Rigid curriculum complicates RI's English teaching

By Iwan Jazadi

This is the first of two articles identifying key problems of Indonesia's English teaching system at the classroom-curriculum level.

ADELAIDE (JP): Every year the number of Indonesian English Language Teaching (ELT) specialists and professionals increases. These include those from local Indonesian universities which mostly provide first degrees, and also graduates of universities in English-speaking countries such as Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. Graduates either hold degrees of a M.A., M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Teaching English as a Foreign Language/Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, applied linguistics, and even pure linguistics.

English is taught at formal education institutions and also at private English colleges in the community.

However, such seemingly promising indications are no guarantee for successful quality teaching. There are two levels from which the failure in Indonesia's English teaching system can be scrutinized: at the classroom-level and at the macro-ideological level of education. This first article deals with the former.

Although the 1994 English national curriculum policy designers explicitly stated that the English teaching program was based on the "communicative approach", in which the four macro skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) are promoted, they were somewhat inconsistent. This is because at the same time they stated that the major focus would be on reading skills.

According to articles in The Jakarta Post by Chaedar Alwasilah (1999) and Sumardi (1993), any English-language curriculum has always emphasized reading because English is viewed more as a "foreign" than a "second" language in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL).

However, the above writers fail to explain quite clearly what they actually mean by dichotomizing English as a "second" and as a "foreign" language. In fact, all previous English curriculum documents emphasized reading skills.

Both Alwasilah and Sumardi, and the curriculum designing committee, too, seem to uphold the perception that as a "foreign" language setting, Indonesia lacks exposure in which true communicative tasks can actually be exercised and the approach loses its "utilitarian" relevance.

Accordingly, having a reading-focused communicative approach is regarded as a good solution. Perhaps, this is what Huda (the Post,1997) calls the "Indonesian context communicative approach".

Such a perception is misleading but yet has still been taken for granted by many, including curriculum designers and EFL specialists in Indonesia. Alwasilah (1999) even states that skills-oriented arguments are not necessarily relevant to the present Indonesian teaching context.

If this argument is to prevail, when can we cater to the learners' need to master the four language skills? If reading is always the first priority in the prevailing communicative teaching policies, just as the previous methodologies -- grammar, translation and audio-lingual methods -- why have we left these old traditions that provided a proportional space for such a goal and instead embraced the "communicative approach" that promotes true-to-life communication?

Furthermore, the emphasis on reading in the application of communicative teaching, which is strongly imposed in the 1994 national curriculum document, has placed textbook writers, whether they are aware of it or not, in a dilemma. That is toward which side -- reading texts or actual communication -- should their textbooks focus on while they are expected to balance both.

Whether there is a balance between the two does not constitute the real issue. The actual case is what kind of curriculum goals and objectives resulting from these two conflicting sides will be achievable by the students.

My preliminary investigation of some high school English course books designed based on the 1994 curriculum document shows some kind of mismatch between learners' needs and the teaching materials.

The main problem lies in the themes and topics in the course books, which are not selected based on real-life communication needs of the learners as suggested by proponents of the communicative approach.

Instead, it appears that themes and topics, such as agriculture, geography, culture/art, etc. are listed, rather than selected, based on some kind of popular science interest for stimulating classroom discussion. In other words, the notion of a communicative approach has been reduced to a stage whereby learners are expected to engage in reading and understanding of a generally interesting topic and then discuss it during their task implementation. Forms, including grammar and vocabulary, are addressed only if the learners ask about them.

As tasks are developed based on topics of the above type, communication develops "artificially", if it could develop. Indeed, the readings are also found in accordance with the level of the learners' abstract competence.

Additionally, as the learning materials are only theme-based course books, learners are hardly exposed to a nonclassroom type of discourse, such as using audiovisual facilities for listening to native speaker sample talks or conversations, or watching videos, etc. It is significant input for the learners and can facilitate and empower teachers whose English proficiency is still imperfect.

The next fundamental problem is found in the Indonesian testing system, especially the final exams (EBTANAS). The test is based on multiple-choice type questions using the reading of text. With this sort of testing, Setiono (the Post, 1999) states that "student language performance in the communicative paradigm has undoubtedly become a matter of complete indifference due to insufficient knowledge of theoretical testing formulation".

This testing system leads to a negative backwash on teaching practices. Both teacher and learners do not want to lose momentum in the EBTANAS in order to achieve the highest possible result. To achieve this, the teaching and learning activities are oriented toward test-preparation, assuming that a successful test parallels achieving the curriculum goals and objectives, which is, in fact, far from the case.

The other problems are associated with the class size and outside classroom situation. Both are classic difficulties often found in an EFL context. One classroom usually consists of 30 to 40 students, and given a quite limited amount of time per week, learners seem to lack opportunities to practice the target language.

The situation outside the classroom is also blamed for contributing to failure as it lacks exposure to English, which is different from English as a Second Language and First Language (L1) contexts.

Yet the last two problems can be anticipated. As the global information era and international policies and contracts on business and mutual relationships between different countries continue to grow, there is hardly a single spot in the world where English is not used.

Moreover, the communicative approach, claimed to be in practice in Indonesia, contains several controversies. Gower (the Post, 1999) remarks that the application of this approach is too abrupt since the teachers who are at the forefront of this movement are left without sufficient training and preparation to implement the thinking and objectives of this approach.

While this can be true, it still seems unwise to point to teachers as the sole problematic stakeholder. Nababan (1993) states that the 1994 topic-based communicative method is an absurd imitation of what is going on "out there," which is swallowed void without filtering.

The writer is an English lecturer in Indonesia, taking a doctorate degree at the University of South Australia, Adelaide.