JOURNAL ARTICLE CRITIQUE

GGGE6403 – BILINGUALISM & THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

NAMA : HAMIZATUL HAMIZA BINTI ZAINON

NO. MATRIKS : P99336
TUGASAN : TUGASAN 2 – JOURNAL ARTICLE CRITIQUE
PENSYARAH : DR. HAMIDAH BINTI YAMAT @ AHMAD

Title: Muhammad Aslam Sipra. 2012. Contribution of Bilingualism in Language Teaching.

Journal of English Language Teaching; 6(1): 56 – 66.
URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v6n1p56 [28 March 2019]

JOURNAL ARTICLE SUMMARY

Introduction

There have been many speculations and thoughts over the use of bilingualism as a teaching aid
and a resource in teaching English as a foreign language. Bilingualism in the classroom is not
considered as the medium of teaching aid. Hence, the situation has inspired (Muhammad Aslam
Sipra, 2012) to conduct a research on the use of bilingualism in EFL classes. While the study
investigated the contribution of the use of bilingualism as an aid in teaching English as a foreign
language, yet there are also limitations, reliability and some generalizability of the results. The
examination of existing literature review did contribute in the researcher’s further research and
that has lead the researcher to worked and studied on 5 different articles related to the
effectiveness of bilingualism in language teaching. The issue discussed in the study were to
fathom the usefulness of bilingualism as a teaching aid at intermediate level and whether it really
helps the students learning the target language with an ease. The study employed a qualitative,
interpretive research design which it involved the use of questionnaires that had been streamed
according to the comprehensible and understandable questions for 150 randomly selected
students; meanwhile the other set of questionnaire was divided into 2 parts: half for senior
teachers and the other half for the junior. The total of teachers involved or participated in the
research were 50. Despite using questionnaire in his research, the researcher also depended on
the classroom observations, 5 lessons with 5 different English language teachers; whereas the
observations almost unnoticeable by both teachers and students. Next, the researcher also
conducted a semi-structured interview to seek the reasons why the teacher had to switch to use

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the mother-tongue (L1) in other to convey the lesson. The findings of the study in general are
that bilingualism as a resource in teaching facilitates in learning L2 and helps make more people
acknowledge the contribution of bilingualism in EFL classes.

JOURNAL ARTICLE CRITIQUE

1. Title

The title of the study is brief and clear but if matching with the study contents and findings, it is
obviously ambiguous and lacking enough of information. The study aims to investigate the
contribution of bilingualism in language teaching and learning and its effectiveness in EFL
classroom; but in the title itself, it only mentions ‘Language Teaching’. Perhaps, a better title that
could fit with the purpose of study could be Bilingualism: The Contribution and Effectiveness in
Language Teaching and Learning. However, the study majorly focused to the teacher’s teaching
issues and several on students and it suitable to the study onwards.

2. Abstract

The abstract summarizes the most significant points in the paper. By doing so, it enables the
reader to evaluate the nature and significance of the work and therefore decide whether or not to
read the whole paper. The study contains the concise and accurate abstract. It summarized from
everything that should be written in an abstract. It started with the preamble of the study, which
was the purposes or aims of study were briefly stated in the beginning of two lines. It also
defined the research design; qualitative and interpretive. The information given in the abstract
were accurate at the time and represent the study, where it contain the key pieces of relevant
information and research methodology such as the sample of population, instruments used and
the abstract also explained on the findings precisely. It was an informative abstract type where it
informed everything happened in the study in detail even though the lacking of significance of
study and implications hamper the reading process. Overall, the abstract is brief and clear.

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3. Introduction

The introduction is the part of the paper that provides readers with the background information
for the research reported in the paper. Its purpose is to establish a framework for the research, so
that readers can understand how it is related to other research (Wilkinson, 1991, p. 96). What
should be written in the introduction of the study is the background. But then, the researcher only
explained about the topic of bilingualism. It also did not mention the problem statements but in
the second paragraph, there were some parts of the sentences seemed like the problem statements
but unsustain, where the researcher did highlighted his concern of “not being able to make my
students understand quite a number of expressions in the target language sometimes; thus,
finding the class difficult to manage”. There were no hypotheses of the study but more to
assumptions stated in the introduction, one of it: to fathom the usefulness of bilingualism as a
teaching aid at intermediate level and whether it really helps the students learning the target
language with an ease? Those can be considered as the hypotheses of the study, perhaps.
Overall, the introduction clarified again on the researcher’s main purpose of his study. Not more
than that because, all introductions should conclude with a brief paragraph that describes the
organization of the rest of the paper (Hirano, Eliana, 2002).

4. Literature Review

The review of the literature provides the background and context for the research problem. “It
should establish the need for the research and indicate that the writer is knowledgeable about the
area” (Wiersma, 1995, p. 406). The study provided five related literatures from the previous
studies and sufficient to the study. It contains an appropriate and precise sources of study where
it represented the area of study itself; contribution of bilingualism in language teaching. The
researcher did represented the accurate findings and data regarding the articles being reviewed
and it showed that, the researcher did explored and discovered deeply before proceed to his
study. Further reading in the researcher literature review also exposed the research gap that the
researcher found, for example, in the study of how two or more languages function in a given
society by Hamers and Blanc (2000) where they do not suggest that it is possible to see each in
isolation from the other, pointing out their interdependency. The literature review of this study

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provides a framework for establishing the importance of the study, as well as a benchmark for
comparing the results of a study with other findings. It gives readers a glimpse into the study
overall and where the researchers succeeded an excellent job of doing this section to inform the
reader, the rationale of make-up the study and why it is worth to be accomplished.

5. Research Methodology

The organized questioning and exploration either by hypothesis formation or scientific testing of
any inquisition or query by following a set of standard rules and procedures is defined as
research methodology. According to previous research and studies, the researcher had found
some gap, i.e. no broad generalizations have been made rather than those previous researches
only focus on the spoken aspect of L2 along with L1, the proper use of vocabulary while
communicating and the age group. These have made the researcher to fill-in the gap from the
aspects of integrated skills. There were a total of 150 students involved to be his population of
study, where he studied the links between L1 and L2. It was a wide population for the study and
the findings were accordingly sufficient. No interferes happened during the study because the
researcher was only observing the class with semi-structured interviews (for the teachers, not to
the students) and the lesson was not being interrupted at all. The finding of his study was the
connection between L1 and L2 does facilitate the learners.

The method he used in this study was effective and appropriate for the study because it
does evaluate and the findings were recognizable. Instead of interrupting the whole teaching and
learning session, this first method conducted by recording the teachers while they were teaching,
and only after that the researcher collecting the data by counting on how frequently the teachers
had to be bilingual during the teaching and learning session. It is called as a classroom
observation by the researcher. It was a successful method because the recorder make the data
collection easier because it can be re-play again and again.

The second method he used in order to accomplish his study was by conducted a semi-
structured interview session of the five teachers whose classes were observed earlier. The
purpose was to find the reasons why they had to switch to mother-tongue (L1) and preferred

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using it over English. It was a great way but taking the teacher’s teaching time while in school
was highly not recommended here in Malaysia.

The third method used for the study was, questionnaire. It was adequately described by
the researcher in his abstract. The questionnaire was related with the objectives of the study; to
find out the contribution of bilingualism in language teaching and learning. The questionnaire
was divided into two kinds of sets. One set was given to the teachers, was aimed at discovering
their practice of using bilingualism in the classroom. Another set of questionnaire was given to
the students, to know students’ reaction to the use of bilingualism in the class. The main aim of
both questionnaires was to determine the use of bilingualism in the improvement of their
language skills in L2 especially those areas in which they felt it was effective. The researcher
does a good job of describing the questionnaire purposes and its scoring but the questions asked
were predictable and ones could guess the answer easily. Overall, the questionnaire session
fulfilled the research method requirements.

The research methodology used in this study has definitely compressed the aims. Even
though some part like the semi-structured interviews argued by the other scholars because of
time-consumed, still it gave the best results and findings; which specifically highlighted the
purpose and proved the use of bilingualism did contribute in language teaching and learning.

6. Analysis

Because of the study complicated statistics and analysis, it is difficult to find the faults. It
was a descriptive analysis because the researcher described all the findings, except the
questionnaire. It was a proper analysis by the way since the study used survey and observation in
order to gather the results, without interrupting the on-going lesson. The findings, some of it
were analysed in the table, which was more comprehensible rather than the chart analysis. The
chart, in the other hand, quite confusing and the chart design was too small. As a result, the
numbers all went miserable and hard to read. The chart analysis should be expanded a little until
the edge of the paper margin, so all the data could be read easily. Despite of the minor fault, the

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statistics been interpreted appropriately for the level of measurement of the data and the source
all clearly explained the findings.

7. Results/Findings/Data Collection

In this study, the only result showed by the researcher using table and chart was the
classroom observation. In order to collect the data, instead of sticking with the rule of being
qualitative, the researcher mix the method by quantitatively developed the calculation in the table
and the chart. The result was understandable and easy to read, rather than need to be explained in
a sentence. It was a good idea when one qualitative issue cannot be measured, and then the using
of qualitative assessment should be considered to get the exact data. The semi-structured
interviews and the students’ response results were descriptively explained in the whole page. It
hampers the reading because of need to read everything. Instead of describing and detailing
explaining it, the researcher maybe could use the table too and insert the interview questions in
there. The researcher could explain it later, but the table complete with the findings data should
also be included. There are people who love words; there are people who love numbers. Not
everyone could comprehend by just reading, others would find it readable by just looking at the
complete table.

8. Discussion

The study revealed a number of problematic issues and the reasons of bilingualism being
used frequently in teaching of L2. The findings throughout the discussion on teachers’ response
on the contribution of bilingualism brought more than 90% of teachers confirmed the
propositions that bilingualism is helpful as a teaching aid in EFL classroom. The data collected
during the interviews has showed that, teachers hold this opinion that use of bilingualism brings
practical advantages for the learners. The researchers effectively linked his findings to previous
literature or other research in ELT saying that “language is a living phenomenon”. Next, the
findings towards students’ response about the usefulness of bilingualism, in about 97% of 150
students responded to “yes” which indicate that, the study confirmed a success study; the
researcher claimed that bilingualism is helpful as a teaching aid in EFL classroom, as mentioned

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in the study: “without the use of bilingualism, it will not only be more time consuming for both
teachers and the students to teach and learn but also leads to communication gap which may
rather lead to wrong, misappropriate and incorrect language learning”. The only problem
found in after the discussion between both teachers and students was, bilingualism is necessary
in order to successfully learn L2, but it should not be used constantly because this would also
hamper the process of language learning to a great extent.

9. Conclusions and Recommendations

The conclusion clearly presented and follows orderly from the results and findings of the
study and it answered the research purposes. According to the researcher, the study found that,
the use of bilingualism has an important role in teaching and learning L2 at intermediate level,
has been employed as a teaching technique in EFL classroom and does not reduce students’
exposure and capacity to communicate well in L2, but it helps students to be more confident and
it is as motivation for the EFL learners too. Move to the recommendations, from the study, the
researchers stated 7 recommendations for the teachers in order to aid and facilitate the language
learning process by being bilingual justifiably. The researcher even extended the 7 th
recommendation with some of the remedial measures (sources by him) dealing with any
obstacles in L2; in term of being bilingual. That was an excellent and proactive path taken by the
researcher, not only stopped until the recommendations, but with the remedial process too. In the
end, the researcher did well by ending the study with recapitulation of the results and findings
and also the recommendations. It was a successful study overall and it is clearly showed that the
study examine the contribution of bilingualism in language teaching, efficiently.

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REFERENCES

Hirano, Eliana. Research Article Introductions in English for Specific Purposes: A Comparison
between Brazilian, Portuguese, and English. English for Specific Purposes 28 (October
2009): 240-250. [23 April 2019].

Introductions. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; “Writing Introductions.”

In Good Essay Writing: A Social Sciences Guide. [23 April 2019].

Peter Redman. 4th edition. London: Sage, 2011. 63-70; Reyes, Victoria. Demystifying the
Journal Article. Inside Higher Education. [23 April 2019].

Pajares, F. 2007. Elements of a proposal. Retrieved from

http://des.emory.edu/mfp/proposal.html [22 April 2019].

Samraj, B. Introductions in Research Articles: Variations across Disciplines. English for

Specific Purposes 21 (2002): 1–17. [23 April 2019].

Sidawi, B. 2013. Journal Article Critique: The tutor’s views on the utilization of e-learning
system in architectural education. European Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning.
16(2): 1 – 5.