School load impedes English learning

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.