Mother Tongue Barriers and Anecdote Text Writing in Indonesian as A Second Language: A Genre-Based Study of Papua Students
Abstract
Writing Indonesian anecdote texts presents challenges for Papuan students who use languages as their mother tongues. Linguistic differences, limited genre knowledge, and insufficiently contextualized instruction may affect their ability to produce coherent and complete texts. This study aimed to describe students’ anecdote-writing competence, identify forms of mother-tongue interference, and examine the pedagogical relevance of a genre-based approach. A descriptive-exploratory design was employed at SMA Negeri Meepago, Papua, involving 48 Grade X students, one Indonesian language teacher, and the principal. Data were collected through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and unsupported student writing tasks, then analyzed thematically using ATLAS.ti 9 through initial, focused, and theoretical coding. The findings showed that 41 students (85%) demonstrated mother-tongue interference, including grammatical transfer, inverted word order, dialectal lexical intrusion, direct translation, omission of function words, and incomplete sentences. Moreover, 38 students (79%) displayed inadequate knowledge of anecdote structures, while only 40% achieved the minimum writing competency criterion. These difficulties were reinforced by lecture-centered teaching, limited genre modeling, and materials that were insufficiently connected to Papuan contexts. The study concludes that a culturally responsive genre-based approach is needed to provide explicit modeling, collaborative construction, and scaffolding, thereby improving students’ linguistic accuracy, textual coherence, and mastery of anecdote writing.