Schools lack basic study skills

Schools lack basic study skills

Simon Marcus Gower, Principal, Harapan Bangsa High School,
Kotamodern, Tangerang, Banten

Many schools throughout Indonesia have, by now, made quite
remarkable efforts to improve the quality of their tuition in the
English language and so develop the English skills of students
throughout the nation. Likewise, the national curriculum has
quite expressly targeted the increase and betterment of English
language studies throughout students' lives.

All of this is highly commendable in the context of the need
for English -- as the international language. However, there is a
definite danger that other aspects of the Indonesian curriculum
can seriously undermine these efforts. It has, by now, become a
familiar topic of debate amongst educators in Indonesia that
thinking skills need to be promoted throughout the nation's
education system.

Creative, critical and even just original thought is still
something that is not glimpsed sufficiently in Indonesian
schools. Passivity and compromise are characteristics that are
still too dominant. The ease and willingness with which students
will plagiarize and, essentially, resign from the process of
thinking for themselves is perhaps one of the most sadly
disturbing characteristics of many Indonesian students.

Likewise the weaknesses of so many students in the most basic
of academic skills has to be a worry. Clearly illiteracy is not a
problem here but the quality and effectiveness of literacy most
definitely is. Indonesian school students often may be found to
be sadly lacking in basic writing skills. Their ability to
organize their thoughts into any kind of coherent and compelling
written structure can consistently be found to be close to non-
existent.

Just to challenge students to write a well thought out essay
or assemble a reasonably logical report can prove to be a major
uphill task for teachers, if not indeed a near mountainous task.
Similarly basic written word skills seem to be rather neglected
in schools.

For example -- it is not at all unusual to see both teachers
and students exhibiting an inability to maintain "case
consistency" and so words may often appear written such as
follows: "She is an exprEssive peRson", and common nouns will be
written without capitals -- a sample sentence: "i saw elton john
in london". Elementary written mistakes such as this, which are
common and so cannot be considered as occasional slips, would in
many countries be seen as the mark of an uneducated or at best a
poorly educated person.

Why, one might ask, should these kinds of basic mistakes be
seen as a specific cause of concern for the teaching and learning
of English? Well, naturally enough if a student has difficulties
in the first language the ability to perform in a second language
will inevitably be undermined. If the foundations of the first
language are not strong then the second language is always liable
to remain weak.

Also, one has to reflect on the fact that to a large degree
language skill equates to thinking skill and so where the most
basic of language skills are not fully in place so too will
thinking skills be found to be wanting.

This, then, creates genuinely problematic "knock-on" effects
for the teacher of English in Indonesia. A consistent concern
expressed to English teachers is that the English language is
heavy in terms of its grammar. Comparatively, English may be seen
as rather more grammatically demanding than Indonesian but often
it seems that the "grammar concern" for English is exacerbated
and compounded by the manner in which the first language of
Indonesian is taught in schools.

Students themselves highlight the dubious way in which
Indonesian is presented to them. Some quotes from senior high
school students illustrate doubts and concerns: "We don't really
learn the language we just do reading", "Why do we have to do
this? It's a waste of time and boring", and perhaps most
worryingly, "We learn language that nobody uses now. It's
useless."

Each of these statements must be cause for concern but taken
together these kinds of thoughts suggest that many students doubt
the relevance and need for the study of their first language.
Where this is happening, clearly there is an element of failure
of educators. The suggestion that learning the first language is
both "a waste of time" and "useless" is particularly sad because
the learning of a first language in schools can present a great
opportunity -- an opportunity to learn of literature and language
and learn of learning.

Very many students in Indonesia would benefit from just
"learning how to learn" -- learning basic academic and study
skills. The allocation of time within the curriculum for Bahasa
Indonesia is surely an opportunity for this kind of study to
occur.

A simple exercise of preparing a formal report and then
comparing it with an informal discussion between friends could be
hugely beneficial in highlighting differences in language style
and register and so present learning of how to use the language
appropriately in given circumstances. With more planning and
design the school subject of Bahasa Indonesia could become a
critical and hugely beneficial contributor across the whole
curriculum.

Language skill learnt well can be applied in other subjects --
for example learning to write a report would benefit science
subjects where laboratory reports may be required. So too these
kinds of skills -- learnt in the first language -- will help the
students perform in a second language such as English.

The plan for a new schools curriculum for 2004 appears to be
explicitly targeting greater activity and participation from the
students and this will heighten the need for students to fully
possess basic study and language skills. Student participation
and activity instills the need for greater student autonomy and
independence of thought and this, in turn, demands that students
possess the ability to think and indeed show their thinking.

Currently, however, national tests offer little or no
opportunity for students to exercise and show their thinking. The
manner in which multiple-choice questions remain the dominant
format for student tests maintains students participation and
thinking at a passive level.

For students to genuinely grow and develop as thoughtful
individuals they need to be first equipped with the basic
learning and language skills that form the foundations from which
they may build thoughtful participation in both their school life
and society generally. In turn, and over time, they may then
gather the skills and independence to perform well as original
thinkers; not mere followers.

Educators have a duty to equip and challenge students; not
stupefy them with excessive curricula and neglect basic skills
and leave students dependent and weak in thought.