Title:
UNIVERSITY EFL STUDENTS’ LANGUAGE PREFERENCES DURING ONLINE LEARNING CLASSES

Authors:
Pingkan Wulandari D. Mokoginta, Hasanuddin Fatsah* and Abid

Abstract:
This study focuses on investigating language preferences that English majors use the most when communicating orally with lecturers during the virtual meeting classroom and the reason why they are using the particular language. Language preference is an act that humans take to choose a language for communication. A qualitative approach was applied in this research. The data were collected through interview sessions via Zoom meeting and observation fieldnotes in online learning class. The participants were from English Department students in sixth semester who enrolled into the Seminar on Language class. To analyse the data, thematic analysis was used for this research. Thematic analysis is the way to analyze the data by dividing them into themes. The result shows that the interaction inside the class was dominantly done in English but students, in particular, preferred to use mixed English and Indonesian because they felt more comfortable to mix those languages. Furthermore, students’ language preferences are affected by some factors, including politeness, language pride, also the dominant language used in one condition. It is important to conduct this research so that lecturers and students can adjust to the language preferences that make students easier to understand, and the learning process runs effectively.

Keywords:
language preferences, online learning, EFL students

DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.37500/IJESSR.2022.5107