Searching for an Appropriate Efl Curriculum Design for the Indonesian Pluralistic Society

Abstract

The context of the teaching of English in Indonesia is indeed unique, leading to differences in the ease with which children have access to education. Those with great difficulty in accessing education have been and will be left behind by those without any or with little difficulty. Technology will certainly help in easing those in remote areas. The limited financial capacity, however, has made it impossible to have equity in educational access; the equity problem remains unsolved. Under such a complex environment, a more appropriate curriculum design should be sought. So far the same national standard has to be achieved by children. This paper explores possibilities of having a multi-standards English curriculum design aimed at providing every child to learn according to their abilities and rates of learning. A three-level standard curriculum is then proposed: the instrumental standard for highly advantaged children, the functional standard for those who are fairly advantaged, and the appreciative standard for those who are disadvantaged.

Communicative Approach in the Five Curricula of English Subject for Secondary Schools: A Paradox in English Language Teaching in Indonesia

“…M. Chang, 2011;Lie, 2007;Madya, 2008Madya, , 2007 Richards and Rodgers (2014, pp. 103-105) summarise criticisms of CLT as follows:…”

“…English teaching still deals mainly with the complex structures of the language, long reading passages, too technical vocabulary items, and other activities that are far from the real purpose of the current curriculum. The facts show the contradiction between the principles of the communicative approach and the actual implementation in classrooms (Lie, 2007;Madya, 2007;Marcellino, 2008;Mattarima & Hamdan, 2011;Sukyadi, 2015;Widodo, 2016).…”

“…As gaining communicative competence requires certain enabling conditions in order that it can be applied effectively-such as, the existence or good language models from whom students can learn language, a great deal of exposure to the language in the real-life situations, the involvement in meaningful communication-we have seen from the beginning of the curriculum implementation to date that such conditions are potentially contradictive with the language learning environment in Indonesia. The theoretical understanding on a supportive language environment might not be well translated into practice in educational fields, particularly in the classrooms (Bjork, 2005(Bjork, , 2013Huda, 1999;Madya, 2007;Marcellino, 2008;Mattarima & Hamdan, 2011).…”

“…The facts show the contradiction between the principles of the communicative approach and the actual implementation in classrooms. No wonder Indonesian students still find it difficult to speak English communicatively (Lie, 2007;Madya, 2007;Renandya & Widodo, 2016).…”

Teaching English at Junior High School in Indonesian Rural Area : The Implementation of Scientific Approach

“…The learning activities carried out must reflect the scientific activities (observing, 208 questioning, collecting data, associating and communicating) which are the basics of the implementation of the 2013 curriculum. It will enable students to be more innovate, creative, independent, and develop social skills with peers (Madya, 2007). The teacher expected to be able to properly involve all the learning components contained in the 2013 curriculum to achieve the expected learning objectives.…”