Focusing on English teaching in RI

By Simon Marcus Gower

JAKARTA (JP): At the forefront of the minds of any genuine thinkers on the subject of language teaching ought to be the realization that teaching and/or learning a language is a highly practical consideration -- one in which learners of the language need to be equipped with the skills required to actively use the language.

As a consequence, language teachers ought to be helping to provide their students with the skills they require to actively use the targeted language -- whether such use be receptive (listening and reading) or productive (speaking and writing).

Recent articles in The Jakarta Post by Setiono (on Dec. 28) and A. Chaedar Alwasilah (on Dec. 8 and Dec. 9) have both, from varying viewpoints, offered critiques of the existing approach to English language teaching in the Indonesian education system.

From these previously published articles, it is apparent that Indonesia has, since the application of the 1994 curriculum, sought to apply what is termed a communicative approach to its teaching of the English language. However, there seems to be doubt as to the success that has been achieved in applying this approach.

The adaption and application of such an approach is entirely reasonable within the wider world of English language teaching and learning internationally. Indeed such "communicative uses" of the language as an approach to language acquisition have long been established and utilized.

Over 100 years ago, Harvard University in the United States was already applying admissions tests in which students were required to read and respond to a short essay.

Similarly, early in this century, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was introducing courses into its programs that emphasized the communicative use of the language when considering the development of the skills. This notably included reading and writing, skills which would perhaps be less associated with the "communicative approach" as often this approach is misconceived as solely and simply being concerned with the conversational skills involved in speaking and listening.

Though these relatively early developments toward a communicative approach may not have been entirely successful and widely applied they do illustrate the length of time over which the "communicative approach" has been considered and applied. It is not surprising that the Indonesian education system should have attempted to move in this direction.

However, "the movement" in this direction appears to have been applied too abruptly without ensuring that those most directly concerned with this shift in direction -- namely the teachers -- were sufficiently well trained and thus prepared to actually apply the thinking and achieve the objectives of such a curriculum.

Second language learning has, thankfully, progressed from and beyond the work of behavioral scientists -- such as Pavlov and Skinner. Their work underpins the thinking behind the audio- lingual method of language teaching in suggesting that language works within a system of habits. Though audio-lingual methods may still have a part to play as part of the overall teaching procedure, it is clear that they cannot be relied upon as a sole means of achieving any real degree of linguistic competence.

More sophisticated thinking on language learning was achieved, most notably by Naam Chomsky, in which it is recognized that the acquisition and use of language is far more of a creative process. This "creative" process being consequent to the ability to develop an awareness of the "rules" that govern a language (i.e the grammar), combined with the creativity to then use such "rules" to generate the huge variety of linguistic communications that are commonplace in the everyday usage of the language.

This, then, may well be the crux of the problem for English language teaching in Indonesia. A communicative approach is not about students learning "frozen phrases" that they are required to memorize. Such an application would be wholly lacking in attaching the vital ingredient to language learning of comprehension.

An approach that is more likely to meet with success is one in which the students are taught to achieve accuracy but are then coached toward achieving fluency. Here, then the students would be made aware of the "rules" that govern the language and then be given plenty of opportunities in which to practice what they have learned in the pursuit of fluency.

Practice and active use of the language are vital ingredients. It is not sufficient to dissect, in a cold, mechanical and/or scientific manner, the language to see how it is constructed.

Language is constantly changing and being changed because it is a human tool -- a tool for communication that fundamentally makes us human through our use and appreciation of it. Thus language may also be seen as a living entity -- if it is being used, it grows and develops. If it is not being used, it will wither and die.

All over the world, there are examples of how a language has been kept alive by people actually using it. The Cajun people in the Swiss town of Louisiana, though officially prevented from using their French dialect by the state schooling system, kept their language alive through use in the home and social settings.

In the United Kingdom a significant vehicle for the revival of Welsh in Wales has been a Welsh language television channel.

Thus, through whatever means, languages can be kept alive and developed provided people are actively using them.

In Indonesia the challenge for English language teaching and learning is similar. All would agree that English is the most prominent of the international languages, thus its life is assured. But within Indonesia it is critical that learners and teachers alike are activated to be users of the language.

We live in the information age, (and the language of this "age" is English) and thus the ability to comprehend, think analytically and critically about the abundance of information that may bombard us each day will, increasingly, be an invaluable tool. In order to compete and succeed in our economy and world, which are evermore being exposed to "globalization", greater analytical and critical skills will be required.

If English language teaching in Indonesia is to play a role in preparing its students (and by definition the nation's future), to succeed in this ever and speedily changing world, it will be critical for there to be the pursuit of higher degrees of flexibility and sophistication in the modes of teaching that are applied. Merely being reactionary to what has gone on before will not suffice. It is necessary for teachers to activate themselves and their students, so that they may function appropriately, purposefully and successfully within the English speaking world.

The writer is a director of Academic English at International University Transfer Programs in Jakarta.

Window: Practice and active use of the language are vital ingredients. It is not sufficient to dissect, in a cold, mechanical and/or scientific manner, the language to see how it is constructed.