School load impedes English learning
By Yassir Nasanius
JAKARTA (JP): The third millennium, which we are about to enter soon, has been dubbed a global age. As the name suggests, the key word of the age, globalization, requires the citizens of the world to act globally.
What does to act globally mean? One of the prerequisites for acting globally is the ability to communicate with international communities and this, nowadays, usually means the ability to speak English. It is in this context that concern about the quality of English language teaching in secondary schools has resurfaced.
Can secondary schools develop the English proficiency of their students? In other words, can the secondary schools prepare their students to communicate in English?
So far it has been lamented that English language teaching in secondary schools is not very successful in developing the English proficiency of the students on the grounds that most secondary-school graduates are not yet able to attain the working knowledge that will enable them to communicate adequately in English.
Who is to blame for the failure? It is known that there are three main components in the teaching-learning process -- teachers, learners and the curriculum.
In the eyes of many people, the teachers and the curriculum are usually the main culprits for any failure. When one talks about the improvement of English instruction, one is usually concerned with improving the quality of the teachers and with updating the methodology and the curriculum based on the current theories of education, psychology or linguistics.
Very few people blame the failure on the learners. In other words, it seems that in the teaching-learning process, the active roles should be played by the teachers and the curriculum planners and the students should only assume the passive role.
As a matter of fact, without losing sight of the importance of teachers and the curriculum, the success of the teaching-learning process relies heavily on the learners. Why is this so? Noam Chomsky, a well-known American linguist, has addressed this question.
Chomsky was once invited to Puerto Rico by people at the university. They wanted him not only to talk about linguistics but also to look at the language programs in the schools. In Puerto Rico, every child went to school for 12 years. They were taught English five days a week for 12 years. and when they graduated, they could not even say "How are you?"
When asked why the children did so poorly, Chomsky stated that the truth of the matter was that about 99 percent of teaching was making the students interested in the material and the other 1 percent had to do with the methods.
Learning does not achieve lasting results when one does not see any point to it. Learning has to come from the inside, that is one has to want to learn. When one wants to learn, one will learn no matter how bad the teachers and the curriculum are. A 10-year-old child in Puerto Rico sees no particular reason to learn English, and if one does not give the children any reason for learning English, then they are not going to do it, no matter how good a teacher's method is.
Chomsky's assertion that learning does not achieve lasting results when one does not see any point to it can be applied to the English instruction in Indonesian secondary schools. Do the students really want to learn English? Do they put their best efforts into learning English?
The majority of our secondary-school students have neither really wanted to learn English nor put their best efforts into the process. Why is this so? There are two contributory factors to this situation: The learning load and the inadequacy of class hours.
The learning load the secondary-school students have to take is a massive one. It consists of 16 to 20 subjects per semester (about 40 to 60 credits in terms of the credit system). It is not an easy task for a student to do equally well in all subjects and therefore to confront the situation most students logically have to decide what their priorities are.
How do the students do this? Based on some experience, most students usually divide the subjects into two -- the "important" and the "less important" ones. A subject considered "important" is the one which directly determines whether a student can go up to a higher level, whereas the "less important" one does not.
Languages like English or German are considered to belong to the "less important" subjects. Therefore, it may be understandable if English is not high on the students' priority list. They would rather focus on the "important" subjects like mathematics, physics or biology.
Learning a language is not an easy task. It is a major undertaking that takes time and effort. This is because a language like English has complex systems of sounds, grammar and ways of expressing meaning. It requires learners to reorganize their way of thinking and the learners then need lots of exposure and a tremendous amount of practice.
If one considers the number of years the students in secondary school learn English, one may think that six years would be enough for a student to master, at least, the basics of a language.
However if one translates the six-year period into the number of class hours the students are exposed to English, that number will come to approximately only 1,000 hours (40 weeks X 4 hours a week X 6 years).
According to the late Robert Lado, a well-known applied linguist, until age five, children acquiring English have been exposed to the language for some 11,680 hours and until age eight for some 20,440 hours.
From this comparison, it can be seen that for students of English as a foreign language, to acquire a proficiency similar to that of five-year-old English-speaking children, they need 10- fold more hours of exposure to English. As a consequence, if learners wish to make up for the inadequacy of exposure hours, they will have to do additional constant practice by themselves outside class hours. The question is: "How many of our secondary- school students will be motivated enough to undertake this arduous task of practice?"
Given the fact that English language teaching in secondary schools has not been very successful in developing the English proficiency of the students, what outcome then can we realistically expect from English language teaching in secondary schools?
It may not be realistic to expect English language teaching in secondary schools to produce proficient learners. Considering there are so many hurdles that our secondary schools have to overcome, it would be quite satisfactory if our schools could provide the students with the basics of English language.
If any secondary-school leavers wish to become competent speakers of English, they may then further their studies in an English department of a university, take English courses at one of the various English language institutes, or go to study in an English-speaking country if they can afford it.
The writer is a teaching staff member of the English Department, School of Education, Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta
Window: Learning a language is not an easy task. It is a major undertaking that takes time and effort. This is because a language like English has complex systems of sounds, grammar and ways of expressing meaning.