How much do high schools contribute to improving students' English proficiency? Seeking alumni's perception in Indonesia (original) (raw)

Factors Affecting Indonesian Young Learners’ English Proficiency Level

TEFLIN Journal - A publication on the teaching and learning of English, 2020

This study was aimed at investigating the influencing factors on students’ English proficiency levels based on Cambridge English Tests for Children and Young Learners. A preliminary survey was undertaken to select the sample of elementary schools that offered English as a subject. As many as 157 students who sat in Grades 4, 5, and 6 from nine elementary schools participated in this study. The findings revealed that the average of students’ scores was at Starters/Movers Level, which is equal to A1 in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Through multiple regression analysis, three out of five investigated factors were detected to be significantly related to students’ English proficiency levels, namely gender, grade level, and school accreditation rank. While rich literature has found gender and grade level as one of the affective variables in language learning, none has studied whether school accreditation status influences young learners’ English achievement. It is rec...

Long Walk to Quality Improvement: Investigating Factors Causing Low English Proficiency among Indonesian EFL Students

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH, 2020

Indonesian students have learned English for many years from elementary to university. However, English proficiency among most Indonesian students is not improved significantly. Therefore, this qualitative research with case study approach aims to find out factors causing low English proficiency among Indonesian university students. There were six heterogeneous participants coming from all over Indonesia in this research that the researchers got through purposive sampling. The data were collected mainly through individual interview. All interview data were recorded, transcribed, analyzed, and divided into themes. To develop the trustworthiness of the research, the researcher did member checking. The findings show that there were two major factors causing Indonesian university students have low English proficiency namely internal and external factors. Internal factors consist of low motivation and learning anxiety, and external factors consist of inappropriate teaching method, class size, and poor English environment. Further, suggestions and recommendations are offered to all related parties.

English Language Proficiency in Indonesia: Issues and Prospects

The Journal of Asia TEFL, 2018

In this article, we discuss key issues about English language proficiency in Indonesia, focusing in particular on the level and kind of proficiency that English language teachers need to have to support their classroom teaching. We first define the concept of proficiency and how it is usually measured, and then present some data about teachers and students' English language proficiency in Indonesia and the Asian region. The next section discusses research that helps us understand why a threshold of proficiency is required for effective teaching. As many teachers may not have reached a level of proficiency considered sufficient for effective teaching, we then discuss key theoretical principles from SLA that can be used as a basis for developing a training programme to help raise teachers' proficiency. We conclude by calling all stakeholders (i.e., policy makers, language education providers and professional associations) to work together and find ways to support teachers in their effort to acquire a higher level of proficiency in English.

Changing Policy of English Teaching Approach at Indonesian Secondary Schools In Face of ASEAN Economic Community: A Few Notes to Relevant Ministries

Jurnal Cakrawala Pendidikan

This article provides information about a research aiming to identify causes of secondary school students’ failure to acquire English effectively and provide recommendations to relevant ministries to better deal with these problems. A qualitative design involving a number of students as well as teachers from lower and upper secondary schools and pre-service teachers from a training college was used. Findings of this research revealed that issues of English teacher quality, English study program graduates’ quality, lack of English learning hours at school, the absence of extra-curricular activities for English exposure and English speaking environment, English national exam, the underuse and inexistence of facilities and ineffective monitoring system were found to be the major contributors of students’ English learning ineffectiveness. This study, therefore, recommends the relevant ministries to cope with these issues urgently or else this unfavorable situation will remain unchanged...

Teaching English as a Foreign Language in Indonesia: The Role of School Environment

2013

This paper examines the important role of the school environments to facilitate English program in Indonesian primary schools. The school environment here refers to the environment inside the school: principal, teachers, and foreign language (FL) classroom; and outside the school: the students' parents and the school community. Researchers have investigated teaching English as foreign language (TEFL) in primary schools from different perspectives, such as curriculum, teacher's role, and materials; however, little attention is paid to examine school environment as an important factor to improve the quality of TEFL in Indonesia. The data is taken from the results of my Masters study investigating the implementation of Indonesian language as LOTE program in Kingsbury Primary School (KPS), Bundoora, Melbourne, Australia. Interviews, questionnaires, and observations were employed to obtain the answers as to why Indonesian language was selected as the LOTE program in KPS. The stud...

Current Challenges in Teaching English in Least-developed Region in Indonesia

SOSHUM : Jurnal Sosial dan Humaniora, 2019

Teaching English as a Foreign Language is challenging. The body of literature has addressed the issue of the current challenges in teaching English as a Foreign Language. However, only a few studies have investigated the issue in remote areas of Indonesia. This qualitative study investigates the current challenges in teaching English in the least-developed region of Indonesia based on the following criteria: language comprehension, method and approach, practical implementation, and socio-cultural environment. The data were collected from four English lecturers in one of the teaching universities in Indonesia. The participants were selected using purposive sampling technique. The data were collected using in-depth interview and field observation which were then analyzed descriptively. The results of the study reveal that the participants have to deal with several obstacles in teaching English. Those obstacles include the students' low proficiency of language comprehension, limited resources of materials, a communication gap between lecturers and students, students' lack of enthusiasm and participation in learning and lack of environmental support from society. From the observation, the participants show that the challenges are mitigated by adjusting their choice of pedagogical instruction and learning materials according to students' level of language comprehension. The study suggests that infrastructure development is strongly essential to establish a good teaching environment. Besides, creating positive understanding and paradigm about the sanctity of learning English for students might be able to help the students' to study English better.

Impact of English Instruction at The Elementary Schools on The Students' Achievement of English at The Lower Secondary School

TEFLIN Journal, 2008

The current study is intended to examine the effect of time of learning, English teachers characteristics, teaching and learning process characteristics, socioeconomic context and students characteristics in the teaching of English at the elementary schools on the students achievement of English at the first year of lower secondary school. Two kinds of research designs were implemented, an ex post facto and a tracer study. Therefore, the data were collected in two ways in order to (1) discover the students English achievement at the lower secondary school and (2) observe the prior English instruction at the elementary school. The study adopted the statistical analysis of multiple regressions. The subjects consisted of 172 students who obtained the English instruction at the third and fourth grades of the elementary school, 172 students parents, and 31 English teachers in the five (5) sub districts of Pemerintah Kota Malang. The students were to do the communicative English test and fill out two kinds of questionnaires; whereas, the teachers were interviewed. The students parents had also to fill out a questionnaire on their perception on the English instruction at the elementary school. The finding shows that there is an impact of the teaching English starting at the fourth grade of elementary school on the students achievement of English at the first year of lower secondary school Key words: impact, teaching of English at the elementary school, achievement of English, lower secondary school. Since English is widely regarded as the world s language, people learning English have in recent years increased in number. It implies that in part it reflects changes in public policy, such as lowering the age at which English is taught in brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by TEFLIN (Teaching English as a Foreign Language in Indonesia) Journal (State University...

The Challenges of English Language Teaching in Indonesia

International Journal of English and Applied Linguistics (IJEAL), 2021

The widespread use of English worldwide has brought about a significant impact for human beings to date. In the education sphere mainly, many studies have been conducted to discover the issues in English instruction. Moreover, English teachers in Indonesia were highly encouraged to figure out the best method to teach and cope with any problems encountered by the students to achieve the best learning outcomes. Besides, the government had also tried its best endeavors to accustom the curriculum to the needs in this globalization era. However, the results have not always been as expected since teachers and students possessed divergent points of view linked with the implementation of English language instruction. Therefore, this scientific literature review discussed some issues related to English which included; English in Indonesia, English Language Teaching for Education, Teachers’ Strategies to English Language Teaching, Problems of English Language Teaching, and Students’ Perceptio...

Comparing Students' Attitudes Towards English Language in an Indonesian State High School

Comparing Students' Attitudes towards English Language in an Indonesian State High School, 2015

This article reports a study of high school students’ attitudes in Indonesia towards English as a foreign language. The attitudes in this study particularly was appertained to the students’ interest towards learning English as a language; their motivation to master it; their difficulty in learning English grammar; and also the importance of English for their future. Students from two different classes i.e. science class and social class were involved in this study. A questionnaire was administered to 72 students, n = 40 from science class and n = 32 from social class. It was found that the students’ interest of both classes in learning English was not statistically different. They consider that learning English is quite interesting for the students in both classes. Meanwhile in the matter of their motivation, difficulty in learning English grammar, and also their consideration in viewing the importance of English, the results show statistically significant differences between the students in both classes.

Too difficult to reach: a case study of the implementation of teaching-learning English in Indonesia's international standard schools

2012

The fast changing world and global interconnectedness have led to many changes which have impacted on education. To name a few, schools in developed countries face many challenges conforming to standards-based reform, public accountability, school based management, and digital technologies (Hopkins and Jackson, 2003). Such situations have made governments in developing countries, including Indonesia, take initiatives by imposing policies on their school system to keep the educational sector in line with the global challenge. Meanwhile in Indonesia, significant change to educational sector followed the collapse of the New Order regime in 1998 and devolution of responsibilities to provincial and district administrations. This can be seen in the fourth Constitutional Amendments which stipulated that at least 20 percent of state 2 Educational Issues, Research and Policies budget be allocated for education; and the new education system regulation (Law 20/2003) that emphasized educational decentralization. The law, among others, stipulates that local governments have to develop at least one school that has 'international standard'. In accordance with the law, the Indonesian Ministry of National Education, backed with available funds based on the new state constitution, proposed an International Standard School (or Sekolah Bertaraf Internasional, SBI in Indonesian term) program in which hundreds of schools have participated from 2006 (Martiyanti, 2008). Objectives to improve capacity-building within a school under a program such as SBI should be welcome. The developing country context is salient and unique, especially when it is analysed as a complexity of school improvement level. The focus of the article is to understand more about school capacity building issues particularly in the component of knowledge, skills and disposition of individual staff, and professional learning community in a school in Indonesia.