Study on Indonesian People as ESL Learners to Become Bilingual
Speakers
Wahyu Taufiq, Fika Megawati and Dian Rahma Santoso
Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo, Jl. Mojopahit 666 B,
Sidoarjo, Jawa Timur, Indonesia
Keywords: Bilingual, ESL, English.
Abstract: This paper presents a report on a case study of two bilingual speakers who have the ability to use two
different languages alternatively. The first and the second languages of the both speakers are Bahasa
Indonesia and English. The information was collected via interview several times. Then, this information
was studied and correlated with the existing theory in order to get valid data. As the results, the speakers
mention some supporting and influencing situations that progressively affect the speakers from the
childhood up to adulthood. The speakers also explain the strategies to overcome some weaknesses during
the learning based on their perspective, completed with some suggestion from literature that relates to their
condition to acquire English as a second language successfully. As the implication, this report can be
acknowledged as information on how these ESL speakers have processed to be bilingual in order to gain
better English.
1 INTRODUCTION
As a language teacher, the writer believes that it is
important to understand how people receive the
languages through their life. One of the attaining
language processes which is interesting to be
discussed here is about the background of bilingual
speakers. It is about how adults receive two or more
languages.
Theoretically, the bilingual speakers have
various backgrounds to be able to use more than one
language. The existence of the first language may
support to be bilingual from the beginning since it
becomes relatively easy to gain. The learners have
already been able to use their first language in order
to support the process to be literate in their first
language (Silva, 1992). There are various
experiences that evolve the process of learning to be
able to read and write fluently. Therefore, it is
natural that a learner might have experience to be
more comfortable to read and write in her first
language since all of these activities have been
experienced from childhood until adulthood
(Kubota, 2001). Then, the process of this literacy
progressively supports and influences the situation
around the learners to get the next targeted language
(Hedgcock and Ferris, 2009). Taufiq (2015) even
suggests the use of online media to learn and master
the second language. Supported with other
experience and literatures, the speakers may be
directed to be bilingual.
The process of language acquisition itself is a
long and complex journey. There is no quick and
easy method which is guaranteed to provide success.
Various strategies to learn the second language
should be applied in order to find the most suitable
one related to the learner’s needs (Taufiq, 2016).
This paper presents a report on investigation of
two bilingual speakers who have the ability to use
two different languages alternatively. The both
speakers first and the second languages are Bahasa
Indonesia and English. The information focuses on
how they become bilingual from the childhood until
their adults, from being monolingual to be bilingual.
2 METHODS
For the purpose of background knowledge in this
report, the monolingual is defined as a person who
speaks one language only. While to be considered
bilingual, as explained by Hornby (1977), the person
212
Taufiq, W., Megawati, F. and Santoso, D.
Study on Indonesian People as ESL Learners to Become Bilingual Speakers.
In Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (ANCOSH 2018) - Revitalization of Local Wisdom in Global and Competitive Era, pages 212-217
ISBN: 978-989-758-343-8
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

has the ability to use two different languages that
can be used alternatively; such as Bahasa Indonesia
and English. The finding of both interviews will be
analysed and discussed in relation to social and
cultural perspectives on literacy supported with
background reading and referencing.
The purpose of this research is to collect the
information on how people receive the languages
through their life particularly to be bilingual. The
writer uses qualitative method to get the descriptive
information about the phenomena.
The information was collected via interview
which is recorded several times. Then, this
information was studied and correlated with the
existing theory in order to get valid data about
supporting and influencing situations that affect the
speakers to be bilingual. Intentionally, this report
can be acknowledged as information on how these
ESL speakers have processed to be bilingual in order
to gain better English and also as data for further
study.
Mostly, the interview was conducted using
Bahasa Indonesia which is occasionally switched to
English. The consideration to use Bahasa Indonesia
is mainly from the fact that the first language of both
learners and the writer is this. Hopefully, some
important messages which are too difficult and
complicated to be explained in English can be
explained easily.
The data is processed by focusing, selecting,
abstracting, simplifying, and transforming the data
transcriptions. The writer organized the data from
his notes and transcriptions by discarding the
irrelevant information. The data which is relevant
would be classified related to the purpose of this
study.
The data display is made to make conclusions
from the information which is organized and
compressed assembly. The conclusions are verified
which may be as brief as a short excursion, lengthy
argumentation, or extensive efforts to replicate a
finding in data set. The writer examines the initial
conclusions through references to get more credible
information.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The first speaker being studied is a thirty-four-year
old woman, and the second speaker is a thirty- year
old man. Both of them are originally from Indonesia.
Their first language is Bahasa Indonesia and the
second language are English. Relatively, both of
them can use those two languages interchangeably
and fluently.
The first speaker is an English teacher at a senior
high school in Indonesia. She is able to
communicate using two languages, interchangeably;
Bahasa Indonesia and English. Additionally, she is
also able to communicate using Javanese Language,
which is part of Indonesian dialect. This Javanese
dialect is not investigated in this study.
The second speaker has an undergraduate degree
certificate majoring in Information Technology from
one university in Indonesia and a master degree
from a university in Australia. He comes from a
family which used to live in a small village with
limited educational facilities. Java language, as part
of Indonesian dialect, is mainly spoken even at
primary schools. He is the only member at the
family who continued the education until
postgraduate level, particularly in Australia. Now he
is staying and working in an office in Indonesia.
The first question asked to the speakers is about
what languages they are mastered. Both explain that
they understand at least two languages, Bahasa
Indonesia and English. To be bilingual, relatively
those two speakers are able to use Bahasa Indonesia
and English interchangeably and confidently.
The next questions and further are about when
the first time the speakers becomes bilingual which
is then developed based on their answers. Both
speakers have a situation so called sequential
bilingualism which learn one language after already
established a first language. This is the situation for
all those who become bilingual as adults, as well as
for many who became bilingual earlier in life
(Lightbown and Spada, 1999).
The first speaker explains that the first language
was transferred from her nearest family; parents and
Siblings by the process of acquisition. Krashen
(1981) explains that the language acquisition does
happen when the process does not need extensive
use of mindful grammatical rules, nor require
tedious drill. She estimates that she began to be able
to use the first language at around two or three, but
still could not articulate well until about the age of
five. She picked up the spoken language through his
parents and older siblings who often correct her
speech, or even her grammar. As she remembers,
she starts learning the alphabet in kindergarten
where in here also she learnt to spell certain simple
words and began to practice writing these words.
Progressively, she started learning how to read when
she was about year two at school.
The development goes slowly and speaking
skills emerge significantly later than listening skills.
In this case, Family gave the first contribution to the
language transfer. The process is then followed and
strengthened by the society, like neighbourhoods
Study on Indonesian People as ESL Learners to Become Bilingual Speakers
213

and friends to make even better environment for his
first language acquisition.
The second mastered language is English. She
said that it was first introduced when she went to
school. Starting from High School until further
higher studies, English is taught as a part of
communication means. Further, the ability in the
first language supports her to gain the second
language (Silva, 1992). Then, the process of this
literacy is progressively supported and influenced by
the situation around the learners from the childhood
into adulthood (Hedgcock and Ferris, 2009).
As an English teacher, the first speaker is using
Bahasa Indonesia and English in her class. Both
languages are commonly used by electronic and
paper media such as programs at television, radio
and news at newspapers. To get these languages, she
thinks that the process is a combination between
learning and acquisition. The learning was needed at
the first time when she was also learning grammar,
having test to measure her language ability as well
as having serious drill in order to understand parts or
some skills of the languages.
The acquisition also contributes in her process
since both languages are normally heard in her
everyday life, from TV, radio, or even at the formal
activities when she can find it at almost every day.
After her primary school and moving to high
school, English was introduced as one of her
subjects in class. Mostly, it is taught four up to six
hours per week. Until her last academic study at the
university, English is received in the process of
learning. Everything is based on test and academic
achievement. Until now, she considers that she
needs to practice, use and learn English. When she
watches English programs on TVs she still prefers to
have the English subtitles on it.
The discussion was followed by the question of
how good she is in the languages. Confidently, she
says that she is able to use both Bahasa Indonesia
and English very well. However, compared to
Bahasa Indonesia, it is not very much for the
English. Her ability to be bilingual is basically
common particularly who teach English as Second
Language. For most countries like Africa, Latin
America, and Asia where consist of multi ethnic and
cultures, bilingual or even multilingual is generally
owned by people with two or more ethnic groups
speaking different languages (Hornby, 1977).
Her first language at the first time helped her to
understand the second one, since the translation
methods as well as the similarity of grammar
structures helped her a lot. Theoretically, the
influence of first language to the second language
acquisition had by the second speaker is already
known as language transfer (Hoff-Ginsberg, 1999).
Now, she is able to use both languages
interchangeably, and even knows that sometimes
there are some terms that cannot be translated by
either of two.
Beardsmore (1982) and Bialystok (2001) argue
that children become bilingual for many reasons;
such as extended family, immigration, temporary
residence in another country, dislocation, education,
or simply being born in a place where it is assumed
at bilingualism is normal. In line with this argument,
she becomes bilingual for some demands. The first
is education. As mentioned above, the languages
being used at her schools are Bahasa Indonesia and
English. She is also motivated by individual reasons
such as to get better score in the class. Theoretically,
this kind of intension to learn the second language
can be motivated by the incentive, the need, or the
desire that the learners feels to learn the language
(Dulay, et al. 1982). This factor theoretically
influences the speaker to be bilingual.
By being bilingual, a person may have individual
identity as well as attract intergroup relations
(Lambert, 1977). Based on the speaker’s experience,
a bilingual speaker has slightly different status in
social community. She might be called as an
educated person only because of bilingualism. Some
people she knows also have particular special
position in her village, where Bahasa Indonesia is
still considered luxurious for most elderly people.
Additionally, by being bilingual, she may widen her
community by being able to speak to more groups of
people who originally speak different local
languages. This last benefit, furthermore influence
the chance to get more friends, relatives from other
areas, as well as escalating business and trading.
The discussion was then moving to the next
questions, whether there was a problem ever found
and how to overcome it. To respond this question,
she needs to think a little bit longer to answer. She
then decided to give one example of what happened
long ago.
When she was around 15, and she was just at
year 9 at high school, she and her parent went to
relatives in a village where electricity was not there,
yet. The village was located at mountain range, and
there was no easy road to get there. Mostly people
spoke in different dialect in slightly different accent.
She found that she cannot communicate very
well with her relative there, especially when the
language accent is somewhat different. Bahasa
Indonesia also did not help much since mostly she
had to speak with elderly that speaking in that
language was considered rude.
According to Beardsmore (1982) one of the
problems of being bilingual is that connected with
anomie. It is a condition where someone feels
personal disorientation, anxiety and social isolation.
It can be said that the speaker experiences this
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anomie. This tends to be psychological aspect rather
than social. Beardsmore furthermore adds that this
condition may become worse when the speaker has
to maintain her languages for different reasons or
communities.
To overcome the anomie, it is common now that
children and even people around the world make
group of bilingual environments, where the use of
two languages is the norm (Chin and Wigglesworth,
2007). The good news is that being bilingual is now
common especially for the speaker’s generation. She
never feels the anomie even the two languages are
used interchangeably.
As a conclusion, it is true that everyone has
different background of being bilingual. The
experience of being bilingual also leads to different
understanding of life. Since language represent
cultures and community, the writer encourages
anyone who is bilingual already to keep maintaining
it by making connection with other bilingual
community and keep practising.
With the slightly same point of view, the second
speaker tends to be similar with the first speaker in
the way how to get the first language. He does not
remember precisely how old he was he started
learning the language. However, he is sure that his
family, siblings as well as people around him
influenced him a lot to gain the first language;
including the accent and intonation. He also
remembers that his family taught him how to write
and read at the first time. The schools furthermore,
revised and strengthen what he already knew. It is
relevant to the theory mentioned by Krashen (1981),
that the first language is received by the process of
acquisition. Both speakers admit that the languages
were received naturally. For the bilingual speaker
however, to get the English as a second language is
very different.
English was obtained through the process of
learning, since he is motivated to do so, with various
reasons such as to get better future job or further
standing point. He started to be familiar with English
when he was about 14 when he was at high school
and continued to learn seriously when he was at the
University. Theoretically, this kind of intension to
learn the second language such English can be
motivated by the incentive, the need, or the desire
that the learners feels to learn the language (Dulay,
et al. 1982). This factor furthermore, influences the
second speaker to be bilingual.
He also believes that his first language, Bahasa
Indonesia, is better than his second. Compared to the
use of English, the bilingual person tends to believe
that his English still needs improvement, especially
in vocabularies and pronunciations, since he believes
that there are so many words out there, that he does
not know what they are and how to spell them.
Different to the first speaker, the second speaker
likes speaking and writing in English equally.
Sometimes, in an informal situation, he prefers to
speak rather than to write his idea. In contrary, in the
formal situation like in academic environment, he
likes to write since he has more time to prepare and
choose his words.
At about 14, he starts learning English in the
form of all four skills; reading, writing, listening and
speaking. The similarities of some big principles,
such as part of speech, and certain rules in using the
languages help him to be literate in English.
However, he started to enjoy reading various kinds
of English text when he was at University, when his
English was considerably better. Even there are
some different principles between his first and
second language, they make the learning more
challenging. Theoretically, the influence of first
language to the second language acquisition had by
the second speaker is already known as language
transfer (Hoff-Ginsberg, 1999).
In the use of computer-mediated literacy, both
speakers are already familiar with the use of
websites and general material from the computer.
However, the language acquisition of both types of
speakers seemingly does not influence when they
can and be familiar with the computer-mediated
literacy. The first speaker thinks that the existence
of computer does not influence her much in learning
the language since it is already late and sometimes
still feel a bit overwhelmed with the facilities
provided in the computer. The main reason she
proposed is that she has never had any formal
training in its use. However, she still accesses the
computer regularly to read the news from a certain
website, to send and receive emails, to research, to
write using the word processor, to stay up to date
with my course requirements.
For the second speaker, the computer existence
with its software and programs really help the
bilingual speakers to learn and stay up to date with
the information in English. Particularly the existence
of social networking, research, word processing,
email, blogging, and any other supporting media
help him naturally learn the new language and
culture. He considers that by the help of computer,
he can learn and access information quickly and
effectively. It might be related to his job and
education in Information and Technology area
which mostly uses computer.
Additionally, based on his experience during his
study in English speaking country, Australia, the
speaker mentions that the literacy influences him a
lot to be bilingual. Some other people might have
different experience in the process of being literate,
particularly when it is connected to the current
development of technology. For example, some
Study on Indonesian People as ESL Learners to Become Bilingual Speakers
215

people might have their literacy experience by
watching television, browsing internet or simply by
playing online game. These media can be used to
gain information in particular by reading the
information. As a part of literacy, reading skill is
theoretically believed to be the foundation to gain a
higher literacy (Hedgcock and Ferris, 2009).
Socially, the second speaker considers that
second language is important in order to have
socialization process. Submitting a paper in an
international journal for example requires an English
literacy. Additionally, the process to submit the
paper requires a certain time and intensive
communication between the writer and the reviewers
(Sasaki, 2001). Culturally, it is often found that in
practising the second language, the way how to
decode the other language may different for example
in saying point of view based on the background
culture (Yamashita, 2004). Therefore, the situation is
connected to the urgency to understand different
style between the first and the second language
(Sasaki, 2001 and Kubota, 2001).
4 CONCLUSIONS
As it is explained above, every speaker may have
various experiences differently from the others. The
speakers’ childhood environments are mostly the
situations that influence his first language
acquisition which is then supported with further and
wider parties to support the second language
mastery.
The second language acquisition is supported by
the first language literacy. However, the situation to
be literate in both languages reminds different. The
main differences are influenced by the factor of
language environments. “Being literate in other
language requires a critical knowledge of how
textual conventions and contests of use shape one
another” (Hedgcock and Ferris, 2009, page 6). The
desire to be literate in the second language might be
influenced by social, historical or cultural-situated
practice (Kern, 2000).
While it is generally believed that in order to
gain the second language literacy must have certain
academic degree, it must be also understood that the
situation is not always related to school-based
community. In the recent situation, when time and
space is borderless because of technology, to have
social interaction may go beyond the country and
language. Every day, millions of people are having
conversation around the globe, trough internet,
phone or television.
As the process of language acquisition goes,
Television programs, internet, as well as government
will be the next various situations which support
situation in gaining both languages, Bahasa
Indonesia and English. As quoted by Hedgcock and
Ferris (2009), Smith afterwards suggests that
learners may become successful writers when only
they are joining into a community of the language
users so called “literacy club”.
In historical and cultural perspective, various
situations support the process of learning and
teaching in the second language such as English.
The speakers have been long supported by academic
culture to gain more knowledge, beyond their first
language. Some learners also have orientation to go
abroad as the reason to be literate in the other
language (Sasaki, 2001 and Kubota, 2001). The
experience to have the first-hand experience
connecting with other people from other countries,
or continuing education there.
In conclusion, as the foundation of bilingualism,
it is important to enhance the first language in order
to master the second language. By understanding the
different situation in learning and teaching of both
languages, the teachers and learners can adjust into
their communicative activities, in order to achieve a
better reading and writing process in both languages.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to deliver our acknowledgement to
both speakers who share their information and
experiences here. Additionally, we would like to
thank to our colleagues at the Faculty of Teacher
Training and Education of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo to support this publication.
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