Journal of English Language Teaching        Volume 4 Nomor 2, Agustus 2017 

http://ojs.ikipmataram.ac.id/index.php/joelt           ISSN: 2548-5865 

93 

 

PROBLEMS OF ENGLISH TEACHING LEARNING IN 

MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOM IN STMIK BUMIGORA MATARAM 

 

 

Titik Ceriyani Miswaty
 (1) 

(titik_ceriyani86@yahoo.com
(1)

) 

Post-Graduated Student of Hassanuddin University Makasar 

 

ABSTRACT 

This study deals with teaching learning English in multicultural classroom in 

STMIK Bumigora Mataram and aims at investigating what problems that obstruct 

students in learning English in the classrooms. In order to find the answer of 

research problems, this study useddescriptive qualitative methods in which some 

tools as questioner and interview were used as data instruments to collect the data. 

The subject of this study is students from four English classes in STMIK 

Bumigora Mataram who come from some tribes in Indonesia and 2 lectures that 

teach in those classes. The findings of this study are problems there are some 

problems such as; 1) Syllabus which used is not well prepared, 2) the material that 

is used is not suitable with the needs of students, and 3) dialect of students’ 

mother tongue. After findingthe problems that happen in multicultural classrooms 

in STMIK Bumigora Mataram. 

 

Keywords: Multicultural Classroom, Problems of English Teaching Learning 

 

INTRODUCTION 

English as a foreign language in 

Indonesia has been taught in formal 

education since Dutch colonization. 

in the Japanese colonization English 

teaching learning is abolished. 

This abolition as the part of 

revision education system of Dutch 

colonization by Japanese government 

in Indonesia. In 1945 after Indonesia 

has declared its independence, 

Indonesia government then rearrange 

the curricula of English and English 

started to be taught in formal 

education since then.  

As a part of paramount subject in 

formal education, English then has 

been so familiar to students. It is 

taught from elementary school until 

higher education. Even the curricula 

of English have been changed many 

times, the prominent goals of English 

remain the same, to improve the 

students’ ability in using English.  

Then the question comes up, 

Students have known English since 

they were in elementary school but 

some of them are still not be able to 

speak English when they are in higher 

education, what is the problem? What 

makes students can’t master English 

after learning it in their whole life? 

Do the problems come from the 

students? Or the problem just happens 

unconditionally? 

Many researches have been done 

dealing with the improvement of 

students’ ability, many theories or 

techniques have been made as well to 



Journal of English Language Teaching        Volume 4 Nomor 2, Agustus 2017 

http://ojs.ikipmataram.ac.id/index.php/joelt           ISSN: 2548-5865 

94 

 

solve the students’ problems in 

learning. But none of them can claim 

that the “X” theory is better than the 

“Y” or the “Z” theory is the best. 

Nevertheless, the researchers has 

never stop to do research on the 

success of the teaching and learning 

processSome teaching methods and 

techniques are going to be developed 

and created by researchers every 

time.But somehow, something that 

other previous researcher miss about, 

that is try to seek deeply what 

problems that cause the obstacles of 

teaching learning process. 

In learning process, particularly 

in the level of understanding, 

application, analysis, synthesis and 

evaluation or when learning process 

comes to the affective domain in 

developing attitudesandstudents need 

to accept the values from the 

information theyabsorb or show the 

response and build the value, There 

are many aspect that will influence 

the success of it, external and internal 

aspects of students, one of the internal 

aspect of students is their native 

culture. 

 West Nusa Tenggara is a 

small island in Indonesia that consists 

of three native tribes, there 

areSumbawanese, Bimanese and 

Sasaknese. Besides, there are some 

tribes also live in West Nusa 

Tenggara, Javanese, Balinese, Bugis 

and some other tribes of Indonesia 

also inhabit in it. This cultural 

diversity causes most of the 

classroom in Indonesia becomes 

multicultural classroom. No doubt 

that multicultural classroom then 

make another challenges for teacher 

and student in learning and teaching 

process.  

Based on that reason, this study 

focusses on how to seek the problems 

that happens in the multicultural 

classroom. Since Indonesia is an 

archipelago country that has more 

than 700 languages used there must 

be some obstacles that can be found 

in the classroom. This study aims at 

examining the multicultural 

classroom in STMIK 

BumigoraMataram and to find out the 

problems in that class. Because as 

what described above that learning 

foreign language is certainly as not 

easy as learning mother tongue. 

Besides, the influence of mother 

tongue somehow has a great deal for 

students in learning foreign language.  

Multicultural classroom  

Multicultural classroom has a 

board meaning. As what stated in IGI 

global disseminator knowledge, 

multicultural classroom is a 

classroom that supports teaching 

process based on cultural diversity 

and could help the effectiveness of 

learning for students from diverse 

background. As teachers teach in a 

multicultural classroom, they should 

to modify and incorporate the lessons 

to reflect the diversity in the class. 

Diversity nowadays becomes 

very popular topic to be discussed. 

Since diversity comes in many ways, 

the discussion about it will never be 

finished. The diversity of religion, 

ethnic or language. In term of 

language, All countries, for this 



Journal of English Language Teaching        Volume 4 Nomor 2, Agustus 2017 

http://ojs.ikipmataram.ac.id/index.php/joelt           ISSN: 2548-5865 

95 

 

instance countries in Southeast Asia 

are multilingual societies. As what 

Mohanty (2010) stated that 

multilingual societies characterized as 

“hierarchical multilingualism” the 

term “multilingualism” or 

“multilingual” simply mean the 

presence of and interaction between 

many language in society (Ruanni T: 

2014)  

Generally speaking, a 

multicultural classroom must apply 

multicultural education, so it can 

remove the barrier to educational 

opportunity and success for students 

from different cultural background. 

Practically, multicultural education 

entails the use of text, material 

references and historical example that 

are understandable to students from 

different cultural background or what 

reflect their particular culture 

experience. 

Problems in multicultural 

classroom 

People live in a world where 

there are deep-seated conflicts 

between cultures embodying different 

value (Kenan Malik 2014). Different 

peoples and cultures have different 

value, belief and truths. Many of 

which are incommensurate but all of 

which are valid in their own context.  

This problem can happen in a 

small group as classroom. In a 

classroom there are many students 

who come from different tribe, have 

different mother tongue and bring 

their own value. The problem that 

happens not just in a term of conflict 

but it can be in the term of the way 

student receive the information in 

learning process. For instance: a 

studentwhocomesfromare 

wheretheaccentisratherdifferentwithth

eaccentthatisusedbymostlystudents or 

even teacher in the classroom. 

Sothatwillbe a huge gap between 

that student with the others.

METHOD 

The method that is used in this 

study is descriptive qualitative 

method. Descriptive qualitative 

method is a method that describes all 

the data found in form of word, 

phrases and sentences (Miles and 

Huberman 1994:1). 

In this study, there are 4 classes 

of multicultural classrooms which are 

used as subject. Total 122 students of 

STMIK and 2 lecturers became 

participant in this study. The data of 

this study is English words, phrases 

and sentences that described from the 

result of data finding.  

Research instruments that were 

used in this study such as: 1). 

Interview: the researcher used 

interview to get information about 

student problem in learning English 

in their multicultural class. The 

interview has been done from both 

participants, students and lecturers. 

Interview which done with the 

students to get information about the 

problem form students’ point of view 

while interview which done with the 

lecturers is done to get information 

from lecturers perfectives. 2) 

questioner; in this study, the 



Journal of English Language Teaching        Volume 4 Nomor 2, Agustus 2017 

http://ojs.ikipmataram.ac.id/index.php/joelt           ISSN: 2548-5865 

96 

 

researcher used questioner to get 

additional information about students’ 

problem in learning English in 

multicultural classroom. According to 

Miles and Huberman (1994) 

questioner is a research tool in a form 

of list to gather information from 

respondents. There are three 

questioners which used in this study; 

a) multiple choice, check list and 

essay questioner.  

In this study, data that have been 

collected then analyzed by some steps 

as following; 1) describing the result 

of interview in a form of table and 

some unimportant data taken from 

interview then will be eliminated. 2) 

Grouping the data taken from 

questioner, since there were three 

different types of questioner used in 

this study, the data that has been 

obtained then would be collected 

according some categories according 

to the result from interview? 3) Data 

triangulation, data triangulation is 

done to get proper and sufficient data. 

4) After getting the final data, the 

data then been described in form of 

words, phrases and sentences. 

 

FINDING 

Data was collected by two 

instruments, questioner and interview. 

From those instruments, the data 

classified as follow: 

A.Interview 

Table 1: the result of students’ 

interview (A class) 

N

o 

Category Satisf

ied  

Quite 

satisf

ied 

Unsatis

fied  

1 Material 

given  

20% 10% 70% 

2 Hours of 

study in 

the 

classroo

m 

45% 40% 15% 

3 The use 

of 

technolo

gy 

20% 30% 50% 

4 Facilities 

and 

infrastru

cture in 

the 

classroo

m 

35% 40% 25% 

5 compati

bility 

between 

syllabus 

and the 

needs’ 

of 

students 

20% 15% 65% 

 

Table 2: the result of students’ 

interview (B class) 

N

o 

Category Satisf

ied  

Quite 

satisf

ied 

Unsatis

fied  

1 Material 

given  

15% 30% 55% 

2 Hours of 

study in 

the 

classroo

m 

35% 30% 55% 

3 The use 

of 

technolo

gy 

30% 30% 40% 

4 Facilities 

and 

infrastru

cture in 

25% 50% 25% 



Journal of English Language Teaching        Volume 4 Nomor 2, Agustus 2017 

http://ojs.ikipmataram.ac.id/index.php/joelt           ISSN: 2548-5865 

97 

 

the 

classroo

m 

5 compati

bility 

between 

syllabus 

and the 

needs’ 

of 

students 

20% 20% 60% 

Table 3: the result of students’ 

interview (C class) 

N

o 

Category Satisf

ied  

Quite 

satisf

ied 

Unsatis

fied  

1 Material 

given  

25% 15% 60% 

2 Hours of 

study in 

the 

classroo

m 

40% 40% 20% 

3 The use 

of 

technolo

gy 

30% 30% 40% 

4 Facilities 

and 

infrastru

cture in 

the 

classroo

m 

25% 40% 35% 

5 compati

bility 

between 

syllabus 

and the 

needs’ 

of 

students 

30% 10% 60% 

 

Table 4: the result of students’ 

interview (C class) 

 

N

o 

Category Satisf

ied  

Quite 

satisf

ied 

Unsatis

fied  

1 Material 25% 25% 50% 

given  

2 Hours of 

study in 

the 

classroo

m 

35% 35% 30% 

3 The use 

of 

technolo

gy 

25% 15% 60% 

4 Facilities 

and 

infrastru

cture in 

the 

classroo

m 

25% 40% 35% 

5 compati

bility 

between 

syllabus 

and the 

needs’ 

of 

students 

25% 25% 50% 

Table 5: The resultoflecturers’ 

interview 

No 
Problem that lecturers face in 

teaching process 

1 
Students’ motivation in 

learning 

2 
No syllabus provided by 

institution  

3 Native dialect of students 

4 
Poor English ability of 

students 

 

A. Questioner  

 After collecting the data from the 

result of interview, the researcher 

rechecked the data using questioner. 

Questioners which were used are 

from three different types of 

questioner; in this case, questioners 

were used in order to get valid data. 

 The following chart shows the 

result of checklist questioner. The 

questioner given was about the 



Journal of English Language Teaching        Volume 4 Nomor 2, Agustus 2017 

http://ojs.ikipmataram.ac.id/index.php/joelt           ISSN: 2548-5865 

98 

 

problems that happen in the 

classroom from teacher perspective. 

This question is given to recheck data 

that already collected before. 

 
 

 

DISCUSSION 

Based on the data that has been 

collected, both from interview and 

questioner, the analysis then 

formulated. From data collected by 

interview shows that the problems 

that mostly appear in the class are 1) 

compatibility between syllabus and 

the needs’ of students and 2) Material 

given. 

With the average of 

dissatisfaction is about 65% 

(compatibility between syllabus and 

the needs’ of students) and it is 65% 

of dissatisfaction for material given. 

In other hand, lecturers have their 

own point of view about the problem 

that mostly becomes obstacles in 

English teaching and learning 

process, the problems are 1)Students’ 

motivation in learning, 2) No syllabus 

provided by institution, 3) Native 

dialect of students and 4)Poor English 

ability of students. Those problems 

then been cross checked to students 

using questioner. from four problems 

that mentioned by lecturers, there are 

three intrinsic problems of students; 

1) students motivation, 2) native 

dialect of students and 3) students 

English ability. The result of 

questioner shows that the biggest 

problems that students face in 

learning is their native dialect. 

So from the result of data 

analysis above, it can be concluded 

that the problem that mostly happens 

in students multicultural classroom 

are 1) the influence of students’ 

native language, 2) incompatibility 

syllabus and 3) students’ needs and 

material given. 

 

CONCLUSION AND 

SUGGESTION 

Considering all findings which 

have been described. The researcher 

concludes that the problems that 

0

1

2

3

4

5

6
Student 
English 
Ability

Students' 
Motivation

The 
Influence of 
Students' 
Mother 
Tongue



Journal of English Language Teaching        Volume 4 Nomor 2, Agustus 2017 

http://ojs.ikipmataram.ac.id/index.php/joelt           ISSN: 2548-5865 

99 

 

happens come from both lecturers and 

the students. This result can be a 

consideration of all lectures to 

maintain their classroom. Because as 

what described in the discussion that 

the intrinsic problem that comes from 

students such as the influence of 

students’ native language (culture) 

can be solved by the proper material 

or syllabus given. If the material or 

syllabus that given in the class is not 

set based on students needs, learning 

goals will not be reach.   

Suggestion  

This study becomes one doorway 

to open other problems that can 

happen in multicultural classroom, it 

also can be a way to make better class 

that has material and syllabus based 

on the needs or (we can say) the 

problems that happen in the class. 

From this study, the researcher also 

hopes that another researcher can 

investigate deeper research about 

multicultural classroom. 

 

REFERENCES 

 

Miles, M.B., & Huberman, A.M. (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis (2nded).  

London: SAGE Publication. 

 

Mohanty, A,K. (2010). Language, inequality and marginalization: implications of 

the double divide in Indian multingualism. International Journal of the 

Sociology of Language. 

 

Ruanni, Tupas. (2014). inequalities of multilingualism: Challenges to mother 

tongue-based multilingual education. Taylor&Francis: Routledge.