English Education for Elementary Schools of Indonesia

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b. English Education for Elementary Schools of Indonesia

With the widely regarded status of English as the world’s language, people learning English have in recent years increased in number. Many countries which are not native English speakers put English as being taught in the primary schools. Ho 1999, 1-3 said that English language teaching in Southeast Asian context has been attempted to be improved. One of the efforts is to introduce it as a subject in the school curriculum in the primary years. He further said that the existence of ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Countries has made it possible for the member states to communicate and cooperate by means of the English language. Therefore, Indonesia, as one of the member countries, has also taken policy to improve and change the English strategies. In 1993, the government launched a regulation that is the Decree of the Minister of Education and Culture No. 060U1993 dated 25 th February 1993 about the English can be taught to elementary -school-aged learners. This is in line with the what is postulated in the 1989 Constitution on the System of National Education expressing that the final goal of the English instruction at the elementary school is to enable the students to be functionally proficient in English in the globalization era as it is cited by Rachmajanti 2008, 161 from Alwasilah, 1997:89. The rational behinds the launch of the decree, Rachmajanti 2008: 162 said are due to: First, the discovery of the unsuccessful English instruction in secondary schools as reflected in the unsatisfactory results of the high school final examination cited by Rachmajanti from Huda 1994,82-91 and Nababan, 1995: 35-43. Second, the belief of some educators in the benefit of early foreign language learning for acquiring high proficiency. 65 The launch of the degree has aroused ambivalent response. In one hand, it was responded eagerly which was shown through some researches Huda, 1994: 82-91 and Astika, 1996: 118 that many elementary schools and private English courses have included English in their programs beginning from the fourth year or even earlier. An example of empirical evidence is presented by Rachmajanti 2008:162 that 352 elementary schools SDs in Pemkot Malang, 51 of which 181 Elementary schools have taught English as local content subject -80 government schools and 20 private ones. A similar condition seems to be found in other cities, especially big cities such as Jakarta, Bandung, and Yogyakarta. Elementary schools, even preschool, were ‘mushrooming-lly established in response to the people’s euphoria on sending their children to learn English as early as possible. Indonesian celebrities or high class people prefer to send their children to elementary schools or, even Preschools, which offer English as a mean of communication of the teaching learning process. The status English, slowly but sure, then becomes a trend some kind of elite symbol in the society. On the other hand, the policy was opposed since it did not equipped with the qualification of requirement of the English teachers, teaching media, syllabus and curriculum that some researches or observations had shown that the teaching of English in primary schools had been conducted unprofessionally. Some findings mentioned about the inappropriate teaching techniques and teachers’ qualification. It was founded that many elementary schools and preschools offered English programs which were handled by teacher with no English competence. Prof. Chaedar Al Wasilah from the University of Education of Bandung did a survey in schools in West Java, Banten and Jakarta in May 2012. He found that 58 percent 66 of elementary school teachers had neither an English language background nor any training in English for young learners Zacharies, 2012. Other findings also mentioned about the lack of appropriate materials. Many elementary schools and Preschool used teaching material taken from the internet or books without any deep analysis on the characteristics of Indonesian young English learners. Prof. Suwarsih Madya et.al 2006,2 mentioned that instead of teaching English through joyful activities, the teachers taught grammar too much, used translation without any context, and gave students too much tiring work. Such ‘unguided’ euphoria came to anti-climax when, lately, in the early of 2013 the government decided to omit English from the curriculum of elementary schools. The unsatisfactory results and the old fear of English’s negative social and cultural impact on the society were assumed to be the reason behinds the decision making. Deputy Education Minister, Muliar Kasim, as it was broadcasted in national media, announced in late September 2012 that English would be abolished for lower elementary pupils in the next school year beginning July as part of a curriculum restore. With English abolished, pupils could concentrate on strengthening their bahasa Indonesia, the national language, absorbing national values and picking up knowledge on science incorporated in other subjects. Pupils would study English as a compulsory subject when they reached lower secondary or high school. The decision to abolish English was unpopular from the start not only among parents and language teachers but also some education departments in regions. They debated the issue for months to persuade the government to keep the language. Parents wanted their children to have a head start in the language fearing that their children’s English lesson would be disrupted by the new curriculum. The decision 67 also had English teachers worried about their future as they were specifically recruited to teach English to primary school pupils. Yet, lately, Musliar, after the few month debate, finally announced that English would not be abolished after all. Schools would be allowed to offer the subject but as an elective subject. It should not be made compulsory” The government would not stop schools from offering the subjects to the pupils With such dispute, the picture of English education in the level of elementary education in Indonesia is still unclear. If, it should be described, after all, the description is only kind of preparing a good foundation on the mindset of Indonesian young learners about English, as a means of communication they need to survive in the future life.

B. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The theoretical framework of the development of the testing model to measure the written English competence of Indonesian elementary school students will discuss about the formulation of the testing model and the hypothesesassumptions of written English competence of Indonesian young learners which also the answers to the research questions of : 1 What is the written English competence of Indonesian Elementary school students like? 2 What is the measurement instrument of the written English competence of Indonesian Elementary school students like? The researcher, after digging out some data or information through library research, decides to formulate the outline or framework of the development of the testing instrument as follows: