Paper Summary of Teaching English as a Foreign Langauge in Indonesian Schools in The Reform Era: What Do Teachers Have to Say? by Bachrudin Musthafa & Fuad Abdul Hamied

Paper Summary of Teaching English as a Foreign Langauge in Indonesian Schools in The Reform Era: What Do Teachers Have to Say? by Bachrudin Musthafa & Fuad Abdul Hamied

(December 8^th, 2014)

Education in the reform era has been marked with some (limited) transfer of authority from central government to regional (provincial as well as district-level) governments in coordination with the central government while teacher in-service training is the responsibility of the Center for Teacher Professional Development (called “P4TK” in the Indonesian Language), the regional Body for Quality Assurance (“LPMP”), and regional offices of education (Alwasilah : 2011) . for example the cases of teacher recruitment, teacher training, and training organization.

The teaching of English as a Foreign Language at these levels of schooling is fraught with problems especially because there is a lack of academically qualified teachers to support the implementation of the policy. In Indonesia, a change in curriculum can happen following every succession of minister of education. A new minister creates a new curriculum. The history of EFL teaching in Indonesia seems to follow the same universal pattern of evolution, namely the use of grammar translation method, direct method, communicative language teaching, and Genre-Based Approach.

In the current reform era, most policies on education are basically the products of the Center for Curriculum and Textbook Evaluation and Quality Assurance Body have issued regulations with greatest effects on the professionalism of teachers. This curriculum (issued in 2004) came to the public discourse with different names: some call it “life-skills curriculum”; some other came to know it as “competency-based curriculum”. In a survey by Meilani (2007) involving 42 teachers of English from 15 junior secondary schools in Sukabumi Municipality. From these teachers’ widely diverse answers, it was evident that teachers were confused.

The majority of teacher respondents Musthafa and Hamied (2014) asked the respondents about the essential roles of the EFL teachers. The data indicate that regardless of the messages the curriculum developers tried to send to teachers, individually and collectively the teachers—through their conscious or unconscious participation (or lack thereof)—have the power to make or break the reform. The majority of the teacher respondents made a very pragmatic decision: the teachers despised the instructional approaches mandated by the 2004 curriculum and taught their students to the test. Teachers eventually shape the curriculum according to their own beliefs, teach their own personal values through the implicit curriculum, and frame their classroom interactions in accordance with their own particular definitions of teaching and learning.

In line with these, newly-mandated curriculum confused the teachers, the surrounding societal demands remained the same: students’ high scores in the national exam. The teachers were left with only one choice—to teach their students to the test. This is because scores are a direct evidence of both teachers’ successful teaching and their students’ successful learning. An overwhelming percentage of teacher respondents have witnessed that confusion prevailed among teachers when the then new 2004 curriculum was instituted to the schooling system. which commented on the difficulty of implementing the “reform ideas” primarily because there is no enough guideline to implement it and a huge number of teachers are still confused with the ideas.

Recommendations are proposed especially with reference to the provision of supports for the development of EFL teachers as professionals has opportunities to update their knowledge-base and improve their technical skills to support their optimal performance in their roles as both teachers and researcher (of their own practice), certification programs they had attended have improved their welfare more than improved their professionalism, professional training should be incorporated into regular curriculum of preservice (and inservice) teacher professional education.

Professional Association of EFL Teachers such as TEFLIN with English MGMP (Council of Teachers of English) and professors of English and/or Language Teaching & Research to ensure continues professional development of teachers. Initial steps should be made to begin to establish Professional Development Schools (PDS). Education Central Offices should reach out to help develop human resources in the regional (provincial and district-level). Teachers and students were involved (or at least being consulted) in the process of designing, implementing, and evaluating programs. The notion of learner-centered curriculum has already been in policy documents such as Education Ministerial Laws, more concrete translations should be made into policy implementations.