Indonesian EFL Journal
Vol. 11 No. 3 (2025)

SPEAKING ENGLISH IN THE PESANTREN: A GENDER-BASED ANALYSIS OF MORPHOSYNTACTIC AND LEXICAL PATTERNS

Tanzir Masykar (Akademi Komunitas Negeri Aceh Barat)
Mahlil Mahlil (Politeknik Negeri Lhoksumawe)
Hery Wiharja (Akademi Komunitas Negeri Aceh Barat)
Febri Nurrahmi (Universitas Syiah Kuala)
Nurul Taflihati Masykar (Jambo Raudhatul Quran)
Riza Hasan (Teknologi Pengelasan Logam, Akademi Komunitas Negeri Aceh Barat)



Article Info

Publish Date
08 Dec 2025

Abstract

English has become a significant medium of communication in Indonesian pesantren, yet limited research has examined how students in this setting produce spoken English. Previous studies have largely focused on curriculum, teacher identity, and learner motivation, while little attention has been given to the morphosyntactic and lexical features of pesantren students’ actual speech. This study addresses the gap by analyzing the spoken English of 19 students (10 male, 9 female) from a pesantren in Banda Aceh through recorded interviews that were transcribed and coded for grammatical, lexical, and discourse errors. Error types were classified using an SLA-oriented framework, including inflectional and derivational morphology, syntax, lexical choice, pragmatic/discourse, and interlingual errors. The findings reveal that female students were more vulnerable to inflectional morphology errors (50.72%), particularly with verb tense, copula omission, articles, and plural –s. Male students showed higher proportions of syntax errors (33.88%) and pragmatic/discourse errors (7.10%), including misordering, fragments, redundancy, and repetition. Both groups shared difficulties with derivational morphology and lexical choice, while interlingual interference was minimal. The results suggest that while pesantren students share developmental L2 difficulties, gender-based differences emerge in their grammatical and discourse patterns, offering implications for pedagogy and curriculum design.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

pub

Publisher

Subject

Languange, Linguistic, Communication & Media

Description

The scopes of the journal include critical issues of educational practices in primary, secondary and tertiary education as well as in university level surrounding: English Language Pedagogy Language Acquisition Bilingualism and Multilingualism English language Literacy English for Specific Purposes ...