94 The above chart indicates that mid-term or final test examination is conducted through a
series of steps. In other words, to continue engaging in the game, KUM teachers, as the actors in the field, should follow the rulespolicies made by KUM leaders. If the
teachers are able to follow the rules, they might attain forms of cultural capital that enable them to perform well as the KUM teachers as Nolan 2012, p. 204 mentions
that, “the relative smoothness of the gamefield often depends upon the players blindly accepting and following these rules, regardless of how arbitrary they might seem.” As a
teacher continues to engage in the game, heshe willingly follows the rules so that heshe will be able to feel the game Bourdieu, 1990. The next section of this chapter
describes the School of English Education that acts many of the rules teachers are required to follow. This is the school that has the largest enrolment of students at
KUM.
4.4 School of English Education of Kanjuruhan University of Malang
This section provides details of the School of English Education, one of 10 schools for teacher training and education at KUM. The School of English Education at
KUM was established to provide the students with the opportunity to learn to be competent English teachers. This section is divided into four subsections: curriculum,
facilities, lecturer, and students.
4.4.1 Curriculum
The curriculum at the School of English Education is designed to provide the students with the opportunity to engage with relevant and meaningful learning material.
The nature of the material is such that it develops the necessary hard and soft skills in the students that can be applied in various situations. In addition, the curriculum at the
School of English Education is expected to produce students with academic, pedagogical, social and personality competencies Accreditation Borang of the School of
English Education 2011. Moreover, it provides a range of compulsory and elective courses to the students. The compulsory courses consist of English skills courses that
include grammar, speaking, writing, reading, and listening. Other options include the various content courses such as Teaching and Learning Strategy, Instructional Media,
Teaching English as a Foreign Language TEFL, Language Testing, and Curriculum and Material development. The elective courses are worth two credits and include
Introduction to Educational Research, Discourse Analysis, English Semantics,
95 Pragmatics, Bilingualism, English for Tourism and others. The students of the English
education program commonly take a total of 24 credits every semester and are required to complete 146 credits from both the compulsory and elective courses to graduate as
described in Table 8 below:
Course type Credit
Note
Compulsory courses 134
Students must take all compulsory courses
Elective courses 12
Students can take a minimum of 6 elective courses from the 14 courses on
offer
Total 146
Table 8: Course credit that must be taken by the English students Source: the accreditation Borang of School of English Education, 2011
As shown in the above table, the total number of credit points required to graduate is 146. The 134 credits from compulsory courses include Kuliah Kerja Nyata field work,
teaching practice, and thesis writing. Kuliah Kerja Nyata field work is a form of community service by students which is completed over one month. In this fieldwork,
the students in their final years are required and given the opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills they learnt to assist community especially in a particular village.
This fieldwork is worth four credit points and the students are required to do fieldwork when they are in their seventh semester. Following the completion of their fieldwork,
the students are required to complete their teaching practice. This course is worth five credit points and is undertaken at various schools around Malang. At this time, the
students are also required to start to write their thesis, which is worth six credit points. This implies that the more credit given to a course, the more capital the course has.
Accordingly, the school carefully considers which courses need to have more credit and which courses have less credit. These courses will determine the knowledge the students
acquire from their study at the School of English Education that, in turn, influence student skill.
The curriculum at the School of English Education is reviewed every four years by the head of the school and the first rector assistant. The final curriculum is approved
96 by the rector. Minor changes such as developments to the teaching materials, syllabus
components, and the teaching model are completed every semester. When asked about the current curriculum, Fina Interview 1, 02062012, the Head of School of English
Education, stated:
Generally, the curriculum of School of English Education is already good enough but still we need to make some changes. There are some compulsory
courses from university that I think have the same content as courses from English education program such as multicultural course with cross cultural
understanding CCU, English with some English skill courses, counseling with development of learners course. Moreover, English education programs need to
add more credits for grammar course because of the low competence of student inputs. They lack of grammar ability especially if we check their thesis writing.
It’s just frustrating.
Clearly, to create a more effective curriculum, the School of English education needs to
review and make some changes in its curriculum. There are courses that need to be replaced by other courses due to their similarities and developed in response to the
students’ need to gain access more English skills courses. As mentioned previously in this chapter, an effective and distinct curriculum that accommodates student need
enables KUM to attain more symbolic capital by attracting greater student enrollments. Further, some English teachers at KUM also state similar comments as Fina’s opinion
above. For example, Angga Interview 1, 03062012 stated:
School of English Education of KUM needs to make some changes on the offered courses. They need to replace some courses that have similar contents
and add more credits to English skill courses such as speaking, grammar, and pronunciation practice because the students are in English major. Pronunciation
practice, for example, is only given once. It should be given more than once so there will be pronunciation practice 1 and 2.
Similarly, Nia Interview 1, 03062012 explained:
I think there are too many elective courses that are not needed by English students such as English for tourism, English for hotels, and business
correspondence. The curriculum should be relevant to English education. Moreover, there are some courses that are similar. For example, English
correspondence and business for office. Why don’t they just become one
97 course? Next, the credit of English skill courses need to be added since I still
find English skill courses with only have two credits. They all should be four credits.
The above statements emphasize that the School of English Education needs to review its curriculum to create more comprehensive courses for the English students to
facilitate their skills development towards becoming qualified English teachers. The Head of the School, with the help of the secretary, arranges the teaching
schedule. However, some teachers often complain that the courses they have to teach are frequently changed and this does not allow the teachers to specialize in teaching a
particular subject. This view is expressed by Toni Interview 1, 03062012 in the following statement:
I love teaching the writing course. I taught writing for two semesters and already had a collection of various teaching materials to teach writing. I’m not happy
when I know that this semester I have to teach content course, linguistics since I don’t have any experience to teach linguistics before. I need to have an extra
time to learn it more then.
A similar complaint was made by Ida Interview 1, 03062012:
What I want from the school is to give me the same course to teach every semester. I used to teach reading course but then now I have to teach writing
course. I know it’s still skill English course but I already have a lot of materials for teaching reading and keeps searching new methods in teaching reading. It’s
much better if the school requires me to teach reading again this semester.
The above statements indicate that the teachers of the School of English Education are not empowered or respected as professionals who can contribute to curriculum. Since
teachers are the ones who must implement the curriculum in their classrooms, they are the ones who know well what the curriculum should look like. As such, they should
play an integral in creating the curriculum. If teachers are given the opportunity to provide input, they will have more ownership of the curriculum and gain more
confidence in implementing it since the curriculum is shaped from their concerns for their students’ needs. Furthermore, referring to the above comments, if the School of
English Education consider providing its teachers with the opportunity to specialize in
98 the teaching of certain subjects by giving them the same subject to teach every semester,
the teachers will have more opportunities to provide better quality teaching. This, in turn, opens more possibilities for KUM to attain more cultural capitals that empower
KUM to compete with other private universities to increase the student enrollment. The next section of this chapter focuses on the nature and availability of the facilities and
materials in the School of English Education.
4.4.2 The nature and availability of facilities and materials
