The Emphasis of the Language Used – Written or Spoken?
42 lecturer who spoke Indonesian the whole time, while the exposure of English was
only given in the form of Power Point presentation. In the other pole of extremes, the Chemistry professor used English most of the time during the class.
Nonetheless, she sometimes had to use Indonesian when the students found it difficult to grasp the materials. The other lecturers had their own ways in
delivering the materials. The Biology lecturer made an agreement with the students on what language they preferred to be used in delivering the materials
before starting the lesson. They finally decided to combine Indonesian with English to make it easier for the students to get the main ideas of that day’s topic.
Yet, she used Indonesian most of the time. As noticed during the observations, the ideal roles of teachers and
students were not present in the international class of SMAN 3 Yogyakarta. Teachers still acted as the controller of the teaching-learning activities, while
students had not been autonomous enough to be responsible for their own learning. This situation does not support Littlewood’s statement that a CBI
classroom is learner-centered because students are actively engaged in class activities 1981.
3. The Emphasis of the Language Used – Written or Spoken?
After interviewing the teachers and students as well as observing the class activities, the researcher discovered that English was more commonly used in
written contexts than for oral purposes. It means that the students and teachers explained and read materials in English most of the time, but they seldom
conversed in English. The students were exposed to English through their
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43 modules and lecture materials, but they were not expected to speak English in
class. On one occasion, the students were to present their choice of music in front of the class as a test, but surprisingly, they brought a piece of paper to guide them
and they merely read the information they had gathered before. Therefore, the researcher canceled her plan to take grammar in spoken language into account, for
there were not enough data to support it. Besides studying the modules which were written in English, the students
had to make a report after doing an experiment in the laboratory in English. They were also given assignments, quizzes, and tests in English. For that reason, even
though the language used in classes was mostly Indonesian, the students got adequate exposure to English in written contexts.
According to the school, the emphasis on written English was decided upon several considerations. First, it was due to the fact that most of the teachers
did not have sufficient English skills to utilize English the whole time in classes. Second, the teachers thought that the students would need to employ English in
writing more than they would need to speak in the language in their further education. Moreover, it would have been more challenging for students to
comprehend the materials if they had been all delivered in English. The teaching team had to be realistic in deciding whether they should aim
for perfection or do the best that they could at the moment. If they wanted to balance written with spoken English as expected from an ideal international class,
the teaching team had to juggle two things simultaneously; meeting the goals of education and improving the students and teachers’ English skills. So, as a
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44 solution, the school emphasizes more on written English for the time being while
they are continuously trying to improve the program. As gathered in the interview with the teaching team, in the upcoming years, English is expected to be used
fully in all teaching-learning activities. It means that the lack of spoken English issue will soon be attended to.