Interference Phenomenon

          The most Indonesian people know and use at least two languages,that are mother tongue and Indonesian. For the most Indonesians who live in the small city or in island, they will use their regional language as their first language, for example Javanese, Sundanese, Dayaknese, and so on. Whereas Indonesian which is usually learned after the first language mastered will become their second language.With the advancement of education in Indonesia, most Indonesians know at least one foreign language, such as English. Teaching English is currently facing new challenges. With the use of two or more languages in everyday life, direct or indirect contact will occur between the first language, the second language, or the third language / foreign language. Their native language will greatly influence the language being studied.

           In reality, the most mastered language will affect the less mastered language. For example, a child who has Javanese as his first language, when he learned Indonesian it is likely he will move the pronunciation, intonation and sentence patterns of Javanese into Indonesian. The same thing will happen for middle school students who have mastered Indonesian when they learn foreign languages. According to Boey (1985) transfer of pronunciation, intonation and patterns of first language sentences to a second language or third language is called "Transfer". If the transfer creates an amenity called "Positive Transfer", and if it creates a difficulty, then the transfer is called "Negative Transfer" or "Interference”. 

According to Brown (1994, p. 91-92) the first language interference into a second language is simply a form of generalization that affects the second language and applies it incorrectly, meaning interference as a result of applying the first language system into the second language not true. This opinion is reinforced by Kridalaksana (2001, p. 84) interference is a language error in the form of an element of its own language that is brought into other languages that are being studied. Language errors occur because the elements brought by speakers are different from the elements and language systems being studied.  

In this article, the term of interference refers to the transfer of Indonesian structure into English. It happened because of differences in grammar between Indonesian and English. Students who have mastered a little Indonesian grammar will move these forms into English, because there is a considerable difference in grammar between Indonesian and English, for English learners, interference that occurs is very potential to cause errors in compiling English sentences.

Based on the writer experience in micro teaching at one of the high school in Palangka Raya, grammatical rule and inability translate are still become obstacles in the learning process. The writer found that the EFL learners have difficulties in translating English sentence. When translating sentence, some students usually makes grammar mistakes especially in translating a text from L1 to L2. The writer found students who translate "Buku Biru" into "Book Blue" or they will translate “Saya dan Ibu Saya” into “I and My Mother”. This phenomenon supported by Pudiyono‘s research (2012, p. 6) the structural of Indonesian language can be influenced in practice by Indonesian students; it‘s like the following sentences: “Dia sangat menyukai kopi”. With such grammatical as the example, the Indonesian could capably express the idea just like an Indonesian pattern as the following: "She very likes coffee". Definitely, this utterance is not acceptable in English. When students translate texts of Indonesian into English, they still apply Indonesian grammar which is not acceptable in English.