Students' Use of LI: a Study on Advanced Grammar Students, Perspectives

Abstract

The debate between the proponents and the opponents of L1 use has been going on for years. While the researchers are debating about this issue, the teachers often decide about students' use of L1 by themselves based on what they think is best for the students. Related to this situation, it is suggested that the teachers do the need analysis of students instead of deciding based on their beliefs or assumptions (Auerbach, 1993). Therefore, this study is aimed to investigate the students' perspectives toward the L1 use. The 121 participants included in this study were taken from four Advanced Grammar classes in English Department of Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga, Indonesia. This study uses a research question: what are the students' perspectives toward students' use of L1 in Advanced Grammar class? Open-ended questionnaires were distributed to collect the data. The findings were analyzed using quantitave data analysis and categorized into three themes: students' attitudes toward L1 use, students' preferred frequency of L1 use, and students' preferred occasions of L1 use. It was found that the majoity of the students had positive attitudes toward the use of L1. They preferred to use L1 frequently in the classroom, and their most preferred occasion in using L1 was in a group/pair discussion.