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CHAPTER I THE INTRODUCTION
This research is a study on English testing which concentrates on the concept and the development of the theoretical testing model to measure
communicative written English competence of Indonesian elementary school students.
This chapter is an initial part which will review the background of the research, research position, problem identification, research focus, research
questions, research benefits, and product specification.
A. RESEARCH BACKGROUND
The globalization era which enables all countries around the world to plant business and trades without any country boundaries that is legitimated by
International convention of World Trade Organization WTO in 1994 has impact on English as the language of the world or commonly known as lingua franca.
English becomes the language of the internet, motion pictures, science and sports. It is also the language which is spoken for business and political power.
Employers on a national as well as on an international scale pay attention to the English skills of their future employees. Therefore, millions of learners around the
world seek the ability to communicate in English as the passport to economic prosperity, social mobility and educational improvement. People’s need to
function in today’s world pushes them to learn English. They devote both time
2 and money to have their English skills assessed and tested to get the recognition
of their English skill as well as improvement on their English learning process.
Indonesia, as one of the biggest ASEAN countries also joins the driven spirit of acquiring English as a communicative language for its people, especially
for its young generations. Indonesian government, as if they do not want to be left behind, put English as a compulsory subject in the curriculum and put it as one of
the only compulsory foreign language being tested in the National education examination. Even, nowadays, there has been a rush trend of teaching the
language from the earlier age. Parents are eager to introduce English to their children as early as possible by sending their children to the institutions that state
themselves as putting English into their curriculum.
Unfortunately, the strong motivation of mastering English in Indonesia has not yet came to the effectiveness and productivity of the result. Teaching English
in Indonesia has been in place for years up to now and various evaluation on the curriculum and methods have been developed to improve students’ English
competence, yet the result is still far from being optimally achieved as to make students able to communicate in English. Indonesia’s English proficiency is
considered as very low. A commercial site of EF, an international English course institution, shows the result of their research on world English mastery in 2011.
The result shows that from 13 Asian countries, Indonesia is in the 10
th
rank. It is shown in the figure below:
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Figure 1.1.
Asian countries
rank in
the level
of English
proficiency http:www.ef.co.idepicountry-profilesindonesia
The researcher realizes that the result may be intended for commercial, yet she thinks that, at least, it can be taken as a slight picture of what Indonesia has
achieved so far in the English profeciency in the world English mastery. Such a result, however, has led to a doubt about the English achievement in Indonesian
elementary school. Suyanto 2001 stated English teaching in Indonesia
elementary school was considered as not yet successful due to the fact that there was not yet a national standard on the curriculum. Every province was allowed to
make their own curriculum that one province might have different curriculum concept from another. He further explained that English curriculum as a local
load curriculum had many handicaps, among of which was that it was not suitable for the development of children of 6-12 years old. The future condition of English
teaching and learning in this stage, now, may even worse. The media has broadcasted the news that Deputy Education Minister, Musliar Kasim, has
announced that English is abolished for lower elementary pupils in the next school year beginning July 2013 as part of a curriculum restoration. The policy making is
due to goverment’s concern that English learning in the early age can be a burden and endangers the foundation of the pupils’ nationalism. With such a concern, the
government determines the subject to be taught and learnt within the next level of
4 education started from the junior high school level as the earliest. Yet, lately,
Musliar, after the few months debate, finally has announced that English will not be abolished after all. Schools are allowed to offer the subject but as an elective
subject. It should not be made compulsory.
Many people disagree with the government’s policy. Ignoring the dispute, parents keep sending their children to institutions which put English in their
curriculum. And educational institutions, both government and private elementary schools and English course institutions, keep introducing English to the pupils in
their curriculum but in a different strategy.
Such an uncertain situation, however, was not conducive for the pupils’ English learning atmosphere and later on may have bad impact to the pupils’
future English learning. If elementary schools are formally not allowed to include English into their curriculum, and the schools keep conducting it in their own
way, the format of English teaching and learning in elementary school level will be uncontrolly designed. The impact which may come along with the situation is
the uncontrolled quality assurance on the outcome. The people’s high expectation of preparing their children a weapon by acquiring English well to compete for
good careers in the future will be unfulfilled.
In fact, the reason why the government decides to dismiss English from the elementary school curriculum is actually highly questionable. An emprical results
in favor of the positive effects of early English education has been found by Katsuyama, Nishigaki and Wang 2008 in their research on 1466 elementary
school children in Japan that students who took English lesson in elementary
5 school had more “aptitude and interest towards learning English that those who
did not receive any English” Kim, 2004:26. The result also showed that positive impression and attitudes with ‘regard to early language learning experiences are
likely to fuel the learners’ desire for further language learning” Kim, 2004:26. Another study also showed that the power to learn language is so great in the
young child that it does not seem to matter how many languages they are willing to learn. The children have the capacity and there is no detriment to develop
several languages at the same time. Therefore, learning English for the elementary school students actually means no burden for them Kim, 2004:26.
Elementary School is considered as the basic level of education. Therefore an effectiveness English teaching method in this level is very critical for the
students’ future acceptance on the English learning. The uncertain condition for the English learning in the elementary school level will mean more disadvatages
for the aim of national education to produce qualified human resources. Therefore, an educative instrument which can act as a scaffolding for the people to control
the quality of their children’s English learning achievement is critically needed.
An effective measurement and definition of the English competence of Indonesian elementary school students are necessary. A good testing instrument
is critical to get a right picture of the outcome of the teaching and leraning process which has been conducted. The result of an effective test can be used to make an
effective evaluation so that the improvement of teaching learning could effectively be formulated. An effective instrument should be able to give
information about the aspects of students’ weakness and strength in order to make
6 decisions on what should be done for the improvement. Such reason has driven
the writing of this thesis. With the intention to create an effective blue-print of English testing model, the thesis is written to formulate a blue-print and its
prototype for an effective testing model which enables us to make a right decision in the improvement of English teaching and learning in elementary school of
Indonesia.
B. RESEARCH POSITION
Kategori