Genuine bilingual
\neducation possible<\/p>\n
I refer to the article Bilingual education remains a fantasy
\nfor Indonesian schools by Simon Marcus Gower, published on Monday
\nJuly 1. This questioned the capability of Indonesian private
\nschools to offer genuinely bilingual English\/Indonesian
\neducation.<\/p>\n
Gower made the claim that bilingual schools can only be
\neffective if, \"there are parallel languages in existence within
\nthe society or community that the school is part of... It is
\nsimply not possible to suppose that this kind of parallelism of
\nlanguages exists in Indonesia\".<\/p>\n
Oh? Sekolah Cita Buana is a private school offering a
\ngenuinely bilingual curriculum partly because of careful planning
\nand effective teacher recruitment and development. However, the
\nmain reason is because the school definitely exists within a
\nwider community that is itself bilingual.<\/p>\n
Approximately 80 percent of our students come from an
\nIndonesian family background where at least one parent is a
\nnative English-speaker or is fluent with English as a second
\nlanguage. Gower may not realize that huge numbers of Indonesians
\nhave studied, worked or lived in English-speaking countries.
\nThousands of Indonesians, including many parents of Cita Buana's
\npupils and the school's teachers, are married to native English-
\nspeakers.<\/p>\n
Every member of the Board of Yayasan Cita Buana and every
\nmember of the school council is bilingual. The majority of
\nteaching staff are comfortable communicating in either language
\nin all modes. Most of our children happily read, write and chat
\nin either language, and at high school matriculation level our
\nstudents directly, and successfully, compete for university entry
\nin English and Indonesian.<\/p>\n
We know it is possible to attain genuine bilingualism in our
\ncurriculum, and we know that is what our parents like about us.
\nThere are still things to improve and attitudes to change,
\nhowever bilingualism is certainly not a fantasy at Cita Buana,
\nand does hold educational reality and value for our students.<\/p>\n
RADEN DUNBAR<\/p>\n
Jakarta<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/genuine-bilingual-1447899208", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }