The Teacher's Role in Maintaining the Home Language while Developing the School Language

By: Iyut Paneo ; Supervised by : Muziatun, S.Pd, M.App. Ling, PhD

As a country with a more traditional way of life, Indonesia has a linguistic diversity that includes several regional languages. In the context of education, Bahasa Indonesia serves as the primary language of instruction in schools, where it provides national identity while also addressing the issue of multilingual communication in the general population.

 This is a challenge for students who come from groups that use the local language to strengthen their language and sense of self.

In Indonesian schools, multilingualism is important as a language of instruction for students, but it is also important for students to use the language in their daily lives. The prevalence of multilingualism in Indonesia is further influenced by the diversity of regional languages in the country, where most of the population speaks various languages in different communities. 

There are also effects of foreign languages such as English already being used in the classroom, such as making students more proficient in the language and encouraging them to learn three languages: English as a foreign language, Bahasa Indonesia, and Local Language.

Language is a tool that plays an important role in developing and shaping social attitudes and interactions. In the world of education, of course students are taught to use good language, from introducing the school language by the teacher to how to maintain their home language in the school environment.  

According to (Seltzer, 2019), students have their language labels, namely first language and second language, mother tongue and new language, home language and school language.

Here the new language they will learn is Indonesian as the school language, and maintain the students' home language. Therefore, the role of the teacher will be greater in this case, because it is the teacher who will introduce the new language and keep both languages mastered. 

The school language needs to be introduced to students, because it is not uncommon to hear that there are still many students who use their home language more, both in the school environment and in the classroom.

From (Mercator, 2017) said the presence of immigrant languages in the world of education causes new challenges, which means teachers and schools must find strategies and methods to deal with increasing language diversity (Makarova et al., 2023). 

So, the purpose of this article will find out how the teacher's role in shaping the strategy of organizing so that these two languages are balanced and used well by students, and how teachers can improve and maintain students' languages both in school and home.