'I Spoke Bahasa Indonesia to My Children so They Would Not Repeat My Experience at School': Why Parents Choose to Talk a Particular Language to Their Children at Home

摘要

Family is the first social institution that introduces language to children. This family will lay foundation of their children's language competence. In a family, parents will indirectly teach their children how and when using the language. They will teach the name of objects, how to deliver their intention and also the appropriateness of a sentence usage. Parents will consciously and unconsciously consider many aspects before introducing particular language to their children that will affect children both socially and academically. Based on these issues, this study aims at exploring two problems. First, to find out why do parents choose particular language to their children at home. Secondly, to find out the impact on this choice toward the children academically. To elicit the problems this study used qualitative research. Purpose sample was employed with 6 participants. The participants were parents with diverse social background. To collect data this study used interview. This study found that parents talk to their children particular language at home for practical reasons: for academic and social reasons. The implication of this research is many children do not speak their ancestor language which may have impact on preservation of the language. However, another consequence arises if they speak their regional language: the children may have problem in their social and academic gain.