Register, Vol. 1, No. 1 June 2008

REGISTER
Language and Language Yeaching Journals
Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 ISSN 1979-8903
Editor in Chief
Ruwandi
Editors
Hanung Triyoko
Ari Setiawan
Setia Rini
Hammam
Norwanto
Distributor
Mudjianto
Publisher
English Department of Educational Faculty
State Institute for Islamic Studies (STAIN) Salatiga
Address
Jl. Tentara Pelajar No. 02 Salatiga 50721 Central Java, Indonesia
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Website
journalregister.stainsalatiga.ac.id
The first issuance

June 2008
Issuance
Twice a year
REGISTER
Language and Language Yeaching Journals
Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 ISSN 1979-8903
Table of Content
Rethinking Language Education in Indonesia
Maslihatul Umami ...................................................................................1
5 and 7 Year Old Children with No English Background Respond

Toward Parents‟ Stimulus Using the Comprehensible Inputs on Direct
English Daily Conversations at Home
Setia Rini .................................................................................................23
The Significance of Introducing Culture in EFL Instruction

Noor Malihah .........................................................................................43
The Existence of Learners in Language Learning

Ruwandi ..................................................................................................59
Americanization of Non-American Stories in Disney Films

Beta Setiawati .........................................................................................81
A Correlative Study of Reading Speed and Reading Comprehension of

the Second Year Students of SMP Islam Sultan Fattah Salatiga in the
Academic Year of 2007/2008
Inna Naili Izzatul Laila ........................................................................115
Index ......................................................................................................131
Submission Guidelines .........................................................................133

Maslihatul Umami
Maslihatul Umami
State Islamic Studies Institute (STAIN) Salatiga
Jl. Tentara Pelajar No. 02 Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia
umamie@gmail.com
Abstract
Language education in Indonesia may be discussed by over viewing the

nature of the three language categories in the country: Indonesian
language, indigenous languages, and foreign languages. From the picture
of how the three groups of languages work and function, the problem
raised in this paper is based on two fundamental assumptions. Language
education in this multilingual and multicultural country is not done on the
context of literacy, on the one hand, and it is not yet considered important
in comparison with that of the subjects related to basic science and
technology, on the other. After reviewing a number of models of bilingual
education and comparing them with what has been done in Indonesia, a
preferred model will be offered. Finally, it will also be suggested that
language education in Indonesia should be associated with literacy
development in a wider sense. Furthermore, meanwhile language education
should be given an adequate room; language teaching should be based on
the functional use of the existing languages in the country and should be
done in tandem with the teaching of content since content is delivered
through the medium of language.
Keywords: education, language, function, literacy development, content
Abstrak
Pendidikan bahasa di Indonesia dapat dibahas dengan menilik karakteristik

tiga kategori bahasa di negara ini : bahasa Indonesia, bahasa pribumi, dan
bahasa asing. Dilihat dari gambaran bagaimana tiga kelompok bahasa
berfungsi, masalah yang diangkat dalam studi ini didasarkan pada dua
asumsi dasar. Pendidikan bahasa di negara multibahasa dan multikultural
ini tidak dilakukan pada konteks literasi dan belum dianggap penting
dibandingkan dengan mata pelajaran yang berkaitan dengan ilmu dasar dan
REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 1

teknologi. Setelah meninjau sejumlah model pendidikan bilingual dan

membandingkannya dengan apa yang telah diterapkan di Indonesia, model
pilihan akan diajukan. Akhirnya, turut pula disarankan bahwa pendidikan
bahasa di Indonesia harus dikaitkan dengan pengembangan literasi dalam
arti yang lebih luas. Selain itu, pendidikan bahasa harus diberikan ruang
yang memadai; pengajaran bahasa harus didasarkan pada penggunaan
fungsional dari bahasa yang ada negeri ini dan harus dilakukan bersama-
sama dengan pengajaran konten karena konten disampaikan melalui media
bahasa.
Kata Kunci : Pendidikan, Bahasa, Fungsi, Pengembangan Literasi,

Konten
Introduction
In order to seek a preferable model of language education in
Indonesia, it is necessary to overview the nature of the three language
categories in the country: Indonesian language, indigenous languages, and
foreign languages. At the same time, in order to find out a suitable model
of language teaching, it is also necessary to have a look at how these
languages are now taught.
As the national language of the country and the language of a wider
communication as well, Indonesian language is used as the medium of
instruction at all levels of education from kindergarten to university. It is
also taught as a subject for six years in elementary schools, 3 years in
secondary schools, 3 years in senior high schools, and one year at
university levels (but in the department of Indonesian language and
literature, it is taught throughout the course programmed). In the second
category, indigenous languages amounting to around 500 are used as
communication means within the communities, but are not used as the
media of instruction, except the major ones in the areas where students are
not yet ready to have Indonesian language as the medium of instruction
2 REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008

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until year 3 in elementary schools. However, the indigenous languages

having significant roles and traditions in arts and literature are taught as
subjects from elementary schools to secondary schools. Similarly, in the
departments of indigenous languages, they are taught at university levels
throughout the course programmed. Finally, foreign languages especially
English, are taught as subjects in secondary schools (3 years), senior high
schools (3 years), and at university levels (one year). However, in the
department of foreign languages, for example the Department of English,
the subjects are also taught throughout the course programmed. Although
English is not used as a means of communication in the community, it is a
compulsory subject at all levels above, except elementary schools.
The choice of Indonesian language to be the national language
meaning that it must be used in any formal administrations and any
government sectors, including educational institutions –is historical in
nature. It has taken its root since the Indonesian youth declared their oath
in 1928 when they believed that they would be successful in struggling
against the Dutch colonization if they were unified in terms of “one
nation”, “one country”, and “one language”-Indonesian (Alisyahbana,
1984a: 48). For nation building, the choice is favorable, but from the point
of cultural heritage, it has to put aside such big indigenous languages as
Javanese or Sundanese having 20 million speakers respectively, much
greater than the number of speakers of Malay to be adopted as the national
Indonesian language at the time. Another interesting phenomenon of the
language education in Indonesia should be put forward first. It is mostly
the responsibility of the Department of National Education to conduct
language education in the country, but it is the concern of the Language
Planning Agency, the Pusat Bahasa, based in Jakarta to maintain the
development of Indonesian language and the indigenous languages

(excluding foreign languages). Beyond the expectation, the two institutions

do not normally make language policies, which are complimentary with
each other. For example, the former has not yet placed language as an
important subject compared with those of science and technology,
meanwhile the latter considers that language is crucial, so that Indonesian
language has been engineered to a certain direction under the government‟s
interference through the so-called “ language planning” or “ language
standardization”. With the interference, it can be seen that the development
of Indonesia language has been somewhat unnatural in that its
phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic dynamics are strongly
controlled. The agency tends to reject whatever influence from both
indigenous and foreign languages through very often unavoidable.
However, actually Indonesian language has been developing by itself very
rapidly, regardless of what the Pusat Bahasa does, and in fact, there have
thus been two contradictory influences, one bottom up, and the other top
down.
Discussion
Language educations and literacy
In such a condition, the education of the three languages may - for
some extent, compete with each other in terms of national identity in
general and the government policy in particular. Indonesian language
education is kept still and firm for the sake of national identity, whereas at
the same time indigenous languages are mainly taught as subjects for the
purpose of maintaining local cultures (although sometimes only
superficially), and foreign languages are often placed as instrumental
means.
No doubt that what is done by the Pusat Bahasa is beneficial, but

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putting the emphasis strongly on the development of Indonesian language

and paying less attention to that of indigenous and foreign languages have
resulted in some obvious impacts to language teaching. On the other hand,
meanwhile the Department of National Education is responsible for the
implementation of language education in the country, and in fact the
department policy has not yet counted language as an important subject in
the school curriculum, the policy does not seem to eliminate the impacts.
The most profound impact is that the national curriculum should always be
contended with what is considered “standard Indonesian language”-even
though by definition, the standardization rules are sometimes inconsistent-
and consequently, the richness of Indonesian dialects is put aside. In so
doing, an ambitious target is expected that all of the Indonesian speakers
would be able to use the language properly in most of linguistic domains.
Another impact is that indigenous languages are practically ignored. It is
true that the languages are only used locally and only some of them have a
great number of speakers, but in a multilingual community, it is unfair not
to promote the languages in the same way as promoting Indonesian
language. After all, it is commonly agreed recently that they should be
preserved because they can contribute to maintaining local cultures, but
real actions in terms of placing them in a well-planed framework of
language education as a whole are poorly done. Similarly, foreign
languages receive a somewhat bad impact in that they are simply put in the
curriculum, except in the relevant university departments, as a means to
achieve instrumental purposes, for example to satisfy job markets. The
literary subtleties and mutual understanding of foreign cultures through
foreign language learning are rarely touched.
In terms of language democracy, then the way to place the three
groups of languages creates a linguistic discrimination. Borrowing

Phillipsons term (1992), since the way of placement leads to a condition

where Indonesian language is to be made superior and is likely to be
abandon the other two, “linguistic imperialism” does occur here.
Moreover, as the language policy is primarily set up for the sake of nation
building, it also crates a condition, which is often abused by a certain
“government elite” to indoctrinate its ideology through employing
euphemistic (Indonesian) language. It is, therefore, essential to argue that
in language education and language teaching, the three group of languages
must be taught relatively equally, and that in the context of language use in
different domains, including the government domain, it is not only “
linguistic democratization” that still requires more understanding”
(Santosa, 1998a) in many aspects of life but also a type of language
awareness through which people are fully concerned with how the three
groups of languages should actually work and fulfill their functions.
Language awareness in education, in particular, is crucial when language is
seen as “a goal (language arts, literacy, other languages) and as a vehicle
(learning through lecturing, through conversation, through reading, through
critical thinking, and so on)” (Van Lier, 1995:98).
The competition of the three groups of languages should not occur
if they are placed in accordance with their own functions and roles, and are
let open from outside influences with only little intervention for some
technical reasons. Likewise, as will be presented below, the three groups of
languages will support each other, when they are taught hand in hand
under the concept of literacy.
However, as already stated, in comparison with the education of
basic science and technology, the three languages are considered
peripheral. To make the matter worse, language teaching has not yet been
well programmed. It can be seen from the fact that (1) language curriculum

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is not properly set up to accommodate the nature of the existing languages

in the country and the needs required in this changing world, (2) language
teaching materials (including books) are not well selected and produced,
and (3) most language teachers do not have good qualifications and are not
likely to be well-prepared by the government.
As far as the language curriculum is concerned, the national
curriculum is merely a type of package to be given to the learners in a
uniform way without carefully considering the local diversities
backgrounding them. Furthermore, in terms of material sequencing and
scope, the allocated time is sometimes not enough to cover the whole
materials. Similarly, language books available are usually produced by
orders, not as the result of thorough materials selection and sequencing,
nor as a reflection of the principles of language acquisition. Finally,
language teachers generally deliver the materials in the books by strictly
following the teaching guidance (GBPP) in the curriculum without
modifying them with regard to the philosophy of language teaching with
reference to approach, method, technique, etc. (Cf. Richards & Rodgers,
1986). For the reasons, language teachers must have significant
qualifications in language teaching.
Whereas it should be highlighted that language education must be
seen as importantly as the education of the others, there is still a big
problem in language teaching in Indonesia seen from the perspective of
how language is approached in the learning and teaching implementations.
What usually happens is that language is presented as a science offering a
set of rules (knowledge), not as a means of oral and written communication
(skills). At a school setting, for example, students are usually taught to
know about the language as language, not to know of how to use the
language in real situations. The research on the literacy of students at the

third year elementary schools in Surakarta (Santosa, Wiratno, &

Yustanto,1996) suggests that they are very good at constructing individual
sentences, but they are very poor in connecting the sentences to form a
type of meaningful discourse. It implies that they are able to write and read
sentences as they are, but they cannot build their experiential meaning that
shows-following Halliday (1978)-a configuration of “context of situation”
and “context of culture” in some more abstract texts. This is also evident in
the language performance of the graduates of senior high schools. They
generally cannot communicate their ideas in a systematically accepted
language either in oral or written modes. The same evidence applies to
their mastery of English as one of foreign languages. The phenomena can
also be partly explained from the result of the research above. It shows that
the effort of building the academic situations at schools (as part of a
literacy effort, if it can be said so) is not always in accordance with what
the students face outside the classroom and at their homes. At schools,
especially in the classroom, they are forced to have their learning activities
with Indonesian language. On the contrary, what they have outside the
classroom and at homes is sometimes completely different: many of them
rarely use Indonesian language to speak and read, let alone reading
materials are not always available. With the case of English, students do
not normally use the language outside the classroom either.
Therefore, it can be underlined that teaching languages should not
simply deal with passing it to the learners by prescribing language
formulas to be learned. A language learner is said to be successful when he
or she masters the language formulas and is able to use them in various
types of contextual communication both inside and outside the classroom.
Ideally, language is taught from the two angels in balance. Teaching a
language is not a matter of grammaticalization without encouraging the

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learners how to use the grammar in real life. This occurs; because-as
already stated above-languages are not taught under the framework of
literacy.
Unfortunately, it is generally assumed in Indonesia, or perhaps in
most developing countries, that literacy has to do only with “letters”, with
how to teach people to be able to read and write. If this is the case, then
people are only required to be able to produce and utter words as they are
spelt. In other words, they do not involve in reading and writing activities
as ways of self-expression, representation, and cultural interpretation. In a
wider sense, in fact, literacy is concerned with any effort allowing people
to be well informed and knowledgeable. Jane Mace even suggests that
setting up a literacy effort should be more than merely “ a solution of the
problem of illiteracy”(Mace, 1992: XV). It means that being literate will
further include being able to absorb and disseminate information, taking
place in different domains with different purposes. People are therefore
supposed to be familiar with whatever published in public media either in
print or in electronics, and they are likely to be able to give meaning
themselves to what they have received and communicate it with others in
many ways. So literacy is a multifaceted manifestation of reading, writing,
and thinking through which meaning is created within a sociocultural
context (Perez, 1998:4). It is always culturally and socially bound.
It is on this context that language education and language teaching
in Indonesia must be relied. Nevertheless, in order not to be pessimistic, it
can be overviewed that language education in Indonesia has been long
leading to a separate path of literacy development where people are only
trained to be literate formally either at schools or informally at community
groups outside the schools. In both types of educational settings, the
learners are fed up with theories of a language or languages with which

they merely read and write, without being encouraged to see and
experience the multidimensional functions of the language or languages.
On the basis of these phenomena, it turns out that Indonesia has so far bred
not only “political illiteracy”(Santosa, 1998b) as a result of the New Order
Regime‟s supremacy for over 30 years, but also cultural, social and mental
illiteracies. If the language teaching is done in the way that language is not
only seen as knowledge to be understood, but also as skills to be put into
practice with respect to its social, economic, and cultural political
functions, it has been done in line with the principles of literacy.
It is obvious that Indonesia is a multilingual and multicultural
country. People use indigenous languages locally and Indonesian language
nationally. But some other should use foreign languages, especially
English, to cope with international requirements in this global
environment. Considering the fact, there must be a layer of multiplicity in
association with the modes of expression and representation with the uses
of various means, among others, the most salient multimedia, and World
Wide Web. In the situation, the application of “ multiliteracies” taking into
consideration of national diversity and global interrelatedness is required.
Multiliteracies argument suggests the necessity of an open-ended
and flexible functional grammar that assists language learners to
describe language differences (cultural, sub cultural, regional
/national, technical, context-specific, and so on) and the multimodal
channels of meaning now so important to communication (Cope &
Kalantzis, 2000:6).
To this extent, rethinking language education in terms of “what to

teach” and “how to teach” is essential. In this paper the “what to teach” and
the “how to teach” will not be separately discussed in details. Favorably,
they will be simultaneously presented in the model of language education
in multilingual / multicultural settings and in the model of teaching the

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language and the content below.
Language education in multilingual and multicultural settings

There are many multilingual and multicultural countries in the
world such as the U.K, the US, and Australia. However, the linguistic map
of Indonesia is divergent from those of the countries. Because of the
Indonesian multilingual and multicultural uniqueness, language education
and language teaching in this country must also be differently implemented
from those in the other multilingual and multicultural countries.
The multilingualism of the three countries, for instance, differs from that in
Indonesia for some respects. Firstly, in the three countries the national
language is English-which is in fact the language of the world, whereas in
Indonesia it is Indonesian language-which is one of the local languages in
the globe, and English is the first foreign language.
Secondly, the local languages in the three countries are mostly
ethnic languages brought by immigrants from their home countries who do
not normally use them in their present community (except in such smaller
domains as family), but the local languages in Indonesia are those very
vernaculars developing indigenously in the community and are actually
used in wider domains, including family, education, workplace, religion,
printed/electronic media, and so on. Therefore, it is important to put
forward that the multilinguality in the three countries is usually personal,
whereas in Indonesia it is societal/communal. That is to say, in the three
countries there are a number of bilingual people who are able to speak
more than one language –but not necessarily use the ethnic ones in the
community, whereas in Indonesia people speak more than one language,
and their mother tongues are often the indigenous languages which are
indeed used for various reasons in their own community. At the same time,

Indonesian language is also used as a wider means of communication.

Thirdly, from the point of view of language acquisition, in bilingual
settings, children often acquire Indonesian language soon after or while
they acquire their mother tongues. Therefore, in some situations,
Indonesian language is the second language of a number of children, but in
some others, children have both Indonesian language and indigenous
languages as their mother tongues.
Finally, in conjunction with language identity and language
attitude, in the three countries people tend to use their ethnic languages
when they meet their peers from the same home countries. Maintaining the
immigrants, ethnic languages with reference to national identity may not
be a real concern in the three countries (Wiratno, 1993). I will put an
emphasis on the case of the maintenance and shift of Indonesian language
in Sydney, Australia; Cf. Faltis & Wolfe, Eds. 1999 for the recent of
profile of bilingual education in the US, with a particular contrast between
immigrants‟ ethnic languages and the dominant English)
Having ethnic languages map in Indonesia where the necessity of
using the three groups of languages is inevitable, a carefully planned
language education must be sought. In the following, after a brief review of
some models of bilingual education, a potentially suitable bilingual
education model will be offered. As bilingual education may mean
different things for different ends and there are many models of this sort of
education, in this paper, bilingual education does not only refer to a
technically simplified notion that it is using two languages for instructional
purposes. Rather, it refers to “a wide range of programs that may have
different ideological orientations toward linguistic and cultural diversity,
different target populations, and different goals for those populations”
(Freeman, 1998:2-3, as cited from Hornberger, 1991)

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Hornberger‟s 1991 review on the existing programs of bilingual

education provides three models, which are, transitional model,
maintenance model, and enrichment model.
The transitional model encompasses all of those bilingual education
programs that encourage language minority students to shift to
majority language, assimilate to mainstream cultural norms, and be
incorporated in to national society. By majority language,
Hornberger (1991) means the official language of the national
society, and by minority language she means students whose native
language is not the official language of the national society. The
maintenance model encompasses all of those programs that
encourage language minority student to maintain their native
language, strengthen their cultural identity, and affirm their civil
rights in the national society. The enrichment model encompasses
all of those bilingual education programs that encourage the
development of minority language on the individual and collective
levels, cultural pluralism at school and in the community, and an
integrated national society based on the autonomy of cultural
groups (Freeman, 1998: 3).
The most outstanding example of bilingual education quite often

discussed in the literature is the one conducted in Canada (See e.g. Swain,
1979 for a brief review; Swain & Lapkin, 1982, and Baker, 1996 for
complete accounts). Called “immersion” programme, which seems to fall
into the enrichment model, it was first initiated in 1965 to promote a
sociocultural equilibrium in the points of view of two strong groups of
Canadian population, French, and English. Depending on the types of
immersion (early total, early partial, or late), French and English were used
as the media of school instruction in order that students would be equally
proficient in both languages. A similar immersion program was later
conducted in the US in 1971 to promote student‟s proficiency of Spanish
before they transferred to English academic mainstream (Brinton, Snow &
Wesche, 1989: 8). It belongs to the transitional model, which has then

apparently become the most common type of bilingual education in the

US, targeting those students defined as “Limited English Proficiency”
(Freeman, 1998:4). The maintenance model, which is actually based on
language as a right, is less common in the US, but in some parts of the UK
there have been some movements insisting on the use of minority
languages at schools. For example, “ Designated Bilingual Schools” set up
in South Wales was aimed to educate students in their home language
(Baker, 1996; 356-357). In Australia, on the other hand, despite the fact
that there are some bilingual education programs, which may be mostly
categorized into the transitional model, “the future of Australian languages
other than English‟… is threatened by the failure to provide adequate
opportunities for their maintenance and development” because most of
Australian schools ignore the minority languages in their curriculum
(Smolicz & Lean, 1979: 67).
Regardless of whatever the name of the program is and whether it is
application in different settings, bilingual education has been very popular
and applied in many different parts of the worlds, especially in second
language learning/teaching programs.
The bilingual education so far known in Indonesia is the one that is
not necessarily similar to any of the above categories. In fact, the system of
education in the country is Indonesian language monolingual, and therefore
Indonesian language is the only formal medium of instruction used in
educational institutions. As previously stated, it is true that in certain
districts indigenous languages are allowed to be used until Year 3, but it is
simply because of a matter of giving chances to the school children to use
their indigenous languages before they are ready to transfer to the
Indonesian language mainstream. In association with the transitional
model, what is done in Indonesia is not the case because it is not aimed at

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incorporating the subject matter in the curriculum into the indigenous

languages teaching objectives. Compared with the maintenance model, it is
not the case either since it does not encourage the students to have equal
proficiency in indigenous languages and Indonesian language, let alone
indigenous languages are not used on purpose as the instructional media. It
is also true that in some places indigenous languages are taught from
primary schools to senior high schools (and in some other places at
university levels as local content), but they are formally put in the
curriculum just to show that the local identities still exist (regardless of
how and whether they still do). For the reason, it is clear then that it does
not belong to the enrichment model. In addition, from the point of view of
bilingual education, foreign languages are not taken into account at all.
They are not used as the media of instruction. Except in the relevant
departments and in the teaching of language for specific purposes (LSP)-
that is teaching by incorporating the content area, they are taught at schools
and university levels, as already mentioned, as instrumental purposes.
According to Nababan (1979:209-210), the Indonesian system of
education is not designed to promote the multilingual situation in the
country, and although it does not mean that the government does not
provide the indigenous languages with rooms in the curriculum, it is not
designed so because it is based on the general philosophy that the
indigenous languages will be learned by children naturally since they are
used in the community. It is actually unfortunate that until today the
potentiality of Indonesian multilinguality has not yet taken into account in
developing language education in the country.
The model being offered here is essentially the enrichment model.
The difference is that in this modified model three groups of languages are
all together involved, in contrast with the original one normally involving

only two. With reference to language rights, literacy principles,

multilingual issues, and the central roles of language education, the model
will be the one taking into account the teaching of the three groups of
languages in a considerably balanced proportion, by not only teaching
them as the subjects in the curriculum but also using them as the
instruction media in educational institutions. However, with the case of
foreign languages, since English is the most dominant among the other
foreign languages in Indonesia, English is advisable to be chosen as the
instruction medium.
In this model, in addition to using Indonesian language as the
medium of instruction at any levels of educational institutions (16 years,
plus 2 years in kindergartens), the potential indigenous languages are also
proposed to be used as the media of instruction throughout the span of time
at elementary schools and secondary schools (9 years, plus 2 years in
kindergartens), and English as well is used as the medium of instruction
from senior high schools to university levels (around 7 years). In the
implementation, the teaching of the three groups of languages as subjects
conducted thus far should be continued.
Teaching the language and teaching the content

To support language teaching, which is implemented in the context
of literacy, and to highlight the model of language education under the
framework of bilingualism, in the following, the model of language
teaching where teaching the language and teaching the content are
simultaneously done will be offered.
The issue of teaching the language together with teaching the
content has been known for a long time, and it might even take its roots
hundreds years ago (Mohan, 1986; Brinton, Snow & Wesche, 1989; 4).

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Starting to gain its popularity since 1980s, today it is quite a lot put into
practice in various second / foreign language instructional settings
(Brinton, 2000; 48).
Basically, it is a model of language teaching that is based on the
integration of language and content. “The language curriculum is based
directly on the academic needs of the students and generally follows the
sequence determined by a particular subject matter in dealing with the
language problems which students encounter” (Brinton, Snow & Wesche,
1989:2). The argument underlying the model is that since the medium of
instruction is obviously language, the subject matter instructed would not
be understood when the language used is not understood. For example,
teaching biology can be done together with teaching the language used;
and therefore, the concepts of biology are only understood if the language
is used to figure out the concepts is also understood. In short, content is
always delivered through language, and the teaching activity is
implemented just by putting four language skills (listening, speaking,
reading, and writing) in the subject areas. In other words, it is content-
based language teaching where any subjects can be incorporated into it.
Coming back to the modified model proposed above where
Indonesian language, the potential indigenous languages, and English (to
represent the other foreign languages) are used hand in hand
proportionally, the framework of the model of language teaching put
forward here can be described as follows.
The potential indigenous languages are expected to be used as the
media of delivering those subjects related to moral values, cultures, crafts,
traditional arts and music, local literature and philosophy, and the other
local contents. English is used as the medium of delivering those subjects
related to science and technology. Finally, Indonesian language is used in

combination as the general medium of instruction that may cover the

subjects ranging from moral values to science and technology.
This type of framework can hopefully eliminate the controversy
that the portion of language education nowadays is much smaller than
those of the subjects related to science and technology. Since very
important roles are given to the three groups of languages in delivering the
subjects other than language subjects, the model will automatically employ
the teaching of the language as well, and therefore language education will
be no longer considered peripheral. On the other hand, from the point of
view of the multilingual and multicultural contexts of Indonesia, the model
will upgrade the linguistic and cultural heritage of the country. No less
important than the two arguments, the model will in turn make up the
development of literacy. With adequate understanding and mastery of the
three groups of languages, the opportunities of absorbing and distributing
the information from many angles will be opened.
Conclusion
In elucidating the language education in Indonesia that is
multicultural and multilingual, the nature of Indonesian language,
indigenous languages, and foreign languages (English) has been discussed.
After reviewing a number of bilingual education models and comparing
them with what has been done in the country, a preferable model of
language education considering the three languages as the media of
instruction in addition to being only as the taught subjects is offered. In
completion to the model, a language teaching that incorporates content
areas into it is also suggested. The application of such kinds of language
education and language teaching has been counted as the implementations
of literacy development issuing the functional use of the existing languages

Maslihatul Umami
in this multilingual and multicultural country.

However, putting the proposed model of language education and
language teaching into practice is not without consequences. The following
implications will presumably appear. First, the promotion of the
indigenous languages to be the media of instruction should not be taken as
a distortion to the roles of Indonesian language as a means of reaching the
“Indonesianness” in terms of modernization (Alisyahbana, 1984b). Rather,
in terms of language rights, and by referring to the additional explanation
of the 1945 Constitution, such an effort will contribute to coloring the
Indonesian cultural plurality. In return, English can play its important role
in accelerating the process of Indonesian modernization.
Second, with regard to Van Lier‟s view on language as a vehicle
cited before, a difficult question may come up, whether the indigenous
languages expected to be used as the media of instruction can cope with
the area of science and technology in response to their vocabulary range,
whereas even Indonesian language itself, compared with English,
sometimes cannot. But if the two groups of languages are quite open to
outside influence, foreign technical terms can be adopted. Similarly, with
respect to language planning, the language contacts resulted from the
application of the models of language education and language teaching
above should be regarded as beneficial aspects for the development of the
Indonesian and indigenous languages, not as the dangerous ones destroying
the phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties of the
languages.
Third, the application of the models requires some reforms in
curriculum design, and in so doing; it will demand a good coordination
among the related institutions to be responsible for not only language
education but also education in general.

Fourth, in relation to the new curriculum design, the adjoining

problems will be things like teacher training, book production, providing
facilities and equipment.
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Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
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September 26, 1998.
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Paper), Department of Linguistics. University of Sydney.

Setia Rini
5 and 7 Year Old Children with No English Background

Respond Toward Parents’ Stimulus Using the
Comprehensible Inputs on Direct English Daily
Conversations at Home
Setia Rini
Jl. Tentara Pelajar no. 2 Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia
Abstract
This paper seeks to explore how the comprehensible inputs are given by
mother responded by the children who have no English background and
what are the discourse features which aid children‟s comprehension and
ability to maintain the conversation. This study is conducted in the writer‟s
home with her sons in order to apply the comprehensible inputs. The
results shows that the children ages 5 and 7 years old who have no English
background are able to give the responses unless the questions or the
stimulus given must be followed by the non verbal language such as
gesture and the body movements. In this case, the results can be varied.
From the stimulus using the comprehensible inputs, the children are also
giving different responses. It can be in the form of non-verbal language
such as nodding or by repeating the last word said by their mother. It is
suggested that parents should give encouragement to the children and help
them in acquiring the second language at home.
Keywords: Parents‟ stimulus, Comprehensible inputs, daily conversation,

with no English background.
Abstrak
Studi ini berusaha untuk mengeksplorasi bagaimana input yang dapat

dipahami, yang diberikan oleh ibu, direspon oleh anak yang tidak memiliki
latar belakang bahasa Inggris dan apa saja fitur diskursus yang membantu
pemahaman anak dan kemampuan untuk melakukan percakapan.
Penelitian ini dilakukan di rumah penulis terhadap putranya dalam
menerapkan input yang dapat dipahami. Hasil menunjukkan bahwa anak-

5 and 7 Year Old Children with No English Background Respond…
anak berusia usia 5 dan 7 tahun yang tidak memiliki latar belakang bahasa
Inggris mampu memberikan tanggapan dengan catatan bahwa pertanyaan
atau stimulus yang diberikan harus diikuti dengan bahasa non verbal
seperti sikap dan gerakan tubuh. Dalam hal ini, hasilnya dapat bervariasi.
Dari stimulus yang menggunakan input yang dapat dipahami, anak juga
memberikan respon yang berbeda. Hal ini dapat dalam bentuk bahasa non -
verbal seperti mengangguk atau dengan mengulang kata terakhir yang
dikatakan oleh ibu mereka. Berdasarkan temuan tersebut, orang tua
disarankan untuk memberikan dorongan kepada anak dan membantu
mereka dalam perolehan bahasa kedua di rumah.
Kata kunci: Stimulus Orangtua, Input yang Dapat Dipahami, Percakapan

Sehari-Hari, Tidak Memiliki Latar Belakang Bahasa Inggris
Introduction
Communication in English has now become a new trend in the
modern families. It can be a tool to improve the social strata among them
beside make their children fluent in speaking English. The way the
children give responses to their parents‟ stimulus will be derived from the
examples given and from the process of imitation then the children try to
produce the responses as well as they can. Both parents play an important
role in their child's language development. If the mother spends more time
with the children than the father, the language she speaks to the children
will probably have more of an impact than the language the father speaks
to the children. However, this does not mean that the father's language will
not or cannot be acquired by the children. If the father makes an effort to
spend quality language time with the children (reading stories, playing
games, engaging in active conversation with the children), the children can
and will learn the language he uses with them.
The children of those ages will only give simple responses because
they do not get the intensive course on the subject in their formal
education. As we know that in the kindergarten, they do not get the real

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English subject, while in the elementary school, especially in Salatiga, this

subject will be taught at the fourth level and only as the local capacity.
Children who have never learned the second language or the target
language will try to give very simple responses such as saying yes or no or
even just nodding. I try to apply this to my two sons as the object of the
study. Both of them always try to give many different responses toward my
questions and statements as the comprehensible inputs in English. The
most important thing to me to do is how they can understand English as the
means of communication in everyday life in their home. Children have the
capacity to develop new language more naturally than do adults do.
Children, who learn more than one language before adolescence, will
acquire those languages with more ease and "native-like" ability than they
would try to study those languages as adults.
In this case, the point is that both of my two sons have never been
taught English by anybody. Therefore, the stimulus given must be followed
by non-verbal aspects of communications or the body language and the
facial expressions. I used auxiliary sequences and auxiliary-initial clauses
in everyday, spontaneous speech, such as young children are routinely
exposed to. These types of communication will become an effort to force
the children to acquire the target language as well.
Acquiring a second language could be a lifelong learning process
for some, and still, learners may never fully become native-like in the
second language. Children, however, by around the age of 5-8, have more
or less mastered the first language, with the exception of vocabulary and a
few grammatical structures. The children‟s task therefore simply
understands the input given by their parent. As also stated by Krassen
(2000) that language can be acquired outside the target language
environment, even without formal instruction, providing that learner are

exposed to the comprehensible inputs.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the comprehensible
inputs given by mother are responded by the children who have no English
background and to investigate what the discourse features, which aid
children‟s comprehension and ability to maintain the conversation. The
limitation of the study in this paper, I just analyze how to deliver the
appropriate type of questions as the inputs given to 5-7 years old children
who have no English background and the way to respond it.
Second language acquisition

How children acquire native language (L1) and the relevance of
this to foreign language (L2) learning has long been debated. Although
evidence for L2 learning ability declining with age is controversial, a
common notion is that children learn L2s easily, whilst older learners
rarely achieve fluency. This assumption stems from „critical period‟ (CP)
ideas.
A CP was popularized by Eric Lenneberg in 1967 for L1
acquisition, but considerable interest now surrounds age effects on second
language acquisition (SLA). At the level of child second language
acquisition, such interaction has been studied primarily as language-in-
play, with the focus on learner output, but research on caretaker language
and foreigner talk has also led to studies of whether, and how, children
simplify, repeat, and expand utterances as they speak with less proficient
interlocutors.
Types of questions
In order stimulating or reinforcing my children‟s language
production in the second language, though my children have no English
background, mother as the stimulant or the reinforcer in the process or

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producing the second language try to find the most appropriate questions,
which make them as the comprehensible inputs. Therefore, the process of
the interactions will be in the natural situation where there are no
disturbances and barriers in the second language acquisition.
There are five types of questions can be asked to children aged 5-8
years who have no English backgrounds. (Hatch: 1978:419) categorizes
them into; (1) Display Questioning as the type of questioning used by the
teacher in the classroom; (2) Repeated questions as all occurrences where
the initial questions were repeated verbatim to the same listener; (3)
Modified questions as questions which failed to produce an answer and
which the questioner repeated in modified forms; (4) Initial questions as
questions that the native speakers directed to language learners, either
singly or as a group, includes repeated or rephrased questions addressed to
different listeners. (5) Referential questions as questions occurred mostly
in non-classroom settings. This type of questions can also be classified into
open-ended questions; questions requiring provision of information rather
than question referred.
Non-verbal aspects of communications

In communicating English with non-native children, the non-verbal
aspects of communication play a highly important and essential role in
foreign language acquisition among children and mother. As we know that
mother speaks with the vocal organs but mother and children converse
with the entire bodies. Conversations which include the process of
questioning or giving the comprehensible input and answering or
responding the input given, consist of much more than a simple
interchange of spoken words.
Non-verbal communication has mainly been distinguished from

verbal communication. Lorscher (1980) quoting Lyons,s (1977)

description on non verbal communication which are including gestures,
mimicry, proxemic behavior, speech pauses and pitch.
Then there are ten phenomena constitute the non-verbal
communication, such as bodily contact, proximity, posture, physical
appearance, facial and gestural movements, direction of gaze, and timing
of speech, emotional tone of speech, speech errors and accent.
There are seven non verbal phenomena as described by Knapp
(1977) taken from the Lorscher (2002), they are body motion or kinesic
behavior, physical characteristic, touching behavior, paralanguage,
proxemics, artifacts, environmental factors. By noting the description of
non-verbal phenomena above, so nodding becomes the facial and gestural
movements. The Indonesian children who have no English background
will respond in different way toward the comprehensible input given.
This research is qualitative approach to get a clear description of
the interaction between mother and children with focus on two type of
questions, referential questions with the reason that such questions are
usually occurred in non – classroom setting, which means that the
questions are occurred at home during the daily activities and the display
questions.
The subject of the study is two of the researcher‟s children aged 5
and 7 years old who have no English background. The location of data
collection takes place in the researcher‟s house. The data are collected in
the form of recorded data and used as the data base in order to identify
which type of mother‟s questions and statements are considered to create
the comprehensible inputs on the children. The data are in the form of
speech and action. The conversations occur spontaneously without any
specific guidelines for mother and children for choosing the topics. The

Setia Rini
aim of this study is investigating the appropriate type of questioning to

children aged 5-8 years old who has no English background using the
comprehensible input and the way to give respond as the language
production, so the unit of analysis of the study is in the form children‟s
utterances as the responses of the inputs and mother‟s utterances as the
stimulus for the comprehensible inputs. In techniques of data collection, I
used the direct questioning with both of my sons in English about the daily
topics, the direct questioning lasted for approximately ten minutes, and a
small tape recorder was placed near the parent in order o get the natural
data.
Technique of data analysis, there are some steps in doing the
analysis are first through transcribing or recording the interaction I made
with both of my sons. This transcription becomes a subject of analysis that
makes the analysis easier to conduct. In the form of written material, the
interaction among my children and I involving question and answer can be
easily notified. In transcribing the data, I presented the data as follows: full
stops (.), comma (,), question mark (?), exclamation mark (!), turn numbers
(1, 2, 3...). The participants are coded; mother (M), children 1 (C1) and
children 2 (C2). The utterances were transcribed as they were said without
any correction to the grammatical error. Second is selecting. After the
transcription was done, I selected the mother‟s questions and statements as
the comprehensible inputs and rewrote them on a separate sheet of paper.
This was done to make the analysis easier. The third is categorizing the
turns; questions and statements based on the questions types (display
questions and referential questions). I also recorded my children‟s
responses to those questions and statements, so that it would be easier
whether mother‟s inputs stimulate answers from children. Then I
categorized children‟s responses in three categories; no response (including

non-verbal response), short answer (for one or two words answer) and long
answer (for more than two words answer).
Discussion
The followings are my findings and discussions that show the
mother and children interactions conducted every day in a week, which are
then transcribed. The two children are both male whose respond will be
analyzed through the comprehensible input given by their mother as the
researcher.
For the purpose of analysis, then the data taken from the tape
recorder first is categorized into turns. The term turn denotes an utterance
or uninterrupted sequence of utterances, produced by a single speaker
(Sack, Schegloff and Jefferson: 1974). The two categories of turns are
questions and statements.
Table 1
Distribution of Turns
Speaker Questions Statement Total Gesture

s Movements
Mother 9 11 20 10
45% 55% 100 % 100%
Zulfan 0 5 5 0
0% 100% 100% 0%
Yoga 2 8 10 0
20% 80% 100% 0%
From the tabulation above, the total number (45%) for questions
and (55%) for statements, mother dominates the conversation as the
process of giving the comprehensible inputs which are followed by the non
verbal language, in this case is called gesture movements, because while
giving the inputs, mother inserted the gesture movements to make children
understand what their mother said as the process of comprehending the

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inputs. The children do not make non-verbal language while responding

the comprehensible input given by the mother, and they tend to respond
directly through nodding or answering yes or no toward the inputs.
Table 2
Types of Questions
Speaker Display Referential Total

Mother 0 20 20
0% 100% 100%
The questions asked by mother were referential questions. These

interactions do not take place in a classroom and the conversations were
about various matters unrelated to structured classroom dialogues. This
result supports the findings of Long and Sato (1983) who found their
analysis of six ESL lessons to adults in USA, that the dominant type of
questioning used by teachers in the classroom was display questioning,
while referential questions occurred mostly in non – classroom settings.
Mother‟s questions, which belong to referential questions mostly,
are dominated with questions, (100%) that are questions requiring only yes
/ no answers. Mother tried to focus the questions, which are related to the
daily topics, and which are spontaneously asked based on the situation
where the children are:
In the morning while preparing their self to go to school:
Mother : “Hi, good morning dik Yoga”

Yoga : “Good morning, ibu”
Mother : “How are you dik Yoga?”
Yoga : “How are you dik Yoga?”
Mother : ”Dik Yoga, have you got breakfast? Eat?” (Mother
moves her hand to her mouth)
Yoga : “Belum makan”
Mother : “Yesterday you‟ve got a broken arm, right?” (Mother
puts her right hand into her left hand)
Yoga : “Broken”

Mother : ”Dik, the cat is eating gereh, right?” (Mother pointed her
finger to the cat in front of them which is still eating the
bone of the fried salted fish)
Yoga : (nodding)
Mother : ”The cat‟s mother is coming ya dik.”(Mother pointed the
cat‟s mother which is coming to her kitten which is still
having the bone of fried salted fish)
Yoga : ”( nodding)
After going back from school:
Mother : ”Welcome home, dik Yoga….You are dropped by Bu Sri,

right?”
Yoga : ”( Smile and nodding)
Mother : ”Do you feel happy? You get home by being dropped by
Sri and Bentar?”
Yoga : ” Ojo ngomong ngono. Buk kolak!”
Mother : ”Oh, you want me to make you kolak, right?
Yoga : ”Yes”.
They were in their spare time in the afternoon:
Mother : “Mas Zulfan, do you like watching the siluman sinetron

in Indosiar?”
Zulfan : “Yes.”
Mother : “Yoga, you like watching the CD series of Ultraman,
right?”
Yoga : ”Yes.”
Mother : “Mas Zulfan, will you have a sleep right now?”
Zulfan : ”No.”
In the evening:
Mother : ” Mas Zulfan, you have already finished taking a bath,

right?”(Mother moves her hand into the body and acted
like the one who are taking a bath)
Zulfan : ”Yes!”
Mother : ”Mas Zulfan, do you feel fresh?” (Mother acted by
folding both of her arms)
Zulfan : ”Yes, sudah mandi badan segar.”
Mother : ”Mas Zulfan, you choose to wear that pajama, don‟t you

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feel hot?”(Mother acted that she felt hot by clapping her

front shirt)
Zulfan : ”No.”
Yoga : ”Mamah, bukakan bungkusan wafer ini, mah.”
Mother : ”Okey, take that basket over there, please.” (Mother
pointed her hand to the position of the basket)
Yoga : ”Basket? Ini?.”
Mother : ”Yes. Inside the basket, there is a scissor. (Mother
showed one of the children the symbol of a scissor using
her right hand.) Yes, good. You are a good boy. (Mother
shows her right thumb up). Thank you.”
Yoga : ”Thank you.”
Mother : ”Dik Yoga, you were crying this morning, hoa, hoa,
right? (Mother put one of her right hand neat her right
eyes)
Yoga : “Yes.”
The unit analysis of this study is mother‟s utterances in the form of

comprehensible inputs and children‟s utterances as the direct responses
toward the inputs given.
1. Mother: “Hi, good morning dik Yoga”
Yoga : “Good morning, ibuk”
Mother delivered the inputs in the form of greeting. The situation took
place in the morning. One the children responded it by saying “good
morning ibuk”. Actually the child has been introduced the way to respond
such greeting by his mother, as the researcher, but he still used the word
ibuk not mother, because he imitated her mother‟s way of calling his name,
dik Yoga.
2. Mother: “How are you dik Yoga?”
Yoga : “How are you dik Yoga?”
In this case, mother still delivered the inputs in the form of greeting. The
situation took place in the morning. One the children responded it by
saying “how are you ibuk”. Actually the child has been introduced the way
to respond such greeting by his mother, as the researcher, but he still used

the word ibuk not mother, because he imitated her mother‟s way of calling
his name, dik Yoga.
3. Mother: ”Dik Yoga, have you got breakfast? Eat?” (Mother
moves her hand to her mouth)
Yoga : “Belum makan”
The way mother delivered the input was also followed by the non-verbal
language in the form of body motion or kinesic behavior. She showed her
son the way one eats. The child then understood toward the inputs so he
replied “belum makan”. It means that he understands what the mother said,
and he replied it in his first language. The situation of that conversation
took place when mother as the researcher were feeding him before going to
school.
4. Mother: “Yesterday you‟ve got a broken arm, right? Broken”
(Mother puts her right hand into her left hand)
Yoga : “Broken”
In this case, mother tried to move to other topic dealing with his current
condition. The child has a broken arm due to a small accident that took
place at home in the morning, while everybody was preparing everything
to go to school and to the office. He fell down from a motorcycle and he
got his left arm broken. Then mother asked him that yesterday he got a
broken arm. The way the mother gave the input was also followed by non-
verbal language in the form of body motion, she held her left arm and
moved it up and down in the similar way the one has a broken arm. Then
the respond given by the child is by saying “broken”. In this case, he
actually understood and tried to imitate what his mother said in the last
word, because she tried to make him understand to what she said and still
showed him the moving of her left arm.
5. Mother: ”Dik, the cat is eating gereh, right?” (Mother pointed her
finger to the cat in front of them which is still eating the

Setia Rini
bone of the fried salted fish)

Yoga : (nodding)
In this case, mother was feeding him for breakfast before going to school
and they had “gereh” or fried salted fish. While they had it, the cat was
coming toward them and mother gave the bone of the fried salted fish to
the cat. Then she said that the cat is eating gereh. She used the word
„gereh‟ in order to make the child understand what the cat is doing. The
child gave that respond by nodding as the form of non-verbal language. It
means that he understood what the input given by his mother.
6. Mother: ”The cat‟s mother is coming ya dik.”(Mother pointed the
cat‟s mother which is coming to her kitten which is still
having the bone of fried salted fish)
Yoga : ”( nodding)
Still, mother fed her second son. While feeding her son, the mother
of the cat is coming toward them. Therefore, mother said to her son that the
mother of the cat is coming and in this case, mother pointed her finger to
the cat‟s mother that is coming to her kitten that is still having the bone of
fried salted fish. Then the boy responded it by nodding. It means that he
could understand the input given by the mother in the target language. In
the morning, her second son, Zulfan who are 7 years old, has gone to
school with his father early in the morning at around 6.30 a.m. Zulfan is
still in first year of Elementary School and he returns home at 10.45 a.m.
The comprehensible inputs are given to her second son, Yoga, who is 5
years old. He is still in the first year of the kindergarten. He goes to school
at 7.30 a.m. and he goes home at 10.00 a.m.
7. Mother: ”Welcome home, dik Yoga…..You are dropped by Bu Sri,
right?”(Mother open her to hands acted that she
welcomes someone)
Yoga :”( Smile and nodding)

In this case, her son went home by being dropped by his teacher, named
Sri. Therefore, mother welcomed him by giving the input in the target
language. She acted as if she welcomes someone. She inserted the word
„Bu Sri‟ not your teacher, means that her son will easily identify what she
already said to her son. Yoga understood toward his mother‟s saying, then
he gave responds in the form of non-verbal language, in this case, he
showed his facial expression through smiling and body motion in this case
nodding.
8. Mother: ”Do you feel happy? You get home by being dropped by
Bu Sri and Bentar?”
Yoga :” Ojo ngomong ngono. Buk kolak!”
In this situation, the boy seems uncomfortable, because he has just

already got home, perhaps he felt so tired. His mother kept on asking him
as the process of giving the comprehensible inputs, by asking the question
in the same context, that he got home by being dropped by his teacher, Bu
Sri and his friend, Bentar, Bu Sri‟s nephew. So he would probably feel
happy. Therefore, he replied surprisingly. He said,” Ojo ngomong ngono”.
It means that he forbade his mother not to speak in the target language.
Then he continued by saying “Bu Kolak”. He asked for a glass of „kolak‟ a
kind of beverages that is made from boiled water that is mixed with the
essence of coconut, sugar, and bananas. It is because he felt thirsty.
9. Mother: ”Oh, you want me to make you kolak pisang, right?”
(Mother tried to explain him in the target language and
pointing her finger into his body and her body)
Yoga : ”Yes”.
In this case mother tried to make sure that he wanted her mother to
make him kolak pisang, by inserting the words‟ kolak pisang‟ and she
explained it in the target language and tried also to use a body motion as
the non verbal language such as pointing her finger to her body and his

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body. Then he replied by saying „yes‟ showing that he understood to what

his mother said.
10. Mother: “Mas Zulfan, do you like watching the siluman sinetron
in Indosiar?” (Mother pointed her finger to the
television)
Zulfan : “Yes.”
In the different context of time, this conversation took place in the

spare time after going back from school. Mother tried to give the input to
her first son, Zulfan who was still watching the siluman sinetron program
in television. The word „sinetron‟ is derived from the word Electronic
Cinema that is broadcasted in the form of series. The word „siluman‟
means the movie about the Javanese myths creature. Zulfan was able to
reply the input given by his mother directly by referring to the word
„siluman sinetron in Indosiar‟. The word Indosiar has also familiar to him,
because it is one of the television channels in Indonesia. The way the
mother delivered the question was by calling his name, „Mas Zulfan‟, it
means to get his attention, not his younger brother‟s attention and by
pointing her finger to the television.
1. Mother : “Dik Yoga, you like watching the CD series of
Ultraman, right?”
Yoga : ”Yes.”
In this case, mother tried to get her second son‟s attention by

calling his name, dik Yoga. Then she tried to ask about one of his CD
robotic hero‟s collections entitled „Ultraman Cosmos‟. Yoga replied „yes‟
because he got the word „CD‟ and „Ultraman‟ that he has it at his
collections and he was familiar with those words.
2. Mother : “Mas Zulfan, will you have a sleep right now?”
(Mother put her hands close to her left cheek and
she closed her eyes showing the activity of
sleeping)

Zulfan : ”No.”
In this case mother gave the input followed by the non verbal
language, such as body motion through putting her hands close to her left
cheek and she closed her eyes showing the activity of sleeping, so her first
son would understand it easily and finally he replied „no‟, because he
didn‟t want to sleep in the time they were speaking.
3. Mother : ”Mas Zulfan, you have already finished taking a
bath right?” (Mother moves her hand into the body
and acted like the one who are taking a bath)
Zulfan : ”Yes!”
In this case, the situation took place in the evening when her sons
had already finished taking a bath. Mother got her first son‟s attention by
calling „Mas Zulfan‟, so that the one who would be responsible to give the
respond is he. In focusing on the action of taking a bath, then mother acted
as the one who is still taking a bath, she used her non-verbal language in
the form of body motion. The child can respond again directly by saying
„yes‟.
4. Mother : ”Mas Zulfan, do you feel fresh?” (Mother acted by
folding both of her arms)
Zulfan : ”Yes, sudah mandi badan segar.”
In this case, mother gave input still dealing with the activity of
taking a bath. She asked him by also getting his attention first then asked
his feeling after taking a bath followed by the non verbal language again,
she showed him the way one performed the action of feeling fresh by
folding her both arms. Then her first son replied „yes‟ because he
understood the input given and continue to say in his first language „sudah
mandi badan segar‟ which means that after taking a bath then he feels fresh
on his body.

Setia Rini
5. Mother : ”Mas Zulfan, you choose to wear that pajama,

don‟t you feel hot?”(Mother acted that she felt hot
by clapping her front shirt)
Zulfan : ”No.”
In this case, also, the situation is still dealing the activity after
taking a bath. He put on his pajamas in the hot weather. That is why
mother asked him about the feeling of having the pajamas. So the context
is still known by the child. She delivered the input followed by the non
verbal language in this case is body motion, she acted that she felt hot by
clapping her front shirt back and forth. The boy then replied by saying
„no‟, because he understood what the input given by his mother and he
actually would wear that kind of shirt, so he didn‟t care to the weather
whether it was cold or hot.
6. Yoga : ”Mamah,bukakan bungkusan wafer ini, mah.”
Mother : ”Okey, take that basket over there, please.”
(Mother pointed her hand to the position of the
basket)
Yoga : ”Basket? Ini?.”
Mother : ”Yes. Inside the basket, there is a scissor.
(Mother showed one of the children the symbol
of a scissor using her right hand.) Yes, good. You
are a good boy. (Mother shows her right thumb
up). Thank you.”
Yoga : ”Thank you.”
By the time, the conversation between the first son and the mother
took place, and then the second son was entering the room by handling a
pack of wafer. The boy then asked her to open the pack of wafer, but still
in his first language. Then mother tried to give her order as the input in the
target language. She said that the boy should take the basket as the place of
the scissor; she pointed her finger to the position of the basket. Then he
replied by imitating what his mother said, “Basket?”, “ini?” and he come
forward to the position of the basket. Then mother replied again in the

target language, by saying „yes‟. She explained him that there is a scissor
inside the basket, mother followed her word with the body motion as the
non verbal language, and she moved her right hand to show him what a
scissor is like. Then she said „good‟ because the boy could find the scissor.
She continued to say „you are good boy‟ and showed her son her right
thumb up. Then she said „thank you‟, and finally the boy can reply in the
right way, thank you.
7. Mother : ”Dik Yoga, you were crying this morning, hoa,
hoa, right? (Mother put one of her right hand near
her right eyes)
Yoga : “Yes.”
In this case, mother tried to give the input to her second son to
remind him that this morning he cried so hard. She showed her son the way
the one cried by putting her fingers close to her eyes, and said „hoa,hoa.
The child understood to what her mother said, so he replied „yes‟.
From the classification of the interaction among mother and the
children as the process of giving the comprehensible inputs and the
children‟s responds were found that mostly mother delivered the questions
by getting the attention one of the children who would be asked through
calling his name. It is expected that one of them will answer the questions
as the input given by the mother. Mother mostly inserting the non verbal
language while delivering the comprehensible inputs in the form of
statements and referential questions by showing the body language or
gesture movements to the children such as acting in the similar way the
children do their activities.
The way both children give, the responds are varied. It can be seen
that for some inputs are responded by using three categories; no response
(including non-verbal response), in this case they nod, short answer (for
one or two words answer); in this case they say yes or no, and long answer

Setia Rini
(for more than two words answer); in this case they answer the questions
by using their own first language.
Conclusion
After analyzing the data above, I can conclude that the children
who have no English background at all are able to be stimulated to the
English conversation using English, which are accompanied, by some body
language, gesture, or non-verbal language. This can lead them to the more
intensive communication without forcing them to produce complex
responses. The most important thing is that they are able to comprehend
the inputs, which are given in the target language as the process of
acquiring the second or the foreign language. By knowing the importance
of English as the international means of communications, most of the
English teachers and those who are able to speak English can prepare their
children to understand English in the daily lives through stimulating them
with the target language which are accompanied by the body language or
non verbal language as the process of giving the comprehensible inputs, so
that the children will be able to process the inputs easily.
References
Harley, B. 1986. Age in Second Language Acquisition. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
Hatch, E.M. 1978. Discourse Analysis and Second Language Acquisition.
In hatch, E.M. Second Language Acquistion: A Book of Readings.
401-435. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House
Krashen, S.D. 1975. The Critical Period for Language Acquisition and its
Possible Bases. In D. Aaronson and R.W. Rieber (eds),

Developmental Psycholinguistics and Communication Disorders.

New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
Krashen, S. 2000. What Does It Take to Acquire Language?, ESL
magazine V3 n3:p22-23.
Long, M and Sato,C.J. 1983. Classroom Foreigner Talk Discourse: forms
and Functions of Teacher‟s Questions. In H.Seliger &M.Long (Ed.)
Classroom Oriented Research in Second Language Acquisition
268-85. Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House Publishers.
Piaget, J. 1926. The Language and Thought of the Child. Translated by E.
Claperede. London: Kegan Paul
Flanigan, Beverly Olson. Peer Tutoring and Second Language Acquisition
in the Elementary School. Retrieved from http://applij.
oxfordjournal.org/misc/term.dtl
Lorscher, Wolfgang. Non verbal Aspects of Teacher- Pupil
Communication in the Foreign Language Classroom.
lorscher@rz.uni.Leipzig.

Noor Malihah
Noor Malihah
Abstract
EFL students many times made mistakes in using the English expressions
and led to misinterpretations or even acceptable message of their
utterances. This is due to their lack of cultural awareness or their
understanding towards L2 culture. Therefore, EFL teachers should think of
how to give position to the L1 and L2 culture in their teaching and learning
process of EFL instructions. To solve the problems, there are some
approaches used to introduce the target language culture, by knowing the
obstacles that the learners frequently made.
Keywords: EFL, Cultural, Awareness, Approaches, Obstacles
Abstrak
Pembelajar bahasa Inggris sebagai bahasa asing berkali-kali melakukan

kesalahan dalam menggunakan ungkapan-ungkapan bahasa Inggris
sehingga menyebabkan salah tafsir atau bahkan pesan yang diterima pada
ujaran mereka. Hal ini disebabkan kurangnya kesadaran budaya atau
pemahaman mereka terhadap budaya L2. Oleh karena itu, guru bahasa
inggris perlu memikirkan bagaimana memberikan porsi pengenalan budaya
L1 dan L2 dalam proses belajar mengajar bahasa inggris sebagai bahasa
asing. Untuk memecahkan masalah tersebut, ada beberapa pendekatan
yang digunakan untuk memperkenalkan budaya bahasa target, dengan
mengenali kendala yang sering ditemui oleh peserta didik.
Kata Kunci: EFL, Budaya, Kesadaran, Pendekatan, Hambatan

Introduction
As everybody knows, English is very popular language spoken and
learned by many people throughout the world at recent time. This is due to
a certain demand, which is today needed in facing the free trade in the
globalization era where everything, included any information can be
adopted easily, and English is as the international language, which is
acknowledged both conventionally and administered. Plunging into the
opened-Era, what is so called for globalization era, involves man aspects of
life such as economic, politic, social, academic, and so on.
Culture has become an increasingly important component of
English language teaching in recent times. There are a number of reasons
for this, due to the wide use of English all over the world by multicultural
communities. It therefore is necessary to examine the use of English in
Indonesia and the teaching of culture.
Many times, our students use inappropriate English utterances
while having a conversation in English due to their lack of cultural
awareness about the target language. It disturbs the goals of
communication, as the message of the utterance will be blur since it
probably creates misinterpretations or unacceptable communication. Let us
consider the following example:
1). X: Thank you
Y: same-same
2). X: When will you come to her house?
Y. In the morning day
3). X: Where are they?
Y: Walking-walking
4). X: What is your father?
Y: My father is a human
The above utterances show indifferent responds uttered by the Non-

Native Speakers, as EFL learners. It can be seen from utterance 1), where

Noor Malihah
the respond of thank you, is same-same, instead of you‟re welcome or other

proper expression, which is actually the derivation of Indonesian culture;
when someone terima kasih „thank you‟ the answer will be sama-sama
„same-same‟. Similarly, the expression in no 2) also the derivation of L1
context where in the morning day is word-to-word translation of pada pagi
hari which should be in the morning. So does in the utterance no 3), where
the form of walking-walking is the word to word translation of jalan-jalan
„walk around‟. In no 4), the answer stated by Y is improper to the question
given by X due to the English context. However, since Y is lack of
understanding English culture, the answer is derived from the Indonesian
context where the question means Bapakmu itu apa?, „what is this (thing)?;
and the answer expected is whether he is a man, a thing, or others. The
speaker did not think that the question is actually to know his father job.
The other improper expressions resulted by lack of understanding
culture of L2 are:
5). X: Are you married?
6). X: How old are you?
7). X: How much salary do you get to work in that company?
Questions in 5), 6), and 7) are forbidden in the English context

instead those are given by an interviewer in job interview; however it is
permissible in Indonesian culture, especially for the Javanese in order to
break the ice for having conversation with new acquaintance.
8) Mbak Erica, Do you like to be in Indonesia?
The use of address form in the above sentence is acceptable in the

Indonesian context; however, if it is applied in the real culture of English
Native speakers, they probably get confused with such term. It is due to the
different system of addressing.
Dealing with this case, therefore, it is very necessary for EFL

teachers to think about how to introduce the culture of English in the real
conversation. As everyone knows that teaching English in outside of
English speaking countries leads to some difficulties in introducing the
culture awareness, thus there should be a study on how these difficulties
may be overcome and how we might approach the teaching of cultural
awareness in a systematic way as applied to the Indonesian environment.
Discussion
The language and culture in communication
Whorfian (Wardaugh, 1992: 218) presents his hypotheses about
language and culture: (1) the structure of a language determines the way in
which the speakers of that language view the world,; (2) the culture of
people finds reflection in the language they employ, because they value
certain things and do them in a certain way, they come to use their
language in ways that reflect what they value and what they do.; (3) there
is little or no relationship between language and culture. In other side,
Sapir acknowledged the close relationship between language and culture,
maintaining that they were inextricably related so that it is impossible to
understand or appreciate the one without knowledge of the other.
Therefore, every language will reflect the values, beliefs, and assumptions
of the culture it came from. Thus learning a language will also involve
learning the culture the language expresses and consequently, our view of
language teaching should link between culture and language.
To be able to communicate well means that it is not merely to
understand the syntax and range of _expression within a language. Hymes'
(1972) definition of communicative competence, which underpins much of
communicative language teaching, prompts the importance of
understanding the socio-linguistic aspects of language. Communicative

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competence involves an understanding of the norms of social interaction of

one socio-cultural community, intercultural communicative competence
entails an understanding of the differences in interactional norms between
different speech communities and an ability to "reconcile or mediate
between different modes present" (Byram and Fleming 1998, 12). Central
to the notion of intercultural communicative competence is 'cultural
awareness'. Cultural awareness involves an understanding not only of the
culture of the language being studied but also of the learners' own culture.
This view leads to a fact that it will be impossible to have successful
communication without grasping the cultural awareness.
The English teaching and use in the Indonesian culture

English is a very popular language spoken and learned as well as
used and taught in a diverse range of situations and cultures throughout the
world, often far removed, in both distance and in beliefs and values, from
the cultures of the original English speaking countries at present times.
Krachu (1977) has illustrated different varieties of English outside of these
original English-speaking countries such as Indian English and Nigerian
English. Many of these contexts, such as Asia have very different beliefs,
value systems, and educational doctrines to the traditional English
speaking countries such as Great Britain and the United States. For the
Indonesian people, English is as a foreign language, which is taught in
schools often from the third years of schooling since it becomes the local
content to be studied in formal schools. At present days, English
competency is one of the requirements in government universities
undergraduate and post-graduate degrees. Therefore the teaching of
English provides chance to give variety of uses English in a variety of
Indonesian contexts in ways removed from native speaker norms.

Various cultures lead to difficulties in teaching language

English teaching and use may occur in a wide variety of contexts in
non-English speaking countries, which often do not involve English Native
Speaker (NS). This raises the important question of what culture we should
be addressing when teaching cultural awareness. If not all communication
is taking place with English NS then it may not be relevant to teach
English culture.
Contradictory to the Whorf Hypotheses, Alptekin and Alptekin
(1984: 16) suggest that we should not be teaching English with reference to
English-speaking countries' cultures but be independent from the cultural
context instead referring only to the "International attitudes" English; as
stated at the beginning of this paper, culture and language are inexorably
linked and as such cannot be separated. Some other linguists prompt that
(see Valdes, 1986, 1990, Byram 1991, Byram and Fleming 1998, Kramsch
1993) teaching English without teaching culture is impossible. Through
conscious or unconscious process, it is unavoidable to transmit the culture
of the language during the teaching learning process. Since the outside
speaking English countries are so many, as well as the Indonesian, there
will arise many difficulties in grasping the culture of the foreign language
in the native language situation, which culture should be applied in
teaching the language, the native language or the foreign language?
National characteristics vs. the foreign language characteristics

Some people attempt to identify their national characteristics for
the purposes of comparing and contrasting cultures, leads to
oversimplification and stereotypes of cultural characteristics. Such belief
will reject the diversity of other cultures. This can create an unrealistic
stereotyped view of English culture in learners, especially when learners

Noor Malihah
compare the culture presented in TESOL materials with their own probably
more balanced view of their own culture (Guest, 1990: 35). Their attitude
towards English will influence much on the achievement in using the
language. Therefore, it is important to distinct between generalizations and
stereotypes. Stereotypes are fixed and are not open to change or
modification with experience, whereas generalizations are flexible and
change over time with our experiences (Clarke and Clarke 1990, 34) and
thus can aid understanding. As Lado (1957 cited in Valdes 1986) notes,
when comparing two cultures we must be very careful in the
generalizations we make and be prepared to revise or change these
generalizations as our understanding of another culture develops. This
yields in the facts that the Indonesian learners will be exposed to encounter
with English culture through Western media and brief encounters with
tourists, which can easily lead to unrepresentative stereotypical
impressions. The teachers can solve it by helping the learners through
discussions and critical examinations of them in the classroom using the
English media.
How to teach culture?

Referring to the theme of this writing that language and culture are
inseparable and that in teaching English we will also be transmitting the
values of English culture, in agreement, Kramsch has pointed out that
"language teachers are so much teachers of culture that culture has often
become invisible to them."(1993: 48). Therefore, culture should be best
taught in all aspects of language such as grammar and vocabulary. A
survey by Timmis (2002), states that the majority of learners and teachers
of English from a large range of countries expressed a desire to speak
English according to native speaker norms, however the survey also

demonstrated a wish to retain aspects of their own culture such as accent,

especially amongst Asian students (Timmis 2002, 242). These surveys
would seem to provide good evidence for teaching the culture of English
speaking countries. However, they also suggest that not only English-
speaking culture should be taught but also other cultures need to be
examined. In particular, learners need to develop an awareness of their own
and other cultures and this will be dealt with more fully in the examination
of approaches to teaching culture.
Dunnet et. al. suggest six aspects of culture that learners and
teachers should be familiar with. They are: (1) Languages cannot be
translated word-for-word…(2) The tone of a speaker's voice (the intonation
pattern) carries meaning… (3) Each language-culture employs gestures and
body movements which convey meaning…(4)…languages use different
grammatical elements for describing all parts of the physical world. (5) All
cultures have taboo topics…(6) In personal relationships, the terms for
addressing people vary considerably among languages. (1986, 148-149).
Teachers and learners should be aware of these features and be prepared to
analyze both their own culture and the target culture according to such
criteria.
Languages cannot be translated word for word.

As Dunnett et al. stress individual words have idiomatic uses and
connotations that go beyond the individual word itself. If we take the
English word 'serious' the list of connotations for a Indonesian are very
different to the average native speaker. Whereas in English it can have
positive, negative, or neutral connotations, the Indonesian connotations of
'hostess' (which can be translated in various ways e.g. 'nyonya rumah',
'wanita penghibur' or even 'PSK') are very different and usually associated

Noor Malihah
with immoral woman. This is not a concept that is likely to explain in a

simple dictionary style word-for-word translation.
The intonation pattern carries meaning.

The Indonesian language is a tonal language and so the intonation
patterns are very different to the English language. For Indonesian
students, it is important that they recognize the importance of tonal patterns
at the super segmental level in English as opposed to the individual
syllable pattern for tones in Indonesian.
Languages and cultures use non-verbal communication that conveys

meaning.
Although many gestures are similar in Indonesian and English such
as nodding for affirmation many others are not shared. A good example of
this is the ubiquitous 'Indonesian smile'. A smile given by some one will be
interpreted in various ways such like happiness, acceptance, satire,
annoyance, etc.
Languages use different grammatical elements for describing the

physical world.
Indonesian and English grammar are very different in a number of
areas such as subject use, tense and aspect, inflections and word order.
These can at times cause communication problems at a semantic level. For
instance, the Indonesian language contains no tense or aspect. This can
make areas of English grammar such as past simple or present perfect and
any accompanying temporal references difficult to grasp for Indonesian
learners. Even when learners understand them, they may find them
cumbersome and avoid using them (Svalberg and Chuchu 1998). The

extent to which this may represent different approaches to viewing the

physical world are debatable, however it will be understandable for those
who are familiar with both Indonesian and English culture that there is a
different concept about time.
Cultures have taboo topics.

Many of the topic taboos of English and Indonesian culture are the
same and certainly, Indonesian's rarely give offence, in my experience, to
native English speakers in terms of topic choice. Nevertheless, there are a
number of topics, which are perhaps a more acceptable choice of topic in
Indonesian than in English. For the English speakers, talking about marital
status, salary, religion, and age are taboo, meanwhile such topics are not
taboo to the Indonesian speakers since they usually easy to move their
conversation by asking the topics.
The terms for addressing people vary considerably among languages.

This is another area of considerable difference between English and
Indonesian. Terms of address in Indonesia often refer to the age of the
interlocutors. There is no equivalent for this in English, although
Indonesian students often ask for age clarification when it is not given in
English. For example when asked about my family, the Indonesian learners
will ask whether the brother or sister is younger or older than the speaker,
and therefore they need to know how the address their family members
where at the same time comparing the addressing terms use in both
languages. It is known that in Indonesia we know such term of „mbak‟,
„mas‟, or „dik‟ which reflect to the age of the intended person towards the
family. It is not found in English terms. On the way around, there is no use
of such first names in formal address rather than surnames. Native English

Noor Malihah
speakers are often referred to as Mr. followed by their first name and no
surname e.g. Mr. William.
Then it needs effort to achieve a full understanding of culture. If
language and culture are inseparable then as learners acquire a new
language they will also be acquiring a new culture. However, we cannot
expect this culture to be the same as either the learners' native culture or
the culture of the language they are studying. The learner will initially have
a synthesis with their own culture, and in learning, a foreign language such
as English may use it in ways that express meaning in their own culture.
Nevertheless, as learners' understanding of a foreign language develops
they may come to understand other values and meanings familiar to the
foreign culture that are alien to their own culture. Yet their understanding
of these values and meanings may still be different to that of the native
speaker.
Due to this phenomenon, Kramsch suggests that there should be a
„third place‟ in foreign language learning that the learner must make for
him/herself between their first cultures (C1) and the foreign language
culture (C2). This 'third place' involves the language learner in an objective
and subjective reflection of C1 and C2 from which they must choose their
own meanings that best reflect their personal perspectives. Hence, this
conception of culture emphasizes the importance of individual
interpretations of culture rather than rigid stereotypical notions. If this
process of acquiring culture and language is successful, learners should be
able to use English in such a way as to communicate effectively with
English NS and in a way that reflects their own local cultures and personal
beliefs (see Kramsch and Sullivan 1996). In this way, learners of English
will no longer be seen as trying to be pseudo-English NS but as speakers in
their own right.

The implementation in language teaching

The importance of culture within English teaching in Indonesia
develops well at present as well as the need for teachers and learners to be
aware of the complexity of culture. Since there are the various uses of
English in Indonesia previously, it will be better that the Indonesian
learners need to use English in multi-cultural contexts rather than with
reference to only the English speech community, and teaching content
needs to reflect this. Furthermore, teaching methodology itself needs to
mediate between Indonesian and Western educational values, especially
concerning communicative, learner-centered approaches to language
teaching (see for example Williams 1992, Kajornboon 2000).
There are some aspects, which are important to pay attention to,
they are (1) the teaching of culture should take place within the normal
language classroom and not as a separate subject as has been traditionally
the case in Indonesia. (2) Equally importantly, materials and content in
EFL instruction should try to make learners aware of the cultural content of
language learning and encourage Indonesian learners to compare English
culture with their own. (3) These materials must also encourage learners to
compare cultures and to take a critical perspective. Tomalin and
Stempleski (1993) propose a range of tasks such as class discussions,
research and role-plays using materials drawn from English speaking
countries that promote discussions, comparisons and reflection on English
culture and the learners own culture. (4) Teacher training for both the
Native English Speaking Teacher (NEST) and non-NEST should equip
them to deal with culture and cultural contrasts as they arise in English
teaching. In the context of learning English in non-English speaking
countries, for the local non-NEST, knowledge of English culture and of
their own culture would be necessary and some time spent in an English

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speaking country would be valuable.
Conclusion
If culture and language are interlinked and inseparable then we
need to try to teach culture in some kind of systematic way, as we try to do
with other aspects of language. However, there are problems in deciding
what culture to teach, possibly creating cultural stereotypes, and ignoring
the individual when teaching culture. Furthermore, in many foreign
countries, such as Indonesia, English is often used as an international
language rather than as a means of communicating with English speakers
from English speaking countries, bringing into question the relevance of
English speaking culture. Nevertheless, these difficulties do not mean that
culture should be ignored or left to unconscious processes. Learners and
teachers should be aware of the cultural aspects of communication and
language and need to be able to interpret these on both national and
individual levels. They should also be prepared to re-evaluate and re-assess
their knowledge based on experience. Learners also need to be encouraged
to view using a second language as a new cultural experience and not part
of either their native culture or the TL culture. Communication in an L2 or
FL takes place in a 'third place'. Teacher training, materials, and course
content within Indonesia need to reflect such uses of English. English
teachers in Indonesia should be familiar with both English and Indonesian
culture and be able to take cross-cultural perspectives. Moreover, materials
should encourage learners to reflect on comparisons between cultures and
to form their own perspective on them; through materials drawn from
English cultures, cross-cultural materials involving outsiders' observations
on English culture, and locally produced (Indonesian) English materials.
Finally the teaching of culture should be integrated into normal English

lessons and be a covert part of the lesson. The view of language learning
presented above encourages learners to view themselves as acquiring a
new culture and one that enables them to take a cross-cultural perspective
on their own and the TL culture.
References
Alptekin, C. and Alptekin, M. 1984. 'The question of culture: EFL
teaching in non-English speaking countries' ELT Journal 38/1:14-
20
Baker.W. 2003. Should culture be an overt component of EFL instruction
outside of English speaking countries? The Thai context. Asian
EFL Journal 1/2007-12/2007. Retrieved from http://www.asian-efl-
journal.com/EFL_sites_search.php
Byram, M. and Fleming, M. 1998. Language Learning in Intercultural
Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Damnet, A. 2003. Acquisition of Intercultural Non-verbal competence:
Examining the Discourse, The 23rd Thailand TESOL International
Conference; January 23-25, 2003; Bangkok, Thailand
Dunnett, S., Dubin, F. and Lezberg, A. 1986. English Language Teaching
from an Intercultural Perspective, in Valdes, J. Culture Bound,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Hymes, D. 1972. On communicative competence in Pride, J. and Holmes,
J. (eds.), Sociolinguistics, Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp 269-293
Kachru, B.B. 1977. 'The New Englishes and Old Models' English Teaching
Forum 15/3:29-35
Kramsch, C. 1993. Context and Culture in Language Teaching, Oxford:
Oxford University Press

Noor Malihah
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50/3: 199-212
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Publ.


Ruwandi
Ruwandi
Abstract
Caring of students in teaching-learning process should be one of the most

important attentions of teachers. They should be the central body by which
the measurement of success or failure is underpinned. Teachers will be
considered successful when their students get scores above the passing
grade. However, they must fail when the students get unsatisfactory
achievements. Even though students‟ success is the end of the aim of
teaching-learning process but their involvement is not taken into account
accordingly. To achieve such a goal, their internal potentials should be
revitalized. The inner potentials include attitude, motivation, aptitude, and
intelligence. The successful study can be achieved when the four internal
potential are well managed. For that reason, teachers‟ attention should be
addressed to intensify the potentials to get the significant yield.
Keywords: Care of, Internal Potentials, Attitude, Motivation, Aptitude,

Intelligence
Abstrak
Kepedulian terhadap siswa dalam proses belajar-mengajar harus menjadi

salah satu hal yang perlu diperhatikan oleh guru. Mereka harus menjadi
pusat dimana pengukuran keberhasilan atau kegagalan dikaji. Guru akan
dianggap berhasil bila siswanya mendapatkan nilai di atas batas rata-rata.
Namun, mereka dianggap gagal ketika siswa mendapatkan prestasi yang
tidak memuaskan. Meskipun keberhasilan siswa adalah akhir dari tujuan
proses belajar-mengajar, tapi keterlibatan mereka tidak diperhitungkan
secara layak. Untuk mencapai tujuan tersebut, potensi internal mereka
harus direvitalisasi. Potensi internal meliputi sikap, motivasi, bakat, dan
kecerdasan. Studi yang berhasil dapat tercapai ketika keempat potensi
internal tersebut dikelola dengan baik. Oleh karena itu, perhatian guru

harus ditujukan untuk mengintensifkan potensi tersebut guna mendapatkan

hasil yang signifikan.
Kata Kunci: Perhatian, Potensi Internal, Sikap, Motivasi, Bakat,

Kecerdasan
Introduction
Within education world, students are included into raw input. That
raw input should be cultivated and nurtured simultaneously to be ripe-input
that is outstandingly called out-put. The cultivation of the input is formally
conducted in teaching learning processes in classroom, although it may be
outside, sometime. The quality of the output is certainly dependent upon
the quality of the cultivation. Thus, the raw-input will be best out-put if the
students are cultivated well in the processes. Therefore, since students are
the raw input, they belong to one of the important determinants to achieve
the successful teaching-learning processes.
The existence of students in language classroom is influential. They
are determinants that should be taken into account for the better
achievement of teaching learning processes programmed. To so doing,
they should be involved in a few designs of teaching learning processes in
order that the processes can be accomplished effectively. They, for
instance, can be involved to communicate the objectives they are going to
achieve. Teachers may also invite them to create conducive situation for
language learning, to make simple teaching aids, and to improve the
quality of teaching. In addition, the teachers may communicate the
methods used so they become well prepared since they go out of home
teaching.
Students should be invited in accelerating teaching-learning
processes because they are living beings. They are not only still objects

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that should receive knowledge given by their teachers. Besides, they

should not only become information receiver but the information giver.
The cooperation between teachers and students in one hand and among
students on the other hand may make the warmer-academic interaction
among the determinants in the class. Such a kind of consideration to
students creates the humanistic situation in those processes. Thus, students
become real living subjects who know something and not merely still
objects knowing nothing. This is the fact that they have had invaluable
experiences that can be used to intensify the quality of the processes.
Since students are one of the determinants that influence the
successful teaching-learning processes, they can also be invaluable capital
to achieve their own success. Thus, the quality of the processes can be
influenced by the students so as the quality of the output. Not so many
students, however, realize that they have intentional position to consider
their own success in their study. Most of them just turn the quality of
teaching-learning processes as well as the quality of the out-put into their
teachers. The teachers are likely the only determinants who are able to
create and manipulate everything. They look like the only goalkeepers.
When their students are successful, all will admire them. Vice versa, if the
students fail to get the satisfactory goal, the teachers should look being the
only persons who should commit to the result of the processes. Supervisors
will immediately investigate them about whether or not they are well
prepared in considering teaching instruments to achieve the goals. In
addition, parents usually complain about the qualifications of the teachers
when their children not succeed to pass examination. Sarcastically,
sometimes, the stakeholders accuse them incapable of teaching. Realizing
that the students are one of the determinants invaluable in considering their
success, teachers should try making them aware of their having inner

potentials.
There are several internal potentials coming from students that
should be made use. Among the potentials are for instance attitude,
motivation, aptitude, and intelligence. The teaching-learning processes, in
fact, will be ideal if the students have positive attitude to the subject
studied, are well motivated, have positive assumption to their aptitude as
well as their intelligence. If the processes are well conducted, this is
unimaginable when they will obtain satisfactorily results of a program or
study.
Ramelan (1984) says the result of teaching may also be caused by
the students because they have strong motivation to learn language. They
may also have high IQ and language aptitude. Quoting Lambert‟s research
results, he affirms that students‟ motivation plays the most vital role in the
teaching-learning processes. For that reasons, it is necessary to best regard
such previous students‟ potentials. They should be aware that they have
individual-innate potentials having to be made use. As Ramelan‟s and
Lambert‟s points of view, their potentials must be used to improve the
result of their learning qualities. This is teachers‟ responsibility to
communicate those potentials.
Teachers are necessary to talk about students‟ potentials from the
very beginning. This should be the essential starting point to create
interactive teaching-learning processes. They are responsible for reminding
the students concerning their inner potentials because their awareness is
very contributive to achieve successful learning processes. They should
make them believe in the pre and post teaching-learning activities. This is
also possible to invite them to be adult learners in informal interactions. In
short, many ways can be used by teachers to involve students in all
academic activities. If the students have been involved to consider their

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success, the writer more believes that their learning result also will be
better then.
In the following chapters, the writer is going to discuss such kinds
of influential potentials that come from students in a brief.
Discussion
Attitude
Recently I taught English to common-adult students in an
Undergraduate Program of Non-English Department in State Institute for
Islamic Studies (STAIN) of Salatiga. The students have not studied
English since they graduated from Diploma years ago. Even, some of them
have not learnt the language for several years. They studied English at the
time because they should join the subject. They had no privilege target
except achieving the least expectation namely to get the least or the
minimal score of passing grade. This was the only expectation they were
going to achieve, nothing else. These students should take a seat in my
class because the Indonesian curriculum demands them to do. English is
one of the compulsory subjects having to be taken in their study at the
Department. In other words, they studied English since they were forced to
study; unless they had better take the other subject.
From a little interview I conducted in my class, I knew that the
adult students were forced to study English. At the first meeting, I
proposed several questions to the students. When I asked them why they
studied English; most of them argued that they did so because they should
do. If English could be substituted by the other subject; or if there were
still alternatives, they would be better to replace English with the subject.
However, since there were no alternatives, liked or disliked they should
adjust with the curriculum requirement. Unfortunately, if they refused to

take the subject into account, automatically they could not join the class as
well as finish their study.
Precisely, my adult students believed that English was very
complicated to study. Their negative attitude towards English did not come
into being in a short period. Even this had established from the very
beginning when they studied English at the first-secondary school. The
impression has accumulated and strongly established within their
innermost mind so far. Unfortunately, that negative attitude to it became
more and more psychologically powerful when they got terrible
experiences when they studied English. Brutal punishments given by
teachers when they made mistakes, for instance, were very traumatic. The
side effect of the punishments usually made negative mind-set and was not
easy to change. Finally, they keep having negative impressions or attitudes
in the following English course. This attitude is very hard to change
because it has been a conviction they believe a lot.
I did not still stand when I knew that my adult students have had a
negative attitude to English. I tried very hard to convince them that English
is easy. English is the same as the other languages as Indonesia, Arabic,
Russia, and the like. All of them can be studied so can English. You,
students, should study English because this is the only international
language that is widely used around the world. Two-third of the world
population use it as a means of communication in any fields. You should
realize that the use of it will be more and more significant when Indonesia
has joined the world-free market. However, this is not an easy job to
change my students‟ belief. It is not an overnight business. Therefore, even
though I have tried to change their perception to English, they keep
standing still. They keep having negative attitude to the language.
Negative attitudes to English bring about negative affects to the

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study of it. Some of the facts I found in my class were for instance:
students were not well motivated to study the language. They were also not
serious to overcome problems concerning the English study. They were
likely sitting at the class, but their thoughts were moving around outside
the classroom. Therefore, they did not concentrate to accept the
explanations from their lecturer. And the most fatal effect of such a kind of
attitudes is their mind-set by which they must pass through though they
have no absolute efforts and only get the least passing grade. It seems that
there has a certain warranty that they must pass through because their
lecturer should do so.
Brown (1980) says that attitudes affect human beings. They
develop early in childhood caused by parents‟ and peers‟ attitudes, contact
with people who are „‟different‟‟ in any number of ways, and interacting
affective factors in the human experience. The attitudes form a part of
one‟s perception of self, of others, and of the culture in which one is living.
In fact the research of personal attitude to language learning is not
something new. Several researchers have conducted researches concerning
the attitude. Most of the research results show that positive attitude to
language will elicit positive impression to the study of it. Conversely,
negative attitude to a certain language will bring about negative transfer to
the study of it. Finally, they come into conclusion that personal attitude has
significant relation to the successful study of language.
Brown (1980) says that in 1972, Gardner and Lambert conducted a
research concerning language study in Canada. They examined the effect
of attitudes on language learning. After studying the interrelationship of a
number of different types of attitudes, they defined motivation as a
construct made up of certain attitudes. The most important of these is
group-specific, the attitude the learner has toward the members of the

cultural group whose language he is learning. At the final of their research

they concluded that students who have a positive attitudes to French-
Canadians and who have desire to understand them and to empathize with
them will have high integrative motivation to learn French. That attitude is
a factor of the learner‟s attitudes toward his own native culture, his degree
of ethnocentrism, and the extent to which he prefers his own language over
the one language he is learning as a second language.
Brown (1980) also exemplifies the research result from John Oller
and his colleagues. They conducted several large-scale researches of the
relationship between attitudes and language success. They looked at the
relationship of Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican students‟ achievement in
English to their attitudes toward self, the native language group, the target
language group, their reasons for learning English, and their reasons for
traveling to United States. The researchers were able to identify a few
meaningful clusters of attitudinal variables that dealt positively with
attained proficiency. Each of the three researches yielded slightly differing
conclusions, but for the most part, positive attitudes toward self, the native
language group, the target language group enhanced proficiency.
Brown (1980) affirms that the second language learner benefits
from positive attitudes and negative attitudes may lead to decreased
motivation and in all likelihood unsuccessful attainment of proficiency.
Yet teacher needs to realize that everyone has both positive and negative
attitudes. The negative attitudes can be changed, often by exposure to
reality, by encounters with actual persons from other cultures. Negative
attitudes usually emerge either from false stereotyping of from undue
ethnocentrism. Teachers can assist in dispelling what one often myths
about other cultures, and substitute those myths with a realistic

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understanding of the other culture as one that is different from one‟s own,
yet to be respected and valued.
Since attitudes deal with the successful study of language, English
teachers have a big job to change students‟ negative attitudes to the
language. In these terms, they should convince the students that English is
not an exterminate subject. Studying English is the same as the study of
other languages. Without positive attitudes, this is impossible to succeed in
the study of the language.
Motivation
Motivation plays an important role in the study of a foreign
language. It belongs to one of the factors that not only considers student
success in the study but is also considered by his/her success in
comprehending the existence of it. Some students are aware it is important
and is very crucial to be revitalized. However, they could not manifest the
importance of it in their study. It is likely humankind having soul but does
not realize that they have the soul. They do not know where they should
stand with the motivation. For the reason, even though this is often
discussed but the students are still confused to comprehend and utilize that
motivation.
Motivation is an innate state of emotion; therefore, everybody has
this capacity. Because of this innateness, this is ineffectively managed. As
previously explained, sometimes a language learner does not realize that it
is a very big impulse being useful to promote his/her zest. He/she studies
as if he/she does not have it. This is the time to more understand the reality
and the use of the motivation. The writer believes that the awareness of its
reality may make studying more effective.
Several studies show motivation is one of the determinants of

success or failure. Brown (1980), for instance, affirms it is the everything

terms the most often used to explain one‟s success or failure in finishing
absolutely any difficult duties. This is easy to say he/she succeeds in
his/her duties due simply to the fact that he/she is well motivated. Thus we
can say a foreign language learner will be successful if he/she is motivated.
Conversely, the foreign language learner will fail because of his/her
imperfect motivation. This is supported by any studies and experiments
showing that motivation is a key to learning.
Brown (980) says motivation is an internal drive, impulse, emotion,
or desire that moves one to a meticulous action. More exclusively,
humankinds commonly posses needs or drives that are more or less innate,
however their power is environmentally stipulated. Ausubel cited by
Brown (1980) identifies six necessities of humankinds that belong to the
divisions of motivations, for instance: the necessity for exploration as
investigating the deep structure of words, observing the other side of
mountain for looking for the unknown; the necessity for manipulation as
using environment to cause change; the necessity for activity as moving
and exercising physically or mentally; the necessity for stimulation
because humans need to be encouraged by their environment, others, ideas,
thoughts, and feelings; the necessity for knowledge as processing and
internalizing the result of exploration, manipulation, activity, and
stimulation to overcome contradictions, to search the solutions of problems
and for self-consistent systems of knowledge; and the necessity for ego
enhancement since one needs to be known, accepted, and approved by the
other.
Joyce, Bruce Joyce at. Al. (1980) say among the most widely
discussed topics in second language learning is the role of motivation in
the successful acquisition of the target language.

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Wilga M. Rivers (1983) reminds us concerning the importance of

motivation especially for the second or the foreign language learner from
the very beginning. We should remember that motivation is a private realm
of the learner. As educators we need to attempt to manipulate it for our
students not for us, though we see that it is the consumer‟s necessity. Our
role is to understand it. Then we should try to meet the necessities and
wants of our students well by promoting their motivation in directions that
are satisfying them. It is absolutely true that our students may not always
realize consciously of what they need and may have only blurred
glimmerings what they want. Thus we can help them to explain these two,
so that their innate motivation – that energizing force each living entity
processes – may bring them ahead to wonderful and satisfying learning
under our attention and nurture. He uses the terms „nurture‟ not direction
because what we look for to stimulate is self-directed learning that results
from self-realizing motivation.
Actually motivation is not as simple as what people think and feel.
This is a very complex state of human mentality. Consequently, we need to
understand it mentally rather than physically. Eysenck at.al. cited by
Slameto (1987) says that motivation is a process considering activity,
intensity, consistency, and the general direction of human behavior. It is a
sophisticated concept dealing with the other concepts as aptitude, self-
conception, attitude, and the like. Sometimes students look unmotivated in
the point of views of teachers but actually, they are well motivated. In one
hand the students may well be motivated but there are also many outside
efforts, for instance from friends, that trigger them for being unmotivated.
Thus, motivation is not simple, but as complicated as the humans
themselves are.
Lado (1983) explains human motivation is infinitely more

complicated than animal motivation. He exemplifies perhaps, a wealthy

person having all his obvious needs completely satisfied may by an act of
his will choose to leave of all his comforts and wealth and go to some
isolated and primitive community to work for his fellow men under
unbelievable hardships. In the process of socializations he may learn a
strange language in short term when earlier in school he performed poorly
in foreign languages.
Language learning is dealt with human motivation moderated and
partly controlled by the will. High motivation increases learning. for
example, when dull practice is shown to contribute to language learning
which in turn contributes to the fulfillment of some future spiritual goal,
the learners wills to continue the dull practice and wills to learn instead of
yielding to the superficially more pleasurable activity of sleeping or
watching a movie.
Motivation is an innate energy. It is an abstract state of mental
activities. Sometimes this is very difficult to understand though by the
owners themselves. It is very important for a foreign language learner,
because it may consider the success or the failure of the foreign language
learning. Because motivation is sometimes so difficult to understand by the
owners, language teachers are responsible to help their students to
comprehend its existence in the human selves, thus they may intensify the
use of it in their studying.
Aptitude
Everybody has an innate ability to master languages. However, one
has different aptitude in the process and the progress of that language
mastery. The fact says that everyone speed in catching up language is
individually isolated and various. Some pupils master language very fast

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but others learn language in a normal speed. The other pupils, in fact, learn
language very slowly. The latter, accordingly, needs the longer opportunity
compared with those having the normal and faster speeds in language
learning. Although students study at the same class in a group of learners
but they will show different behavior in acquisition of the language.
Tony Wright (1988) affirms that the social atmosphere of the
classroom depends to a great extent on the strength of each individual‟s
participation. As a counterpoint to our discussion of the role of the learner
in the context of group activity let us now observe it from the point of view
of the individual learner. In spite of the tendency towards establishing
group norms of behavior in the classroom, every learner remains an
individual; no learning group is ever totally homogenous except in cases of
shared culture or roughly compatible age ranges. Even within such a group
there is likely to be a series of differences among the individual learners.
The following is a scheme for studying the behavior of individual learners
based on actual observation of classroom interaction rather than
psychological theory.
Figure 1
Teacher
(b) Oracular (a) Enthusiast
Individual Student group
(d) Rebel (c) Participator
Student Group
(After McLeish, quoted by Wright, 1988)

Four main types of learner are distinguished in this analysis.

Bearing in mind that individual could be placed anywhere on this diagram
and thus can differ according to the degree of the tendency towards being
of any one type; the types are as follows:
1. The enthusiast – this type tends towards the teacher as a point of
reference but at the same time is concerned with the goals of the
learning group.
2. The oracular – again, this centers on the teacher but this time is
much more oriented towards the satisfaction of personal goals.
3. The participator focuses attention both on group goals and on group
solidarity.
4. The rebel leans towards the learning group for his or her point of
reference but is mainly concerned with the satisfaction of his own
goals.
In the process of language learning, not all pupils realize that they
have different aptitude in the learning process. Most of the pupils assume
that everybody has equal aptitude in the learning. The assumption becomes
more sophisticated when their teachers also have the same assumption to
the students‟ aptitude. As a result, they will give the same treatment to all
students in the class; never mind whether their students are fast or slow
learners. Finally, both the students and the teachers agree to vote that ones
have excellent aptitude to those who learn very fast and others are stupid or
inaptitude to those who are very slow in language learning.
Usually, the terms aptitude and inaptitude elicit significant effects
to language learners. Students who feel aptitude will be well motivated to
learn. But on the contrary, those who feel inaptitude will be less motivated
and even become frustrated to study. They will be reluctant to study hard

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by reasoning that even though they have tried many they will get the same
results. This is since they are inaptitude.
Actually, the slow learner students must have different strategy to
study language from those who learn fast. They should be aware that they
are different from the fast learners. They may spend the longer times to
comprehend language materials; thus they need the longer times too to
study. Consequently, they must be more patient than those who fast learn.
However, this is very difficult to come into being. The slow learners like to
spend the same time as the fast learners. They not stay at school when they
finish studying early. They are reluctant to join discussion to sharp their
knowledge. They never go to library and more like to gossip or just chat
with friends, though they have opportunity to do. This is the fact that those
who are active in discussion are the fast learners not the slow ones. Then,
when they fail in the study they just say that they are inaptitude to study
language. The saying can be true because they are impatient to study not
because they are inaptitude.
Since aptitude concerns with language learning processes, language
teachers need to invite students to make a lot efforts. They should do a lot
because the aptitude can be manipulated. Report in researches say that
inaptitude students are able to master language well because they have
unmatched patient. They always study hard and consult with their teachers
when they find difficulties. They absolutely pro-active to confirm to all
who are able to solve their problems. Finally, they enjoy their efforts in a
fairly short time. And they become skillful in using language as the skills
of the fast learners.
To understand whether students have good aptitude or not, teachers
may conduct an aptitude test. Aptitude test is administered to measure
students‟ aptitude for learning. In language study, it can be used to predict

what kind of performance expected to be mastered by students. David P.

Harris (1969) suggests that at the time of speaking, the examinees may
have little or no knowledge of the language to be studied, and the test is
employed to assess their potential. Thus it can be administered for those or
common people who know nothing. In addition, when they have been
joining language classes, it is useful to determine the following level of
difficulties, materials, and students‟ grades.
Harmer (2001) says some students are better at learning languages
than others. At least that is the generally held view, and in the 1950s and
1960s it crystallized around the belief that it was possible to predict a
student‟s future progress on the basis of linguistic aptitude test.
Nevertheless, it immediately became apparent that such tests were
inconsistent in a number of ways. They did not appear to assess anything
than general intellectual capability even though they apparently looked for
linguistic talents. Further, they favored analytic type learners over their
more „holistic‟ counterparts, so that the tests were especially suited for
people who have little trouble doing grammar-focused tasks. Those with a
more „general‟ view of things – whose analytical capabilities are not so
highly developed, and who receive and use language in a more message-
oriented way – appeared to be at a disadvantage. In fact, analytic aptitude
is probably not the critical factor in success. Quoting Peter Skehan he says
that what distinguishes exceptional students from the rest is that they have
unusual memories, particularly for the retention of things that they hear.
Harmer (2001) says that another damning criticism of traditional
aptitude tests is that while they may distinguish between the most and the
least „intelligent‟ students they are less effective at distinguishing between
the majorities of students who fall between these two extremes. What they
do carry out is to influence the way in which both teachers and students

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behave. It has been suggested that students who score badly on aptitude
tests will become de-motivated and that this will then contribute to
precisely the failure that the test predicted. In addition, teachers who know
that particular students have achieved high scores will be tempted to treat
those students differently from students whose score was low. Aptitude
tests end up being self-fulfilling prophecies whereas it would be much
better for both teacher and students to be optimistic about all of the people
in the class.
Although there is still a debate concerning the importance or the
effectiveness of aptitude test but students‟ aptitude closely deals with the
speed of language mastery. The worry is about the result of the aptitude
test to the mastery; whether or not students who get low scores in aptitude
test must fail and those who get high score must be successful. There is
also assumption that the students getting low scores will be de-motivated
in language learning. If so, the solution is how to deconstruct students‟ de-
motivation to motivation to improve the students‟ aptitude to language
learning. Therefore, there must be a clear cut between the aptitude test and
students‟ aptitude. Aptitude test is not the solution to the betterment of the
students‟ aptitude to the learning. This is only one of the ways to predict
the students‟ aptitude in the learning. Therefore, the importance is the
management of the aptitude in the classroom learning.
Aptitude is different from intelligence. Lado (1983) states there is a
verbal aptitude distinct from general intelligence. Individuals are different
in their ability to learn a second language. Some individuals learn more by
memorizing related sentences, others by analogy, still others by rules and
systems. Individual differences in quantity of learning and quality of
achievement are surprisingly enormous. Some individuals, for example,
may learn three times as much as some of their classmates in eight weeks

of exhaustive study of a second language. In view of these differences,

students should not be forced to pursue exactly the same steps in the class
or in planned learning.
From the reviews above, it is clear that there are absolutely no
aptitude and inaptitude students. All students must be aware that this is
their business to be successful in the language learning. However, those
who feel slow in learning, in fact, should revitalize their ability to pursue
their success by studying a lot. This way may produce optimistic students
to achieve the better result in language learning.
Intelligence
The relation between language study and intelligence is similar
with that of language, brain, language acquisition, and language
development. The relation of them in brain is conceptual but the products
of the relation are very concrete. Take for instance; humans are able to
produce language utterances after their brain is stimulated by verbal
behaviors from outside. Formerly, they only receive the stimuli from others
before having abilities to produce the utterances. Then, the recipient tries
to retain the stimuli in the deepest brain possessed by all humans that will
be recalled sometime when they have been able to produce the language
utterances starting from the meaningless to the meaningful ones.
Amazingly, at the certain age – approximately six years, the young humans
have become matured in the language productions. They are able to use the
language by recalling the language stocks in their brain through oral or
written symbols. This is absolutely the work of brain sent to the humans‟
organs of speech. Thus, before they produce the language symbols, they
receive the language stimuli or verbal behaviors. The stimuli are processed
in the brain, and by the instruction of it, the organs of speech produce the

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language symbols. At the course of the time, the process of receiving,

processing, producing, and developing of language symbols becomes
polarized and complicated. For the reason, there are two working processes
done by the brain namely acquisition and production. At the former
activity, the brain receives and processes the language stimuli and at the
later stage, it produces and develops into the most sophisticated language
use.
This is the fact that the work of brain shares to all stages namely
from the receiving through processing and from the production through
development. In addition, the work is also important for the all stages.
Humans will have a great stock of languages when their brains are able to
receive the stimuli well. Similarly, the stimuli can be retained longer and
stronger when they are able to process those stimuli right. Besides, the
language products and the development of them may change significantly
when the brains work soundly too. The stage of the processes begins from
the simplest through the complicated in accordance with the development
of humans‟ brain. Humans are only able to receive when the quality and
capacity of their brains are still simple. However, they are very skillful to
produce unimaginable language utterances when their brain capacity and
quality develop.
There are several intelligences in our brain. Howard Gardner
quoted by Harmer (2001) says that humans have a range of intelligences.
They do not only have a single intelligence, in fact. According to him,
there are seven types of intelligences namely musical/rhythmic,
verbal/linguistic, visual/spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, logical/mathematical,
intrapersonal, and interpersonal. All people posses all of these
intelligences, but in each person, one or more of them is more pronounced.
The types of the pronouncing intelligences the humans‟ posses will

determine the typical occupation. People who have strength in logical and
mathematical intelligence will tend to be scientists. They having strength
in visual/spatial intelligence might well be that of navigators. The athletes
might be the typical end state of people who are strong in
bodily/kinesthetic intelligence. Those who have verbal/linguistic
intelligence will be skillful in the use of language and so on. Besides, he
adds another intelligence namely naturalistic intelligence to account for the
ability to recognize and classify patterns in nature. Then, Goleman adds the
ninth „emotional intelligence that includes the ability to empathize, control,
impulse, and self-motivate.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming practitioners use different terms
concerning the ways in which humans experience the world. They consist
of visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory or „VACOG‟.
Revell and Norman quoted by Harmer (2001) say all people have these
systems in experiencing the world, even though; they only have one
„preferred primary system‟. When people tend to have more pronounced
auditory system, they will be easy to be stimulated by music. Others, who
have visual as their primary preferred system, respond most powerfully to
images.
Based on the formulation VACOG concept, this is clear that
students will respond differently to stimuli and environment. Dede Teeler
quoted by Harmer (2001) says that kinesthetic students will behave
differently when introduced to the Internet as language learning equipment
from the dominant visual learners. The latter will need demonstration of
what to be done before they dive into Internet tasks, unlike their kinesthetic
friends who just get on and do it. Harmer (2001) says that VACOG also
shows some students will get most the things they hear whereas others
need to see them. This recommends that purely oral presentations of

Ruwandi
language will be most appropriate for some individuals in a group. While

visual material and written text may be more effective for other students.
Although the two suggestions use different terms concerning
language and intelligence but both of which show that there is a much-
closed relation between language learning and the intelligence? In addition,
they agree that all human beings have such a kind of intelligences. The
former emphasizes that everyone has different speed in language learning
because the one has a different pronounced intelligence. This is the fact the
speed of language mastery is very influenced by the intelligence. Thus,
people who have the more pronounced verbal/linguistic intelligence will be
faster in acquiring language than the others. The latter, however, more
emphasizes the learning styles characterizing the students. Some of the
bodies may be visual learners while others are auditory. This also suggests
that teachers should give different treatments and use different teaching
apparatuses in the language learning. In conclusion, the same learning task
and the same teaching equipment may not be appropriate for all of our
students.
Conclusion
At the preceding chapters, the writer has received several students‟
internal potentials influential in teaching-learning processes. The potentials
determine the success or the failure of study. If the potentials are well
organized within the learner-selves, it is unimaginable that the students
will get an amazing success. The students‟ potentials identified in this
paper are not the ends themselves. Academicians may have different
corners to view the potentials. In addition, they vary to see them but the
insight is useful to extend the paradigm of students‟ contribution to
successful study. The writer believes that the four components above

namely aptitude, motivation, attitude, and intelligence are the major terms
used to exploit students‟ potentials.
References
Brown, Douglas, H. 1980. Principles of Language Learning and
Teaching. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall International. Inc., Englewood
Cliffs.
Harmer, Jeremy. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching.
Longman: England.
Harris, David P. 1969. Testing English as a Second Language. McGraw-
Hill Book Company: New York.
Joyce, Bruce and Weil, Marsha. 1980. Models of Teaching. New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall International, Inc. Englewood Cliffs.
Lado, Robert. 1983. Language Teaching: A Scientific Approach. Bombay-
New Delhi: McGraw-Hill Publishing Co. Ltd.
Ramelan, 1984. Introduction to Linguistics for Students of English in
Indonesia. Semarang: IKIP Semarang Press.
Rivers, Wilga M. 1983. Communicating Naturally in a Second Language:
Theory and Practice in Language Teaching. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Slameto, 1987. Belajar dan Faktor-Faktor yang Mempengaruhinya.
Jakarta: Bina Aksara.
Wright, Tony, 1988. Roles of Teachers and Learners. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Beta Setiawati
Beta Setiawati
Language Center, Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta
Jl. A. Yani Tromol Pos 1 Surakarta
Abstract
The study is intended to know the Disney‟s animation films characteristics

which are adapted from non American stories that contain Americanization
in order to be American popular culture products. This qualitative and
library research is carried out within the field of American Studies.
Disney‟s animated films which are regarded as artifacts in order to identify
American society and culture is used as her primary data. She then
compares those Disney films with the original stories to discover the
changes in making those stories become American popular products. She
furthermore uses the sources such as books, magazines, journals, articles,
and also internet data for her secondary data. The result of this study shows
that most of folk narratives which were used in Disney films were adapted
from other countries‟ stories. However, Disney intentionally adapts foreign
countries‟ stories in its animated films by using Disney formula to blow up
the sale of its products. Since Disney is one of the most powerful media
conglomerates in the world, it works endlessly to set out world
entertainment. Disney formula in its animated films which has dominated
those adapted films are only intended to obtain as much profit as possible
without paying attention to the values in children entertainment.
Keywords: Americanization, Non American Stories, Animation, Popular

culture, Formula
Abstrak
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui karakteristik film animasi

Disney yang diadaptasi dari cerita non Amerika yang mengandung unsure
Amerikanisasi agar menjadi produk budaya Amerika yang populer.
Penelitian kualitatif dan studi pustaka ini dilakukan dalam lingkup Studi
Amerika. Film animasi Disney yang dianggap sebagai artefak untuk
mengidentifikasi masyarakat dan budaya Amerika digunakan sebagai data

primer. Dia kemudian membandingkan film-film Disney dengan cerita

aslinya untuk menemukan gubahan dalam pembuatan cerita-cerita agar
menjadi produk populer Amerika. Dia selanjutnya menggunakan sumber
seperti buku, majalah, jurnal, artikel, serta data internet sebagai data
sekunder. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa sebagian besar cerita
rakyat yang digunakan dalam film-film Disney diadaptasi dari cerita
negara lain. Namun, Disney sengaja mengadaptasi cerita luar negeri dalam
film animasi dengan menggunakan formula Disney untuk meledakkan
penjualan produk-produknya. Karena Disney adalah salah satu
konglomerat media yang paling kuat di dunia, karya-karyanya berhasil
tanpa henti untuk meramaikan dunia hiburan. Formula Disney dalam
bentuk film animasi yang telah mendominasi film-film yang diadaptasi
hanya dimaksudkan untuk memperoleh keuntungan sebanyak mungkin
tanpa memperhatikan nilai-nilai pada hiburan anak.
Kata Kunci: Amerikanisasi, Cerita Non Amerika, Animasi, Budaya

Populer, Formula
Introduction
Walt Disney Corporation is one of the American media
conglomerates which have monopoly control of global news and
entertainment. It has not only won the hardware and the wires but also,
increasingly, the content. Over the course of the more than 80 years in
operating the company, Walt Disney Company has practically become
synonymous with the medium of hand-drawn animation. Wasko stated that
“it has been regarded as the best American company which provides
predictable and reliable family entertainment through its animated feature
films” (2001: 112). This corporate control grants Disney the power to
create cultural icons and allows them to shape and limit the audiences‟
perception of reality which works to create a normative vision of the
world. Walt Disney, the man who is behind that huge company is a legend
and a folk hero of the 20th century. His worldwide popularity was based
upon the ideals which his name represents: imagination, optimism,

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creation, and self-made success in the American tradition. It brought the

people closer to the future, while telling them of the past. Walt Disney with
his enterprises in film, video, theme parks, cable, and network television,
cruise ships, toys, clothing, and other consumer products, leads in the
construction and promotion of U.S. popular culture. “Even, Disney now
serves as America‟s moral educator” (Real,1977: 52). “Dominating market
power in entertainment mitigated by avuncular representation adheres to
Disney in large part due to its primary production art form, the animated
feature” (Ward, 1993: 171).
For many years the Walt Disney Company has given the United
States and many other countries with unforgettable fairy-tales, love stories,
and magical animated adventures. Since its inception, Disney has given
them adaptations of many famous folk tales such as Cinderella, Bambi,
Lion King, Mulan, Aladdin, and so on. It has then evolved into a company
that strives to adapt aspects of many other cultures into its masterpieces,
and it is most likely done with good intentions. However, in its efforts to
expose viewers to other cultures, the storytelling can leave people that are
culturally aware or sensitive with a sense that the films are merely
bastardization from the original tales and culture. It also promotes a sense
of west over east or white supremacy. It is in line with the definition of
Americanization as the term used for describing the influence of the United
States of America on the culture of other countries. It also means that “it is
a kind of process to substitute other culture with American culture” (Chang
and Ha-Joon,2003: 34). Though, the word “Disney” is synonymous with
innocence to most parents. In fact, there are certain social ideologies
indirectly embedded within even the most classic, beloved, and timeless
Disney‟s animated motion pictures.
The study discusses Disney‟s animated film characteristics. From

that point, it can explore the ways and reason of Disney in wrapping non
American stories to be its products. Here, the writer only investigates the
construction, setting, and content of Aladdin (1992), Mulan (1998),
Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and Beauty and the Beast (1991). Those
non American stories will be blended in the analysis with some other
stories such as Lion King, Cinderella, Little Mermaid, etc. Those four films
have non American story background such as Aladdin (Arab), Mulan
(China), Hunchback of Notre Dame (French), and Beauty and the Beast
(French). Those stories come from other countries which must have
different cultural background from America.
Discussion
Racism in Disney films
In the hand of Walt Disney, many fairy tales, legends, or ballads
from other countries were remade into U.S versions for American viewers.
They adapt the story to extend the market and adapt to American culture.
Most of these "Americanized" versions were filmed in American places,
and with English-speaking actors. In some cases, an original story from a
foreign country is Americanized by recasting its leading characters as
Americans. Through years of growth and development, the Disney
Company has been able to place their products and images in the lives of
almost all children in America and other countries in the world.
Even though each culture has their own unique traditions and
history, Walt Disney does not always portray them accurately. There are
many ideologies about the characteristics of various races which show that
the one is superior to the rest. These cultural notions are often translated to
a variety of America‟s visual culture, including animation and the Disney
Company (Bell et.al, 1995: 171). ´If one was to list all 44 of Disney‟s

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classic hand drawn animated features, they would notice that all but three
of the approximately 22 movies telling the story of humans feature those
who are not white, while the rest of the animal based tales are
predominantly voiced by Caucasians” (Maio, 1999: 4). Every other race is
clearly underrepresented. When they are included in the film, they appear
as stereotypical representation of other nations who are often described as
inferior, ridiculous, wicked, and impolite. Beside that, Disney has the great
ability to shape and frame some values from other countries‟ stories to be
the products of American popular culture.
The movie that depicts the Arabic culture is 1992‟s mega hit
Aladdin. The Aladdin film is regarded as racist by Arab American groups
in the United States (Maio, 1999: 4). Before the real movie even begins the
barbaric attitude is established in the very controversial song Arabian
Night. Parts of the song‟s lyrics announce:
“Where they cut off your ear
If they don‟t like your face,
It‟s barbaric, but hey, it‟s home”.
The lyrics so offended particular viewers that the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee insisted that Disney change the lyrics.
Kanfer stated that after some consideration, two of the three lines were
changed to:
“Where it‟s flat and immense,
And the heat is intense,
It‟s barbaric, but hey, it‟s home”. (1997: 177)
Even though the most offensive parts of the original lyrics were
replaced, the fact still remains that Disney is trying to stress the barbaric
culture of the Arab world. Because Disney did not remove the final line
from the song even after the company was aware of dissatisfaction from its

Arab audience, the Aladdin film is racist.

In addition, it seems that Disney wants to expose that only in one
country, Saudi Arabia, there was a punishment by removing one‟s hand
and beheading one‟s head. It means that the country is still barbaric place.
During the movie, the merchant tries to chop off Princess Jasmine‟s hand
when she takes an apple to give to a starving child. The merchant does not
know that she will pay for it. It is also contradictive to the Islamic faith and
the vow to feed the poor or hungry people. In other side, when Aladdin
helps Jasmine to run away from sultan‟s palace, the palace‟s guards cry out
to behead him. The readers of Arabian Night must be confused with the
film since they can not find those parts in their reading.
Discrimination in Disney films

Disney‟s animators can also project American made stereotypes
into their animation. We can take an example, all evil characters in Aladdin
such as Jafar and the sultan‟s guards have beards and large, bulbous noses,
sinister eyes, and heavy Arabic accents. They usually use sword constantly
(Giroux, 1999: 32). Scheinin added in Ostman that Aladdin was modeled
on the American actor, Tom Cruise. The heroes such as Aladdin and
Jasmine, however, are light skinned, speak with American accents.
Aladdin does not have beard, turban, or an Arabic accent because Aladdin
is voiced by Scott Weinger (1996: 24). Even people call him „Al‟, an
American name. The original Princess Badroulbadour became Jasmine. In
the film, she is not a traditional Arab princess who always wears veil
anymore but a beautiful belly dancer. A belly dancer is regarded as
traditionally lower status to the Arab in the view of people in the world
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Arabs_and_Muslims).
Jasmine in Disney‟s Aladdin had a sense of sexuality rather than royalty.

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Jasmine's innocent sexuality is common for the female characters of

Disney movies. Even though Disney adapts and wants to tell the story of
a non white culture, Arabian culture, all of his main characters are
practically American. This ethnic and nationalistic stereotyping is not a
new phenomenon in Disney cartoons or in animation generally. As
Schweizer pointed out that “this submerged nationalistic propaganda can
be seen as early as Pinocchio in 1940 in which the protagonist, Pinocchio
and the good fairy both have American accents, but villainous character
have either Italian or English accents “(1998:67).
Less blatant discrimination can be found in Disney‟s The Lion
King. Even though “the picture uses an African tribalism culture, as well as
makes its setting within the continent of Africa, there is not a single
character with African characteristics. Instead of using African humans in
the film, Disney opted to replace them with animals” (Kilpatrick and
Jacquelyn, 1995). This is relevant to American society because the society
has not yet fully embraced African-Americans as being completely
accepted. Although modern America is more than willing to acknowledge
the culture and habits of African Americans, like we can see in the movie
tribalism, it is not ready to fully accept African color as the norm. It is
shown to the using animals instead of African humans in Disney‟s Lion
King. African Americans will always be different in the eyes of the white
majority of America, if only by skin color. “Disney chose to intentionally
overlook the inclusion of Africans so that there would not be the chance of
offending an immense number of African Americans with unintentional
production errors” (Kilpatrick and Jacquelyn, 1995: 5).
We can also assume that The Lion King is also home to many
American overtones. Disney depicted the villains, hyenas, as unintelligent
creatures living a barren, lifeless area, the rough equivalent of the slums

and ghettos of America. The hyenas are the equivalent of American

minorities who live in these slums, and are portrayed negatively. The lions
that live in the areas of rich vegetation and animal-life, on the other hand,
are portrayed as the heroes, the positive side of the vast society used in the
story. Additionally, African-Americans voice actors were intentionally
hired to voice the lower and unintelligent characters (Kanfer, 1997: 179).
The American tendency to correlate minority figures living in the less
well-to-do areas of the country with societal negativity can be interpreted
through this movie. “The crows in 1941‟s Dumbo have distinctively black
voices while one is even named Jim. It was clearly referencing the historic
Jim Crow laws which promoted segregation against African American and
now it becomes a taboo label for black people” (Kanfer, 1997: 178). He
also added that Disney does not only portray them in feathers but also as
good hearted and chuckleheaded simpletons whose skills are confined to
singing and dancing. Even though none of the characters in the examples
above are visibly black, Disney attaches and implies a meaning by using
the voice with the image. Tavin explains how animals and non-human
representations in Disney films are not immune to this racial stereotyping.
The characters often use language in the form of racially coded accents and
inflection (Tavin et.al., 2003: 56-57).
Audience can also observe in another Disney movie that takes place
in Africa, 1999 Tarzan which eliminates the presence of blacks in Africa
altogether. It also promotes white supremacy to any who view that film.
There is the same case in the relationship between Pocahontas and John
Smith in Disney‟s Pocahontas. Even though the white people in this movie
are the enemy, there is still a suggestion of white supremacy because
Pocahontas essentially falls in love with the first white man she sees
(Edgerton and Jackson, 1996: 92). In real life, Pocahontas was a very

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young girl of 12 years old and in fact, she never had any romantic
relationship with John Smith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocahontas_
History) who is described as a blond, smoothly muscular, and athletically
animated in Disney‟s film. While Chief Powhatan appears more sedate in
bold, symmetrical strokes, with slower and more dignified screen
movement and dialogue. John Smith can fulfills his heroic ideal in vision
and plot because in the end of the film, the good colonialist intervenes to
save Powhatan and order to arrest of Ratcliffe, the villain. The facts above
show us that Disney‟s art is also reflective of America‟s glorification of
white culture. Even if it was done unconsciously, Disney‟s animations help
to create a society in which its members conform to the life of white
people. In America, being white is seen as being powerful and in control.
As a result, characters with stereotypically non white characteristics may
be regarded as a different race, such as the evil villains or troublemakers.
In Disney‟s Hunchback of Notre Dame, Judge Claude Frollo, the
French Minister of Justice is narrated as a harsh character. He catches and
kills one of the gypsy women who want to enter Notre Dame. The killed
woman brings the bundle which contains a baby. Frollo then realizes that
her bundle is a deformed baby, which he attempts to drown because he
believes that he is an unholy demon. He is stopped by the Archdeacon,
who tells him to care for the child to save his own soul from going to Hell
for killing an innocent woman. He reluctantly agrees, naming the baby
Quasimodo, which means 'half-formed‟. The movie formulates the cruelty
of Judge Frollo to describe the condition of French‟s justice. In fact,
Hugo‟s novel did not tell the same. In Hugo‟s novel, we are told about
Quasimodo's background. How he was found as a hideous and abandoned
baby and taken in by Claude Frollo, the archdeacon of Notre Dame. His
love for Frollo because he has grown him up was described clearly in the

novel. Frollo is shown to be a formidably intellectual man, forced early on

to become a parental figure because he and his younger brother, are left by
their parents in young age or they are orphaned (http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/The_Hunchback_of_Notre_Dame).
In Hugo‟s novel, Quasimodo was not arrested and locked in the
belltower to protect him from the cruel and wicked world below by Frollo
but free. In the film, Frollo insists that Quasimodo should not be among
people as cruel as his mother, who abandoned him, and that he must obey
Frollo's requests in order to thank Frollo for taking him in and raising him
as his son. Quasimodo is watched over by his three guardian angels in the
form of stone gargyoles: Victor, Hugo and Laverne. It proofs that Disney
tried to describe Quasimodo‟s desire to be free or to get freedom which is
absent in Hugo‟s novel. It is also unfair to describe the cruelty of Frollo as
a French Minister of Justice since it can give certain stereotypes about
French justice to the audience. It also shows that Esmeralda's execution is
done by burning her at the stake in front of the cathedral. In fact, Notre
Dame cathedral is a Gothic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la
Cité in Paris, France. It is still used as a Roman Catholic cathedral and is
the seat of the Archbishop of Paris. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre_
Dame_de_Paris). Whereas in the novel, she is only hanged. As with many
of its animated films released during 90s, then Disney‟s Hunchback of
Notre Dame can be read as discouragement of French national culture
(http://www.case.edu/alfil/sce/Texts_2001/Needham).
Feminism in Disney films

A more American concept in Disney‟s films is feminism. Referring
to the issue of American feminism, Disney tried to bring the concept of
American feminism to his film Beauty and the Beast. Empowered by her

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intelligence and book smarts, the young heroine Belle in Beauty and the
Beast, is portrayed as an independent woman stuck in a provincial village
in eighteenth century France. The people see her as odd because she
always has her nose in a book. She is pursued by Gaston, the ultimate vain,
macho male typical of Hollywood films of the 1980s but Belle rejects him.
In the end she gives her love to the Beast who holds her captive in the
hopes she will fall in love with him and break her fear of him as a young
horrific man. When her father is imprisoned by a beast, Belle goes to save
him. She then decides to make a deal actively, so her father goes back
home and Belle takes his father‟s place bravely in the Beast‟s castle
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Beast-Film). Belle does not
only fall in love with the Beast, but she also "civilizes" him by instructing
him on how to eat properly, control his temper, and dance. Belle becomes a
model of brave, smart, and active woman who is able to change every
single bad thing to be the good one. She has power to transform the Beast
to be the one who is sensitive, caring, and loving. In the end, Belle simply
becomes another woman whose life is valued for solving a man's problems.
Disney has changed the original story in the Mme Jeanne-Marie
Leprince de Beaumont‟s Beauty and the Beast. In Beaumont‟s story,
Beauty is an obedient girl. When her father lost in a forest and caught in a
storm, he found shelter in the Beast's palace. As he leaves, he plucks a rose
to bring back to Beauty, offending his unseen host, who denouncing him as
a thief, tells him he must now die. The father begs to be allowed to see his
daughters again. The Beast says that if one of the man's daughters will
return to suffer in his place, he may live. Beauty journeys to the Beast's
castle convinced she will be killed, but instead she is made mistress of the
enchanted palace, and the Beast asks her to be his wife. She says she can
be his friend, and will stay with him forever. She entrusts her life totally

without any effort to make her condition better. She does not try to civilize
the Beast at all. Disney makes the magic on passive Belle in this film so
the audiences always miss its next romantic films.
The same case is occurred in Aladdin film. In the story of Arabian
Night, Princess Badroulbadour lives under her father‟s rules. She is a
veiled girl who is always in the palace all along day without any
complaints. The Sultan has arranged her marriage. After being married by
the rich Aladdin, she lives in her own palace. She never knows her
husband‟s business at all. Even, she asks her slave to change the old lamp
of Aladdin, which is in fact, the magic lamp, with the newest lamp. It
shows that the princess still lives in the place which applies traditional
gender role. In contrast with Princess Jasmine in Disney‟s Aladdin,
Jasmine is another free-spirited, smart, active, and rebellious girl who
wants everyone to know that she can do everything the boys can. Jasmine,
the teenage daughter of the Sultan, who must be married before her
upcoming birthday, has great power to reject every prince she meets
because she wants to be married for true love. She runs away from her
palace to have free life skilfully as if she is used to be street girl. She also
adapt the ordinary people‟s life fast. She is able to arrange her own life
without influence of people around her. Moreover, she has great power to
influence her father‟s law which asks her to marry a prince so that Jasmine
can marry anyone she chooses, Alladin.
Disney‟s concept of feminism is also visible in Mulan which was
used by Disney as a platform to jump into the Chinese market and released
in the midst of intensifying anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States
(Nguyen, 2001: 8). The animators have drawn their visual inspiration from
Chinese and Japanese sources in Mulan. The characters' simple lines and
the clean look of the backgrounds remind people of classic Asian painting.

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Plus, the filmmakers haven't "Westernized" the characters' features (Budd,

1999 90). While there were several cultural aspects incorporated in the
making of Mulan such as the importance of honor and shame in society,
Mulan is simply a mirror for American feminist ideas, which reflects the
modern perception of the woman as a person that is just as capable, if not
better, at doing anything males can. The young Chinese girl rendered an
entire army of males completely useless.
In the legend, it was told that Hua Mulan distinguished herself in
battle and was promoted up the ranks. Eventually she became a general
known for her brilliant military strategies. All through her 12 year military
career, no one ever found out that Hua Mulan was a woman. According to
history, when the war was over, the emperor asked General Hua what
reward "he" would like. General Hua said he had no use for high official
positions and only asked for a speedy horse to take him home to his
parents. General Hua went home ,by that time she was about thirty years
old and returned to the weaving loom which she left before the war
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Mulan). The audience can not find the
part that Mulan‟s friends knew her pretending as a man as we see in the
film. Disney made the trick of Mulan that is found as a woman in the
middle of the story to expose American feminist idea which now becomes
the idea of modern women in the world.
Gender is an important topic in today's society. Most people feel
pressure to conform to certain gender stereotypes without really
understanding what they are and even without being aware of their
influence on our perceptions. Gender roles are the qualities and
characteristics that are considered essentially feminine or masculine. The
traditional gender role rules that a woman's place is in the home while a
man's place is to provide for the family. “The media often uses gender to

its advantage and Disney productions are not different” (Bell, 1995: 80).
Many people are also concerned with the portrayal of women and the
questionable behavior in Disney films. In Disney‟s stories, mothers are
missing and men rule the society. Bambi‟s mother is killed. Snow White‟s
mother tries to kill her and is ultimately killed. Belle, Cinderella, Ariel,
Pocahontas, Quasimodo, Aladdin are all motherless. Filling the motherless
in these films are over protective fathers such as Triton in Little Mermaid,
eccentric father Maurice in Beauty and the Beast. Men exist to save and
protect girls and rule kingdoms. Typically women are shown in a position
of princess, queen, or homemaker, for example, Ariel in the Little
Mermaid, Jasmine in Aladdin, Belle in Beauty and the Beast, and so on.
Cinderella is a maid and then a princess. It seems as if women are seen as a
commodity in a patriarchal society. It also seems that they are illustrated
as being subservient to the male characters who typically display powerful
behaviors, such as Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, Phoebus in Hunchback
Of Notre Dame, Aladdin, etc. They are portrayed using forceful behavior
in order to get what they want.
Male Dominance in Disney films

As early as Disney's first animated classic, there has always been an
emphasis on male dominance for nearly every film. Prince Charming
kisses Snow White and brings her back from the dead. Then he rides
happily ever after with her to his castle in the clouds. Whereas, in the
original Snow White that is well known in Europe, Snow White is waken
up from the coffin because the prince and his men carried the coffin away.
The coffin jerked and the piece of poison apple flew out of Snow White's
mouth, awakening her. The prince then declared his love and soon a
wedding was planned. Disney made as if the prince can make Snow White

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alived. This also appeared in Disney‟s Cinderella. Cinderella‟s Prince is

smart enough to find her and rescue her from the clutches of the Evil
Stepmother. It is similar when Belle takes over the castle as if she is a
house manager rather than as equal ruling partner because the film has led
us to believe that this beauty does a great job of keeping homes. Jasmine as
a Princess is ultimately subservient, to her father and to Aladdin.
Pocahontas may save her man, but she is never in charge of anything. She
is not a ruler. Mulan may be the best warrior in her country because she
can save her country for the ruling males but she ultimately accepts her
woman‟s role by going back home away from politics and power.
Going even further, many audiences do not see Cinderella's
personality or actions in a negative light. She is a description of an ideal
woman that is expected to be in Disney and American culture in general at
the time. For the audiences of the movie, Cinderella has many admirable
qualities, taking a more calm and discreet approach in fulfilling her wishes,
and chooses to be kind even to those who mistreat her. The princesses of
Cinderella and Snow White are the result of years of adversity at the hands
of Walt Disney. They both seek their Prince charming to come and sweep
them from their feet and take them from the harsh reality of life. Oddly
enough, the princes in these two stories are merely conventional males,
instilling the idea that females must remain a passive entity until the time
when a man will actively pursue her. The construction of gender identity
for girls and women also represents in both The Little Mermaid and The
Lion King, the female characters are constructed within narrowly defined
gender roles. All of the female characters in these films are ultimately
subordinate to males, and define their sense of power and desire almost
exclusively in terms of dominant male narratives, for instance, Ariel, the
woman-mermaid in The Little Mermaid, at first glance appears to be

engaged in a struggle against parental control. She is motivated by the

desire to explore the human world and willing to take a risk in defining the
subject and object of her desires. But in the end, the struggle to gain
independence from her father, Triton, and the sense of desperate striving
that motivates her dissolves when Ariel makes a Mephistophelian pact with
the sea witch, Ursula. In this trade, Ariel gives away her voice to gain a
pair of legs so that she can pursue the handsome Prince Eric. While
children might be delighted by Ariel's teenage rebelliousness, they are
strongly positioned to believe in the end that desire, choice, and
empowerment are closely linked to catching and loving handsome men.
We can as well implicitly see the traditional gender role in 1998‟s
Mulan. While this film is not seemingly stereotypical on the outside with a
brave and heroic female leader, it does include several negative American
ideologies about China. The movie opens with a matchmaking scene. It
implies that women can not think for themselves and are only useful in the
home where they follow their husband‟s orders. Lyrics in the song “ Honor
to Us All recites: “ Men wants girls with good taste, calm, obedient, who
work fast pace, with good breeding and a tiny waist” (Christensen, 2004:
6). She adds that in fact, the arranged marriages that are portrayed here
never took place in China. Here the animators are projecting mythical ideas
and notions that Americans have about China into the movie and claiming
it as reality. In another side in the movie, when Mulan attempts to vocally
stop the army from enlisting her injured father, the emperor‟s assistant
replies,”Silence! You will do well to teach your daughter to hold her
tongue in a man‟s presence”(Christensen, 2004:7). While these examples
also support ways in which Disney presents gender stereotypes, it also
reflects on ill conceived ideas of the Asian culture.
In Disney‟s Hunchback of Notre Dame, Esmerelda‟s power comes

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from her sexuality. She is able to resist arrest because Captain Phoebus, the
blond-haired, blue-eyed hero who has fallen in love with her. She is also a
gypsy, and because gypsies are witches, she is able to magically disappear
to evade capture by Frollo‟s cronies. While seeking sanctuary in Notre
Dame, she becomes friends with Quasimodo and discovers her dream. She
is not seeking adventure, but help from God for the outcasts of the world.
Because she and the gypsies "live outside the normal order," we don‟t
expect her fate to fall within this order. For instance, she will not be
marrying a handsome prince. In the film‟s climax, she is burned at the
stake for witchcraft. She doesn‟t die of course. She is saved by Quasimodo.
In the end, she presumably lives happily-ever-after with Phoebus. The
traditional gender role in this film is exposed to change the main message
of Hugo‟s novel which emphasizes Esmeralda‟s effort and trial as the main
color of the novel.
The idea of male dominance in Snow White (1937), Cinderella
(1950), The Little Mermaid, and The Lion King, while is not strictly an
American concept, it still remains an example of society at that time
through the media. Traditionally in American culture, a higher value has
been given to whatever is defined as male. Harvard Law School, for
example, did not open its doors to female students until 1950
(Marylyn,1996: 66). People can also find in Claudia Goldin‟s statement in
her book Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of
American Women that “as the gendered work that men and women
performed within the household economy was transferred to mill and
factory, jobs were gendered” (Goldin, 1999: 22-24). She also stated that
little value and low pay was attached to tasks usually performed by
women. For minority women, sex discrimination in employment
compounded racial and ethnic discrimination, placing them to jobs at the

very bottom of the economic scale. Occupational segregation and lower

wages, as well as unrecognized, uncompensated labor for those doing
housework, left most women economically dependent on men (1989: 24).
It is clearly proved that sex discrimination still run in America in the
nineteenth century.
Rebelliousness of teenagers in Disney films

Disney has also repeatedly supported the idea that teenagers are
rebellious and deviant people. It is similar with the stereotype that plagues
the majority of modern American teens. Today, the term teenager has a
negative connotation (Ostman, 1996: 83). Support for this concept can be
found very openly in The Little Mermaid. When the protagonist of the
story, Ariel, is scolded by her father, King Triton, for disobeying an order,
she leaves in tears. Sebastian, Triton's trusted advisor, can make sense of
the situation by sarcastically uttering “teenagers...”. More evidence is
found in Aladdin, where the teenage Princess Jasmine runs from her palace
home to the marketplace. In a matter of minutes, her arm is nearly removed
by a shopkeeper for stealing an apple. The character Jim Hawkins from
Disney's Treasure Planet is another example. He is introduced in the
movie as a criminal youth that has trouble with the law and communicating
with his mother (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Planet_Film).
While The Ballad of Mulan tells of Mulan's decision to join the draft. Her
openness about her decision, and her parents' knowledge of, and
acceptance of her course of action are in direct opposition to the Mulan
story presented by Disney, in which Mulan runs off in secret to her parents'
dismay. It is also one point stresses in teenager rebellion. We can also find
this characteristic in Hunchback of Notre Dame film. As the Festival
begins, the two of guards who arrest Quasimodo head into town to join and

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patrol the crowd. At the same time, Quasimodo sneaks out of the tower in
disguise and watches the Festival, where Clopin and the Gypsies are
performing the dance. Although Frollo does not allow him to appear in the
crowd. In Beauty and the Beast, Belle sneaks into the forbidden West
Wing, discovering slashed furniture, broken mirrors, a ripped-up portrait
with strangely familiar blue eyes, and the enchanted rose although Beast
has forbidden her to go there. The Beast catches her and she flees the
castle, only to encounter a pack of wolves. At the last minute, the Beast
fights off the wolves and a grateful Belle returns to the castle and the two
start to become friends.
The concept of true love in Disney films

In Disney tales there is one true love waiting out there for the hero
or heroine. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the
Beast, Lady and the Tramp, Pocahontas and others all celebrate this. There
are problems in the lives of each of these characters: Sleeping Beauty and
Snow White are dead and a kiss makes them alive and married.
Pocahontas, Belle, Ariel and Cinderella are looking for a better life,
looking beyond their bored, looking for existence for happiness. Of course
happiness is defined as life with a man, one special man. Love at first sight
is inevitable and appropriate. Furthermore Prince Eric should kiss Ariel
whether she wants to be kissed or not, because she is "the one" and he has
a duty to follow his feelings. There is one ideal romantic mate for everyone
in Disney‟s stories. One must find this person and marry him or her to have
a complete life. In Disney films it is not enjoyable to be single because it
means to be lonely and unfulfilled.
The importance of performance and wealthy in Disney films

We can also observe that beauty or good looking is everything in

Disney films. Most heroic characters in Disney stories are young. In

Disney's world there are seldom characters that fall in love who are not
beautiful or handsome. Even animals like Bambi and Lady and the Tramp
are the best looking in their worlds. Hercules has the body of Arnold
Schwarzenegger (Chesebrow and Bertleson, 1996: 143). Belle's Beast is
really just a young with a curse problem. Prince Charming is so charming
and gorgeous to look at. Cinderella makes a big deal about dressing and
being beautiful before going to her prince. Mulan is described as the most
beautiful girl of Chinese girls who join in matchmaking. Pocahontas looks
like a Barbie doll. They look beautiful or handsome, dress attractive, and
marry good looking person.
In addition, being rich and powerful are more appealing in most of
Disney films. In Pocahontas when the British first arrive, the Governor
sings about the better life filled with mountains of gold. “It's gold and it's
mine, mine, mine. There'll be heaps of it, and I‟ll be on top of the heap”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocahontas_film). The guards of sultan‟s
palace in Aladdin also sings “Who has the gold has the rule” when they
look for Aladdin because he helps Jasmine to run away from the palace.
But Aladdin can marry Jasmine in the end of the story because he has more
than the gold, magic lamp that can grant all his wishes. The Beast has a
great wealth so he can guarantee Belle‟s enjoyable life. Mulan is not only a
girl but also from the ordinary family in China but she can save the
Chinese troops from the villain so she can get immense attention from the
leader of the army, the Khan, and people all over her country. In The Lion
King Simba enjoys a relative life of leisure while waiting to ascend to his
inherited destiny as monarch. Cinderella works hard at the beginning of the
film as an indentured servant but the happy ending for her is that she will

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never have to work again. Cinderella as the main character strives for a
better life and finally she gets the one who is rich.
The significance of magic in Disney films

Success while the Disney heroes journey on their quests is achieved
with the help of wishing and magic. It is not strictly done by the heroes´
own abilities and devices. Esmeralda is told as a gypsy, and because
gypsies are witches, she is able to magically disappear to evade capture by
Frollo‟s cronies. Pinocchio has Jiminy Cricket, his conscience. Dumbo has
Timothy Mouse, his teacher. Ariel the mermaid has Sebastian the crab and
Flounder the fish to guide and teach her. Belle the Beauty has mentors in
the guise of talking furniture to help her find her true love. They also have
the magic mirror to see the certain events. The Khan troop‟s practice and
effort is nothing if it is compared with Mulan who has Mushu, an
unusually small dragon that has been sent by her ancestors to bring Mulan
back home savely. Mulan has her second good luck charm, a cricket named
Cri-Kee. So that she can work hard and she is soon even stronger than the
rest although Mulan starts out physically weak in comparison to her fellow
soldiers. Finally she becomes a respected part of her group, which is led
by Captain Li Shang. In other side, Aladdin is able to reach his dream by
the help of smart mouthed genie inside the Magic Lamp and Jafar has a
smart-mouthed parrot. Cinderella couldn't be successful without the Fairy
Godmother and Cinderella herself is a friend and protector to the mice and
other animals which are always ready to help her. In Pocahontas, John
Smith learns many things from Pocahontas who get wisdom from the
spirits. The wish or magic motif is also present in more recent Disney‟s
productions.
The audiences are allowed to laugh at the developmentally disabled

in some of Disney films. In Beauty and the Beast, Gaston's friend and
assistant, Le Fou is clearly not very intelligent. Gaston slaps Le Fou around
and verbally abuses him. These episodes are played in Disney film for
laughs. Gus-Gus is the overweight mouse in Cinderella. The audiences
usually laugh at this object because he is slow of mind. He is also slow of
foot because of his girth and we have more reason for audiences and
children laughter. The other proof is when the time comes to crown the
ugliest member of the crowd as the King of Fools in Hunchback of Notre
Dame, Quasimodo is chosen and then crowned as the King of Fools. The
humorous behavior of the crowd leading him to believe he is being
honored. Moments later, the crowd ties him down and throws food at him.
Then in another story, Dumbo is cruelly ridiculed by the gossipy, wicked
female elephants, but clearly we are meant to see this as wrong behavior
for the audience. However later in the film the likable and funny crows
also make fun of Dumbo. The circus clowns use and abuse the big-eared
Dumbo in hurtful ways (Kuenz, at.al., 1995: 112-114). Most everyone in
Dumbo's world except his mother and Timothy mouse pretty much treat
Dumbo with contempt and with cruel laughter. It's only after Dumbo
proves himself by flying and becoming economically profitable to the
circus does the disfigured baby elephant get respect from his circus peers.
Thus, being ugly and disfigured is laughable and reason for scorn.
However, being disfigured is just fine as long as you bring money into the
circus and spread the wealth around. Riches make the sarcastic laughter go
away.
Culture distortion in Disney films

There are some kinds of historical distortions that are done by
Disney Corporation in creating stories‟ adaptation to some serious

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literatures which have helped to define cultures. The Disney version of

Victor Hugo‟s The Hunchback of Notre Dame outraged French critics and
citizenry (Schickel, 1998: 120). Disney took a significant part of French
literary history and added talking gargoyles, a kindler, gentler Hunchback
character. The audiences can not find deaths or murders in this story.
Disney tacked on a romantic happy ending for good measure. Hugo´s
original tale is hardly recognizable in this Disney‟s film. Another example
of literary distortion involves the Greek story, Hercules. In Disney´s film
version, Hercules kills the Minotaur which was Theseus in legend. Zeus,
rather than being the womanizer of the Gods is a kind of an animated
immortal "Father Knows Best" of the skies. In the film Hercules´ mother is
Hera when in fact Hercules´ mother was Zeus´ mistress Alcmene. In
Disney´s version Hercules slays the Medusa when in the Greek myth it was
actually Perseus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_Film). The second
type of distortion which occurs in Disney tales is the blatant corruption of
historical fact and real-life people. Pocahontas was an actual person who
never had a romance with John Smith and in fact married one of the other
members of Smith's crew and went back with him to Great Britain. There
she died of a disease at an early age. Contrast this to the final scene of the
Disney version of this story as Pocahontas says goodbye to her lover, John
Smith, as the British crew sails back to England without her (Edgerton and
Jackson, 1996: 93). The audiences also can not find the true history in
Disney‟s Mulan. Mulan, the story which celebrates the Chinese heroine,
distorts the history and facts of the events which took place. In the real life
legend, Mu-Lan did not need a Dragon to help her win battles. Mulan is
not offered a job as a confidant to the Emperor because of her heroism in
the legend. It was something which Disney creators simply made up.
Those stories are distorted for a modern audience who will not be educated

about the history of other nations‟ cultures since the modern audience
usually ignore them.
Disney has assured market demand and follows an industry trend of
making more money from the sales of video tapes than from box office
receipts (Van, 1990: 66). There are two questions which are tacitly stated
in these video advertisements. The first is as parents how parents can deny
their children own and buy re-watchable copy of the latest special
animated video release, and the second is as parents how they dare deny
their children the archetypal magic and myths of childhood.
Although many adults are also included as Disney‟s films
consumers, most of those films‟ audiences are children. Statistics show that
“74 percent of children say that they want to copy what they see in the
movies” ( Schweizer, 1998: 68). Sooner than later, children accept what
they see in these animation as the “truth”, and do not question whether or
not what they see on the screen matches that of the real world around them
because their brains are constantly trying to make sense of the world
around them. In addition, Schweizer believes that children instead focus on
the most dramatic images they can see. They also begin constructing their
own identities, as well as a feeling about who they are and what they look
like in comparison to these images. The simplicity of the visual appearance
of a cartoon character allows a person to project themselves onto the
character and become so engrossed that they “become” the cartoon. This
suggest that children‟s fascination with character in animation is not
random influences their views on the cultures of the world (1998: 69). As
the result, parents and teachers must be aware of this and be willing to
converse with their children about what they are seeing in Disney films and
all popular culture because the Disney Company ignores the entertainment
quality for the children. Disney Company isn‟t about family values or

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American ideals but it is about profit or the increasing wealth for Disney
shareholders. The stories of Disney films are carefully crafted and told
from a Disney-point-of view or Disney Design. Looking at Disney
corporate literature may help to put this all into perspective: if the golden
rule we learn in Aladdin that is the one who owns the gold makes the rules,
it applies in the real world. We can see that Disney owns the gold and
makes the rules. Its corporate literature reinforces the power the company
has by pointing out its position as the world‟s largest entertainment
company, in addition to the foundation of "Disney name." Both of these
factors are necessary for efforts to increase wealth for Disney shareholders.
The Disney Company has something in common with John Smith
statement in Pocahontas film: it is still seeking land to claim and to tame.
It plans to expand into worldwide markets. Disney doesn‟t follow the rules
but it sets out for world entertainment. It makes its own rules and maintains
its power and privilege as producers of cultural texts that serve to rein
scribe the ideologies creating dominant and subordinate peoples.
Conclusion
The Walt Disney Company is a symbol of culture. It has produced
films that have been translated into many languages around the world, and
has exposed these audiences around the world to various cultures. This
company was not only able to produce such a well known entertainment
for children but also for adults through the contents and the construction of
his films.
There are some characteristics of Disney‟s animated films such as,
its production is a kind of an everlasting product since it uses mostly folk
narratives particularly fairytales as the basic story, its films always use the
most sophisticated technology and technique, and it has great power to

communicate through its characters. Almost all Disney films are not only
intended to be the entertainment for American people but also people all
over the world.
Most of folk narratives which were used in Disney films were
adapted from other countries‟ stories. However, Disney intentionally
adapts foreign countries‟ stories in its animated films without finding
similarities between alien cultures and its own Disney‟s rules. In the
process of bridging the gap between civilizations, it finds more stability in
familiarity and demonstrates Disney ideas to dominate its films. It is
common for the audiences to find Disney‟s Americanization in almost all
its films such as the concept of feminism, discrimination, racism, or
rebelliousness in Disney‟s adaptation films. It also frames and shapes the
values of other countries‟ stories in certain formula that must be well liked
by the consumers to blow up the sale of the films. Disney rules that there is
only one romantic love for every protagonist that is waited to be found,
good looking is everything, power is more appealing, every character
needs a magic or a wish to get his dream, it is fine to laugh at
developmentally disabled characters, it tends to ignore people of color,
there is a culture distortion in some its stories, happiness and fulfillment in
its films are linked to buying other Disney products. The adaptation of
some stories from other countries is not meant to glorify the uniqueness of
other countries‟ culture but to find out the products which are easy to be
made in the form of toys.
As one of the most powerful media conglomerates in the world,
Disney works endlessly to set out world entertainment. Although there are
so many criticisms toward its films, this company will still make its own
rules to use Disney formula and maintain its power as producers of cultural
texts. In its search for new markets and greater profits, Disney consistently

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and creatively finds ways of presenting its films, as objects of consumption

rather than objects of children education. Art in the Magic Kingdom
becomes a display intended to create new markets, stimulate children to
buy all its products, and provide vehicles for merchandizing its endless
collection of toys, gadgets, clothes, home accessories and other
commodities. Disney has an excellent ability to use films and other forms
of children‟s entertainment as launching pads for a huge collection of toys
in which it can cooperate with other huge companies to sell its products.
That is the most rational reason why Disney must be able to create such a
fascinating or exciting film especially for the children since it will
influence its other products in Disney Store, Disney Channel, Disney
magazine, Disneyland, and Disney World.
9Disney‟s pre-condition to reach top of films showing have been
started by introducing the original soundtrack of those films. It carries the
popular singers‟ names such as Phil Collins, Peabo Bryson, Celine Dion,
Regina Belle, Elton John, Ricky Martin, Boyzone, and so on. Disney has
always been serious to think about the way of their films precondition. It is
clear that various sectors were done to get one and the same aim,
maximization of profit. In the audiences‟ point of view, they also get some
advantage such as they feel comfortable and satisfied in watching each
Disney‟s film because of the using of high technology and the newest
technique in Disney‟s film.
The entire data above have meaning for cultural industrial growth
in Indonesia because global capitalism growth also induces our country.
The first, Indonesian animators or film script writers can imitate Disney‟s
ways in integrating all media power that they own for the sake of their sale.
The producer of Si Unyil can learn Disney‟s ways in increasing the sale in
domestic consumers specifically. Although we know clearly that industry

of our media is still left behind and has not been ready to compete with
American animation, we must start to learn to use sophisticated technology
to make Indonesian animation better so that our local figures such as
Gatutkaca, Arjuna, Si Unyil, Kabayan, Si Entong will be more popular
than Tarzan, Mickey Mouse or Winnie the Pooh. Secondly, Disney
Corporation has the power to reproduce and transmit Disney formula that
maintain and sustain its power and authority as producers of cultural texts.
It has the ability to be involved in almost any type of media market that it
desires. This allows them to make money in a wide variety of ways since
Disney has made great efforts to expand its audience to the international
community. The “Disneyzation” is also included in the way to make
money. As the consumers of its films, the people sometimes do not realize
the Disney‟s messages such as Americanization and consumerism which
are sent through its films whereas the audiences are world wide. So,
parents or teachers must be responsive of this and eager to discuss about
the film content, meaning, and message in Disney films or other popular
culture products with their children to filter the suitable values for
Indonesian children.
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Global Disney Audiences Project. London: Leincester University
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Inna Naili Izzatul Laila
A Correlative Study of Reading Speed and Reading

Comprehension of the Second Year Students of SMP Islam
Sultan Fattah Salatiga in the Academic Year of 2007/2008

State Institute for Islamic Studies
(STAIN) Salatiga
innanaili@gmail.com
Abstract
This study is conducted to find out the profile of students‟ speed reading
skill and the students‟ reading comprehension, as well as to prove if there
is significant correlation between the students‟ skill in reading speed and
reading comprehension of students of SMP Islam Sultan Fattah Salatiga in
the academic year of 2007/2008. The writer applies random sampling
technique to take the sample (40) from the total of population of 81
students. Furthermore, the profile of students‟ reading speed skill in the
text comprehension is observed through applying reading speed limited by
time. From such a test, the writer knows how many words produced by
students every minute. The students‟ reading comprehension, in addition,
can be seen from the result of the answered of questions. The data is
analyzed using correlative statistics. From the result, the writer finds that
there is no correlation between reading speed and reading comprehension
of the students. It is shown from the result r0=0,027 and rt=0,312 in the
level of significance 5%. Then, there are many factors that influence
reading speed and the comprehension as children weakness of vocabularies
and the lack of concentration in reading.
Keywords: Reading Speed, Reading Comprehension
Abstrak
Studi ini dilakukan untuk mendeskripsikan kemampuan siswa dalam

membaca cepat dan pemahaman dalam membaca, serta mencari hubungan
yang signifikan antara kemampuan siswa dalam membaca cepat dan
memahami bacaan siswa SMP Islam Sultan Fattah Salatiga tahun

A Correlative Study of Reading Speed and Reading Comprehension of the…
akademik 2007/2008. Penulis menggunakan teknik random sampling

untuk menentukan sampel (40) dari total populasi 81 siswa. Lebih jauh
lagi, kemampuan siswa dalam membaca cepat diukur melalui tes membaca
cepat yang dibatasi oleh waktu. Dari tes tersebut, peneliti dapat mengetahui
berapa banyak kata yang diproduksi oleh siswa setiap menit. Di samping
itu, pemahaman siswa terhadap bacaan dapat dilihat dari hasil dari
pertanyaan-pertanyaan yang dijawab oleh siswa. Data dianalisis
menggunakan formula statistik korelatif. Dari hasil tersebut, peneliti
menemukan bahwa tidak ada hubungan yang significant antara kecepatan
siswa dalam membaca dengan pemahaman terhadap bacaan. Hal itu
terlihat dari hasil r0=0,027 dan rt=0,312 di level signifikansi 5%. Selain
itu, ada banyak factor yang mempengaruhi kecepatan membaca dan
pemahaman seperti kurangnya kosakata dan konsentrasi saat membaca.
Kata Kunci: Kecepatan Membaca, Pemahaman dalam Membaca
Introduction
Reading is one of the language skills that should be emphasized in
teaching and learning English. It is an ability to comprehend, not simply
recognize letters, forms, and symbols. Without comprehending, reading
maybe useless. According to Carrein and Eisterhold (1991),
comprehending the text is an interactive process between the reader‟s
background knowledge and the text itself.
Furthermore, there are many factors influencing students‟ ability of
reading comprehension; one of them is reading speed. Skill in speed
reading is interesting to those who continually read a great deal of material
in a short time, for sure with comprehension. A skillful speed reader is able
to understand the meaning of sentence at glance, the average reader usually
reads 200 to 250 words per minute. However, a skillful speed reader may
read over 6000 words per minute.
To improve the students‟ ability to comprehend the reading text
accompanied by speed reading, therefore, teachers have to help the

students increase their ability in efficient reading habits. To support such

an aim, the writer is encouraged to conduct a research dealing with reading
speed and reading comprehension as well as it significance correlation of
both items. This study aims to answer the following research questions.
1. How far is the students‟ speed reading in the second years of
SMP Islam Sultan Fattah in the academic year 2007/2008?
2. How far is the students‟ reading comprehension skill of the

second years of SMP Islam Sultan Fattah in the academic year
2007/2008?
3. Is there any significant correlation between the students‟ reading

speed and reading comprehension of the second years of SMP
Islam Sultan Fattah in the academic year 2007/2008?
Definition of Reading
Many definitions and explanations of reading have been
formulated, some complementary to another, others contradictory.
According to Edithia (1988), reading is the meaningful interpretation of
printed or written verbal symbol. It means that reading is a result of the
interaction between perception of graphic symbols that represent language
and the reader‟s language skill, cognitive skill, and the knowledge of the
world. Rivers (1981) states that reading is the most important activity in a
language class, not only as a source of information and pleasurable
activity, but also as a means of consolidating and extending one‟s
knowledge of the language. Meanwhile, Martha Dallman (1977) defines
reading as a verbal process interrelated to thinking and with all other
communication abilities such as listening, speaking, and writing.
Specifically, reading is the process of reconstructing from the printed

patterns on the page of the ideas and information intended by author.

Furthermore, Mahmoud (1992) conveys that reading is the ability to
comprehend, not simply to recognize letters, forms, and symbols.
The Purpose of Reading

Dealing with the purpose of reading, Mahmoud (1992) points out
that reading has many goals. Some of them are:
1. Reading for specific information is a common form of reading
used to discover specific or limited information.
2. Reading for application is used to accomplish a special task.
3. Reading for pleasure and entertainment includes reading popular
magazines, newspaper, novels, and other similar materials.
4. Reading for ides; this type of reading requires paying special
attention to main ideas and concepts and the nature of the
presented information. The reader‟s skills through major topics,
headings, illustrations and conclusions in order to obtain a
general idea of the content. Reading for specific ides is
enhanced, through familiarity with the overall knowledge of the
subject.
5. Reading for understanding; it requires comprehension of the
relationship between the information introduced and overall
knowledge of the subject. Then, it requires understanding in the
relationship of topics to sentences, paragraphs, and the main
ideas. The reader must observe the association between facts,
data, and other details.
The Method of Reading

Mahmoud (1992) elaborates the six methods to fulfilling the

purpose of reading. They are:

1. Previewing
2. Skimming and scanning
3. Reading for study
4. Critical reading
5. Reading for critical evaluation, which can be undertaken in two
stages, namely introductory and intensive stage.
6. Speed reading
Speed Reading
Speed reading is a collection of reading methods which attempt to
increase rates of reading without greatly reducing comprehension or
retention. It is characterized by analyzing trade-offs between measurement
of speed and comprehension, recognizing that different types of reading
call for different speed and comprehension rates, and that those rates may
be improved with practice.
Kinds of Speed Reading

In applying this method, an efficient reader varies his speed based
on the material requirement (Raygor et.all, 1981) that is distinguished into
four major rates of reading i.e.:
1. Skimming rate
It is used to find reference, to locate new material, to answer a
specific question, or to get the general idea of a selection
passage.
2. Very rapid reading rate
It is important to review familiar material, to get reading a light
novel or fast-moving short story for its plot.

3. Rapid rate
It is used in fiction, characterization, mood, sensory imagery, or
anticipation of outcome, or in nonfictional text. It is also
employed to find the main idea, make generalization, or
sequence.
4. Average rate
It is applied in the more complex fiction for characterization and
plot analysis, nonfiction of mode rate difficulty to notice the
detail, to grasp the relationship between main ideas, or to
distinguish between fact and opinion.
5. Slow rate
It is used to master content, including detail, to read highly
factual material, to evaluate quality and literary merit, or to solve
a problem of the directions.
Reading Comprehension
Edithia (1988) states that reading comprehension most likely occurs
when students are reading what they want to read. Or at least when they
see some reasons to do so. Comprehension itself is a construction process
because if involves all of the elements of the reading process, working
together. It is the rason of purpose for reading.
Research Methodology
it is a quantitative research that consists of two variables i.e. the
reading speed as independent variable (X) and the reading comprehension
as dependent variable (Y). The writer uses test and documentation as data
collection method and correlative study as technique of data analysis that is
formulated as follows.

 XY   N 
( X )( Y )
rxy 
 ( X ) 
2
( Y ) 2

 X   Y 
2 2

 N  N 
In which,
r : Correlation coefficient of variable X and Y
∑XY : The sum of the product multiplying the reading speed test score
and reading comprehension test scores
∑X : The sum of the reading speed test scores
∑Y : The sum of the reading comprehension test scores
∑X2 : The sum of square reading speed test scores
N : Total number of respondent
The subject of the research is the second year students of SMP

Islam Sultan Fattah Salatiga in the Academic Year of 2007/2008 that
consists of 81 students. To determine the sample, the writer use random
sampling technique. Derived from such a technique of sample, the writer
examines 40 students for the sake of the study.
Discussion
To find the students‟ reading speed, the writer uses reading sppd tes
that is limited by time. From this test, the writer observes how many words
produced by students every minute. The students‟ reading comprehension,
moreover, can be seen from the result of the answered questions that
follow the text. There ten items and four choices for each questions. For
each correct answer, then, the writer will give ten points. Table 1
represents the result of the reading speed.

Table 1
The Result of Reading Speed (X)
No Name The Score

1 Nofi Fatmawati Putri 84
2 Siti Zumrotun 101
3 Rizka Rahmawati 119
4 Winda Listyaningtyas 140
5 Mutik Atul Khusniyah 94
6 Henny Octoviana 92
7 Ika 105
8 Lia Octavia 98
9 Nafiatun 146
10 Siti Nurjanah 119
11 Anna Setyani 138
12 Istianah 144
13 Eko Sadono 103
14 Agus Aslimin 93
15 Aulia Rizqillah 124
16 Arifin 95
17 Heru Hermawan 90
18 Iskandar 106
19 Ariyanto 163
20 Tofan 144
21 Ahmad Luqman 87
22 Arifatul Khuzaimah 94
23 Teguh Prasetyo 71
24 Fitri Fatonah 98
25 Afandi 90
26 Setyowati 152
27 Ihya'udin 81
28 Rubiyanto 91
29 Melda Dwi Vaulalina 123
30 Suwandi 101
31 Uswatun Khasanah 93
32 Vivin 93
33 Poniah 124

34 Intan Puspita Sari 124

35 Solekhah Puji Lestari 86
36 Sulastri 71
37 Nur Azizah 129
38 Alfi Nikmah 86
39 Siti Rusmiati 115
40 Putri Nuryanti 114
In this step, the writer determines the measurement for result of

reading speed. To determine the interval, the writer uses formula:
( Ba  Bb )  1
i
4
(163  71)  1
i
4
i  23,25
i  23
Note:
i = interval
Ba = highest score
Bb = lowest score
The percentage distribution of reading speed of the subject of the
study can be seen in the table 2.
Table 2
The Percentage Distribution of Reading Speed
No Score Sample Percentage Criteria

1 140-163 6 15% Excellent
2 117-139 8 20% Good
3 94-116 12 30% Fair
4 71-93 14 35% Poor
Total 40 100%
In order to obtain the result of the students‟ reading speed, the

writer uses formula:

P
X 100%
N .100
4321
P 100%
40.100
P  108,025
In which:
P: The score obtained
∑X: The sum of score X
N: Sample
Meanwhile, the students‟ reading comprehension is shown on the
following table.
Table 3
The Result of Reading Comprehension (Y)
No Name The Score

1 Nofi Fatmawati Putri 50
2 Siti Zumrotun 40
3 Rizka Rahmawati 30
4 Winda Listyaningtyas 30
5 Mutik Atul Khusniyah 60
6 Henny Octoviana 50
7 Ika 50
8 Lia Octavia 60
9 Nafiatun 60
10 Siti Nurjanah 40
11 Anna Setyani 50
12 Istianah 60
13 Eko Sadono 50
14 Agus Aslimin 40
15 Aulia Rizqillah 50
16 Arifin 50
17 Heru Hermawan 50
18 Iskandar 50
19 Ariyanto 30

20 Tofan 50
21 Ahmad Luqman 30
22 Arifatul Khuzaimah 50
23 Teguh Prasetyo 40
24 Fitri Fatonah 40
25 Afandi 40
26 Setyowati 70
27 Ihya'udin 30
28 Rubiyanto 40
29 Melda Dwi Vaulalina 50
30 Suwandi 40
31 Uswatun Khasanah 40
32 Vivin 60
33 Poniah 30
34 Intan Puspita Sari 30
35 Solekhah Puji Lestari 50
36 Sulastri 50
37 Nur Azizah 30
38 Alfi Nikmah 50
39 Siti Rusmiati 40
40 Putri Nuryanti 50
In this research, the writer also classifies the result of reading

comprehension as described as follows.
( Ba  Bb )  1
i
4
(70  30)  1
i
4
i  10,25
i  10
Note:
i = interval
Ba= highest score
Bb= lowest score

The percentage of students‟ reading comprehension is shown on the

following table.
Table 4
The Percentage Distribution of Reading Comprehension
No Score Sample Percentage Criteria

1 60-69 6 15% Excellent
2 50-59 16 40% Good
3 40-49 10 25% Fair
4 30-39 8 20% Poor
Total 40 100%
To measure the result of the students‟ reading comprehension, the

writer uses the formula:
P
X  100%
N .100
1810
P  100%
40.100
P  45,25
In which:
P: The score obtained
∑Y: The sum of score Y
N: Sample
Correlation Analysis
To measure the correlation between reading speed and reading
comprehension, the writer employs the following formula.
 XY   N 
( X )( Y )
rxy 
 ( X )  2
( Y ) 2

 X   Y 
2 2

 N  N 
Furthermore, the result is shown in the following table.

Table 5
The Computation of Coefficient X and Y
No X Y X Y XY
1 84 50 7056 2500 4200
2 101 40 10201 1600 4040
3 119 30 14161 900 3570
4 140 30 19600 900 4200
5 94 60 8836 3600 5640
6 92 50 8464 2500 4600
7 105 50 11025 2500 5250
8 98 60 9604 3600 5880
9 146 60 21316 3600 8760
10 119 40 14161 1600 4760
11 138 50 19044 2500 6900
12 144 60 20736 3600 8640
13 103 50 10609 2500 5150
14 93 40 8649 1600 3720
15 124 50 15376 2500 6200
16 95 50 9025 2500 4750
17 90 50 8100 2500 4500
18 106 50 11236 2500 5300
19 163 30 26569 900 4890
20 144 50 20736 2500 7200
21 87 30 7569 900 2610
22 94 50 8836 2500 4700
23 71 40 5041 1600 2840
24 98 40 9604 1600 3920
25 90 40 8100 1600 3600
26 152 70 23104 4900 10640
27 81 30 6561 900 2430
28 91 40 8281 1600 3640
29 123 50 15129 2500 6150
30 101 40 10201 1600 4040
31 93 40 8649 1600 3720
32 93 60 8649 3600 5580
33 124 30 15376 900 3720

34 124 30 15376 900 3720

35 86 50 7396 2500 4300
36 71 50 5041 2500 3550
37 129 30 16641 900 3870
38 86 50 7396 2500 4300
39 115 40 13225 1600 4600
40 114 50 12996 2500 5700
4321 1810 487675 86100 195780
From the result above, the r0 = 0,0272 and the rt = 0,312. On the 5%
signification degree, r0 < rt. It means that H0 is received where there is no
correlation between reading speed and reading comprehension.
Based on the result of the speed reading test, the writer finds that
there are 8 students that still need a lot of time for understanding the
passage. This problem happens because the students feel insecure when
they came across with many unknown words, so it influenced the students‟
speed in reading. Meanwhile, there are 10 students classified into fair
criteria since they have reasonable vocabulary.
Rate of reading is not the primary goal in reading, but abilities and
needs. An excellent reader usually has ability to apply reading strategy.
The have not only a good vocabulary mastery but also high concentration
when they face the text. A poor reader, in other side, has the lack of
inellcetual maturity to bring meaning to the printed material. He tends to
decode even familiar word slowly. Some of them have the binocular or
fusion difficulties. They also have inadequate comprehension ability. Most
of the poor readers make too many regressions.
Conclusion
From the analysis conducted, the speed reading of the second year
of students of SMP Islam Sultan Fattah Salatiga in the academic year

2007/2008 is poor. However, their reading comprehension are good.

Meanwhile, there is no correlation between reading speed and reading
comprehension of the students. It happens because the students still require
time to comprehend the passage.
References
Mahmoud, Shah. 1992. Research and Writing A Complete Guide an
Handbook. Virginia: Butterway publications.
Raygor, Alton. Reading at Efficient Rates. University of Minnesota.
Simanjuntak, Editia. 1988. Developing Reading Skill for EFL Students.
Jakarta: Depdikbud.


INDEX
A K
Americanization, 81, 83, 106, 108 Kesadaran, 43
Animation, 81, 110, 111, 113
Aptitude, 59, 70, 73, 75 L
Attitude, 59, 63 Language Education, 1
Language educations and literacy.
B See Language Education
Beta Setiawati, 81 Language Learning, 56, 59, 80
language teaching, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9,
C 11, 16, 17, 18, 19, 44, 46, 54
Comprehensible Inputs, 23 Learners, 55, 59, 80
Culture, 43, 44, 56, 57, 102, 108,
109, 110, 111, 112, 113 M
Culture distortion, 102 Male Dominance, 94
Maslihatul Umami, 1
D Motivation, 59, 67, 70
Direct English Daily Conversations, multicultural, 1, 10, 11, 18, 44
23 multilingual, 1, 5, 10, 11, 15, 16, 18
Discrimination, 85, 86
Disney Films, 81 N
National characteristics, 48
E No English Background, 23
EFL, 43, 44, 46, 54, 56 Non-American Stories, 81
Non-verbal aspects of
F communications, 27
Noor Malihah, 43
Feminism, 90
foreign language characteristics, P
48
Parents‟ Stimulus, 23
H Pendekatan, 43
Popular culture, 81, 111
Hambatan, 43
R
I
Racism, 84, 112
Indonesian culture, 45, 47, 52, 55 Rebelliousness of teenagers, 98
Intelligence, 59, 76 Respond, 23
Internal Potentials, 59 Ruwandi, 59

S T
Second language acquisition, 26 teaching the content, 16
Setia Rini, 23 Teaching the language, 16
Types of questions, 26

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
REGISTER is a forum of discussion that focuses on language (linguistics

and literature) as well as language teaching studies. It aims at enhancing
critical studies on the various actual phenomena from different
perspectives.
The editors invite articles from teachers, linguists, and those who concerns
with language, literature and language teaching under the following
submission guidelines:
1. The editors will be pleased to publish research and non research
original articles that deal with linguistics, literature, and language
teaching.
2. The article has not been published or is not being considered for
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4. The title should be concise and informative
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words.
7. Key words should have 3 - 5 words or phrases
8. References should be written as the example:
Wilis, J. 1996. A Framework for Task- Based Learning. Longman:
London
Carr, Kathryn S. 1990. How Can We Teach Critical Thinking?
Retrieved from http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-
9218/critical.htm
Stadler, Stefanie. 2011. Intercultural communication and East Asian
politeness. In Kadar, Daniel Z. and Sara Mills (eds). Politeness
in East Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. Research articles comprise: (a) title; (b) writer‟s name (without any
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REGISTER published by English Department of Educational Faculty,
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2 Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia, 57012.
Website: journalregister.stainsalatiga.ac.id
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REGISTER

Language and Language Yeaching Journals

Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 ISSN 1979-8903

The first issuance

Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 ISSN 1979-8903

5 and 7 Year Old Children with No English Background Respond

The Significance of Introducing Culture in EFL Instruction

The Existence of Learners in Language Learning

Americanization of Non-American Stories in Disney Films

A Correlative Study of Reading Speed and Reading Comprehension of

Submission Guidelines .........................................................................133

Rethinking Language Education in Indonesia

Language education in Indonesia may be discussed by over viewing the

Keywords: education, language, function, literacy development, content

Pendidikan bahasa di Indonesia dapat dibahas dengan menilik karakteristik

REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 1

teknologi. Setelah meninjau sejumlah model pendidikan bilingual dan

Kata Kunci : Pendidikan, Bahasa, Fungsi, Pengembangan Literasi,

2 REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008

until year 3 in elementary schools. However, the indigenous languages

REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 3

(excluding foreign languages). Beyond the expectation, the two institutions

4 REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008

putting the emphasis strongly on the development of Indonesian language

REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 5

Phillipsons term (1992), since the way of placement leads to a condition

6 REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008

is not properly set up to accommodate the nature of the existing languages

REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 7

third year elementary schools in Surakarta (Santosa, Wiratno, &

8 REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008

REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 9

To this extent, rethinking language education in terms of “what to

10 REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008

language and the content below.

Language education in multilingual and multicultural settings

REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 11

Indonesian language is also used as a wider means of communication.

12 REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008

Hornberger‟s 1991 review on the existing programs of bilingual

The most outstanding example of bilingual education quite often

REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 13

apparently become the most common type of bilingual education in the

14 REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008

incorporating the subject matter in the curriculum into the indigenous

REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 15

only two. With reference to language rights, literacy principles,

Teaching the language and teaching the content

16 REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008

REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 17

combination as the general medium of instruction that may cover the

18 REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008

in this multilingual and multicultural country.

REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 19

Fourth, in relation to the new curriculum design, the adjoining

20 REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008

Freeman, R.D.1998. Bilingual Education and Social Change. Clevedon:

REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 21

22 REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008

5 and 7 Year Old Children with No English Background

Keywords: Parents‟ stimulus, Comprehensible inputs, daily conversation,

Studi ini berusaha untuk mengeksplorasi bagaimana input yang dapat

REGISTER, Vol. 1, No. 1, June 2008 23

Kata kunci: Stimulus Orangtua, Input yang Dapat Dipahami, Percakapan