20% negative. As a result, the teacher’s perception of the use of the Indonesian
language as a medium of instruction in teaching English was positive in each aspect.
The majority of teachers who have participated in this study tend to respond
positively to the three aspects of perception of the use of this language. They believe
that the Indonesian language is very important when explaining some situations.
Related to the findings of this study, Pasaribu (2001) supported that as a student
who is learning English as a foreign language, the Indonesian Language is very
important and should be used as a medium of instruction in ELT classrooms, such as
explaining the about what the students do in the classroom, explain difficult
material, etc.
However, an open-ended questionnaire has also been conducted as well as to
acquire information about their reasons for teaching this Language as a medium of
instruction in teaching English. After analyzing the teachers' responses regarding
this issue, it can be found that there are some reasons why the Indonesian Language
should be used as a medium of instruction in English in the classroom. Based on the
findings of this result, there were 5 main reasons why they think it should be used.
First, there are 50% of teachers respond that Indonesian Language should be
used to explain a difficult material such as English grammar etc. Teachers should
know which one easy material and difficult material for students. For example,
when students learn tenses. Some students will find it difficult to understand,
especially when teachers use English. So, teachers should explain it in Indonesian
Language. Pasaribu (2001), Agustin et al. (2015), and Ahsan et al. (016) supported
that the use of a first language (in the case of the Indonesian Language) as a medium
of instruction is very useful in explaining a difficult concept or material that the
students feel difficult to understand.
Second, there are 43% of teachers respond that Indonesian Language should be
used to check the student's comprehension. Pasaribu (2001) and Anh (2010)
mentioned that the Indonesian language should be used to check students'
comprehension. It means that to make sure what the teacher teaches to the students
about the lesson can be understood, Indonesian Language is very important to check
the student's understanding of how far they know or understand the lesson so that
the target language that students learned can be successful.
Third, there are 29% of teachers respond that Indonesian Language should be
used to give instruction. This is very important for both teachers and students.
Students also need instruction on what they will do in the classroom while learning
English. When teachers use the Indonesian language to give them instructions or
anything they are going to do, the atmosphere in the classroom will be harmful and
uncomfortable because the students will be directed and know what they are going
to do. Anh (2010), Ahsan et al. (2016) & Machaal (2012) mentioned that the use of
students' first language is very important to give them instruction on what they are
going to do in the classroom.
Fourth, there are 21% of teachers respond that the Indonesian Language should
be used to explain a new term or unfamiliar vocabulary. One of the reasons is that
most students will be lazy to learn English when they find a vocabulary that they do
not know the meaning of. That is why the role of the teacher in making the students
interested in learning English is to ask students which unfamiliar vocabulary is for
them. So, teachers can help them explain the meaning of that new vocabulary. A
study from Anh (2010) supported the idea that in explaining a new vocabulary,
teachers should use students' first language to make it easier to memorize that word.
Fifth, there are 14% of teachers respond that Indonesian Language should be
used in classroom management. A study by Pasaribu (2001) mentioned that the
Indonesian language should be used in classroom management. This means that
teachers should make the students feel comfortable while learning English. That is
why, to manage the classroom to become comfortable for students, teachers can be
such as divide students into groups, arrange their seating, etc.
CONCLUSION
From the study's findings and the discussion in this study, the researcher
concludes that most teachers have a positive response to the questionnaire. It is
found 89 % of teachers stated positively in terms of using this Language. They agree
that the Indonesian Language is very important to use as a medium of instruction in
teaching English in explaining tests, quizzes, and other assignments appropriately so
that the students will not be confused and they will know what they are going to do
in the classroom while teaching and learning process. Besides, the teachers’ reasons
why the Indonesian Language should be used as a medium of instruction in
teaching English are (a) to explain a difficult concept/material such as English
grammar etc. (b) to check the students’ comprehension of how far they understand
about the lesson (c) to give instruction about what the students are going to do in the
classroom, (d) to explain a new term and unfamiliar word of vocabulary, and (e)
classroom management such as dividing class into some groups, etc.

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