Restructuring and reorienting English speaking skills courses for initial English teacher education in Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract-This paper examines the recent curricular change made to the mandatory English speaking skills courses at an initial teacher education (ITE) institution in Indonesia. The institution is following what seems to be a nation-wide trend of replacing the traditional graded English speaking skills courses (GESSCs) with integrated-English-skills courses (IESCs) and/or functional English speaking skills courses (FESSCs). This paper argues for the need to restructure the English speaking skills courses for future English teachers based on "intensive" speaking (IS) and extensive speaking (ES) approaches in addition to IESCs, thereby reinstating GESSCs as mandatory courses. It also argues for reorienting the trendy FESSCs as elective courses that will complement rather than eliminate the traditional GESSCs in the future curriculum