Bilingual education -- often misunderstood, always complicated

Rachel Davies, Sydney

Many countries around the world are, either by a certain degree of choice or through requirement and so necessity, creating bilingual programs of education within their schools. The value of these programs can barely be overstated. Students that can exercise proficiency and even mastery in two languages are always likely to enjoy greater variety and potential successes in life.

But we must realize that delivering bilingual programs of education is a distinctly challenging and complicated matter that cannot be taken on lightly or with idealistic wishful, and so inappropriate, thinking. It must also be recognized that, in the context of Indonesia and in Jakarta in particular, the idea of bilingual education can often be incorporated into school policies without sufficient preparation or understanding of what is required.

Unfortunately, too, there are unscrupulous individuals involved in schools that will simply see the idea of claiming to provide bilingual education as a marketing tool. Bilingualism, that brings English onto the agenda for students, will be looked at favorably by parents looking for the right school for their child. But simply accepting promises of bilingual education can be dangerous because too often those that claim to be providing bilingual education do not really understand what is required and how to set up such a system.

This problem has been highlighted in two recent articles in the Jakarta Post. The first by Alex Tubagus, (Foreign Teachers not Qualified, May 21) a teacher in Surabaya highlighted concerns that the target of English in schools is being allowed to detract from the use of the mother-tongue Bahasa Indonesia. In another article by Jan Dormer, (Misconceptions abound about nature of bilingual education, June 18) a doctorate degree candidate writing from Malang it was shown that misunderstandings about what is meant by bilingual education are a quite common experience.

The concern that Tubagus showed in his writing is understandable. Schools that claim a bilingual approach to education often fail to really prepare and implement policies and systems that really lay the foundations for students to become truly bilingual. Dormer noted the kind of proportions that might typically be allocated for the two languages to develop side-by- side and hand-in-hand but unfortunately not enough schools seem to really be establishing these kinds of apportioned and so appropriate levels of the two languages.

For example, the ideas of starting children's education in a bilingual context with proportions of around 80 percent of their learning in English and the remaining 20 percent in the first language are quite common and widely recognized as appropriate and solid foundations for bilingual growth.

The gradual 'switching' of proportions through the school years -- so that for example children in their primary years of school are actually studying with reasonably equal amounts of the two languages and by their high school years the first language is rather more dominant are, likewise, established and generally accepted policies.

But these legitimate and valid policies are unfortunately insufficiently recognized and adopted in quite a number of schools in Indonesia that claim to be providing bilingual education. Instead what is often happening is a rather messy, hotchpotch injection of English into various subjects within the curriculum that can really undermine the children's learning processes.

For example, a number of schools implement policies of selecting certain subjects that will be exclusively delivered in English whilst the remaining subjects stay in Bahasa Indonesia. Quite typically the subjects of mathematics and science are it seems to me, quite arbitrarily picked out as the subjects that should be delivered in English. This kind of approach can be damaging to students, not least because of the haphazard thinking that seems to be being applied, but also because it can literally rob carte-blanche students of opportunities to really study and learn.

One family recently described their stressful experiences of this. Their son had been attending a primary school and it was noted that he was enjoying and showing particular strength in his learning of mathematics. His parents, though, decided that they wanted him to develop his English ability and so for his junior high schooling they chose a school that claimed to offer bilingual education.

The son began to attend this new school and generally seemed to be enjoying his studies but it was soon noticed that he was loosing interest and even ability to perform in his mathematics lessons. His father was particularly concerned about this as he had been enjoying a certain sense of pride at seeing his son progress mathematically. Discussions with the boy revealed that he was no longer enjoying mathematics so much because it was "all in English and so it is more difficult now."

This boy and his family were, in effect, having a negative reaction to having a so called bilingual approach to education thrust upon them. If the boy tried to use his first language and ask for greater clarifications via a language that he could better understand he was given a warning and told to remember that it was "English time now".

This kind of approach and thinking towards bilingual education is both unreasonable and unfair to the student and is really counterproductive in helping students to study and learn. By forcing and literally inflicting a language that is foreign and insufficiently developed within the student, learning is being lost.

Poorly designed and insensitive attempts to create a bilingual system within a school can be damaging to students. Schools that impose a second language on students without sufficient support for the students to acquire and become comfortable in the second language can effectively be creating obstacles for academic progress.

The concern that Tubagus expressed regarding foreign teachers that are not qualified to teach in Indonesian schools is part of the problem that Indonesian educators need to consider carefully. Bilingual programs of education can be and often are highly challenging for both students and teachers and if the design and policy implementation of such programs is not handled with care the whole situation can become disastrous.

Bilingual education can be hugely beneficial but if mismanaged, poorly implemented and predicated on ideas of gaining a competitive advantage to ensure high enrollment numbers, it can in fact become a burden and a negative development for Indonesian educators and education policy generally.

The writer is an Education Consultant.