INDONESIAN INFLUENCE IN DEVELOPING SPEAKING SKILL IN LEARNING ENGLISH: EFL LEARNERS’ IMPEDIMENTS

Abstract

This article describes the Indonesian influence in developing speaking skill in learning English especially as EFL learners’ impediments. Learners speaking skill in learning English is also faced with number of problems such as their L1, social, environment and cognitive challenges related to Foreign Language Acquisition. Many scholars in the fields of language learning and teaching show evidence for L1-FL comparison by the learners when they confronted with difficulties grammatical forms including different grammatical rules, they are unaware to utter those sentences and it is natural for the learners. Since this comparison is implicit, it may result in the wrong formation rules due to an incomplete FL knowledge. In this study, an investigation was done to identify the impact of L1 (Bahasa Indonesia) on EFL learners of State Islamic Institute of Tulungagung, a small district in East Java-Indonesia, in order to get underlying basis of capturing Indonesian influence in developing speaking skill in learning English for the sake of comparing their L1-FL impediments. The study involved qualitative methods of data collection. The data collected from the subjects utterances and responses were analyzed and findings were derived. The findings show that there are number of problems which are found to have impact on EFL learners speaking. Evidence provided by the utterances samples suggests that L1 (Indonesian) played a role in the process of intermediate EFL learners speaking. The impediments include tenses, verb, subject & agreement; word order, wrong chosen word; redundancy-reduction; phonological difficulties. Understanding linguistic differences between learners’ L1 and English may help learners reduce the impact of L1. It can be assumed that a focus on speaking process as a pedagogical instrument is only for EFL learners if attention and supporting environment are given to linguistic development, if the learners are able to get sufficient and effective feedback with regards to their errors in speaking. Key words: Indonesian, influence, speaking, learning English, impediments