The Role of Instructional Phrases in Improving Students' Understanding Through Bilingual Learning in Elementary Schools

Abstract

This study aims to identify and analyze effective instructional phrases in bilingual teaching (English-Indonesian) for elementary school students. We explored the characteristics, forms, communicative functions, and implementation patterns of instructional imperative sentences in bilingual classrooms. Data was collected through literature review, classroom observations, and teacher interviews from bilingual elementary schools in Semarang. The results demonstrated that effective bilingual instructional phrases have distinct structural and pragmatic characteristics that facilitate student comprehension across both languages. We identified six variations of instructional phrases and five main communicative functions that support classroom management and learning facilitation. The study revealed implementation patterns including language scaffolding, interlanguage transition, instruction contextualization, and age-appropriate usage patterns. Several challenges in implementing bilingual instruction were identified, including language comprehension difficulties, proficiency variations, language interference, and usage consistency issues. These findings provide a reference for elementary school teachers to enhance bilingual instruction effectiveness and support students' bilingual competence development.