Appendix 1 - RMIT Universityresearchbank.rmit.edu.au/view/rmit:160956/Yulia_Appendices.pdf · 3. The KTSP curriculum This question is assessing your opinion about the implementation

Research Instruments in English Page 239

Appendix 1.1

Survey Questionnaire

Questionnaire with Principal/First Vice Principal

Name of Participant :

School :

Address :

Email :

1. Number of students within the last two years:

Academic

Year

Students

Enrollment

VII VIII IX

Student Classroom Student Classroom Student Classroom

2009/2010

2010/2011

Comments on students record (increase/decrease and why?):

2. Students’ economic background:

What are parents’ occupations?

No Occupation Percentage

Note: Students’ economic background varied among districts

Comments on characteristics of parents’ occupation and socioeconomic status of area, such as

unemployment:

3. School profile on national exam (Year 9)

No. Academic

Year

National Exam Result

Bahasa Average

Score English

Average

Score Maths

Average

Score Science

Average

Score

3. 2009/2010

4. 2010/2011

4. Details about principal/vice principal

No Position Name Gender

Age Education Duration M F

1.

2.

01 01


5. Attendance at English language workshop/seminar regarding curriculum and English language

No Topic Date Level (Regional, National, International) Comment

6. Staff (English teachers)

No. Graduate Education

Background

Status

Total Government

Funded

Foundation

Funded

M F M F

1. Postgraduate

2. Undergraduate

3. Diploma

Total

7. In teaching English, what teaching methodologies or strategies do you or would you suggest to

your teachers to follow?

8. Do you think English subject should be compulsory for all secondary students? Why?


01 02

Questionnaire with English Language Teachers


School :

Address :

Email :

Answer the following questions briefly!

1. How many years have you been at this school?

2. What year level are you teaching currently?

3. How many years’ teaching experience have you had?

4. How satisfied are you with your position at this school?

Satisfied

Just so-so

Dissatisfied

5. The average rate of ownerships of KTSP documents as the concepts of your teaching and

learning process

a. > 90 % c. 50 – 74 %

b. 75 – 90 % d. < 50

6. The average rate of ownerships of syllabus documents

a. > 90 % c. 50 – 74 %

b.75 – 90 % d. < 50

7. The average rate of ownerships of lesson planning documents

a. > 90 % c. 50 – 74 %

b. 75 – 90 % d. < 50

8. The average rate of ownerships of teaching materials (books) and references

a. 90 % c. 50 – 74 %

b.75 – 90 % d. < 50

9. I develop the syllabus by:

a. together with English teachers in group discussion c. myself

b. similar to the example given d. no change

10. Lesson planning development is the integration among standard of competency, basic

competence, indicators, assessment and teaching materials

a. 76 – 100 % c. 26 – 50 %

b. 51 – 75 % d. < 25 %


11. Percentage time of using English language as the medium of instruction in the classroom:

a. 76 – 100 % c. 26 – 50 %

b. 51 – 75 % d. < 25 %

12. How do you mostly conduct activities in your classroom (Circle one or more)?

a. Individual c. Pair-work

b. Group d. Class

13. Percentage time using technology tools as media (computers or multimedia laboratory) in

teaching and learning:

a. 76 – 100 % c. 26 – 50 %

b. 51 – 75 % d. < 25 %

14. Circle your answer!

a) Have you a specialist qualification in TEFL? Y/N

b) In any of your studies, have you completed a unit in English language teaching

methodologies? Y/N

What do you think of it?

c) In any of your studies, have you completed a unit in communicative competence? Y/N


d) In any of your studies, have you completed a unit in contextual teaching and learning?

Y/N


e) In any of your studies, have you completed a unit in English language curriculum

development? Y/N


f) In any of your studies, have you completed a unit in assessment? Y/N


g) In any of your studies, have you completed a unit in English language evaluation?

Y/N


h) Do you listen to English utterance well? Y/N

How well is your listening?

How do you improve it?

i) Do you speak English fluently? Y/N

How well is your speaking?


j) Do you read well in English texts? Y/N

How well is your reading?



k) Do you write well in English language? Y/N

How well is your writing?


15. Language has different skills and aspects. What skills and aspects do you consider to be the

most important? Number them 1, 2, 3, 4 (with 1 as most important, 2 as second most

important…etc)

Statement No

Listening is the most important skill that should be taught to students

Speaking is the most important skill that should be taught to students

Reading is the most important skill that should be taught to students

Writing is the most important skill that should be taught to students

Reason/comment?

How can you teach each skill? (discrete/integratedly)

Why?

Grammar is the most important feature in learning English

Vocabulary is the most important feature in learning English

Pronunciation is the most important feature in learning English

Structure of Genre is the most important feature in learning English

Reason/comment?

How can you teach those language features? (discrete/integratedly)

Why?

Authentic materials (magazine, newspaper, video) are the most important learning resource

Textbooks are the most important learning resource

Online references are the most important learning resource

What do you think the best language resource for students currently? Why?

What do you think other language materials can you use in your teaching?

In teaching, teachers must use English

In teaching, teachers must use Indonesian

In teaching, teachers must combine English and Indonesian

Reason/comment?

How can you improve your English language competence?

16. In teaching the language, what are your overall aims?

17. In teaching the language, what methodologies do you use?

18. In teaching the language, do you follow some program?


19. Which of the following topics have been covered in in-service activities? Answer in column

A.

20. On which of the following topics would you like to attend an in-service activity? Answer in

column B.

Column A (Y/N) Column B (Y/N)

Teaching methods Writing published materials Materials development Classroom techniques Contextual teaching and learning theory Teaching listening comprehension skill Teaching speaking skill Teaching reading skill Teaching writing skill Linguistic theory Language acquisition theory Bilingualism Spelling skills Teaching pronunciation Cultural background factors


01 03

Questionnaire with Teachers of Subjects Other than English

This is an anonymous questionnaire

School :

1. English learning, resources and schools

Tick the appropriate column

1 (I don’t know)

2 (Strongly Agree)

3 (Agree)

4 (Neither agree nor disagree)

5 (Disagree)

6 (Strongly disagree)

No Statement 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Chinese language teaching is more important for Indonesia than English language

teaching

2. English language should be taught in senior high school level, but not in junior

high school

3. The KTSP curriculum is more suitable to be implemented in senior high school

than in junior high school

4. The National exam should cover all subjects taught in junior high school 5. A language laboratory is more important than a multi-media laboratory 6. Overseas-trained teachers with a suitable certificate should be employed to teach

English at junior high school

7. Students in junior high school should participate in English courses outside the

school

8. English language resources should be provided in our junior high school 9. Internet facility is more suitable to a senior high school than a junior high school 10. All teachers need to participate in training program on information

communication technology

11. ‘One day’ English is good for senior high school students 12. Our school needs to network with schools and students in English speaking

countries

13. The district education office does not provide sufficient training for teachers in

our school

14. More libraries should be built in the community rather than just in schools

2. Importance of school subjects

Rate the following subjects in order of importance for the students at our school (1 = most

important, 4 = least important),

Subject Rating

Bahasa Indonesia

Maths

Science

English language


3. The KTSP curriculum

This question is assessing your opinion about the implementation of the KTSP curriculum. Please

tick the appropriate box; if you cannot give an opinion, do not tick any box. A rating of (3)

suggests that your feelings are neutral or that there ought to be no change.

The English language program in our school is:

1 2 3 4 5 Very well-taught Not very well-taught

Well-staffed Not well-staffed

Popular with the students Not popular with the students

Creates encouraging environment Creates discouraging environment

Supported by the parents Not supported by the parents

Supported by good technical equipment

(TV, VCD, tape recorder)

Not supported by good technical

equipment (TV, VCD, tape recorder)

Supported by computers Not supported by computers

Provided with sufficient English learning

resources

Provided with insufficient English

learning resources

Supported by internet facility Not supported by internet facility

Supported by the district education office Not supported by the district education

office


01 04

Questionnaire with Students

1. Learning English

Tick the appropriate column

1 (Agree)

2 (Neither agree not disagree)

3 (Disagree)

No Statement 1 2 3

1. I like attending school

2. I like learning English

3. English is my favorite subject

4. English is my last favorite subject

5. I do not need English for my future life

6. I do not need English for my further study

7. My parents like me learning English

8. I go to English classes after school

9. I learn some English from our computer at home

10. I learn some English from our computer at school

11. I learn some English from computer games

12. I learn some English from the mobile phone

13. I learn some English from English textbooks

14. I like the teacher speaking only in English in our English language class

2. Important School Subject

Rate the following subjects in order of importance for student (1 = most important, 4 = least

important),

Subject Rating

Bahasa Indonesia

Maths

Science

English language

3. Media

What media does your teacher use in explaining English in the lesson at class?

No. Media Always Sometimes Never

1. Tape recorder

2. Television

3. VCD player

4. OHP

5. Language Laboratory

6. Multimedia Laboratory

7. Blackboard

8. Pictures

9. Cards

10. Toys


4. Difficulty

No. Difficulty Always

A

Sometimes

B

Never

C 1 Understand native speaker speaking

in English

2 Understand teacher speaking in

English at class

3 Speak in English at class 4 Speak in English at school 5 Read English texts 6 Write in English 7 Grammar 8 Vocabulary items 9 Structure of English texts 10 Pronunciation


02 01

Interview Schedule

Interview with Principal/First Vice Principal

Initial Explanation:

Commence the interview with an explanation for the visit. Thank the principal for his/her co-

operation and time.

Explain:

PhD program by thesis. The aim of the case-study is to evaluate the currently implemented

curriculum (KTSP), first introduced in 2006. The selective sampling method, 12 schools under

MONE and MORA.

School details

a) Name :

b) School Statistics Number :

c) Address :

Telp/HP/Fax :

Email Address :

Location of School : (inner/middle/outer suburban/provincial/rural)

d) Status :

e) School Accreditation : ............ Score = .............

f) Area : ………….m2

g) Total School Enrollment :

h) Description and assessment of physical lay-out of buildings:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A. Experience and workshops

1. How many years have you been principal of this school?

2. Have you attended workshops of

a. School leadership and management? When and how long? What is your opinion about

it?

b. KTSP? When and how long? What is your opinion about it?

c. English language teaching and learning? When and how long? What do you think of

it?

d. Information technology? When and how long? What do you think of it?

e. Others?

B. KTSP curriculum

1. Describe your specific work dealing with KTSP curriculum?


2. Attitude

a. What do you think of the attitude of English language teachers?

b. What do you think of the attitude of other teachers?

c. What do you think of the attitude of students?

d. What do you think of the attitude of parents?

3. What documents do you have for the KTSP curriculum (Book 1 and Book 2 (Syllabus and

Lesson Planning))?

4. How often do you evaluate the KTSP curriculum?

5. How do you evaluate the KTSP curriculum?

6. Do you invite stakeholders (such as parents, practitioners, students, etc) in developing

KTSP curriculum?

7. What problems do you and/or the teachers find in implementing KTSP curriculum in terms

of

a. Curriculum development

b. Teaching material development

c. Teaching and learning process

d. Learning assessment/test development

e. Learning facilities

8. What is school’s policy or government rules regarding?






Do you have the supporting documents? What are they?

9. What are strengths and weaknesses of the implemented KTSP curriculum?

C. Facility

1. What facilities does the school have to create an academic and learning environment?

2. What programs do you have to support an academic atmosphere?

3. How does the school support language learning?

4. Do you have a language laboratory? What is the benefit of language laboratory?

5. How well is the language laboratory being used? How often, which teacher, which year, any

issues?

6. Is the use of language laboratory efficient?

7. What do you know about e-education and English teaching and learning?

8. Does the school provide e-education? What do you think its benefit?

9. What do you have in mind to support English language teaching and learning?

10. What support can parents give to support English language learning at home?


D. Assessment

1. What principles do you give to English language teachers in terms of assessment?

2. What problems do you find in directing teachers concerning English language assessment?

E. Teachers’ quality

1. What do you think are the qualities of a good language teacher?

2. What do you think of the quality of English language teaching currently at your school?

3. What do you think English language teacher quality currently? How about at your schools?

4. What do you think teachers’ attitude towards teaching English?

5. What problems do you find in recruiting good English language teachers?

6. What do you think of how school improves English language teachers’ quality?

F. Perception

What is your perception of implementation of KTSP curriculum in terms of







02 02

Interview with English Language Teachers


School :

Address :

Email :

A. Experience

1. Tell me about your educational and training background (teacher qualifications and

experience in teaching English language)!

2. Have you participated in in-service training programs? When, where and how long? What do

you think of it?

3. Have you participated in any training dealing with English language assessment? What do

you think of it? Details of in-services topics.

No In-service Training Time Place Regional/National/International Comment

B. Teachers’ competence

1. How well do you understand English utterance?

2. Do you ever watch English language television? How often?

3. How well do you speak English?

4. Have you ever visited an English speaking country?

5. Have you ever lived in an English speaking country?

6. How well do you read English texts?

7. How often do you read English language newspapers and magazines?

8. How well do you write in English language?

9. Have you written any articles or journals in English?

C. Knowledge of curriculum

1. What do you know about Competency-based Curriculum (2004) and School-based

Curriculum (2006)?

2. What are their similarities and differences?

3. What do you think of materials that are now available for teaching about communicative

competence?

4. Where are the specific gaps?

5. What problems do you find in implementing the KTSP curriculum?


6. How do you solve the problems?

7. Do you develop the syllabus and lesson plan by yourself? How often? How well do you

develop the curriculum?

8. What are the components of curriculum? How well do you develop them?

9. What are the components of the syllabus? How well do you develop them?

10. What do you know about competency standards? How well do you develop it?

11. What do you know about indicators? How well do you develop indicators?

12. How do you determine indicators of each competence?

13. What do you know about learning outcomes (experience)?

14. How can you determine students’ learning objectives?

15. In teaching English, what teaching methodologies or strategies do you or would you

suggest to other teachers to follow? Why?

16. Do you evaluate your English language teaching? When and how often?

17. How do you motivate students to learn English?

18. Does the school provide a laboratory to support English language learning?

19. How well is the laboratory being used? Is it efficient?

20. What do you think are the benefits of language laboratory in teaching? What needs to be

improved?

21. How do you improve students’ English achievement (inside and outside the classroom)?

22. What are your suggestions to improve students’ communicative competence in English?

23. How well are you in optimizing learning resources at school?

D. Teaching learning process

1. What are the stages of your teaching?

2. Do you teach student learning strategies in handling their own learning?

3. What kind of media do you frequently use in your teaching? Non-technology and

technology?

4. What electronic teaching materials do you frequently use in your teaching?

5. What teacher reference do you use for teaching?

6. What teacher reference do you use for students (tasks)?

E. Teaching material

1. How do you develop listening material?

2. How do you develop speaking material?

3. How do you develop reading material?

4. How do you develop writing material?


5. How do you develop lexicogrammar for listening and speaking?

6. How do you develop lexicogrammar for reading and writing?

7. When do you develop teaching materials either in listening, speaking, reading and writing,

do you consider

a. Simple to complex

b. Chronology

c. Need (topics)

d. Pre-requisite learning (such as when you want to ask students to write, you teach

sentence pattern first)

e. Spiral sequencing

F. Assessment

1. How do you develop English language assessment for each skill (macro/micro skills,

generic structure, functions, lexicogrammar)?

2. Do you write students’ tests (assessment) by yourself?

3. How often do you conduct your tests (except mid and final semester tests)?

4. What do you think of the KTSP curriculum and its assessment currently? Is the national

examination conducted currently appropriate with students’ competence in English?

5. What problems do you find in conducting English language assessment for each skill?

G. Perceptions

1. What problems do you and/or the teachers find in implementing KTSP curriculum

regarding

a. Curriculum development?





2. What is your perception of the implementation of KTSP curriculum in terms of:






H. Students

1. What are students’ characteristics in terms of language proficiency and home background?

2. What do you think of students’ attitudes towards teaching English?

3. What do you think of students’ motivation in the process of English language teaching and

learning?


I. Parents’ attitude

1. What do you think of parents’ attitudes towards teaching English?

2. What help can parents give to support English language learning at home?


02 03

Interview with Laboratory Technician


School :

Address :

Email :

A. Experience

1. Tell me your educational background (educational qualifications)!

2. Have you participated in in-service training of information and technology? When, where

and how long? What do you think of it? Details of in-services topics.

No In-service Training Time Place Regional/National/International Comment

3. How many years have you been at this school?

4. How many years’ laboratory technician experience have you had?

5. How satisfied are you with your position at this school? Why?

Satisfied Just so-so Dissatisfied

B. Infrastructure

1. What laboratory does the school have? Do you have a language laboratory here?

2. What is the purpose of the language laboratory in your point of view?

3. What are its benefits?

4. What do you prepare in the language laboratory?

5. What things need to be improved?

6. What resources does the laboratory have?

7. How often does the school buy/provide the resources and media (printed and electronic)?

8. Does the school provide internet access for students? Is it used by the students?

9. Does the school provide free wireless access for students?

C. Language laboratory

1. Have you a specialist qualification in English language laboratory? Y/N

2. In any of your studies, have you completed a unit in English language curriculum? Y/N

3. What do you think of it?

4. In any of your studies, have you completed a unit in English language resources? Y/N



6. In any of your studies, have you completed a unit in laboratory program evaluation? Y/N


8. How well is the language laboratory used? Could it be used more? Could it be used better?

D. Problems

What problems do you find in implementing KTSP as a technician?

E. Self-development

How does the school improve students’ competence in terms of information technology?

F. Parents’ attitude

1. What do you think of parents’ attitude towards English language learning?


G. Students’ attitude

What do you think of students’ attitude towards English language learning?


02 04

Interview with Librarian


School :

Address :

Email :

A. Experience

1. Tell me your educational background in terms of being librarian!

2. How many years’ librarian experience have you had?

3. How satisfied are you with your position at this school?

Satisfied Just so-so Dissatisfied

B. Infrastructure

1. What kind of resources (electronic and printed materials) does the school have?

2. What programs and resources does the library have? How is its adequacy?

3. What journals does the school subscribe to?

4. What and how many books, magazines, newspapers does the library have? What do you

think of them (old or new)?

5. Do you have a library management file?

6. How often does the school buy/provide the books, magazines and newspapers? Are they in

English?

7. What learning resources does the school provide for English language learning?

8. How well do teachers use the library as learning resources?

9. Does the school provide internet access for students in the library?

10. Does the school provide free wireless access for students in the library?

C. Library

1. Have you a specialist qualification in library management? Y/N

2. In any of your studies, have you completed a unit in English language curriculum? Y/N

3. In any of your studies, have you completed a unit in English language resources? Y/N

D. Problems

What problems do you find in implementing KTSP as a librarian?


E. Parents’ attitude

1. What do you think parents’ attitude towards English language learning?


F. Students’ attitude

What do you think students’ attitude towards English language learning?


02 05

Interview with Local Government Education Staff


Address :

Phone Number :

Email :

A. Job description

Could you briefly introduce your position and describe your specific position in curriculum for

junior secondary school!

B. Curriculum implementation

1. What do you think the National Education Standard to be critically applied at school level?

Why?

2. What is your viewpoint of Competency-based Curriculum?

3. What is your viewpoint of School-based Curriculum (KTSP)?

4. What do you think the implementation of KTSP so far (2006 – 2011)?

5. How can best describe the characteristics of the KTSP curriculum?

6. What is your consideration in developing curriculum?

7. What do you think have been done in developing curriculum?

C. Perceptions

1. What problems do you and/or the teachers find in implementing KTSP curriculum

regarding?






2. What is your perception of implementation of KTSP curriculum in terms of:






D. Problems and solution

1. What do you consider as your positive and negative experiences in implementing the

KTSP curriculum?

2. What is your suggestion to have a better implementation of the KTSP curriculum?


3. What do you think of communicative competence of English language in the context of

Indonesian schools?

4. What do you think students’ characteristics in terms of language proficiency and home

background?

5. What things do we need to improve?

E. Issues with teachers

1. What do you think English language teachers in your district education office?

2. How can your education office improve teachers’ competence in English language

teaching?

F. Assessment

What do you think of curriculum and assessment currently? Is National Exam conducted

currently appropriate with students’ competence in English?

G. Parents’ attitude

1. What do you think parents’ attitude towards English language learning?


H. Students’ attitude

What do you think students’ attitude towards English language learning?


02 06

Interview with EFL Experts


Address :

Phone Number :

Email :

A. Expertise and experience

1. How many years have you been dealing to the English language teaching?

2. What is your experience dealing to the KTSP curriculum and its implementation? (seminar,

workshop and English language learning evaluation)

B. Curriculum

1. What do you think of teaching English to junior secondary school?

2. What do you think of previous curriculum?

3. What do you think the aim of teaching English to junior high school?

4. What is your viewpoint of the KTSP curriculum?

5. What do you think the implementation of KTSP so far (2006-2011)?

6. What do you think the major aims of communicative competence of English language in the

context of Indonesian schools?

C. Curriculum implementation

1. What are common issues/problems aroused by teachers in terms of:






2. What do you think of such issues?

3. What things do we need to improve students’ communicative competence in English

language (inside and outside classrooms)?

4. What is your suggestion to improve students’ communicative competence in English?

D. Assessment

1. What do you think of curriculum and assessment currently? Is National Exam conducted

currently appropriate with students’ competence in English?


2. What is your suggestion of appropriate English language assessment in terms of English

communicative competence?

E. What is your perceptions regarding:






F. Teachers’ attitude

1. What do you think teachers’ attitude towards English language teaching?

2. What do you think of English teachers currently in terms of English language teaching and

their English language competence?

G. Students’ attitude to EFL

What do you think secondary students’ attitude towards English language learning?

H. Parents attitude

1. What do you think secondary students’ attitude towards English language learning?

2. What do you think will be parents’ support to create learning English at home?


03 -

FGD

Focus Group Discussion with Students

A. SCHOOL

What is your general impression of your school? Is it good? Are you happy in it? What things are

wrong about it? What improvements would you like to see?

B. ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Do you feel that you are good at using English? Do you have difficulties with listening, speaking,

reading and writing skills? Which skill do you think is easier? What is your reason (why)? What do

you think English language teaching at your school? Why do you learn English? What is English

language teaching for at your school? Do you feel any benefits to learn English? What is your

motivation to learn English? What do you think teachers’ attitude towards English language

teaching? What do you think parents’ attitude towards English language learning? Do you think

school should provide additional classes or activities to learn English? Do you have ideas what

activities would be helpful to improve your English? What do you think of English language in

National exam? What assessment would be best in your opinion for English language?

C. LEARNING SUPPORT

What help can parents give you to support your English language learning? What do you hope from

parents to get good and conducive environment to learn English? What do you hope from school to

have better understanding in learning English language?


04 01

Observation Checklists

English Language Class

LESSON PLAN

1. Subject : English

Class/Semester :

Time Allocation : 2 X 45 minutes

2. Standard Competence

3. Basic competence

4. Indicators

5. The learning goal

6. Material

7. Method


8. Teaching procedure

Pre-teaching

While-teaching

Post activity

9. Learning assessment

10. Learning resources


04 02

Observation of Surrounding City or Village Context

Name of School :

Address :

No Geographical Area Natural

Resource

Jobs Education

Background

School-aged Number of Schools

Surrounding

Comments:

Observation Checklist of Facilities, Language Laboratory and Library

School :

General Information :

Land Ownership : Government/Foundation/Personal/Rent

Land Status :

Area :

Building :

Data of Class

Class Total Area Condition Class Total Area Condition

Class Computer

Laboratory

Principal

Room/Vice

Principal

Science

Laboratory

Teachers’ Room Art Laboratory

Library Lounge

Multimedia PTD

Language

Laboratory

Others

Comment:


Library Collection

No Type Indonesian English Condition

Good Broken

1. Textbook of All Subjects

2. English Textbook

3. Reading Books (Novel, Science and

Technology, etc.)

4. Book Reference (Dictionary,

Encyclopedia, etc.)

5. Journal

6. Magazine

7. Newspapers

8. Others: .....................................

Total

Comment:

Supporting Infrastructure in Library

No Type Total/Size/Specification

1. Computer

2. Reading Room

4. TV

5. LCD

6. VCD/DVD player

7. Others: ...........................................

Comment:

Research Instruments in Bahasa Indonesia Page 269

Appendix 1.2

Kuesioner

Kuesioner Kepala Sekolah/Wakil Kepala Sekolah

Nama :

Sekolah :

Alamat :

Alamat Email :

9. Data siswa dalam dua tahun terakhir:

Tahun

Ajaran

Jumlah

Siswa

VII VIII IX

Siswa Ruang

Kelas Siswa

Ruang

Kelas Siswa

Ruang

Kelas

2009/2010

2010/2011

Komentar jumlah siswa (naik/menurun dan mengapa?):

10. Latar belakang siswa:

Apakah pekerjaan orang tua siswa?

No Pekerjaan Persentase

Catatan: Latar belakang ekonomi siswa berbeda antar kabupaten

Komentar karakteristik pekerjaan orang tua dan kondisi sosial ekonomis, contoh pengangguran:

11. Profil sekolah pada ujian nasional (Kelas 9)

No. Tahun

Ajaran

Hasil Ujian Nasional

Bahasa

Indonesia

Nilai

Rerata

Bahasa

Inggris

Nilai

Rerata

Matem-

atika

Nilai

Rerata

Ilmu

Peng.

Alam

Nilai

Rerata

1. 2009/2010

2. 2010/2011

12. Data tentang kepala sekolah/wakil kepala sekolah

No Posisi Nama Jenis Kelamin

Umur Pendidikan Masa Kerja Laki-laki Perempuan

1.

2.


13. Partisipasi pada pelatihan/seminar tentang KTSP dan Bahasa Inggris

No Judul Tanggal Tingkat (Regional, Nasional, Internasional) Keterangan

14. Guru Bahasa Inggris

No. Tingkat

Pendidikan

Latar Belakang

Pendidikan

Status

Jumlah Guru

Tetap/PNS

Guru

Bantu/Yayasan

M F M F

1. Postgraduate

2. Undergraduate

3. Diploma

Total

15. Dalam pengajaran Bahasa Inggris, metode/tehnik apa yang anda sarankan pada guru?

16. Perlukah pengajaran Bahasa Inggris di tingkat SMP? Mengapa?


01 02

Kuesioner Guru Bahasa Inggris

Nama :

Sekolah :

Alamat :

Alamat Email :

Jawablah pertanyaan dibawah ini dengan jelas!

8. Berapa tahun anda mengajar di sekolah ini?

9. Kelas berapa yang anda ampu sekarang?

10. Sudah berapa lama anda mengajar?

11. Seberapa puas anda di sekolah ini?

Puas

Sedang

Kecewa

12. Rerata kepemilikan dokumen KTSP sebagai konsep belajar

c. > 90 % c. 50 – 74 %

d. 75 – 90 % d. < 50

13. Rerata kepemilikan dokumen silabus

b. > 90 % c. 50 – 74 %

b.75 – 90 % d. < 50

14. Rerata kepemilikan dokumen rencana pembelajaran (RPP)

a. > 90 % c. 50 – 74 %

b. 75 – 90 % d. < 50

8. Rerata kepemilikan buku teks dan referensi

a. 90 % c. 50 – 74 %

b.75 – 90 % d. < 50

9. Saya mengembangkan silabus dengan:

a. bersama dengan guru Bahasa Inggris c. sendiri

b. sama dengan contoh yang diberikan d. tidak ada

10. Rencana pembelajaran merupakan integrasi standar kompetensi, kompetensi dasar, indicator,

penilaian dan materi pengajaran

a. 76 – 100 % c. 26 – 50 %

b. 51 – 75 % d. < 25 %


11. Persentase penggunaan Bahasa Inggris sebagai sarana berkomunikasi di kelas:

a. 76 – 100 % c. 26 – 50 %

b. 51 – 75 % d. < 25 %

12. Kegiatan apa yang dilakukan di dalam kelas (pilih satu atau lebih)?

a. individu c. berpasangan

b. kelompok d. seluruh siswa (klasikal)

13. Persentase penggunaan teknologi sebagai media pengajaran (komputer atau laboratorium

multimedia) dalam pengajaran:

a. 76 – 100 % c. 26 – 50 %

b. 51 – 75 % d. < 25 %

14. Pilih salah satu jawaban (Ya atau Tidak)!

l) Apakah anda berkualifikasi dalam mengajarkan Bahasa Inggris sebagai Bahasa asing?

Ya/Tidak

m) Pernahkan anda mempelajari metodologi pengajaran Bahasa Inggris? Ya/Tidak

Apa pendapat anda?

n) Pernahkah anda mempelajari kompetensi berkomunikasi? Ya/Tidak

Apa pendapat anda?

o) Pernahkah anda mempelajari pengajaran kontekstual? Ya/Tidak

Apa pendapat anda?

p) Pernahkah anda mempelajari pengembangan kurikulum Bahasa Inggris? Ya/Tidak

Apa pendapat anda?

q) Pernahkah anda mempelajari penilaian? Ya/Tidak

Apa pendapat anda?

r) Pernahkah anda mempelajari evaluasi pengajaran Bahasa Inggris? Ya/Tidak

Apa pendapat anda?

s) Apakah anda mendengarkan pengucapan Bahasa Inggris dengan baik? Ya/Tidak

Seberapa baik anda mendengarkan teks berbahasa Inggris?

Bagaimana anda mengembangkannya?

t) Apakah anda berbicara menggunakan Bahasa Inggris dengan lancar? Ya/Tidak

Seberapa baik anda berbicara dalam Bahasa Inggris?


u) Apakah anda membaca teks berbahasa Inggris dengan baik? Ya/Tidak

Seberapa baik anda membaca teks berbahasa Inggris?


v) Apakah anda menulis dalam Bahasa Inggris dengan baik? Ya/Tidak

Seberapa baik anda menulis dalam Bahasa Inggris?



15. Bahasa Inggris memiliki ketrampilan dan aspek berbeda. Ketrampilan dan aspek apa menurut

anda paling penting? Berilah nomor 1, 2, 3, 4 (1 berarti paling penting, 2 berarti paling penting

kedua…dst).

Pernyataan No. Mendengarkan adalah ketrampilan penting yang harus diajarkan kepada siswa

Berbicara adalah ketrampilan penting yang harus diajarkan kepada siswa

Membaca adalah ketrampilan penting yang harus diajarkan kepada siswa

Menulis adalah ketrampilan penting yang harus diajarkan kepada siswa

Alasan?

Bagaimana anda mengajarkan setiap ketrampilan tersebut? (terpisah/terpadu)

Mengapa?

Tata bahasa merupakan fitur terpenting

Kosakata merupakan fitur terpenting

Lafal merupakan fitur terpenting

Langkah retorika merupakan fitur terpenting

Alasan?

Bagaimana anda mengajarkan fitur-fitur tersebut? (terpisah/terpadu)

Mengapa?

Sumber belajar otentik (majalah, Koran, video) merupakan sumber belajar terbaik

Buku teks merupakan sumber belajar terbaik

Referensi online merupakan sumber belajar terbaik

Menurut anda, sumber belajar apa yang terbaik sekarang ini? Mengapa?

Menurut anda, sumber belajar apa yang dapat digunakan untuk proses belajar mengajar?

Dalam proses belajar mengajar bahasa Inggris, guru harus berbahasa Inggris

Dalam proses belajar mengajar bahasa Inggris, guru harus berbahasa Indonesia

Dalam proses belajar mengajar bahasa Inggris, guru berbahasa Inggris dan Indonesia

Alasan?

Bagaimana anda mengembangkan kompetensi berbahasa Inggris?

16. Dalam pengajaran bahasa, apakah tujuan utama anda?

17. Dalam pengajaran bahasa, metode apa yang digunakan?

18. Dalam pengajaran bahasa, apakah anda mengikuti beberapa program?


19. Yang mana dari topik tersebut dibawah ini yang sudah anda pelajari? Jawablah di kolom A.

20. Yang mana dari topik tersebut dibawah ini yang ingin anda pelajari? Jawablah di kolom B.

Kolom A Kolom B Metode mengajar Menulis publikasi ilmiah Mengembangkan materi Tehnik mengajar di kelas Teori pembelajaran kontekstual Mengajar ketrampilan mendengarkan Mengajar ketrampilan berbicara Mengajar ketrampilan membaca Mengajar ketrampilan menulis Teori bahasa Teori pemerolehan bahasa Bilingualisme Ketrampilan mengeja Mengajarkan lafal Faktor latar belakang budaya


01 03

Kuesioner Guru Bidang Studi Non-Bahasa Inggris

Kuesioner Tanpa Nama

Sekolah :

1. Pengajaran Bahasa Inggris, sumber belajar dan sekolah

Centanglah pada kolom yang tepat

1 (Saya tidak tahu)

2 (Sangat setuju)

3 (Setuju)

4 (Ragu-ragu)

5 (Tidak setuju)

6 (Sangat tidak setuju)

No Pernyataan 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Pengajaran bahasa Cina lebih penting dibandingkan pengajaran bahasa Inggris 2. Bahasa Inggris seharusnya diajarkan di SMA, bukan di SMP 3. KTSP lebih tepat diimplementasikan di SMA daripada di SMP 4. Ujian nasional harus meliputi semua mata pelajaran di SMP 5. Laboratorium bahasa lebih penting dibandingkan laboratorium multimedia 6. Guru berkualifikasi internasional seharusnya mengajar di SMP 7. Siswa SMP seharusnya belajar bahasa Inggris ditempat kursus bahasa Inggris 8. Sumber belajar berbahasa Inggris seharusnya tersedia disekolah 9. Fasilitas internet lebih tepat untuk SMA dari pada SMP 10. Semua guru perlu berpartisipasi pada program teknologi informasi 11. ‘Sehari berbahasa Inggris’ baik diterapkan di SMA 12. Sekolah kita memerlukan kerjasama dengan sekolah dan siswa dari negara

berbahasa Inggris

13. Dinas pendidikan tidak menyediakan cukup program untuk para guru di sekolah 14. Perpustakaan seharusnya didirikan disetiap kabupaten/kota

2. Mata pelajaran penting

Urutkan pelajaran dibawah ini sesuai dengan kepentingan siswa dan sekolah (1 = paling penting, 4

= paling tidak penting),

Mata Pelajaran Urutan

Bahasa Indonesia

Matematika

Ilmu Pengetahuan Alam

Bahasa Inggris


3. Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP)

Pertanyaan berikut berhubungan dengan implementasi KTSP. Centanglah pada kolom yang tepat.

Kalau tidak dapat memberikan ide, jangan mencentang. Pilihan nomor 3 adalah netral.

Pengajaran bahasa Inggris di sekolah kita:

1 2 3 4 5 Diajarkan dengan sangat baik Tidak diajarkan dengan sangat baik.

Diperlengkapi dengan staff pengajar

dengan sangat baik.

Tidak diperlengkapi staff pengajar

dengan baik.

Diminati siswa Tidak diminati siswa

Menciptakan lingkungan pendidikan

Bahasa Inggris yang baik.

Tidak menciptakan lingkungan

pendidikan Bahasa Inggris dengan baik

Didukung oleh orang tua. Tidak diukung oleh orang tua.

Didukung oleh peralatan teknik yang baik

(TV, VCD, tape recorder)

Tidak didukung oleh peralatan teknik

yang baik (TV, VCD, tape recorder)

Didukung oleh komputer Tidak didukung oleh computer

Diperlengkapi dengan sumber-sumber

belajar bahasa Inggris.

Tidak diperlengkapi dengan sumber

belajar bahasa Inggris.

Didukung oleh fasilitas internet. Tidak didukung oleh fasilitas internet.

Didukung oleh kantor dinas pendidikan

setempat /kabupaten.

Tidak didukung oleh kantor dinas

setempat.


01 04

Kuesioner Siswa

1. Belajar Bahasa Inggris

Centanglah kolom yang paling sesuai

1 (Setuju)

2 (Ragu-ragu)

3 (Tidak setuju)

No Pernyataan 1 2 3

1. Saya senang bersekolah di ....

2. Saya selalu senang belajar bahasa Inggris di sekolah

3. Bahasa Inggris adalah mata pelajaran terfavorit

4. Mata pelajaran yang sangat tidak saya sukai adalah bahasa Inggris

5. Bahasa Inggris tidak diperlukan untuk masa depan saya

6. Bahasa Inggris tidak diperlukan untuk studi lanjut

7. Orang tua saya mendukung saya untuk belajar bahasa Inggris

8. Saya belajar Bahasa Inggris sepulang sekolah

9. Saya belajar Bahasa Inggris melalui komputer dirumah

10. Saya belajar Bahasa Inggris melalui komputer di sekolah

11. Saya belajar Bahasa Inggris melalui permainan di computer

12. Saya belajar Bahasa Inggris melalui telpon genggam/handphone

13. Saya belajar Bahasa Inggris dari buku teks berbahasa Inggris

14. Saya suka guru berbahasa Inggris didalam kelas

15. Saya suka guru berbahasa Inggris di lingkungan sekolah

2. Mata pelajaran penting

Urutkan pelajaran dibawah ini sesuai dengan kepentingan siswa (1 = yang paling penting , 4 = yang

paling tidak penting),

Mata Pelajaran Urutan

Bahasa Indonesia

Matematika

Ilmu Pengetahuan Alam

Bahasa Inggris

3. Media

Media apa yang digunakan guru dalam menjelaskan pelajaran Bahasa Inggris di kelas?

No Media Selalu Kadang-

Kadang

Tidak

Pernah

1. Radio/Tape

2. Televisi

3. VCD

4. Proyektor

5. Laboratorium bahasa

6. Laboratorium multimedia

7. Papan tulis

8. Gambar

9. Kartu

10. Boneka


4. Kesulitan

No. Kesulitan Selalu

A

Kadang-

kadang

B

Tidak

pernah

C 1 Memahami penutur asli (native

speaker) berbicara bahasa Inggris

2 Memahami guru berbicara bahasa

Inggris dikelas

3 Berbicara dalam bahasa Inggris di

kelas

4 Berbicara dalam bahasa Inggris di

sekolah

5 Membaca teks berbahasa Inggris 6 Menulis menggunakan bahasa

Inggris

7 Tata bahasa Inggris 8 Kosakata 9 Langkah retorika/struktur teks 10 Pengucapan


02 01

Interview

Interview Kepala Sekolah/Wakil Kepala Sekolah

Initial Explanation:

Interview diawali dengan penjelasan tentang maksud tujuan penelitian. Ucapan terima kasih kepada

kepala sekolah untuk waktu dan kerjasamanya.

Penjelasan:

Program PhD jalur tesis. Tujuan penelitian melalui studi kasus ini adalah untuk mengevaluasi

implementasi kurikilum (KTSP) yang mulai diimplementasikan tahun 2006. Pengambilan data

menggunakan metode selective sampling, terpilih 12 sekolah dibawah Kementrian Pendidikan

Nasional dan Kementrian Agama.

Penjelasan rinci sekolah

i) Nama :

j) Nomor statistik sekolah :

k) Alamat :

Telp/HP/Fax :

Alamat email :

Lokasi sekolah : (kota kabupaten/kotamadya, kecamatan)

l) Status sekolah :

m) Akreditasi sekolah : ............ Skor = .............

n) Luas sekolah : ………….m2

o) Jumlah siswa :

p) Deskripsi bangunan :

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A. Pengalaman dan kegiatan seminar

1. Berapa tahun anda menjabat sebagai kepala sekolah?

2. Sudahkah anda berpartisipasi pada pelatihan mengenai

a. Kepemimpinan dan manajemen kepala sekolah? Kapan dan berapa lama? Apa pendapat

anda?

b. KTSP? Kapan dan berapa lama? Apa pendapat anda?

c. Pengajaran dan pembelajaran bahasa? Kapan dan berapa lama? Apa pendapat anda?

d. Teknologi informasi? Kapan dan berapa lama? Apa pendapat anda?

e. Lainnya?

B. Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP)

10. Jelaskan tugas anda sehubungan dengan KTSP?

11. Sikap

a. Apa pendapat anda tentang sikap guru Bahasa Inggris?

b. Apa pendapat anda tentang sikap guru non-Bahasa Inggris?

c. Apa pendapat anda tentang sikap siswa?


d. Apa pendapat anda tentang sikap orang tua?

12. Apakah anda memiliki dokumen kurikulum (Buku 1 dan Buku 2 (Silabi dan RPP))?

13. Seberapa sering anda mengevaluasi KTSP?

14. Bagaimana anda mengevaluasi KTSP?

15. Apakah anda mengundang pengguna lulusan (seperti orang tua, praktisi pendidikan, siswa,

dll) pada pengembangan KTSP?

16. Problem apa yang guru temukan didalam implementasi KTSP

a. Pengembangan kurikulum

b. Pengembangan bahan ajar

c. Proses belajar mengajar

d. Penilaian pembelajaran/pengembangan tes

e. Fasilitas belajar

17. Apa kebijakan sekolah atau pemerintah mengenai






Apakah anda memiliki dokumen pendukung? Dokumen apa yang anda miliki?

18. Apa kekuatan dan kelemahan implementasi KTSP?

C. Fasilitas

11. Fasilitas apa yang dimiliki sekolah dalam menciptakan lingkungan pembelajaran akademis?

12. Program apa yang dimiliki sekolah untuk mendukung lingkungan yang akademis?

13. Bagaimana sekolah mendukung pembelajaran bahasa?

14. Apakah ada laboratorium bahasa? Apa keuntungan laboratorium bahasa?

15. Seberapa baik laboratorium bahasa digunakan? Seberapa sering, guru yang mana, tahun

berapa, adakah masalah?

16. Apakah penggunaan laboratorium bahasa efisien?

17. Apa yang anda ketahui tentang e-education dan pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris?

18. Apakah sekolah menyediakan e-education? Menurut anda, apa keuntungannya?

19. Apa yang anda pikirkan untuk mendukung pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris?

20. Menurut anda, dukungan apa yang diberikan orang tua dalam pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris?

D. Penilaian

3. Prinsip apa yang anda berikan kepada guru Bahasa Inggris mengenai penilaian?

4. Problem apa yag anda temukan ketika membimbing guru mengenai penilaian Bahasa

Inggris?


E. Kualitas guru

7. Apa pendapat anda tentang kualitas guru bahasa yang baik?

8. Apa pendapat anda tentang kualitas pengajaran Bahasa Inggris di sekolah anda?

9. Apa pendapat anda tentang kualitas guru Bahasa Inggris saat ini? Bagaimana disekolah

anda?

10. Apa pendapat anda tentang sikap guru dalam pengajaran Bahasa Inggris?

11. Problem apa yang anda temukan dalam merekrut guru Bahasa Inggris yang baik?

12. Apa pendapat anda tentang bagaimana mengembangkan kualitas guru Bahasa Inggris?

F. Persepsi

Apa persepsi anda tentang implementasi KTSP dalam hal,







02 02

Interview Guru Bahasa Inggris

Nama :

Sekolah :

Alamat :

Alamat email :

A. Pengalaman

4. Ceritakan latar belakang pendidikan dan pelatihan (kualifikasi guru dan pengalaman

mengajar Bahasa Inggris)!

5. Pernahkah anda berpartisipasi pada program pelatihan? Kapan, dimana dan untuk berapa

lama? Apa pendapat anda tentang pelatihan tersebut?

6. Pernahkah anda berpartisipasi pada program pelatihan tentang penilaian? Apa pendapat anda

tentang pelatihan tersebut? Informasi pelatihan.

No Pelatihan Waktu Tempat Regional/Nasional/Internasional Keterangan

B. Kompetensi guru

10. Seberapa baik anda mengerti ucapan berbahasa Inggris?

11. Apakah anda pernah menonton acara televisi berbahasa Inggris? Seberapa sering?

12. Seberapa baik anda berbicara Bahasa Inggris?

13. Apakah anda pernah mengunjungi negara berbahasa Inggris?

14. Apakah anda pernah tinggal di negara berbahasa Inggris?

15. Seberapa baik anda membaca teks berbahasa Inggris?

16. Seberapa sering anda membaca Koran dan majalah berbahasa Inggris?

17. Seberapa baik anda menulis dengan berbahasa Inggris?

18. Pernahkah anda menulis artikel atau Koran berbahasa Inggris?

C. Pengetahuan tentang kurikulum

24. Apa yang anda ketahui tentang kurikulum berbasis kompetensi (2004) dan kurikulum

tingkat satuan pendidikan (2006)?

25. Apa persamaan dan perbedaannya?

26. Apa pendapat anda tentang materi ajar yang tersedia untuk mengajarkan kemampuan

berkomunikasi?

27. Dimana perbedaan tersebut?


28. Problem apa yang anda temukan dalam mengimplementasikan KTSP?

29. Bagaimana anda menanggulangi masalah tersebut?

30. Apakah anda mengembangkan silabus dan RPP sendiri? Seberapa sering? Seberapa baik

anda mengembangkan kurikulum?

31. Apakah komponen kurikulum? Seberapa baik anda mengembangkannya?

32. Apakah komponen silabus? Seberapa baik anda mengembangkannya?

33. Apa yang anda ketahui tentang standar kompetensi? Seberapa baik anda

mengembangkannya?

34. Apa yang anda ketahui tentang indikator? Seberapa baik anda mengembangkannya?

35. Bagaimana anda menentukan indikator setiap kompetensi?

36. Apa yang anda ketahui tentang hasil belajar (pengalaman)?

37. Bagaimana anda menentukan tujuan pembelajaran?

38. Dalam pengajaran Bahasa Inggris, metodologi atau strategi apa yang anda sarankan untuk

guru? Mengapa?

39. Apakah anda mengevaluasi pengajaran Bahasa Inggris? Kapan dan seberapa sering?

40. Bagaimana anda memotivasi siswa untuk belajar Bahasa Inggris?

41. Apakah sekolah memiliki laborataorium untuk mendukung pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris?

42. Seberapa baik laboratorium bahasa digunakan? Efisienkah?

43. Apa pendapat anda tentang keuntungan menggunakan laboratorium bahasa? Apa yang

harus dikembangkan?

44. Bagaimana anda meningkatkan kemampuan Bahasa Inggris siswa (didalam dan luar

kelas)?

45. Apa saran anda untuk meningkatkan kemampuan berkomunikasi Bahasa Inggris siswa?

46. Seberapa baik anda mengoptimalkan sumber belajar di sekolah?

D. Proses belajar mengajar

7. Apa langkah-langkah mengajar anda?

8. Apakah anda mengajarkan strategi belajar kepada siswa?

9. Media apa yang sering anda gunakan ketika mengajar? Non-teknologi dan teknologi?

10. Bahan ajar elektronik apa yang sering anda gunakan ketika mengajar?

11. Referensi apa yang anda gunakan dalam mengajar?

12. Referensi apa yang anda gunakan untuk siswa (tugas)?

E. Bahan ajar

8. Bagaimana anda mengembangkan bahan ajar untuk ketrampilan mendengarkan?

9. Bagaimana anda mengembangkan bahan ajar untuk ketrampilan berbicara?


10. Bagaimana anda mengembangkan bahan ajar untuk ketrampilan membaca?

11. Bagaimana anda mengembangkan bahan ajar untuk ketrampilan menulis?

12. Bagaimana anda mengembangkan bahan ajar tatabahasa dan kosakata untuk ketrampilan

mendengarkan dan berbicara?

13. Bagaimana anda mengembangkan bahan ajar tatabahasa dan kosakata untuk ketrampilan

membaca dan menulis?

14. Ketika mengembangkan bahan ajar untuk ketrampilan mendengarkan, berbicara, membaca

dan menulis, apakah anda mempertimbangkan

a. Sederhana ke sulit

b. Kronologi

c. Kebutuhan (topik)

d. Syarat pembelajaran (sebagai contoh, ketika anda memberi tugas ketrampilan menulis,

anda mengajarkan terlebih dahulu pola kalimat)

e. Urutan spiral

F. Penilaian

6. Bagaimana anda mengembangkan penilaian untuk setiap ketrampilan (ketrampilan

makro/mikro, struktur kalimat/paragraf, fungsi, tata bahasa dan kosa kata)?

7. Apakah anda menulis tes (penilaian) sendiri?

8. Seberapa sering anda menyelenggarakan tes (kecuali ujian tengah dan akhir semester)?

9. Apa pendapat anda tentang KTSP dan penilaian saat ini? Apakah ujian nasional saat ini

sudah tepat untuk mengukur kemampuan siswa berkomunikasi dalam Bahasa Inggris?

10. Problem apa yang anda temukan ketika memberi penilaian setiap ketrampilan?

G. Persepsi

3. Problem apa yang anda atau guru temukan dalam implementasi KTSP mengenai






4. Apa persepsi anda tentang implementasi KTSP dalam hal:







H. Siswa

4. Apa karakteristik siswa dalam hal kemahiran berbahasa dan latar belakang keluarga?

5. Apa pendapat anda mengenai sikap siswa dalam pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris?

6. Apa pendapat anda tentang motivasi siswa dalam proses belajar mengajar?

I. Sikap orang tua

3. Apa pendapat anda tentang sikap orang tua dalam hal pengajaran Bahasa Inggris?

4. Bantuan apa yang dapat mendukung siswa belajar Bahasa Inggris di rumah?


02 03

Interview Laboran

Nama :

Sekolah :

Alamat :

Alamat email :

A. Pengalaman

6. Ceritakan latar belakang pendidikan anda (kualifikasi pendidikan)!

7. Apakah anda berpartisipasi pada program pelatihan informasi teknologi? Kapan, dimana,

dan berapa lama? Apa pendapat anda tentang pelatihan tersebut? Informasi pelatihan.

No Pelatihan Waktu Tempat Regional/Nasional/Internasional Keterangan

8. Sudah berapa tahun anda di sekolah ini?

9. Sudah berapa lama anda berpengalaman menjadi laboran?

10. Puaskah anda dengan jabatan anda di sekolah?

Puas Cukup Tidak Puas

B. Prasarana

10. Laboratorium apa yang dimiliki sekolah? Apakah sekolah memiliki laboratorium bahasa?

11. Menurut pendapat anda, apa tujuan tersedianya laboratorium bahasa?

12. Apa keuntungannya?

13. Apa yang anda siapkan di laboratorium bahasa?

14. Apa yang harus dikembangkan?

15. Sumber belajar apa yang tersedia di laboratorium bahasa?

16. Seberapa sering sekolah membeli sumber belajar dan media (cetak dan elektronik)?

17. Apakah sekolah menyediakan internet akses untuk siswa? Apakah digunakan siswa?

18. Apakah sekolah menyediakan akses free wireless untuk siswa?

C. Laboratorium bahasa

9. Apakah anda memiliki kualifikasi di laboratorium bahasa? Ya/Tidak

10. Sudahkah anda mempelajari kurikulum Bahasa Inggris? Ya/Tidak

Apa pendapat anda?


11. Sudahkah anda mempelajari sumber belajar Bahasa Inggris? Ya/Tidak

Apa pendapat anda?

12. Sudahkah anda mempelajari mengenai program evaluasi laboratorium? Ya/Tidak

Apa pendapat anda?

13. Seberapa baik laboratorium bahasa digunakan? Dapatkah digunakan lebih? Dapatkah

digunakan lebih baik?

D. Problem

Problem apa yang anda temukan dalam implementasi KTSP?

E. Pengembangan diri

Bagaimana sekolah mengembangkan kompetensi siswa pada teknologi informasi?

F. Sikap orang tua

3. Apa pendapat anda tentang sikap orang tua terhadap pengajaran Bahasa Inggris?

4. Bantuan apa yang dapat diberikan orang tua untuk siswa belajar Bahasa Inggris di rumah?

G. Sikap siswa

Apa pendapat anda tentang siswa belajar Bahasa Inggris?


02 04

Interview Pustakawan

Nama :

Sekolah :

Alamat :

Alamat email :

G. Pengalaman

4. Ceritakan latar belakang pendidikan anda sebagai pustakawan!

5. Berapa tahun pengalaman anda menjadi pustakawan?

6. Seberapa puas anda dengan jabatan anda di sekolah?

Puas Ragu-ragu Tidak puas

H. Prasarana

11. Sumber belajar apa (elektronik dan cetak) yang dimiliki sekolah?

12. Program dan sumber belajar apa yang dimiliki perpustakaan? Bagaimana tingkat

kecukupannya?

13. Apakah sekolah memiliki jurnal berlangganan?

14. Berapa banyak buku, majalah, koran yang tersedia di perpustakaan?

15. Apakah anda memiliki arsip manajemen perpustakaan?

16. Seberapa sering sekolah membeli buku, majalah dan koran? Adakah yang berbahasa

Inggris?

17. Sumber belajar apa yang tersedia untuk belajar Bahasa Inggris?

18. Seberapa baik guru menggunakan perpustakaan sebagai sumber belajar?

19. Apakah sekolah menyediakan akses internet untuk siswa di perpustakaan?

20. Apakah sekolah menyediakan akses free wireless untuk siswa di perpustakaan?

I. Perpustakaan

4. Apakah anda berkualifikasi di manajemen perpustakaan? Ya/Tidak

5. Pernahkah anda mempelajari kurikulum Bahasa Inggris? Ya/Tidak

6. Pernahkah anda mempelajari sumber belajar Bahasa Inggris? Ya/Tidak

J. Problem

Sebagai pustakawan, problem apa yang anda temukan dalam implementasi KTSP?


K. Sikap orang tua

1. Apa pendapat anda tentang sikap orang tua terhadap pengajaran Bahasa Inggris?

2. Bantuan apa yang dapat diberikan orang tua untuk siswa belajar Bahasa Inggris di rumah?

H. Sikap siswa

Apa pendapat anda tentang siswa belajar Bahasa Inggris?


02 05

Interview Staf Pendidikan Pemerintah Setempat

Nama :

Alamat :

Nomor telephone :

Alamat email :

I. Deskripsi pekerjaan

Mohon bapak/ibu mendeskripsikan jabatan anda secara spesifik dalam kurikulum di SMP!

J. Implementasi kurikulum

8. Apa pendapat bapak/ibu tentang standar pendidikan nasional dilaksanakan ditingkat

sekolah? Mengapa?

9. Apa pandangan anda tentang Kurikulum Berbasis Kompetensi (KBK)?

10. Apa pandangan anda tentang KTSP?

11. Apa pandangan anda tentang implementasi KTSP selama ini (2006 – 2011)?

12. Bagaimana anda mendeskripsikan karakteristik KTSP dengan baik?

13. Apa pertimbangan anda dalam mengembangkan kurikulum?

14. Apa pendapat anda tentang hal yang sudah dilakukan dalam pengembangan kurikulum?

K. Persepsi

3. Problem apa yang anda temukan dalam menerapkan kurikulum KTSP berkaitan dengan






4. Apa persepsi anda tentang implementasi KTSP dalam hal






L. Problem dan pemecahannya

6. Apakah pengalaman positif dan negative dalam mengimplementasikan KTSP?

7. Apa saran anda agar KTSP dapat terlaksana dengan baik?

8. Apa pendapat anda mengenai kompetensi komunikasi Bahasa Inggris dalam konteks

sekolah di Indonesia?


9. Apa pendapat anda mengenai karakteristik siswa dalam kaitannya dengan kemahiran

berbahasa dan latar belakang keluarga?

10. Hal apa yang harus dikembangkan?

M. Hal sehubungan dengan guru

3. Apa pendapat anda mengenai guru Bahasa Inggris di wilayah anda?

4. Bagaimana kantor dinas anda meningkatkan kompetensi guru dalam pengajaran Bahasa

Inggris?

N. Penilaian

Apa pendapat anda tentang kurikulum dan penilaian saat ini? Apakah ujian nasional terlaksana

selama ini sudah sesuai dengan kompetensi siswa berbahasa Inggris?

O. Sikap orang tua

3. Apa pendapat anda mengenai sikap orang tua tentang pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris?

4. Bantuan apa yang bisa diberikan orang tua kepada siswa dalam pembelajaran Bahasa

Inggris dirumah?

P. Sikap siswa

Apa pendapat anda tentang sikap siswa mengenai pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris?


02 06

Interview Ahli Bahasa Inggris sebagai Bahasa Asing

Nama :

Alamat :

Nomor Telephone :

Alamat email :

I. Keahlian dan pengalaman

3. Telah berapa tahun anda berkecimpung dalam pengajaran Bahasa Inggris?

4. Apa pengalaman anda sehubungan dengan KTSP dan implementasinya? (seminar, pelatihan

dan evaluasi pengajaran Bahasa Inggris?

J. Kurikulum

7. Apa pendapat anda tentang pengajaran Bahasa Inggris di SMP?

8. Apa pendapat anda tentang kurikulum sebelumnya?

9. Apa pendapat anda tentang tujuan pengajaran Bahasa Inggris di SMP?

10. Apa pandangan anda tentang KTSP?

11. Apa pendapat anda tentang implementasi KTSP sejauh ini (2006-2011)?

12. Apa pendapat anda tentang tujuan utama kompetensi berkomunikasi Bahasa Inggris dalam

konteks sekolah di Indonesia?

K. Implementasi kurikulum

5. Masalah apa yang dihadapi guru sehubungan dengan:






6. Apa pendapat anda tentang isu tersebut?

7. Hal apa yang diperlukan untuk mengembangkan kompetensi berkomunikasi Bahasa

Inggris (di dalam dan di luar kelas)?

8. Apa saran anda untuk mengembangkan kemampuan berkomunikasi siswa dalam Bahasa

Inggris?


L. Penilaian

3. Apa pendapat anda tentang kurikulum dan penilaian saat ini? Apakah ujian nasional saat

ini sudah sesuai dengan kompetensi berbahasa siswa?

4. Apa saran anda tentang penilaian yang tepat untuk kompetensi berkomunikasi?

M. Apa persepsi anda mengenai:






N. Sikap guru

3. Apa pendapat anda tentang sikap guru terhadap pengajaran Bahasa Inggris?

4. Apa pendapat anda tentang guru Bahasa Inggris saat ini dalam hal pengajaran dan

kompetensi berbahasa mereka?

O. Sikap siswa terhadap pengajaran Bahasa Inggris

Apa pendapat anda tentang sikap siswa mengenai pengajaran Bahasa Inggris?

P. Sikap orang tua

1. Apa pendapat anda mengenai sikap orang tua tentang pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris?

2. Bantuan apa yang bisa diberikan orang tua kepada siswa dalam pembelajaran Bahasa

Inggris dirumah?


03 -

FGD

Diskusi Kelompok Siswa

A. SEKOLAH

Apa pandangan umum mengenai sekolahmu? Baikkah? Apakah kamu senang? Apa yang salah

dengan sekolah ini? Perkembangan apa yang ingin kamu lihat?

B. BAHASA INGGRIS

Apakah Bahasa Inggrismu bagus? Apakah kamu bermasalah dengan ketrampilan mendengarkan,

berbicara, membaca dan menulis? Ketrampilan mana yang mudah menurutmu? Apa alasanmu

(mengapa)? Apa pendapatmu mengenai pengajaran Bahasa Inggris di sekolahmu? Mengapa kamu

belajar Bahasa Inggris? Untuk apa pengajaran Bahasa Inggris di sekolahmu? Apakah kamu

merasakan keuntungan belajar Bahasa Inggris? Apa motivasimu belajar Bahasa Inggris? Apa

pendapatmu tentang sikap guru terhadap pengajaran Bahasa Inggris? Apa pendapatmu tentang

sikap orang tua terhadap pengajaran Bahasa Inggris? Apakah kamu berpikir sekolah harus

menambah jam belajar utuk Bahasa Inggris? Adakah ide mengenai kegiatan yang dapat

mendukung peningkatan kemampuan berbahasa Inggris? Apa pendapatmu tentang Bahasa Inggris

diujian nasional? Penilaian apa yang terbaik menurutmu untuk Bahasa Inggris?

C. DUKUNGAN BELAJAR

Bantuan apa yang diberikan orang tua dalam belajar Bahasa Inggris? Apa harapanmu terhadap

orang tua untuk mendapatkan lingkungan baik untuk belajar Bahasa Inggris? Apa harapanmu

kesekolah sehubungan tentang pemahaman pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris?


04 01

Checklist Observasi

Kelas Bahasa Inggris

RENCANA PEMBELAJARAN

11. Mata Pelajaran : Bahasa Inggris

Kelas/Semester :

Alokasi Waktu : 2 X 45 minutes

12. Standar Kompetensi

13. Kompetensi Dasar

14. Indikator

15. Tujuan Pembelajaran

16. Materi Ajar

17. Metode


18. Langkah Mengajar

Pre-teaching

While-teaching

Post activity

19. Penilaian

20. Sumber belajar


04 02

Observasi Wilayah Sekitar

Nama Sekolah :

Alamat :

No Kondisi

Geografis

Sumber Alam Pekerjaan Latar

Belakang

Pendidikan

Usia Sekolah Sekolah Lainnya di

Lingkungan

Tersebut

Keterangan:

Checklist Observasi Fasilitas, Laboratorium Bahasa dan Perpustakaan

Sekolah :

Informasi Umum :

Kepemilikan Tanah : Pemerintah/Yayasan/Pribadi/Sewaan

Status Tanah :

Area :

Bangunan :

Data Kelas

Kelas Total Area Kondisi Class Total Area Kondisi

Kelas Laboratorium

Komputer

Ruang Kepala

Sekolah/Wakil

Kepala Sekolah

Laboratorium

IPA

Ruang Guru Laboratorium

Seni

Perpustakaan Ruangan Besar

Multimedia Ruang PTD

Laboratorium

Bahasa

Lainnya

Keterangan:


Koleksi Perpustakaan

No Jenis Bahasa

Indonesia

Bahasa

Inggris

Kondisi

Baik Rusak

1. Buku teks semua mata pelajaran

2. Buku teks Bahasa Inggris

3. Buku Bacaan (novel, ilmu

pengetahuan, teknologi, dll.)

4. Buku referensi (Kamus,

Ensiklopedia, etc.)

5. Journal

6. Majalah

7. Koran

8. Lainnya: .....................................

Jumlah

Keterangan:

Prasarana pendukung di laboratorium

No Jenis Jumlah/Luas/Spesifikasi

1. Komputer

2. Ruang baca

4. TV

5. LCD

6. VCD/DVD player

7. Lainnya: ...........................................

Keterangan:

Appendix 2

AN EVALUATION OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

PROGRAMS IN INDONESIAN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS

IN THE YOGYAKARTA PROVINCE

Yuyun Yulia

Twelve Case Study Reports of Junior High Schools in Yogyakarta

Province

March, 2014

Appendix 2: Twelve Case Study Report Page 300

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Case Study 01 …………………………….……………………………………….. 301

Case Study 02 …………………………………………………………………….. 316

Case Study 03 …………………………………………………………………….. 327

Case Study 04 ……………………………………………………………….……. 339

Case Study 05 ………………………………………………………………….…. 351

Case Study 06 ………………………………………………………………….…. 364

Case Study 07 …………………………………………………………….………. 375

Case Study 08 ………………………………………………………………….…. 385

Case Study 09 ………………………………………………………………….…. 398

Case Study 10 …………………………………………………………….………. 408

Case Study 11 ……………………………………………………….……………. 417

Case Study 12 ………………………………………………….……………….… 428

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1: Minimum Grades of the Four Subjects in the Academic Year 2010/2011 305

Table 1.2: Profile of the English Teaching Workload of CS 1 306

Table 2.1: Profile of English Teaching Workload of CS 2 317



Table 4.2: English Teachers’ Views of English Language Skills and Features of CS 4 348





Table 9.1: Minimum Grades of the Four Subjects in the Academic Year 2008/2009 401





Case Study 01: A government junior high school located in a medium-sized town serving

mostly a population of small business owners and their employees

This largish junior government school is categorized as a National Standard School or SSN

(Sekolah Standar Nasional) with an excellent accreditation rating. It thus had the reputation to be a

good school because it was known in the town that some of its students had done very well in the

national examination. Located within a mid-sized town, it served a school community as shown in

the school parent census, made up mostly of small business owners and their employees (70 %)

together with merchants and traders (10 %), casual workers (15 %) and government employees (5

%). There were three government schools in the sub-district as well as a medium sized elementary

and junior high Catholic school some distance away.

Despite its status as a government school and despite Indonesia’s official status as a secular nation,

the daily school schedule began each morning for ten minutes with each class reciting the Qur’an in

Arabic, not understanding the meaning of the text, while Christian students read the Bible.

This school with 415 students had a new principal, a well-dressed Christian woman with a master

of humanities (magister humaniora) degree who was an English teacher. She had previously held a

co-ordinator position in English language teaching at the district level. She still retained her co-

ordinator position despite holding this position as principal. It was rumored that the previous

principal had been dismissed because of financial irregularities regarding school fees for new

students.

On the first day of each week, this principal had recently introduced a briefing for all teachers and

other staff for 15 minutes. She said, “We always discuss what we have done and what we will do in

the coming week”. At the last minute during the briefing, the researcher was asked to come and be

introduced. She then was given a chance to talk in front of the staff explaining the aim of the

research and asked the staff to fill in the questionnaire. Some staff responded positively while

others took it for granted and left for the classrooms for their teaching. When the researcher asked

what would happen when they had finished answering the questions, the principal said that she

would help collect the questionnaires in two days’ time. The briefing was conducted in the

teachers’ room in which the furniture consisted of tables and chairs, two computers and a printer.

Once when the researcher asked for an example of a test, the teacher printed out from one of the

computers. These computers sometimes were used to obtain any online sources for teaching by

some of the innovative teachers. The teachers’ room was provided with wifi access as well, so

teachers with their own laptops could access the internet.


The Curriculum and English Teaching

The 2006 KTSP curriculum document stated that to respond to the local conditions of the school, it

is necessary to revise the school curriculum annually. “I started to be a principal three months ago,

so I just continue what the previous principal did including the policy”, the principal said. This

signified that she felt hesitant about the content of the curriculum. When the researcher thoroughly

read the curriculum note (agenda) of the evaluation signed by the principal in 2009, it was noted

that the school based curriculum of 2008/2009 had remained similar in 2009/2010, 2010/2011 and

2011/2012 with the updating revisions on the academic calendar and facilities. She further

remarked,

“The document is good including the teachers who implement the curriculum. I emphasize teachers’

assessment at school particularly in class regarding the planning and teaching in the classroom, for

example, whether the teacher has applied the lesson plan made by him/her. So, I asked the senior

teacher to observe the junior teachers and supervise them such as Javanese teacher can observe

English or Bahasa Indonesia and the reverse. There are four senior language teachers. Another

thing, I am very excited when the students have their self development on Saturday, such as playing

traditional and modern music and dancing. Regarding English, last year there was a conversation

class conducted by other teachers, but it doesn’t happen this year. I probably will have it next

semester.”

In fact, what the English teachers said was rather different. There was a lack of monitoring and

supervising of teachers. It should have been done by the principal and the district supervisors.

However, teachers were assessed based on documents when they were about to participate in a

certification program and those who had already gained their certification needed to organize the

documentation and report to the district education office once every three months. In terms of

supervising, teachers were observed normally once every six months by a supervisor from the

district education office. This happened due to a lack of supervisors in the DEO. The principal

rarely observed English language teachers in the classroom – when it did happen, feedback was

given orally; there were no fixed indicators of a qualitative nature regarding monitoring and

supervising, whether by supervisor or principal – it was all done in numeric terms.

This school designed its curriculum based around the guidelines of the National Education

Standard Agency (Badan Standar Nasional Pendidikan - BSNP) and, according to the principal,

together with the local content subjects such as Javanese and domestic science, and students’ self

development in the academic year 2011/2012. In terms of curriculum evaluation, the principal said,

“An evaluation was conducted last October, even though the teaching/learning process had been

started earlier in July. We invited all school staff, the supervisor from the district education office

and school committee representatives”. A school team had been assigned to revise it consisting of

curriculum developers chosen from school level, the District Education Office (DEO) and

Provincial Education Office (PEO), the Quality Assurance personnel from the province (Lembaga


Penjamin Mutu Pendidikan – LPMP), universities and other stakeholders (school curriculum

document, 2011).

In fact, what happened was rather different. When the actual curriculum revision had been done,

only the district education office supervisor and the parental representative from the school

committee were invited by the school personnel to a meeting which rubberstamped it. The principal

remarked, “The revision of the curriculum is for students’ self-development such as batik painting,

playing traditional Javanese music (band), and story telling”. After the meeting, the school revised

it one more time and this revision then was examined by the district supervisor. This supervisor,

firstly, reviewed the curriculum document on a later visit and observed at random one of the

teachers in the classroom. After being reviewed again by the same supervisor, the curriculum

eventually was signed off by the head of the DEO.

Concerning the curriculum revision, the district supervisor said, “Most schools are still designing

their curriculum by copying and pasting.....in the KTSP curriculum, it could be clearly seen what

the school wants to achieve and its own characteristics which are different from one school to

another for sure”. This implied that the curriculum development might be similar from one school

to another; but each school needs to adjust its own curriculum in accordance with the particular

school’s condition.

Another noteworthy point was that district office supervision at this school occurred only very

rarely, because the number of supervisors is insufficient for the number of schools. The evidence

was from the supervisor herself saying, “If I didn’t have other additional jobs like now, I should

have been observing the school three hours a month for each school and oversee the supervision of

40 teachers in one semester from all subjects, not just English.”

Further evidence for this came from an incident in the district office when one of the principals

interrupted the interview with the supervisor and said, “Please come to our school to observe and

supervise English teachers”. She responded by saying her schedule was full. This supervisor who

supervised and monitored at both district and provincial levels spent most of the time visiting other

provinces as well as visits to Jakarta and Aceh for two weeks in total. It was difficult to set up

interview times with this supervisor due to her busy schedule. Concerning curriculum development,

she added, “Both the competence and knowledge of teachers, even principals, are limited about

curriculum design; it might be due to the shifting paradigm in which previously the schools were

dictated from central government, but currently each school needs to create their own curriculum

by looking at the guideliness given by the government”. It seemed to indicate that it was a school’s

responsibility to revise the curriculum, but it was the supervisor’s work as well to guide the school.


MONE had stipulated the minimum standard of district supervisors (No. 129A/U/2004) be a

minimum visit for a school done by the supervisor was three hours, once a month.

Regarding English language teaching and learning, the data showed most of the teachers (about 78

%) supported the teaching of English at junior secondary level with the KTSP curriculum

supported by internet sources while the other 22 per cent said it could be supported by English

textbooks and references. Concerning in-service training conducted regionally, 49 per cent of the

teaching staff said the district education office did not provide sufficient programs for teachers;

while 32 per cent of the teachers said they had obtained sufficient training. This lack of in-service

participation was probably due to teachers’ time availability and their lack of motivation. The

senior English teacher said, “I just participate in in-service training once in a year, sometimes at

school or in other schools. I sometimes became the photographer when there was a workshop about

English language teaching and learning at school”. This seemed to indicate that his interest in

English language learning development was not really positive. He further mentioned that the

topic, the presenters who were mostly supervisors and the very high number of participants

teaching in various areas of the curriculum sometimes drove teachers not to participate in any such

programs. English teachers, for instance, in particular discussed when there was a problem or

something new in the curriculum at an informal school meeting. This answer was a spontaneous

response that showed his lack of understanding of the curriculum; but he did not want to be blamed

for saying that this was due to teachers’ misunderstanding.

As well, the survey of the non-English teachers found that the teachers agreed that English, one of

the students’ favorite subjects, was the most important subject to be taught, followed by Bahasa

Indonesia, science and mathematics. The English language program in this school, according to the

teachers, is taught by good staff, and the two senior English teachers have masters degrees in the

English language. The school has provided sufficient facilities, although more English reference

books and learning resources should be provided.

In terms of the total number of teachers in this school, there were 36 teachers, each teaching 43

hours per week with 12 classes though a teaching hour, in the government perspective, is only 40

minutes. The government also stipulates that the number of teaching hours is 34. The compulsory

workload minimum of each teacher in class was 24, and maximum 40 teaching hours per week

(Indonesian Constitution No. 14/2005, Government Regulation No. 74/2008 and MONE

Regulation No. 39/2009). The government clearly stated that the teachers’ duties cover:

1. Planning a lesson

2. Teaching in class

3. Assessing teaching process


4. Guiding students

5. Doing additional tasks to support the teaching and learning

Based on the MONE Regulation No. 22 year 2006 (Permendiknas No. 22/2006) and clearly stated

in the school curriculum document, it is mentioned that to achieve the graduate standard, the

students’ teaching and learning was divided into three:

1. Teaching and learning in class (kegiatan tatap muka)

This is an interaction process between a teacher and students in class which is one teaching

hour equivalent to 40 minutes

2. Structured tasks/activities (penugasan terstruktur)

In-depth learning to achieve the competence standard and basic competence that was

managed by the teacher, for instance, remediation and enrichment

3. Independent activity (kegiatan mandiri)

In-depth learning to achieve the competence standard and basic competence that was

managed by the students.

Furthermore, the curriculum document clarified that both structured activities and independent

activity to achieve competency standards should not be over 50 % of the teaching hour in class.

Based on the curriculum document, the school clearly mentioned the minimum requirement grade

for the students was to pass all subjects. For English, it was 75 and each year in evaluating the

curriculum, this grade would possibly increase or at least be similar to that of last year (see Table

1.1). The following is the minimum requirement grading approved by the principal:

Table 1.1: Minimum Grades of the Four Subjects in the Academic Year 2010/2011

No Subject Year

VII VIII IX

1. Bahasa Indonesia 77 78 79

2. English Language 75 75 75

3. Mathematics 75 75 75

4. Natural Science 75 75 75

Regarding English teachers, there were four, two master graduate teachers and two undergraduate

teachers, teaching 6 hours per week per class. So, English took 72 hours of class time in this four-

stream school. The following table shows the English teachers’ workload:


Table 1.2: Profile of the English Teaching Workload of CS 1

No Teacher Compulsory Workload

Minimum Hours

Actual

Workload

Hours

Reason

1. Teacher A 12 06 Principal (Indonesian Constitution No.

14/2005)

2. Teacher B 24 24 Full-time teacher

3. Teacher C 24 24 Full-time teacher

4. Teacher D 24 18 Part-time teacher

English was taught for six hours with forty minutes per hour, so the total time for English language

learning in the classroom was 240 minutes per week. It represented 14 per cent of the total weekly

class time of 43 hours. The curriculum document of this school stipulated 6 hours for three subjects

– English, mathematics, and natural science, while five hours were devoted to Bahasa Indonesia

and social science, and three hours for religion. Other subjects such as sport, civics education, art

and culture took two hours on average. English was also offered to interested students as an

extracurricular activity to develop students’ competence in communication and specifically on

story telling to be performed in any regional competition (school curriculum document, 2011). In

fact, based on the interview with the principal, such activity was still in planning and it might be

realized in the next academic calendar, including the program “One Day English” which was

difficult to implement due to teachers’ and students’ competence in speaking English. Students

themselves felt in doubt about teachers’ ability to speak English. In the focus groups students

agreed, “It’s hard for us to understand teachers and teachers sometimes cannot understand us as

well, so it’s impossible to have the one day English program”. To gain good English levels for the

national examination at Year 9, the school and parents agreed to have extra classes for year nine

after school time. Parents paid some money to teachers who taught these extra activities.

With regard to students’ motivation in learning English, the student survey showed 52 per cent of

students said that they love English, and about 75 per cent learn English by using information

technology like the computer and mobile phone, while 80 per cent learn English through textbooks.

The reasons they gave as to why they learn English varied. Among their comments were:

Pengen komunikasi dengan bule” – “I want to communicate with foreigners

When looking for a job

Mau dapat beasiswa luar negri” – “I want to get overseas scholarships

Pingin keluar negri” – “I want to go abroad

Gampang cari kerja” – “it is easy to get jobs

Hidupnya mau maju” – “for a better life

Hobi” – “a hobby

Pingin dapat nilai bagus” – “I want to get a good mark

In focus group discussion, students were from grade seven to nine and they were ‘chosen’ by the

teachers. When the researcher spoke in English, the students understood but they preferred to


respond in Bahasa Indonesia; several sometimes responded in English well. This might be due to

parents’ support and education background. Among friends, however, they spoke in Javanese, not

many spoke in Bahasa Indonesia. The students spoke Javanese to school staff, particularly on

Saturday (Governor Policy in Yogyakarta No. 423.5/0912 year 2005 about Javanese language as a

local content).

Family support was good as about 72 per cent of the students have parental support in learning

English, through an after-hours English course or providing computer and internet access at home.

To gain good English results, the school invited parents to discuss extra English classes after

school. This subsequent activity provides extra money for the junior teachers. In terms of the most

favourite subject that students like, perhaps in contrast to the teachers’ perceptions, Bahasa

Indonesia was dominantly liked followed by English, science and mathematics.

English Language Teaching in the Classroom

The observation commenced early in the morning with a senior English teacher teaching Grade 8.

The researcher was asked to stay for a while in the principal’s room while the teacher prepared the

students and the classroom. The principal said, “We sometimes learn English in the science

laboratory because the language laboratory has just been renovated and those who use it find

problems with this new system. Teachers need to be accompanied by a laboratory technician.”

After waiting for about fifteen minutes, the teacher then asked the researcher to come to the science

laboratory. It seemed there was still a problem to connect the LCD and the laptop. It was

reasonable to conduct the teaching and learning of English in such a laboratory due to having good

media like LCD, two small speakers and a screen, even though the room was not really clean with

dust everywhere. It seemed it may have been a demonstration class specially put on for the benefit

of the researcher. While the teacher prepared the media helped by another teacher, students were

talking to each other in Javanese. After waiting for about another 10 minutes, then the English

lesson began. So 30 minutes were wasted in the 80 minute class.

In 2005 this male teacher had gained a master’s degree in linguistics majoring in translation from a

well-known government university in Central Java – he was very proud of this. A teacher for 21

years, he had been made a certified teacher, thus receiving a double salary each month and he had

written some English books about fables, and a book entitled English for Primary School. He had

translated some Indonesian books into English on the request of a publisher. To improve his

professionalism, he participated in a seminar or workshop once or twice a year with school support.

If not sent by the school, he rarely joined such activities. He said, “A seminar or a workshop does


not contribute much to our teaching and learning. When I teach, I firstly look at the syllabus and

follow what the students are interested in”.

His knowledge about competency-based curriculum was inadequate though the principal was very

proud of his competence particularly how to engage students in learning. This senior teacher said,

“Competency-based curriculum is not bottom up and it affected teachers’ misinterpretation in

which about 25 per cent of teachers were confused about what to do and how to do it in class”. His

further insights that competence in his opinion meant grade 9 students must be more “clever” than

those in grade 8. It seemed to mean the teacher was unsure about the competence level that should

be achieved by the end of year nine. When the researcher asked what was meant by KTSP, he

answered, “KTSP teaches moral values like honesty and tidiness, and it is suitably implemented at

school. Its similarity is that both KBK and KTSP activate students more through a variety of

sources, its difference is KTSP focuses on how they (the students) implement their knowledge to

their daily lives”. This showed that he did not fully understand both curricula. It seems to have

been caused by his lacklustre interest in participating in in-service training.

Regarding the method of teaching English, he mentioned the idea of contextual teaching and

learning (CTL) in the KTSP curriculum, but his understanding was not clear. His comment was

that teaching and learning should accord with what students need; however, he never conducted

such research on such needs.

The teacher started the class by distributing papers to students and said in English, “OK students,

have you received the paper and please read first the question? Then I will turn on the tape about

the stories. Questions are on the papers, and you can answer the questions right under the question,

dibawahnya”. The teacher spoke very slowly and repetitively. He sometimes used Bahasa

Indonesia to clarify what he meant. A mixture of English and Bahasa Indonesia was the medium of

instruction. He thought that the ideal medium instruction was both of English and Bahasa

Indonesia. It might be due to his English language competence particularly in speaking skill or his

laziness to scaffold classroom instruction in English.

He then read the questions. When he paraphrased the stories, he sometimes made mistakes in

grammar (how many cow) and pronunciation (castle). The teacher showed the video and again read

the questions. The class environment was so quiet, just the teacher’s voice reading the questions.

Some students looked at the pictures and guessed what it was about, and some ignored them, just

trying to answer the questions. The teacher sometimes asked the meaning of a word, “what is the

synonym of enormous? Keep it in your mind”. Eventually, the bell rang, time for students to have

a rest for 15 minutes.


After the rest, the teacher continued the learning process by playing the recording and asked

students to listen to a different story. Sometimes he interrupted, “He climbed the giant’s beanstalk,

remember this is the question of number 6 and the picture is this...you see the enormous giant

opposite to the little giant. So you should understand the meaning of enormous.” If the recording

was the answer clue, the teacher stopped the recording and said the sentence to students. This

implied the teacher answered his own questions, in spoken but not in written form, whereas the

students were supposed to answer in writing.

The teacher started the second story about Little Red Riding Hood as a narrative text in accord with

the KTSP directives. He read the questions first, then asked students to listen to the recording. The

teacher always interrupted by stopping the recording if there was a new word. He let students write

the answer on their paper, eventually asking students to submit them. He signed and returned these

answer scripts without bothering to correct them.

This class was a presentation of two narrative texts; however, the teacher played two stories and

directly asked students to answer questions on paper. In his lesson plan, however, he had written

the indicators such as:

1. Students are able to identify the characteristics of the narrative text

2. Students are able to identify the structure of the narrative text

3. Students are able to write a narrative text

What happened instead was that the teacher gave listening and comprehension questions. This was

neither a model of a narrative text nor an explanation of the characteristics and the generic structure

of the text. In brief, the teaching objectives written in the lesson plan and the actual teaching in the

class were completely in contrast.

Accordingly, his views about teaching English to junior high school students were to communicate

with the emphasis on reading skills. Nevertheless, based on the observation, this teacher did not

explain any grammatical constructions nor the structure of the texts. New lexical items were

discussed by directly translating or asking the synonym and antonym of the words. From this, it

was concluded that despite planning how to teach these narrative texts thoroughly and interestingly,

the teacher preferred to read the text, followed up with comprehension questions.

In addition, the junior teacher, aged in her early thirties who taught grade 7, followed the same

teaching strategies as the senior teacher. When the researcher asked about the aim of teaching

English, she said, “The aim of teaching English is to communicate; however, for junior secondary

level it is to obtain good grades in the national exam.” In terms of teacher creativity, this junior


teacher was creative enough since she tried to motivate students by creating a powerpoint

presentation and using authentic examples as well. She said that she mostly conducted the teaching

in the classroom with whiteboard and markers. For her, to conduct the class in the science

laboratory needs much more time to prepare the media (laptop and LCD), and it takes time for

students to move from their own classroom.

This junior teacher had been teaching English for just two years. Not paid directly by the

government, she was a part-time (honorer) teacher paid by the Bantuan Operasional Sekolah

(school operational fund). She is a graduate from a government university in Yogyakarta majoring

in English language teaching. In terms of her in-service training, she had previously been an

elementary school teacher but had joined a bridging course about English language teaching in

2011 to make the transition to secondary school, sent and sponsored by the school. This course was

a new program comprised of a bare three hour class and it was for teachers who wanted to teach

English at a higher level, like primary to secondary school. She had adequate overall knowledge

concerning the current curriculum; however, when it came to more specific KTSP issues such as

how to write indicators that should be achieved, she looked confused and worried.

In writing a lesson plan, she wrote it by asking the senior teacher or looking at examples from

curriculum documents. She sometimes did not feel confident with her own plan, but she was

creative enough in finding resources and teaching media to attract students’ attention. Her topic at

that time was about greeting cards such as for having a baby or Idul-fitri even though this is not a

common practice in Indonesia. But it was learning about English-speaking culture. As a short

functional-notional text, the emphasis was on both reading and writing skills. She prepared the

lesson in the science laboratory and students were waiting there and kept talking to each other, so

the class was very noisy. She directly asked students about greeting cards, then she explained what

greeting cards are, and showed examples, all from powerpoint slides. So she read everything from

the slides; sometimes when there was a difficult word, she directly translated it into Bahasa

Indonesia. She continued explaining the structure of greeting cards and asked students to copy on

their books. The teacher then showed one greeting card followed by reading comprehension

questions and a completion task in Bahasa Indonesia. It seemed she tried to use English as the

medium of instruction; what she wanted to say had been written down on the slides in English and

she translated it. When students tried to answer, the teacher kept talking while looking at the

students’ work. She reminded students always, when they did not understand the words, that they

needed to check from their dictionary. Then, the teacher asked one of the students to write the

answer on the whiteboard, then directly asked others whether the answer was right or not. After

completing the sentences then the teacher asked students to read them aloud together in English.

She read first and students repeated. She ended her teaching when the bell rang, after asking the


students to make a greeting card in groups and submit them. While waiting for students to do the

task, she played some clips of film or advertisements which were funny.

This episode signified that both teachers were creative enough when they were observed and the

teaching happened in the science laboratory. What was happening in the classroom might not be

similar due to its limited facilities, only whiteboard and markers. They said, “We depend very

much on textbooks, especially when the teaching learning process takes place in the classroom”. In

terms of the curriculum itself, her understanding dealing with the school-based curriculum was

inadequate. The junior teacher, for instance, said, “There is a problem in implementing the

curriculum for sure, like ambiguity between KBK and KTSP. We’ve just developed KBK, but then

KTSP appears, eventually teachers just follow their school.”

Both teachers in summary were unable to identify similarities and differences or even key concepts

of KTSP and CBC. They said, “Competency-based curriculum focuses on students’ competence,

that is, the four skills. School-based curriculum is not significantly different and there is contextual

teaching and learning implemented dealing with students’ daily life according to their level of

school. KTSP is more complete by adding character building embedded in the teaching and

learning like politeness and moral values”. Furthermore, what they do understand, and understand

most acutely, is that teaching English is to prepare students to do the national exam which

examines students’ competence in reading skill.

Regarding the syllabus and the accompanying lesson plans, they were devised by a panel of subject

teachers from the district (Musyawarah Guru Mata Pelajaran - MGMP). These documents were

then further developed at school level. In fact, what was contained in the curriculum was not

created by these teachers. Most English teachers did a simple ‘copy paste’. Only the junior teacher

asked her senior colleagues what to do when there was a problem in developing the lesson plans.

The principal added, “I motivate teachers to write what they do in class and to do what they have

written/planned”; though she herself felt in doubt whether the teachers did what she suggested or

not. For this, the principal simply believed in the ‘senior teachers’ supervision based on the

‘unscheduled’ monitoring.

Added to this, teaching preparation for English teachers meant looking at the syllabus, the

competency standard and basic competences, then see examples of lesson plans from previous

years, and then coming to the classroom with the textbook and LKS (Lembar Kerja Siswa) or

student workbook. The junior teacher explained, “Lesson plans are made by the subject panel of

teachers both at the level of the district education office and school. When discussion occurs at

school level, it happens once or twice in a month informally”. The senior teacher added, “I make a


lesson plan based on fact, what I can give to students. I look at the syllabus, and develop it like

watching a film and story. The syllabus, due to time limits and space, tends to be made by

ourselves. If there are any difficulties or new information, we sometimes have discussions although

the school suggests it be monthly.”

Based on the observation, it could be summarized that to improve their teaching, teachers

sometimes downloaded or used a CD from Kanisius publisher. It simply implies that teachers

sometimes made supplementary materials, especially when being observed by supervisors or

others. Based on further observation, the teachers tried to create interesting learning, but students

said that learning English was boring. It was clearly apparent that students’ class participation was

not responsive. As well, communication happened one way - from teacher to students.

Regarding teachers’ capacity in English language learning, the senior teacher clarified that reading

was the most important skill to be taught followed by writing, listening and speaking; while

language features that were important were vocabularies, grammar and structure whereas

pronunciation was less important. In fact, based on his lesson plan and class observation, this senior

teacher did not teach grammar to the students. He emphasized more students’ comprehension.

While in the junior teacher’s perspective, all skills were important and grammar and text structure

should be taught by the teacher. In terms of media, both teachers agreed that newspapers,

magazines and video were the best resources. In fact, in the interview, these teachers supported by

students in focus group discussion, said that the textbook was the most important learning resource.

In terms of learning resources, Let’s Talk was provided in the library. The teachers said that the

book matched the minimum standard to achieve basic competence for junior high school. They in

this case depended much on the textbook and the student workbook although they were published

as far back as 2005 . The librarian said that Let’s Talk was lent to students, one book for each

student. Students were strongly recommended to buy a student workbook or LKS (Lembar Kerja

Siswa) which was cheaper compared to English textbooks. This students’ workbook was for more

activities/tasks done as homework. When the researcher was observing, all students had their Let’s

Talk and student workbook on their tables. The teachers said, “When students don’t have

textbooks, they need to find a solution by borrowing from the library or buying”. Other references

provided in the library were English novels, fables (written by the senior teacher) and dictionaries.

However, such learning resources were not significantly used for both teachers and students. “The

students borrow the novels when they are asked to read and do homework”. Data from the survey

show that 80 per cent of students learn English through textbooks even though teachers sometimes

get the teaching material from WiFi provided by the school. There were five computers in the


library with internet access available to students. Students used these computers and internet access

for games during recess.

The process of teaching and learning was monotonous since the teachers failed to create a

challenging class based around questions. Teachers’ dominance of the class was quite obvious in

that they spent most of the time reading the materials written down on power point. Students were

unable to actively participate in class discussions. It might be because ‘the culture’ of learning is

that teachers are people who know, and they transfer the knowledge to students. Students merely

respond to what teachers ask, and students who were sitting in front were more active responding

to teachers’ questions. As a result, communication happened from teachers to students, nothing was

from students to teachers nor students to students. Accordingly, based on focus group discussion,

students needed activities conducted outside the classroom like an English day in which all teachers

and students speak in English, even though students were in doubt about teachers’ competence to

understand and speak English. They said, “When we talk to teachers, they don’t understand us and

respond to us in Bahasa Indonesia”. When such comments were put to the principal, she said that

English Day would be implemented in 2012.

Concerning facilities for language learning, the school had been provided with a new language

laboratory with some CDs from one of the publishers in Yogyakarta. In an interview with the

laboratory technician, it was understood that teachers used the language laboratory very rarely.

Teachers and the principal acknowledged the system was new so they were still unable to operate

it, so they needed to be assisted by the laboratory technician who was a graduate of the secondary

school. The laboratory technician said that the hardware was in fact complicated, so the teachers

avoided using it, and students’ seating arrangements were not flexible. Groupwork activities were

difficult to realize. English teachers preferred to have the English class in the science laboratory

rather than in the language laboratory. Survey data show that most teachers use whiteboard to

explain the material, followed by language laboratory, tape recorder and VCD player.

In terms of assessment, English teachers made their own tests. They created and sometimes copied

from various resources or examples given. Previously, the researcher had suggested to the group of

English teachers to develop indicators themselves matched to the assessment; however, they did

not understand how to make indicators and how to create the assessment based on indicators. In

short, the problems come up, beginning firstly with how to understand the basic competence and

develop it into indicators that will be assessed at the end of teaching with an appropriate scoring

system for the four skills. Teachers mostly test students’ reading comprehension as it is examined

in the national examination; for oracy (listening and speaking), they conducted the test only once in

a year due to its impracticality.


Concerning problems in implementing the KTSP curriculum, the principal said that it depends on

the teachers’ competences to understand and to implement it, particularly how to engage students’

motivation in learning English. “I think the teachers have sufficient knowledge of the curriculum

but I’m not sure if they want to implement or to create their teaching becomes interesting and

accords to what the curriculum emphasized. The terminology in the 2004 and 2006 curricula

particularly the teaching stages keeps changing and it makes the teachers unsure whether they do

the right things or not”, said the principal. Another noteworthy aspect was that the new language

laboratory was complicated not simple, according to the principal, so language teachers seemed not

to use it.

Regarding teachers’ competence, the principal remarked that English teachers in this district

basically responded well regarding in-service training conducted by the panel of subject teachers. It

seemed to indicate that the quality of English teachers in the district generally was good

particularly the English teachers in this school that according to her, had good understanding

concerning English language teaching and learning.

Conclusion

The school based curriculum in this school put Javanese and domestic science as the local content

and some extracurricular activites such as music (band), traditional dancing and English story

telling even though the last was still in planning. This local content and the extracurricular

activities showed the uniqueness of the school.

Regarding the English subject, the six hours of learning in the classroom was sufficient. For grade

9, there was an extra class that aimed at gaining good scores in the national examination. However,

this extra effort was not to achieve student communicative competence in English.

The English language program in this school might be good due to principal and staff engagement

in improving the school. The English teachers and the new principal could possibly improve as the

principal’s background was in English language education. Activities that needed to be developed

such as a story telling group and English-only days were aimed at engaging with both teachers’ and

students’ English communicative competence. But in fact, it was still being planned.

The English teachers’ competence regarding curriculum implementation was inadequate, even

though they have panel subject teachers at school level. Lesson plans were made by panel subject

teachers at district level and most teachers did a complete ‘copy paste’. So the lesson plan and the

actual practice in class could be totally at variance.


In terms of learning resources, both for teachers and students, improvement needed to be made,

such as in the use of information technology. Facilities that can be maximally used by students

such as computers and wifi access should have been well organized and it was all for the sake of

students’ improvement in learning English. In fact, the teachers themselves conducted teaching in

the classroom with textbooks and not in the language laboratory.

In brief, based on the triangulation of data, it can be concluded that content standard and process

standard that should be achieved as national education standards had not been well implemented in

in the school.


Case Study 02: A medium-sized Islamic school located on the outskirts of a large town

serving a community of farmers and small manufacturers

The school was founded in 1965 in a busy village, close to the centre of a sub-county in the western

area of the district. This sub-county had become the centre of the local economy. It was some

distance from a big traditional market famous for its traditional food, the so-called Keripik Belut

(eel chips). Most of its people are traditional traders (going to the market by bicycles), and some

have a cottage tile industry, manufacturing them both at home and in a small factory.

There were four other schools close to this school, two government schools, another Islamic school

and one Catholic school. Crowded within a total area of 1,560 m2, this two-storeyed school had 12

classrooms and one mosque within its perimeter. There were 432 students in total. Parental

occupations varied from mostly farmers (65 %), entrepreneurs and merchants (20 %) and

government employees (15 %). The school started at 06.50 a.m with the reciting of the Qur’an in

the classroom under teacher supervision. To reach the school, the researcher needed to leave very

early morning since the way there passed along a busy main road. She arrived at school at 06.30

a.m and some students were cleaning the classrooms and some were talking in the classrooms

while teachers were busy preparing for their classes.


The school was Islamic based with 12 classes and 47 teaching hours per week, covering seven

hours for religion, including the Arabic language, six hours each for mathematics, English and

natural science, while five hours were devoted to Bahasa Indonesia and social science. One

teaching hour in the government perspective is 40 minutes over one period, or in other words, 13

per cent of the whole forty seven hours per week for English teaching.

Basically, the curriculum stated that the religion subject was Islam, though there was an additional

bracketed statement in the curriculum saying ‘it depends on students’ religion’. The teaching hours

for teaching religion is normally stipulated by the government as three hours. The local content for

this school was Javanese and domestic science. In addition, extracurricular activities on offer

taking two teaching hours each were scouting, reciting the Qur’an, traditional music and dancing,

marching (tonti), and taman pendidikan Al-Quran (school curriculum document, 2010).

In terms of the number of teachers, there were 31 teachers with four English teachers (one teacher

was a master’s graduate and laboratory technician as well). The English teaching time was six

hours per week per class. The compulsory workload minimum in class of each teacher was 24


teaching hours (Indonesian Constitution No. 14/2005, Government Regulation No. 74/2008 and

MONE No. 39/2009). So, English takes 72 hours in this four-stream school. The following table

shows the English teachers’ work load:

Table 2.1: Profile of English Teaching Workload of CS 2


Minimum Hour

Realization Reason

1. Teacher A 12 06 A Principal (Indonesian Constitution No

14/2005)




The principal was a middle-aged Muslim woman wearing a hijab. At the very beginning of the

interview, she said, “I will answer your questions if I can”. But she looked uncomfortable and

unhappy when the researcher interviewed her; she sometimes was in doubt when answering the

questions. In terms of her educational background, she was a graduate with two undergraduate

degrees, one in social politics from a famous state university in Yogyakarta and the other from an

English language education faculty of teacher training and education in a private university. She

had moved from being a principal in another school in the district for about 11 years, whereas

changing over to lead this school had occurred just 11 months previously. This seemed to mean

that she had a strong interest in English language teaching as well as school leadership though she

clearly stated that she was unwilling to be observed by the researcher.

In fact, the reality was rather different. According to some teachers and students, they did not like

her leadership style and were dissatisfied with her position at the school. “We are asked to work

hard, but not using a smart way. She never listens to any other views. There is no time for teachers

to prepare the lessons and to reflect on their teaching” they said. School hours in this school began

at 06.50, for four days up to 13.30 and on one day till 17.30.

Regarding her activities in terms of her own professionalism, she had participated many times in

seminars and workshops about school based management as well as participating in a small number

of curriculum development or English language teaching activities. All this was clearly seen when

this principal put herself as a director in evaluating the curriculum. “I just direct and facilitate

teachers in developing the curriculum and syllabus when it has been annually done, such as giving

permission to teachers to participate in seminars or workshops concerning the curriculum revision”,

she said.


In terms of the national examination, the students had gained an average English score of 5.12 in

the previous academic year of 2010/2011. This was categorized as a very low score because the

minimum standard to pass and become enrolled in senior high school should be 5.5 (this score is

the final score based on the national exam (60 %) and on the school exams (40 %). This low score

might result from the students’ motivation in learning English. Interview data showed that their

motivation in learning English was very low. The principal remarked, “It’s hard for us to motivate

students to learn English. They are completely different from those in the city learning through

their English courses and supported by good facilities”. As well, the teachers mentioned that

students enrolled in this school were those whose entry applications were refused in better schools,

thus, low quality students, in other words their competence, especially in English, was very low.

Students said that English was the most difficult subject after mathematics. So their interest to learn

English might have been poor due to its difficulty and students’ low competence. So the teachers

were in a dilemma because the students’ low competence meant they could not speak in English

during English classes “Indeed, this will be worse when we speak in English at class”, English

teachers clarified. In fact, it was also worse because the teachers’ own English speaking

competence in this school was quite low. It could be easily observed from the English teachers’

performance and the data showing that the teachers had very limited exposure in speaking. In class,

they tended to explain the teaching material in Bahasa Indonesia. Various factors had driven the

failure of students’ speaking skill such as the unsupportive parents in term of learning and the

unconducive environment concerning learning resources for students. To make it worse, the

teachers did not have any interest in speaking English particularly in class. it seemed to indicate the

English language teaching was to teach them grammar and vocabulary. The teachers in this case

strongly recommended students to buy a dictionary.

In terms of student assessment, Ketuntasan Kriteria Minimal (minimum grades achieved by

students) is supposed to be clearly stated in the curriculum with numeric numbers (10-100), in fact,

this minimum grade was unclearly written in the curriculum document. Instead what was written

down was an ‘unclear’ explanation, such as grade seven scores based on students’ report scores

from primary level and the school selection process, while for grade eight it was the KKM scores

from the previous class (grade seven).

Based on its school curriculum document that the researcher obtained from the senior English

teacher, it was clearly noted that the curriculum development emphasized the achievement of

Content Standard that could be realized on developing competency standard, basic competence,

indicators and assessment (competency-based assessment). In fact, such development could not be

significantly seen in English teaching performance in class and in teachers’ lack of planning. The

principal and most of the English teachers had inadequate information on how to develop basic


competence, appropriate matching indicators and appropriate assessment items. Only the senior

English teacher was able to comprehend what was supposed to be in English language teaching;

however, she was not involved in developing the curriculum nor the syllabus.

Concerning district education evaluation of the curriculum document, it happened only once a year

at the beginning of the academic year. The district supervisor had said, “The documents for this

Islamic school, for instance, they do copy paste the curriculum from government schools. The

school actually needs to highlight its characteristics, so there should be some difference between

government and religion-based schools”.

In terms of teaching quality, teachers said openly they had prepared the material well for the sake

of any supervisory observation. Even worse, the supervisor observed teaching and learning

(teachers’ assessment) only once every six months, perhaps longer intervals. So, their lesson plan

and performance were to be observed, and teachers in this case would try very hard to do their best

teaching so as to get a good assessment from the supervisor. In this school, the principal never

conducted any kind of assessment such as observing in the classroom or through examining their

lesson plans except when teachers prepared documents for their certification program which were

rubberstamped. Her comment regarding assessment was, “Teachers should be well performed first

when teaching. If students like the teachers, teaching and learning including any kind of assessment

will be interesting for students”. This seemed to indicate that the principal tried to motivate the

students first though based on class observation, the teachers put less efforts to make their teaching

interesting.

Another noteworthy point was that the number of supervisors seemed insufficient for the number of

schools. Thus, they visited this school very rarely. They came to the school together with the

parental representative when they were invited to rubberstamp the curriculum at the beginning of

the academic year. Random classroom observation rarely happened, perhaps not even once in a

semester. The syllabus and accompanying lesson plans that were attached and then signed off by

the head of the district education office were devised by a panel of subject teachers from the district

(Musyawarah Guru Mata Pelajaran). When the researcher asked the junior teacher about a lesson

plan for the particular class, he replied that, “I’ll give you a sample of a lesson plan, but it’s not

about what I have already taught”. In fact, there was no lesson plan; the researcher was given an

unrelated lesson plan on another day. This seemed to indicate that his lesson plans might be a copy

paste from the curriculum attachments prepared by the panel of subject teachers.

The aim of the English language teaching and learning program according to the principal was (1)

to communicate, with the emphasis on speaking and (2) to gain good grades in the national exam.


In her opinion, statements about standard competence and basic competence for the English

language subject were very general, unlike mathematics. She remarked, “The KTSP curriculum is

good as it depends on students’ characteristics in the school; for myself, the English curriculum is

difficult to understand because it is very general. That is why I teach students the English subject

with the 1994 curriculum which emphasizes English grammar and vocabulary”. This episode

signified that this principal found it difficult to understand the content of the KTSP curriculum. She

showed a lack of confidence; that is why she directly appointed two English teachers to be

observed among four teachers.

After her interview, the principal introduced an English language teacher to help in distributing the

questionnaire for teachers and in the two classes to be observed. The first class was taught by a full

time senior female teacher who taught year nine and a part time junior male teacher who taught

years seven and eight. It seemed the choice had been previously arranged, an experienced teacher

popular among other teachers in the district and a ‘junior’ teacher in terms of his experience at this

school. The senior teacher was asked to accompany the researcher distributing the questionnaire.

She was very cooperative and helpful and seemed happy to be researched. She came directly to the

teachers’ room and asked teachers to fill in the questionnaire and put the questionnaire on each

teacher’s table when they were not available. Those who were preparing their teaching materials

filled out the questionnaire immediately, some asked what and why and some kept silent and then

submitted it.

The survey data showed teachers agreed that the most important subject was Bahasa Indonesia

followed by English, science and mathematics. In contrast, students said that the sequence was

mathematics, English, Bahasa Indonesia and science. In terms of motivation, they said that English

was important for further study but it was difficult to learn. They needed to learn English in an

interesting way in order to learn. Their comment in Javanese was, “Ma’m, English teachers here

explaining the material are difficult to understand and some of them are not very friendly and like

to punish us when we make jokes in class”.

Such opinions were in line with the thinking of the non-English teachers who said that less than 50

per cent of students liked to learn English. About 70 per cent of the teachers said that English

language teaching in junior high schools should be supplemented in an English language class

outside normal school time. When for example it happened at school, it must be supported with a

multimedia laboratory which was more important than a language laboratory. In the focus group

discussion, the students said they disagreed with having a English one day program. They just

needed computers and internet access at school; only a small number of students had their own

computer and internet access at home. This might indicate that they were too poor or they were


quite ignorant about the internet. So, the parents’ support in learning was not really good,

particularly English. The language the students spoke was mostly Javanese; as well, Bahasa

Indonesia was rarely used when they communicated among friends at school. They did understand

Bahasa Indonesia but they preferred to speak in Javanese with friends, even teachers. This could be

observed in class when the students communicated among friends and to teachers in English class

as well as in the focus group discussion with the researcher.


The first observation commenced early in the morning with the senior teacher teaching grade 9.

The students first were asked to read the Qur’an in Arabic without understanding it. Then, the

students were asked to go to the language laboratory taking their English textbook. The students’s

seat was numerically the same as in the list of student attendees from the so-called ‘present list’.

After greeting them, the teacher directly said the aim of teaching English today was to talk about

narrative. She said verbatim, “Assalamu alaikum warahmatulloh wabarakatuh, today, I’d like to

share about narrative text,...good morning students...where are Rajib and Sumiati? Where are they?

Do you know why did they come here? There are two letters informing they are sick, ...narrative

text should be in second semester, because we have very limited time and we finish material for

semester one, and December we start to have various examinations”. The teacher then mentioned

examples of narrative text and asked students what was meant by characters. She spoke at this time

mostly in Bahasa Indonesia. After asking about characters, she showed some pictures on slides

asking the vocabulary item displayed in the pictures. She became a bit angry when students were

passive in their class participation. She said, “Don’t be worried by her (the researcher), because she

is going to observe me, my teaching to you, why are you stressed? If you want to smile, please, if

you make mistakes, let’s correct it; ok, if you feel bad, let’s sing our previous song”.

She let students listen to a song sung by Celine Dion that had been discussed the previous week,

but the class was still quiet. Nobody sang the song. In terms of teaching material, there was no

relation between the narrative text and the song. The song was a kind of completion task that they

had discussed.

This teacher asked students to repeat words pronounced by the teacher. It was continued then by a

vocabulary task in which the teacher said, “Who is he?” She called one of the students’ names, and

the student answered, “a king, a boy”. In terms of classroom instruction, the teacher switched

between Bahasa Indonesia and English although she sometimes had mistakes in grammar such as

“Do you ever heard Malin Kundang?”, “do you got the answer?”. She prefered to speak Bahasa


Indonesia as the classroom language, and if she said something in English, she repeated it many

times.

She then let students do the task, matching English lexical items and their meaning in Bahasa

Indonesia. The teacher monitored the class, however, it was difficult for her to observe all students

due to the lack of space in which to walk. Another problem related to group work discussion. The

seating arrangements were fixed, one student to each permanent booth. In addition, the

communication happened from the teacher, and if one of the students responded, the teacher

needed to press the button for the students’ booth. While students did the task, the teacher moved

around and kept reminding them that they had to have an English dictionary, otherwise, they could

not join in the class or do the task in the library.

After finishing, the teacher and students discussed the answers and started to listen to a text, a fable

about a frog king. After listening, the teacher gave some comprehension questions to discuss with

the students. If the students did not know the answer, she moved to another question, and played

the recording again. She sometimes asked students to read the answer out loudly by saying, “I give

you an additional grade if you answer loudly”. Concerning students’ class participation,

communication was one way, from the teacher to students. Students talked when they were pointed

to or asked by the teacher. The teacher still dominated the class, kept asking students and tried to

motivate the students to become active learners.

The teacher lastly motivated the students by saying, “Students, you are good today. You have made

good improvement in listening, and I’m happy with it”. She then concluded her narrative text and

rechecked the meaning of vocabulary items. Then it was closed by Salam, “Assalamualaikum

warah matullohi wabarakatuh”

This observation revealed that the teacher taught narrative text by first explaining the new words,

listening to the text, discussing the structure of the text and eventually asking them to respond to

comprehension questions. There was no explanation about the grammar of the narrative text. It

might have happened due to the researcher’s time availability to observe the whole lesson planning.

However, from the lesson plan, there was no section/time to explain the grammar. Regarding

learning resources, she had created the materials from various resources, textbooks, English CDs,

and the internet. She had been trying hard to teach interestingly by showing various media such as

pictures and slides. However, despite all this work, the students’ class participation was still low.

This senior teacher was a master’s graduate in learning technology funded by the provincial office

who had finished in 2008 at the Yogyakarta State University. She had been teaching in this school


since 1990 after finishing her undergraduate English language education program at a private

university in Yogyakarta. She participated in in-service training regarding information technology

and English language teaching specifically on media in learning. She was an active member of the

Jogjakarta English Teachers’ Association as well. After gaining her master’s degree, she was

appointed to be a coordinator for the school laboratories as it was in line with her master’s

program. She was the only English language teacher among all the language teachers who used the

laboratory. Other teachers to use it were mathematics and sometimes biology teachers. She

remarked that teachers’ reason why they did not use the language laboratory was that it was time

consuming and their lack of mastery of electronic equipment.

The second teacher had graduated in English language education in 2008; but he had been teaching

since 1987 in secondary schools. He currently taught at two schools, a private Islamic-based

vocational school and this school. His permanent full-time teaching position was at the vocational

school while holding a casual position at this school since 2007. He acknowledged that he

participated in in-service training only once each year; however, when asked about the English

language curriculum (syllabus), he could not answer. He just said, “Competency based curriculum

and school based curriculum now is confusing, it’s difficult to understand for both teachers and

students, including myself”. In his opinion, the aim of teaching English was to succeed in the

national examination. This comment implied that even though the teacher was an undergraduate

with English language education background, had been teaching for 24 years and acknowledged he

actively participated in a seminar or workshop, his knowledge regarding the new English language

teaching paradigm should have been better or at least sufficient. However, this experience was not

reflected in his knowledge and the curriculum implementation in his teaching and learning. When

he was asked about his perceptions, he said, “teachers should make the students understand, but the

input of students is with low competence and the school condition is not supportive to learn

English, that is why I tend to speak mostly in Bahasa Indonesia”.

Further evidence was based on observation of his teaching. When the researcher came into the

classroom, he explained about simple present tense. His orientation in teaching focused on sentence

form. Based on observation in the classroom, he explained the grammar loudly in Bahasa Indonesia

in the middle of the class. He did not write, he talked and kept explaining although no one in the

classroom paid any attention. The students kept themselves busy, and talked to one another in

Javanese. The class was noisy and seemed to lack motivation in learning English. After explaining,

he dictated sentences from the textbook. The students were asked to choose the answers and write

them on the whiteboard. The students wrote, “I’m knowing a lot of people, she studis, he is spiking,

they are likeing.” This happened because the teacher explained without writing. He kept dictating

although sometimes students asked what was the spelling of the words, but he did not respond to


the students’ questions. He always talked in Bahasa Indonesia in the classroom while the students

spoke in Javanese even to the teacher.

The two teachers were different in terms of motivating students to learn English. The first teacher

for example thoroughly prepared her lesson plan, using various learning resources. However, in

the observation, it was not clear whether she would explain the grammar and structure of the text or

not. It seemed to focus more on teaching listening comprehension even though the text (frog

prince) was not appropriate for their age and listening was not taught by other teachers and for

junior high school, speaking was not examined in the national examination. Another noteworthy

feature was that she prepared her own laptop and flash disc to explain the teaching material that she

used.

In contrast, the second teacher came into the classroom with an English textbook. It might be

because of his status as a casual teacher. He never used the language laboratory due to his worries

about misusing the laboratory equipment. His perspective in English language teaching was (1)

listening was the most important skill to be taught though he himself tended to speak in Bahasa

Indonesia and never had ‘listening skill material’, (2) vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation

should be taught; however, he himself never taught pronunciation and he sometimes

mispronounced the vocabulary items, (3) online references, magazines and newspapers were very

important as learning resources though he always used textbooks in class, (4) a mixture of English

and Bahasa Indonesia as the medium of instruction; in fact, he mostly spoke in Bahasa Indonesia

and sometimes in Javanese. To him, the aim of teaching English was how to gain good scores in

the national examination.

The other English language teacher that the researcher did not observe was a senior teacher having

a 24 year teaching experience and he was a diploma (a two year program) graduate of English

language teaching from a state Yogyakarta university in 1984, two years teaching in a private

junior high school in central Java, he then became a government employee in 1987 in this private

Islamic school. He acknowledged that he wanted to improve his competence both in English

language and teaching methodology. He sometimes participated in the panel subject of teachers in

the district. To him, speaking English was the most important skill to achieve communicative

competence, but for junior high school, he focused on vocabulary items to gain a good score in the

national examination; however, the crucial thing regarding English language teaching in this school

was how to motivate students to learn. In terms of English teaching, this teacher seemed to have

inadequate knowledge regarding English language teaching paradigm. He said that he started to

create his lesson based on the theme or topic rather than basic competences.


Regarding lesson planning, most of the English teachers here depended much on the lesson plan

created by the district panel subject of teachers (MGMP). Based on interview and observation,

teachers kept their lesson plans in a file, but when in the classroom, no lesson plan accompanied

them. In contrast, the senior teacher that the researcher observed, created her lesson plan by herself,

because she thought the lesson plan should be as interesting as possible to motivate them to learn

English well. For other teachers, they tried to copy the lesson plans from other schools.

Learning resources in the library were limited as well. The librarian said that English learning

resources were textbooks from some publishers. Some students borrowed and took them home.

However, when the researcher observed the library, many English textbooks were still in good

condition even though they were published in 2005. The librarian was a teacher teaching

economics. The school never had had a real librarian managing the library. It was the teachers’

responsibility to manage the library in turns.

Regarding school facilities, there were three laboratories, namely, the science, language and

computer laboratories. Their coordinator was the senior English language teacher observed by the

researcher. In her opinion, the use of the laboratory for all subjects was not really significant. She

said there were some attributes required of teachers to use the laboratory - they needed to be (1)

creative (2) motivated and (3) interested. Students and the principal agreed, “So far the English

language laboratory was used for students in grade nine with one English teacher who was able to

operate it”. Other language teachers believed that it would be more complicated teaching in the

laboratory and it took time to prepare. In the language laboratory, there was one computer at the

front (the teacher’s table) and students were in the permanent booths, so it was difficult to have

student group work. In the individual booth, students had their headphones on and a knob to adjust

the volume and to communicate with the teacher. Previously, the internet connection was from the

only computer, but now WiFi had just been connected in this laboratory. No language teacher

whether teaching Javanese, Bahasa Indonesia, English or Arabic conducted their teaching in the

language laboratory. In addition, the computer laboratory was being renovated with funding from a

government grant through the “one school one lab” program. This school had received 200 million

Rupiah to upgrade the outdated computers and to provide WiFi access for all areas of the school.

The school was planning to respond to this grant with a teachers workshop to optimalize the use of

the new facilities for learning. But it was still in the planning stage by the coordinator with the

principal and other teachers not being involved at all.

Concerning testing, basically teachers assessed students through tests they had devised; however,

the final tests were from Badan Kerjasama Sekolah (school cooperation); and for year nine, the

school sometimes bought the test items from Musyawarah Kerja Kepala Sekolah (District Principal


Forum). However, the minimum grades to be achieved and improved each year were not clearly

stated in the curriculum document, so it might be difficult for teachers and the school to know the

minimum score to be reached by students. Another point was that the assessment in the document

should be based on students’ competence, in fact, this was not realized in the teachers’ lesson plan

and test items. Concerning the time when a test was conducted, there were different opinions

among the English teachers. The junior teacher, for instance, made a test when he finished talking

about one text. The senior teacher tested students when she had finished explaining one basic

competence. In short, all tests focused more on reading and writing than listening and speaking.

Conclusion

Due to the religion base of this school, the students learnt more religion than in government schools

and two foreign languages, Arabic and English. English as one of the subjects to be examined in

the national exam was supported by sufficient media facilities such as the language laboratory;

however, the use of it was not optimal.

In terms of curriculum evaluation, it seemed the teachers had a minimum of direction from the

principal due to her lack of understanding. Her leadership was more on facilitating teachers to be

much better in organizing the curriculum. In fact, she had insufficient comprehension of the

English syllabus even though it was her teaching subject. The school panel of subject teachers was

still in planning. This signified that there was no realization between what had been written in the

curriculum and the reality of teachers’ performance in class.

The teaching learning process which should be more student-centred was still difficult to achieve.

The principal and most English teachers had difficulty understanding the KTSP curriculum. This

lack could be observed from teachers’ lesson plans which indicated they themselves did not

comprehend what they had written down. Thus, the textbooks meant ‘everything’ for them.

With sufficient facilities, the teachers’ motivation might have been improved, especially on

teachers’ self development on information technology. In-service training was badly needed.

In brief, the standard of content and standard of process that should have been achieved by this

school was still difficult to realize. Teachers’ comprehension of the curriculum, syllabus and

techniques of English language teaching needed to be much more developed so as students would

never think that English language teaching was as, in the phrase used by teachers and students, a

‘second monster’ after mathematics.


Case Study 03: A large Catholic school located near the centre of a big city serving a middle

to upper class community

This junior high school, founded in 1928, is sponsored by a Catholic order of religious brothers

originally founded in the Netherlands in the 19th century. Its buildings were currently being

renovated to improve school facilities such as classroom doors, while the language laboratory was

being updated with a modern system and a sports hall was being built. They were due for repair

due to their security limitations and their age. The school was located in the heart of a Yogyakarta

municipality, but far from the noise of traffic. The school was located in an “expensive” area some

distance from the district office, two big private universities and one Islamic private primary

school. With 24,000 square metres for the whole area with a two-storeyed building and 651

students, this school has a very quiet and conducive situation surrounded by private residences.

This large school was still controlled by the school foundation. The principal remarked that the

foundation had various programs to develop the school as well as staff professionalism. There was

regular in-service training for the staff once a year, and a subject teachers panel managed by the

foundation. Teachers participated in this in-service training regularly rather than subject teachers

panel conducted by the district, according to the English teachers. This kind of training discussed

various topics as well as developing textbooks made by teachers under this foundation. One of the

English teachers was one of these textbook developers. This textbook was sold and used only in the

school. In terms of facilities, as mentioned above, the classes were still being renovated and more

facilities would be provided and that funded by the foundation, according to the principal.

However, in the first talk with the researcher, the principal complained that the school needed to

give more money to be given to the foundation because this school was the best school in

accreditation and had become an ‘independent’ Pilot School of International Standard (RSBI

Mandiri – Rintisan Sekolah Bertaraf Internasional, Mandiri). Due to being a private school, the

operational fund was mostly from parents though the government gave funds as the implementation

of the nine year basic education program.

Coming to the area of the school in the morning, the overwhelming appearance was of cleanness

and freshness. Most parents dropped off their children by car, and some by motorcycle. From this,

it could be seen that parents’ background was from middle to high family income. Regarding their

economic background, about 53.96 per cent worked in private institutions or business. Another

category were entrepreneurs (26.04 %), together with government employees (12.95 %),

Indonesian army (2.45 %), retired civil servants (2.73 %) and farmers (1.87 %).


There was a security guard giving directions to some cars coming in and going out. It was seven

o’clock and the security guard closed the school gate.

When the researcher entered the school, six large glass cabinets filled with lots of championship

medals and cups were proudly displayed in the visitor room. There were posters of the vision,

mission and the aims of the school, as well as paintings with images of Jesus Christ and the virgin

Mary, Mother of God (Bunda Maria) with Gospel verses on the wall. Images of Jesus were also in

the classrooms.

Based on the school observation on the first day, all students and school staff joined in a Morning

Christian prayer, the Angelus prayer at midday in English and a prayer when going home. All

students had the prayer in class guided by a suster or Indonesian Nun over the microphone, and the

afternoon prayer was said in English.

After the morning prayer, some students then came to the office to take a big box; the box was for

students to have their mobile phones collected and kept in the school office. The teachers

eventually went out from the teachers’ room, ready to teach class. The researcher then was asked to

come to the principal’s room. There was a cupboard containing all documents and files, and a

religious sculpture and a picture of Jesus Christ on the wall. The researcher then talked to the male

principal who was kind and welcoming. He was willing to help the researcher as well to distribute

the questionnaire to the teachers. He then pointed to two English teachers to be observed, female

senior and junior teachers.

The Curriculum and English Language Teaching

This school first began as a pilot international school for part of the school in 2008. At that time the

government gave grants within three years to set this up. After three years of implementation of the

pilot school of international standard, the school was still unable to conduct its program for all

classes. This might be because of teachers’ competence or parents’ intention to put their children in

regular class. Some parents think that RSBI was ‘an expensive class’. However, the school based of

international program might commence in the academic year 2012/2013, according to the principal.

This kind of program was first launched by the Directorate General for Management of Primary

and Secondary Education in 2008 for both government and private schools. In Yogyakarta

municipality, this school became one of the pilot international standard schools. The government

funding of the program finished in 2010, leaving it to the school to continue it with its own funds.

The funding then came from the parents. In fact, most parents were eager to send their children to

the international standard program. But, to be in this program, a test selection process began based


on students’ previous grades and some other tests to judge whether students were eligible or not.

When the students were accepted into these classes, the parents paid more money compared to the

regular classes. This monthly payment is double the cost of the regular classes. As well, the

students were strongly recommended to have their own laptop and bring it to school. In short, in

this school, there are two types of classes, regular and international classes with quite different

“treatment” with superior physical facilities, technological support and smaller classes. This issue

has been argued and debated across Indonesia by experts and commentators due to lack of

consistency and equity reasons. In terms of curriculum, it seemed there was no difference between

regular and international classes. The principal said, “The curriculum for international class is still

being written in English, while the curriculum for regular has been written in Bahasa Indonesia”.

Concerning the principal, he started his career as a principal in 1997 in a different school and in a

different province. He had just moved from a position in Jakarta. This change was due to his intent

to work in Yogyakarta, his wife’s hometown. He was kind and welcoming to the researcher. In

answering questions, he was very confident and responded clearly. His leadership knowledge was

gained from various seminars and workshops. Regarding the school-based curriculum, he said that

he had once participated in a curriculum session for pilot schools of international standard. In his

opinion, any seminar and workshop were conducted mostly by private institutions rather than

government. He said that he learnt much from other principals on such occasions rather than from

the presenters.

Regarding perceptions of English language teaching, his opinion was positive; it should be

supported by qualified teachers and for him, English teachers in the school were not much better

than those in his previous school in Jakarta. He said, “The English teachers here have sufficient

knowledge to teach English, so they need to perform much better especially on their

communicative competence; students in this school are good at answering questions in writing;

however, they can’t speak English”. He added that successful English teachers are those who can

engage students in real communication, daily conversation for instance.

In fact, students’ ability in speaking, according to him, was still low - the students feel doubt in

speaking. In his opinion, it might be due to teachers’ thinking how to gain good scores for students

in the national exam, so the focus of teaching would be much on reading and writing skills.

In terms of curriculum development, at the beginning of the year, the principal invited all vice

principals to discuss the targets for the next academic year, especially regarding the curriculum. He

then formed a small team consisting of teachers and the school’s parent committee to have

workshops to improve the curriculum. After having a workshop, the principal revealed decisions


made at the workshop such as the minimum standard for each subject, including teachers’ working

hours. To him, teachers had too many teaching hours - some teachers had 30-36 hours on average

per week, so to develop a syllabus, teachers need more time due to their heavy workload.

With regard to the number of teachers in this school, there were 29 teachers teaching 18 classes

altogether. The government stipulates that the number of teaching hours for students is 36. The

compulsory workload minimum in class of each teacher was 24 teaching hours (Indonesian

Constitution No. 14/2005, Government Regulation No. 74/2008 and MONE Regulation No.

39/2009). There were four English language teachers teaching 5 hours per week per class. For the

English subject, the four English language teachers taught 90 hours of class time in this six-stream

school per week though only for the regulation 40 minutes. The following table shows the English

teachers’ workload.


No Teacher Compulsory Workload Minimum Realization Reason

1. Teacher A 24 30 Full-time teacher




Accordingly, an extra English class was compulsory for all grade seven and eight students

conducted after school hours by the English teachers.

Of the four subjects that are examined in the national examination, mathematics and natural science

were taught for six hours per week, English five hours, while Bahasa Indonesia was for four hours.

Social science was taught five hours, the same as for English. For Religion, the 2011 school

curriculum mentioned two hours per week. Regarding the local content, this school provided

Javanese for two hours and accounting which took two hours. So, English was given 12.5 per cent

of the 40 total teaching hours per week. In addition, for students’ self-development, English was

offered as one of the extracurricular activities aimed at developing English language ability (school

curriculum, 2011).

Regarding the most important subject to be learnt, teachers agreed on Bahasa Indonesia, followed

by English, science and mathematics while students agreed that mathematics was the most

important subject to learn followed by English, science and Bahasa Indonesia. In addition, survey

data showed that students learnt English with their mobile phone. For further study, they learnt as

well in homes equipped with computers and internet access. The textbooks were used as well in


learning English. Another noteworthy point was that most of students (71 %) liked when their

teacher spoke in English inside and outside the classroom.


The first observation commenced in the language laboratory. The students had been told before that

the English class would be there. When the teacher and the researcher came to the classroom, the

students had been already there, sitting in each booth. The facility in the language laboratory was

the teacher’s table with one computer, two speakers and a screen while students sat in each booth

having one knob on their table. This knob was for adjusting the volume and to communicate with

the teacher in front.

Despite the government stipulation that maximum class size be 32, the class was a grade seven

with about 38 students from the international learning program in the language laboratory with the

senior teacher who had been teaching for eleven years in this school. To start with, students and the

teacher first prayed together for 10 minutes guided by a nun over the loud speaker; however, the

nun’s voice could not be heard in this laboratory perhaps because the school staff had not activated

the central speaker. The sound from the birds was clearer than the praying. The teacher greeted the

students and checked the presence list. She asked students to open their textbook about a shopping

list and said in English, “What part of speech for shopping list? What is noun? What is verb? What

is the difference between noun and verb? What are characteristics of noun?”. She explained in

Bahasa Indonesia the difference between verb and noun, including the characteristics of nouns, by

reading from the teacher’s own notes shown on the screen. She sometimes asked students for

examples from their textbook about nouns.

Having finished explaining nouns, the teacher asked students to move to a different page, reading

the aim of its competence and then talking about greeting cards. The medium of instruction was

first in English, then she repeated the questions in Bahasa Indonesia. She eventually asked students

to do the task from their textbook. The last task was listening to the recording. Students were asked

to repeat what the recording says. The teacher still kept explaining anything else, like ‘this’ and

‘that’. One thing that should be highlighted in this language laboratory was students did not have

headphones in each booth. They listened to two speakers on the wall. To manage all laboratories,

teachers themselves were responsible when they had used it such as English teachers being

responsible for the language laboratory, the science teachers for the science laboratory and

information and technology teacher for the computer laboratory.


Basically, the students’ class participation was sufficient, the teacher always tried to engage them

by giving them questions or asking for comment. The teacher sometimes spoke in English and she

translated in Bahasa Indonesia. Some students exhibited good participation if they sat close to the

teacher (front/first row). The students sitting at the back responded to the teacher question when

they were asked. If not, they kept silent. About fifteen minutes before he finished, the teacher asked

one of the students to come forward and present their story telling. The teacher called one female

student who told the story with a minimum of voice. It seemed she had memorized the story. She

felt unhappy because her friends had talked one to another in Bahasa Indonesia and Javanese. The

teacher sometimes interrupted by saying “Keep silent, please”, in fact, other students did not pay

attention to her. It seemed to signify that the teacher had various indicators or learning objectives

and activities of which some of them were unrelated to each other.

The female junior teacher had been teaching in the school since 2009. When the teacher came to

the classroom for regular class, students shouted out because the teacher had just married. It

seemed to indicate that their relationship was close. Regarding the size of the classroom, it was so

small and the number of students was quite large, 40 students in the class. So, this school had over

the limit for the number of students in each classroom.

Regarding their professionalism, both teachers had very rarely participated in any seminar or

workshop conducted by the subject teachers panel at district level. They participated much more in

seminars or workshops conducted by the sponsor foundation and they went in turns. “The schedule

is so hectic here, and it’s hard for us to match our time with other teachers schedule time at district

level” said the senior teacher. Basically, for other in-service training, the principals gave the chance

for those who were interested to join any activities related to their professionalism whether as a

presenter or a participant. However, the teachers’ time availability and their motivation was still

low to maximize such opportunities.

In terms of facilities in the classroom, there was a whiteboard, and an LCD in that small classroom.

The teacher first called the students’ names to check their attendance. Before starting the lesson,

the teacher reminded the students that the week after there would be a vocabulary test. Then, she

asked students about the last material taught by a different English language teacher. However,

students had forgotten what it was about. The teacher then began the class by creating an

unauthentic situation. She said in low variety Bahasa Indonesia,

T: “Bayangkanlah Dika is a university student, kuliah di Boston, suatu hari, Dika mengendarai ferrari

merah. On the way to his college, ke kampusnya..., lalu sampai dikampus. Dika studi di

akademi...setelah dia sampai disana, Dika langsung menuju ke perpustakaan untuk meminjam buku

karena ada tugas dari dosennya. Lalu Dika menuju ke rak buku, tiba-tiba ada gadis berlari


kearahnya, tanpa melihat dan ‘bam’, mereka bertabrakan. Ternyata gadis itu adalah Dea. Dea

minta maaf pada Dika.”

S (Dea): “I’m sorry”

T: “Ya maaf, saya harus bertemu dengan guruku, Eh, Dea, aku lupa, bagaimana kuliahnya? Pasti

menyenangkan.”

Translation (in low variety):

T: “Supposed Dika is a college student of Boston university. One day, Dika drove his red Ferrari. On

the way to his college..., arrived at campus. Dika studied in the academy....after he arrived there,

Dika directly went to the library to borrow books because there were some tasks from his lecturer.

Dika then went to the shelves, there was suddenly a girl coming and hit him. He went to the library

to do a task given by the lecturer; but somebody without looking at him, hit him. The girl was Dea.

Dea asked for her apology.”

S (Dea): “I’m sorry, Dik...”

T: “I’m sorry, I need to see my teacher. Dea I forgot asking your study. How is it going? It must be

exciting.”

Students were somewhat active responding to the situation in Javanese and some in Bahasa

Indonesia. The teacher always talked in Bahasa Indonesia to engage student participation. She

always spoke in Bahasa Indonesia and asked students sitting at the front to say the language

expressions in English. Students at the back did not respond to her, but they also did not create

noise. They just looked at the teacher. Sometimes the teacher created a joke and students laughed.

The class became noisy but in Bahasa Indonesia. She then wrote the students’ expressions on the

whiteboard about inviting and accepting invitation. The teacher finally asked students to copy the

expressions and created a conversation; the situation was given by the teacher on cue cards. It was

written in English but the teacher helped students to translate what the situation was about.

Based on the two observations, it could be concluded that both teachers used Bahasa Indonesia as

the classroom instruction language. When they spoke in English, they directly translated in Bahasa

Indonesia. The first teacher explained the new vocabulary items, and parts of speech (noun and

verb). She did not discuss a complete short functional text. The second teacher emphasized English

language expressions by ignoring the grammar and vocabulary. In interview, both teachers clearly

explained that their teaching time was given much to students’ vocabulary development and

grammar on reading text. They taught more on reading rather than listening and speaking. They

further explained, “Teaching English to junior high school is to make students having a good score

for the national exam, the learning material is too many things to discuss, so the target sometimes is

how to finish discussing all chapters.”

Regarding English language teaching particularly in teaching skills, the junior teacher focused her

teaching on spoken language (oracy) and then literacy (reading and writing). She wrote in English,

“In my opinion, spoken communication takes more places (situation), so it’s more important”. In

fact, data interview showed that she emphasized reading skills that aimed at gaining a good score in


the national examination. It seemed to indicate she felt in doubt about the aim of teaching English

to junior high school students though she was a fresh graduate and had been teaching for two years

in this school and two years in an informal English school before. To her, teaching vocabulary

items, pronunciation and grammar were more important than teaching the structure of the text with

references from newspapers, magazines, videos, textbooks, and online references as learning

resources; and a mixture between English and Bahasa Indonesia as the language of instruction in

class. She further said, “The mother tongue can help students to understand English”. She thought

that students’ mother tongue was Bahasa Indonesia even though most students had Javanese for

their mother tongue and Bahasa Indonesia for their second language.

The senior teacher, however, remarked that reading should be given the first priority followed by

writing, speaking and listening; but they would be taught in an integrated way. The features which

were important according to this senior teacher were vocabulary items, grammar, pronunciation

and the structure of texts. For learning resources, textbooks would be more important than online

references, newspapers, magazines and videos. In terms of medium of instruction in class, she

clarified that the teacher was a ‘model’ for students, so teachers spoke in English and sometimes in

Bahasa Indonesia, if it was needed; in fact, based on the observation, she spoke more in Bahasa

Indonesia than English.

Concerning English language teaching and learning, the senior teacher thought that she felt good

implementing the school based curriculum since she just facilitated students to learn English, so

that would be student-centred rather than the teacher dominating the teaching and learning process.

It seemed to indicate that she just facilitated students to learn and they learnt by themselves. She

remarked, “I ask students for example to do a task concerning a text, and they do very well with

good examples of it, they take and learn from online references”.

In her class, when students found difficulty in vocabulary or grammar, the teacher asked them to

look at the dictionary, while for the grammar, the teacher gave sentences as examples, then students

would draw the conclusion by themselves. To do any homework and activities, she asked students

to find examples of any texts from the internet. She said, “students here are clever students and

highly motivated including their parents”. This referred to the fact that student input and school

facilities provided by parental support brought significant improvement to student learning. This

can be seen from the result of their national exam which is categorized into the high score range,

that is 8.52 for English, 8.26 for Bahasa Indonesia, 8.23 for mathematics in academic year

2010/2011. English teachers’ target for the teaching and learning was to gain good scores for

English in the national examination. Based on the interview, teachers said the aim is four skills,

however, the emphasis was on reading and writing skills.


Regarding lesson plans made by the teachers, it seems that that would be for the sake of the

curriculum document. It can be seen from the format and its contents which was very simple,

mentioning the terminology but it did not accommodate the whole teaching and learning. The

teachers wrote what was supposed to be written according to the guideliness, such as the stages of

teaching, three phases – Elaboration, Exploration and Confirmation – and stating the character

building that should be achieved by the students at the end of its basic competence. In fact, teachers

still felt difficulty understanding it and implementing it in their teaching and learning. Teachers

said it was for the sake of documents.

With regard to the teachers’ planning, their lesson plan looked very simple such as it did not

mention the aim of teaching clearly and did not discuss the teaching materials, tasks given,

assessment and there were unclear stages for teaching. They said, “Lesson plans that are attached in

the curriculum are not implemented in the real teaching and learning”. Furthermore, they added, “It

will be difficult and confusing for the teachers to have various lesson plans because students of

each class are different in terms of teaching materials, motivation etc”. This indicated that the

teachers ‘kept’ their lesson plans in files. However, they sometimes, perhaps rarely, wrote their

lesson plan as a ‘customized model’ when they were observed by a supervisor from its foundation

or from the DEO. When there was no observation, they just planned in a simple way on the

teachers’ notebook.

Communication happened from teachers to students, one way direction. Student engagement was

not optimal for English language teaching. Students responded to teachers due to their ‘close’

relationship. It might be because the teachers sometimes made jokes in explaining the material. As

well, because students’ active response would be more in Bahasa Indonesia, so students felt free

responding to teachers’ questions. This signified the relationship between teachers and students

was sufficient.

In terms of learning resources, the school provided wifi to all areas of the school. Those who had a

laptop with them could use this facility such as searching the internet for learning resources or to

do tasks. Most teachers had their own laptop and the principal said that they had sufficient

knowledge to use information technology for teaching and learning. The school conducted

workshops about information technology in 2008, the beginning time of the pilot school of

international standard. For the teaching and learning, most teachers had their own laptop and

connected it to the LCD and sometimes used WiFi access in class. However, based on the limited

time of observation, the English lesson depended much on students’ textbook and the workbook

composed by its foundation.


Concerning textbooks for students, the school sold students’ textbooks and workbooks created by

English teachers under the foundation’s sponsorship; while English teachers had their English

modules. Some English teachers made the modules for themselves. In the library, different kinds of

reading, such as encyclopedia, dictionaries, magazines, novels, comics in English were provided.

Some students spent their time in the library in their recess time to read or to use the computer with

internet access for learning or games. There were five computers altogether.

Regarding the librarian, she was a graduate of senior high school. She began her career as a

librarian in an elementary school, in 2004 she moved and became a permanent librarian in this

school. She had participated in some workshops concerning library at the level of district and

province. She said that the parents supported students’ learning in a form of funds and the principal

allocated sufficient money to buy interesting media for students to learn such as books, magazines

and novels in English.

Teaching assessment was done by a supervisor from the DEO; however, this observation schedule

was unclear for teachers. “It might happen once or twice in a year or none”, the teacher said. The

assessment from the foundation happened only when there was teachers’ promotion. The principal

observed classrooms from outside randomly, just to listen whether the students were making noise

or not. When the class was too noisy, then the principal announced and commented in front of

other teachers in the teachers’ room. All inputs would be given orally, and he did not assess by

having indicators or formal form for assessment.

To observe the teaching learning process, the principal rarely came into the classroom. The

assessment was based on the document. The principal remarked, “When a lesson plan accords with

what the government has already stated such as the suggested stages (exploration, elaboration and

confirmation) and character building, that lesson plan will be fine and it is not necessary to observe

the teaching and learning”. This signified that the monitoring and supervising of the English

language teaching and learning was not performed well by the principal. The senior English

language teacher acknowledged that the principal rarely observed them. He monitored the teaching

and learning while he walked around the school. The monitoring and evaluating occured when

there was assessment from the district or the foundation regarding teachers’ promotion. In this case,

the principal observed first the teaching and learning in class to make sure the class ran well. It

seemed to indicate that the principal ‘helped’ teachers to gain good promotion, in other words,

there would be an ‘informal visit’ before a ‘formal visit’ happening.

In addition, the students’ assessment was done in the form of tests. The teachers made the tests

themselves for monthly, mid and final tests. There was a test from Badan Kerjasama Sekolah


(BKS) – School Cooperation – under the same foundation in the level of province. It was done at

the end of semester to measure the quality of the school under its foundation. Most of the tests were

more on reading and writing rather than listening and speaking. The parents in this case were asked

to monitor students’ improvement from their tests. “The way of giving assessment was to give

students’ answers back to be shown to their parents. This would be parents’ involvement to monitor

their children” added the principal. In addition, the English teachers and the principal said that

parents in this school were so critical to school’s improvement especially with students’ academic

improvement. They sent an email to teachers when there was something to comment about the

school or their children.

Conclusion

This Catholic school had gained the grant to be of pilot international school standard; however, this

program applied only partly as most of the classes were regular or National standard, and so there

was no difference in terms of curriculum and facilities. The difference between the two programs

could not be clearly seen except for the money parents spent for enrolment and monthly payment.

As well, the International standard was for the four lessons, namely mathematics, natural science,

English language and information technology. They were taught by the same teachers in the regular

classes as well. The teachers’ classroom language should have been English; however, the teachers

simply could not do it. Even in the English lesson, the teachers still mixed the languages, English

and Indonesian. The principal eventually said to the teachers that if they could not deliver the

teaching and learning in English, they could use bahasa Indonesia as the medium of instruction.

Information and technology was badly utilized in the teaching and learning in terms of finding

online learning resources especially for the pilot international school standard though the principal

believed that most teachers had sufficient knowledge to operate the computer (laptop) for the

teaching and learning.

Having one school with two different programs was rather complicated since students had the equal

right to learn. In terms of the curriculum, there is no significant difference between international

pilot school and regular school (national standard). They had the same curriculum, facilities and

teachers, according to the principal.

Regarding test of this international class, the principal himself found it difficult to understand why

there was still an additional test conducted since the benefit of such a test was still in question. For

him, such a test was useless. It was no guarantee for students to pass the national exam and gain a

place in a senior high school with the status as pilot of international school standard due to the

different directorate management.


In contrast, this kind of international standard school has become popular and most parents from

middle to high family income levels are eager to send their children to this school. In fact, it

reflects a ‘different class’ in society.

This school in conclusion still ‘struggled’ to be a model as a pilot of international school standard.

The funding from the government might be allocated more to standard of infrastructure rather than

standard of process, standard of content or standard of assessment. For personnel standard, all

teachers participated in workshops conducted by the school concerning information technology.

But the school still did well in the national


Case Study 04: A large-sized government school located in the central business district of a

big city serving a middle to upper class community

This building was formerly a school for teacher training built in 1954 on a large block of 9567

square metre in a big city. This school of 968 students became a National Standard School in 2004.

With an excellent accreditation in 2008, this school was ‘designated’ by the Directorate General for

Management of Primary and Secondary School to become a Pilot International Standard school

(Rintisan Sekolah Bertaraf Internasional) or RSBI for short. To start its program, the school had

two classes with 28 students per class and each class was equipped with computer, LCD, audio

visual equipment and air conditioner. This program emphasized its learning as information

technology based combined by online access. By 2011, all grade seven students, 10 classes in total,

were studying under the auspices of this international program.

The school was close to a big government bank, a traditional market, an Islamic university and a

government senior high school. It was on a busy one-way road, and starting early morning, lots of

students were dropped by their parents by car. It sometimes looked like a queue coming inside the

school gate. “Five per cent of the students here are from poor families and their score is very low

such as average four. This is the district policy to help students from low income families but who

are still eager to study”, remarked the vice principal. This signified that students came from various

socio-economic backgrounds though this school is located in the central business district.

Despite its status as a government school and despite Indonesia’s official status as a secular nation,

the daily school schedule began each morning for fifteen minutes with each class reciting the

Qur’an in Arabic, though not understanding the meaning of the text, while Christian students read

the Bible.

When the researcher first came to the school, she passed through the gate and some parents were

dropping off the children in this big yard. Coming inside the school, the building looked dated (the

Netherland style building). But, from the front yard that was sometimes used by students for sports,

the environment looked fresh and comfortable for learning. The hall made this school more unique

in its performance. On the wall, there were two large glass exhibition cabinets displaying lots of

cups and medals gained, most of them for mathematics and natural science including physics at

national and international levels. She then came to the principal’s room. The principal was

welcoming but he interacted with her for less than 10 minutes, then asked the researcher to come to

the school the following week to see the senior English language teacher and the vice principal to

talk about the school curriculum. He let his vice principal answer the questions.


The principal’s leadership was the cause of argument among teachers and students. There were

pros and cons about his leadership style in this school; however, teachers who disagreed just kept

silent, as did dissenting students. Based on the focus group discussion and interviews, students said

the school rules were strict such as wearing the hijab by all Muslim female students.

When the researcher met a female senior teacher for the first time, the researcher asked her to

distribute the questionnaire. She further said, “If you ask the teachers here to fill in the

questionnaire, you must prepare snacks and put money in the envelope. It’s a common thing here

and it happens to all researchers coming to give such things. The teachers here are money-

oriented”. Eventually the researcher and she agreed with it (snacks and souvenir (pens)), and the

researcher asked 25 of 57 teachers to fill in the questionnaire.

The parental profession profile in this school was dominated by government employees (33 %),

private employees (29 %), entrepreneurs (28 %), members of the Indonesian army (3.7 %), casual

workers (1.7 %), and others (4.6 %). The vice principal also said that 5 per cent were poor students

with sometimes low entrance score. This affirmative policy came from the district education office,

according to the vice principal.

The average student score in the National Examination in academic year 2010/2011 was Bahasa

Indonesia 8.53, mathematics 9.26 and English language 8.99. When compared to the national

averages, the students had gained much better scores. This school was frequently observed by other

schools from Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi so as to have a ‘comparison study’. When the

reseacher was making her observations, there was a group of teachers from Padang in west Sumatra

observing the library, the laboratories and a big mosque which could accomodate 75 per cent of all

enrolled students.

A Further noteworthy aspect regarding the national examination was that the parents suggested the

school teach only the four subjects. The students could then focus more on the four subjects and

were expected to gain much better scores for their national examination, according to the vice

principal, even though such view would contradict to the national education system which

highlighted the ten subjects in the curriculum content. This seemed to indicate that parents’

aspirations were how their children gained better scores for the national examination; in other

words, other subjects such as religion, art and culture, and social science were not necessary to be

taught. In short, parents thought education ‘instantly’, the meaning of it had become how to

succeed in the national examination.


Another important point according to the vice principal was that a pilot of written Religion

examination was held in 2010 and 2011, it examined only Islam.The test items were 25 per cent

from government and 75 per cent from province and the grade eventually was written as the school

examination.

The Curriculum and English Language Teaching

The curriculum document of this school was distinguished by two programs – Pilot School of

International Standard (Rintisan Sekolah Bertaraf Internasional – RSBI) and regular class (National

Standard School – SSN). The difference between the two was on the total teaching time, the former

was 44 hours, and the latter 40 hours.

The RSBI program stipulated 6 hours for four subjects – Bahasa Indonesia, mathematics, English

and natural science, while five hours were devoted to social science, and three hours for

information technology. Other subjects such as religion, sport, civics education, art and culture

took two hours on average. The local content taught for four hours was Javanese language

(compulsory) and batik painting for grade seven and traditional dancing for grades 8 and 9; another

two hours of teaching was devoted to students’ self-development which was realized in after school

hours.

The SSN program stipulated 6 hours for mathematics, while five hours were devoted to Bahasa

Indonesia, English, natural science, and social science. Other subjects such as religion, sport, civics

education, art and culture, information technology for year nine and skills for year eight took two

hours on average. The local content taught was Javanese language and accounting.

Besides these compulsory subjects, the school offered extra curricular activities such as scouting

(compulsory for all students) and life skills to RSBI students. To interested students, some

additional activities were offered as well such as traditional music and dancing, sports, reading

Qur’an and English story telling to be performed in any regional competition (school curriculum

document: 2011).

Regarding problems in the international standard class, the vice principal remarked that the

government had trained English teachers in Jakarta in teaching other subjects (mathematics and

science) in English, they then trained mathematics and science teachers to teach in English. In fact,

some of them said there was not a problem, however, another teachers simply said that was a

problem. “Teaching in Bahasa Indonesia to students is still difficult; that will be more complicated

when it is in English. Teachers would eventually explain in bahasa Indonesia and greeting would


be in English”, said the vice principal and the English teachers. Another noteworthy aspect of this

international class was that the issue whether or not the students would be also automatically

enrolled in international class in senior high school, because the management was under a different

directorate and the national examination was still the key to go on to further study.

English was taught for six hours in RSBI and five hours in SSN. It represented 12.5 per cent of the

total weekly regular class time of 40 hours and 14 per cent of 44 hours. This difference showed

that the two programs had different curriculums and the additional teaching hour was for the

reading skill in which the students were supposed to learn more text types (recount, narrative,

procedure, descriptive, report, exposition, explanation, news items, poems, songs, and specific

functional texts (advertisements, notices, announcements, etc.) in daily life contexts involving

mathematics, science and information technology.

In terms of curriculum development, this vice principal having a three year experience in

curriculum, said that,

“The school-based curriculum was given by the government and most schools directly ‘copy paste’

and change the name of the school and the academic year. The difference is in the students’ self

development. Regarding our school-based curriculum, my position is to translate the government

policy regarding curriculum development such as the government stipulates that the teaching hours

should be 24 for each teacher, I think hard how such a situation matches to the number of teachers in

this school. What is happening is that some teachers need to teach in other schools; as a result, that

will be difficult for them to manage their time well particularly to prepare time for teaching in

different class levels and schools. For the English subject, for example, it’s not a big problem since it

has more time, six to seven teaching hours, what about the civic education subject? It has two teaching

hours only. Another issue is that the government has asked us to teach students how to obey traffic

rules. It means more teaching hours for this. I do not understand what the government asks the school

to do, if that kind of policy will be taught integratedly; teachers feel unsure how to do it. The next

policy regarding the curriculum is the character building and moral value taught in any subject. To me

the government is too demanding as well as responding too late to what is happening on the ground

such as fighting (tawuran) among friends, lack of respect to the national flag and songs and so on. In

short, the government education system is not good, and what happens now we need to clearly write

in our syllabus the words of moral values, such as discipline, team working and respect. Teachers

clearly stated on the document or wrote it for the sake of administration good and when the supervisor

comes to our school, they will be happy; they do not know whether it is really implemented or not.

The policy is more top-down, and never bottom up.”

This incident signified that the central government stipulated good policy. The guidelines for the

curriculum, for example, were given to schools; however, whether it would be implemented or not,

they took it for granted. The teachers in this case would have an ideal syllabus and lesson plan in

the form of documents only and those were for the district to rubberstamp it. Stakeholders such as

parents would never have been asked for consultation regarding curriculum development,

according to the vice principal. A further noteworthy aspect was the head of district education

office stipulated the policy that in the junior high schools, there were one principal teaching six


hours, while the four vice principals taught twelve teaching hours. The other twelve hours would be

given to other teachers who still lacked their teaching minimum.

With regard to the number of teachers in this school, there were 57 teachers teaching 17 classes of

RSBI and 13 regular classes. The compulsory workload minimum of each teacher in class was 24

teaching hours (Indonesian Constitution No. 14/2005, Government Regulation No. 74/2008 and

MONE Regulation No. 39/2009). There were six English language teachers teaching 167 hours of

class time in this ten-stream school per week, in the government perspective, is only 40 minutes.

The following table shows the English teachers’ workload.


No Teacher Compulsory Workload Minimum

Hours

Realization Reason




4. Teacher D 24 28 Full-time teacher

5. Teacher E 24 28 Full-time junior teacher

6. Teacher F 24 27 Part-time retired teacher

Accordingly, the extra English class was compulsory for all grade seven and eight classes and was

conducted after school time in cooperation with some popular English centre over a two hour

teaching period after their school time. Grade seven students were taught at school, while grade

eight students were asked to go to an English centre outside the school. This was done to have

different atmosphere in learning. The payment was from parents and the operational school fund

(Bantuan Operasional Sekolah – BOS), according to the vice principal.

Based on the curriculum document, the school clearly mentioned the minimum requirement grade

for all subjects was 8. This examination grade seemed to be higher than for other schools in the

district. In evaluating the curriculum, this grade would possibly increase or at least be similar to

that of last year.

Regarding motivation, most of the students put English as the first subject to learn followed by

natural science, mathematics and Bahasa Indonesia. They said:

S1: “English is an international language”

S2: “English is needed for our further education”

S3: “It is for the national examination”

S4: “It is for our future”

S5: “It’s a must to get ijazah (degree)”


Such motivation could be seen as well by having an English class twice a week after school time.

The school in this case was in cooperation with a popular English language centre in Yogyakarta.

The survey data showed that students learnt English through various media such as mobile phone,

computer, internet, English textbooks and novels. It seemed to indicate that students, parents and

the school itself supported English language teaching due to its status as an international language.


The first observation commenced in the first period of grade seven. There were 30 students for this

international class. The students first read the Qur’an to start the lesson for about 10 minutes. The

teacher had been in the classroom at 7.00. The researcher came inside the classroom when the

teacher took the cable of his laptop in teacher’s room which was quite far from the classroom.

In the classroom, most students had their own laptop, except for two students who had forgotten to

bring theirs, so the teacher asked them to work together with other friends. The teacher had his own

laptop although there was a computer that had been connected to LCD. There were two air

conditioners and one cc TV. The teacher first greeted students and asked them to connect to wifi to

check their homework. Students kept themselves busy and the teacher moved around the class to

check whether they had difficulties or not. Some students tried to open their email address and

attach the homework. Some found problems to open their address.

The teacher helped and checked one by one. The teacher kept reminding students of ‘Past Verb’

and how to open and attach the file and asked them as well to check the grammar and spelling as

well. Then he asked students to open a new tab to see grammar explanation and grammar exercise.

It was English-4u.de/. It seemed some students kept busy opening you-tube and games. When the

teacher came close to them, they then were back to their homework and grammar exercise website.

When the time was about to finish, the teacher opened his email address to check students’

homework. He showed one or two examples of students’ writing, and discussed their mistakes on

grammar at a glance, such as ‘take a walked’, ‘I feel so bored on my last vacation’, ‘to bought

souvenir’, ‘the food is fery delicious’ etc. He showed the mistakes but did not correct nor explain

what it was supposed to be. In addition, he never finished checking one student’s homework and

directly opened another student’s writing. From some writings, the students’ drawback was not

only on ‘Past Tense’ but also ‘preposition’, ‘the choice of words’ and ‘finite’. In fact, the teacher

did not discuss one example of recount text. The aim of this class moved from recount text to how

to send an email.


It seemed the teacher wanted to create an autonomous learning situation for students but the

students still found problems in how they wrote sentences. The medium of instruction was mixed,

English and Bahasa Indonesia. When the teacher spoke in English, he then directly translated into

Bahasa Indonesia. Another observation was that students kept busy with their laptops rather than

listening to the teacher. Some students used a headset to listen to their laptops. When students

found problems in their laptop, some asked the teacher in Bahasa Indonesia and some spoke in

Javanese to the teacher or their friends.

When the researcher asked for the teacher’s lesson plan, he said that he would give it in the form of

a file, including the syllabus. He said that he had written lesson plans together with other English

teachers at the beginning of semester. This signified that the teacher rarely adjusted the lesson plan

to the students’ characteristics of each class as the curriculum and syllabus suggested teachers do.

Regarding his background, he was a graduate of an English language education course from a

private university in Yogyakarta. He started teaching in 1995 in west Java and began to teach in

this school in 2004. Within this 7 years of teaching, he had participated actively in seminars and

workshops, and the last was an English teaching workshop of international classes in Jakarta.

Concerning the purpose of teaching English, he said, “To me teaching English is to communicate,

however, the school and parents ask teachers to teach students to get a good score; so, I teach them

words and grammar because the national examination focuses more on lexical items and grammar”.

He further explained that the teacher needed to motivate students to learn English. To him,

motivating students meant creating interesting activities and being friendly with students. In fact,

what he said was unfortunately not found in his teaching and learning.

The second teacher was a female senior teacher who had graduated from a private university in

Yogyakarta majoring in English language education. She was a coordinator of English teachers in

the Yogyakarta municipality, and was an active member of the teachers’ association as well. She

had been teaching English for 29 years, including 13 years in this school and participating in

regional, national and international seminars or workshops.

When the teacher and the researcher came into the classroom, students were noisy. The teacher

prepared her laptop and connected it to the LCD. There were a computer, a printer, air conditioners,

and a cc TV. She commenced with greetings and reviewed her previous lesson on new words about

physical appearance and personality of someone. She always tried to invite all students into class

participation. In this lesson, she focussed on listening to the recording. She used the CDs from

English textbooks for students. In her teaching, she spoke in English clearly; when it was the

moment to do the tasks, she asked students many times about what to do; she sometimes spoke in

Bahasa Indonesia but only to check students’ comprehension of the task instructions. The students


participated actively in the teaching and learning. It seemed the students enjoyed her teaching due

to her attitude and her techniques in engaging students to be active participants.

In terms of lesson planning, besides having a file of planning for the whole semester, she planned

her plan and teaching progress on her book. It seemed that this teacher, had no difficulties in

implementing the English language syllabus and the techniques as well. It might be because she

was an English teachers coordinator in the district and actively participated in any seminar or

workshop dealing with English language teaching. She once became one of six candidates from

Yogyakarta province to be a master teacher that would be sent to Singapore. But then there was no

further information about it.

The syllabus was developed together with the panel of subject teachers. The syllabus and lesson

plan, however, were still for the sake of documents. In fact, what was going on in class and what

was in their lesson plan was completely different. The supervisor said, “Most of the schools here in

this district are still adopting the syllabus and lesson plan given by the directorate as an example. It

is fine for the beginning of the implementation such as their curriculum in the academic year 2006

to 2007, but they need to revise it annually to become an adapted curriculum, and in 2013

hopefully they are able to design their independent (mandiri) curriculum which accords with the

characteristics of students and the school”.

Her view about the curriculum was that there was no difference between competency-based

curriculum and school-based curriculum. “The difference depends on the school and students’

condition; however, most teachers even in Yogyakarta are unable to develop their syllabus and

lesson plan due to their lack of competence in English teaching and learning”, the teacher said. She

added, “Since the curriculum 1975 to 1995, the English language teaching emphasized content, but

the paradigm was completely different in 2004, from content-based to competency-based”.

Regarding the development of the English language syllabus, she further explained that currently

teachers were asked to write moral values into their teaching and learning, in fact, in her opinion it

was just for the sake of the document due to its complexity in implementation.

The third was a male junior English teacher. He was a graduate of an English language education

from a private university in Yogyakarta in 2004. He had been teaching in this school for five years.

He first taught the extra English class in 2002. He was responsible to teach all second year students

of international program to write the syllabus and lesson planning. To him, this work challenged

him because there was no syllabus or lesson planning for this program. He just made the syllabus

and lesson planning similar to the regular program. His comprehension of competency based


curriculum and school based curriculum was inadequate. His understanding was genre based

teaching for junior high school students to prepare them to pass the national exam.

When the researcher joined the class in the afternoon, the class was very noisy. After greeting

them, the teacher asked students to look at their homework and he continued even though the

students had not yet finished. The teacher moved around the class and checked students’ writing

one by one. There was 27 students in the class. The students asked the questions of the teacher by

shouting in Bahasa Indonesia and Javanese. Some students seemed so close to the teacher; one

student asked the teacher by pulling the back of his t-shirt and touched his waist. The class was not

under control. The noise continued.

To conclude about the English syllabus and lesson plan for the international class, the English

teachers made the same content for both the regular and international classes. The difference was

on the language in which lesson plans for regular classes were in Bahasa Indonesia, while English

for the international class. Another point was that, based on the interview, the teachers said that the

difference was in classroom language. The teachers were recommended to speak more in English

rather than in Bahasa Indonesia as the medium of instruction; however, the observation showed

differently. The teachers spoke dominantly in Bahasa Indonesia in teaching English language. In

short, the significant difference was on the use of technology information in teaching and learning

for the international class.

In terms of English learning materials, the three English teachers varied their learning materials;

however, they depended much on the textbook. They said that the learning material was different

when it was about listening skill. They sometimes downloaded from the internet or from CDs of

the students’ textbook. Based on the observation, the senior teacher created more interesting

teaching and learning for students and the class was more under control than others.

Tabel 4.2 shows that each teacher had different perspectives on English language teaching even in

one school. It seemed to indicate discussion among these collegues never occurred. They seemed

quite busy teaching rather than discussing what are the best things to be given to students. Formal

and informal meetings had rarely happened. This sometimes could be a dilemma for teachers

particularly junior teachers. Teachers needed to guide students to gain good achievement for the

sake of the national examination. In fact, it was hard to take place.

Basically, the three teachers had different perceptions in terms of English language teaching. The

folowing table shows the difference among them:


Table 4.2: English Teachers’ Views of English Language Skills and Features of CS 4

No Topics Senior Female Teacher Senior Male Teacher Junior Male Teacher

1. Skills 1. Speaking and Reading

2. Listening and Writing

1. Speaking

2. Listening

3. Reading

4. Writing

1. Speaking

2. Listening, Reading,

and Writing

2. Language

Features

1. Grammar and

vocabulary items

2. Pronunciation and

Structure

1. Vocabulary Items

2. Pronunciation

3. Grammar

4. Structure

1. Vocabulary Items and

Pronunciation

2. Grammar and Structure

3. Learning

Resources

1. Magazine, Newspaper,

Video, and Textbook

2. Online References


Video

2. Online References

3. Textbook


Video

2. Textbook and Online

References

4. Medium of

Instruction

1. English, and a Mixture

of Bahasa Indonesia

and English

2. Bahasa Indonesia

1. English

2. A Mixture of Bahasa

Indonesia and English

3. Bahasa Indonesia

1. English

2. A Mixture of Bahasa

Indonesia and English

3. Bahasa Indonesia

Regarding facilities, the school had provided sufficient tools to learn in the classroom. Each of the

classes was equipped with a computer, printer, LCD, air conditioner and cctv, even though most of

the teachers used their own laptop in teaching. In terms of laboratories, there are some such as a

computer, AVA, mathematics and language laboratories as well as two laboratories for natural

science. A social science teacher was appointed to be a coordinator of all laboratories. He said that

he had more teaching hours, so the teachers themselves were responsible to manage the

laboratories. The language laboratory had been renovated since damage on the computer system

had occured due to heavy rain. It had been two years since the English teachers used this

laboratory. It was pretty reasonable since each class had been equipped well and teachers could use

two active speakers that were kept in the teachers’ room. The teachers said that the school need to

conduct a workshop on the use of this new laboratory because all equipment was digital. There

were 36 monitors and keyboards including headsets but all was operated and controlled by a

computer for the teacher.

Besides having wifi access in all areas of the school, the library provided many learning resources.

There were English textbooks for regular and international classes, novels, magazines and

newspapers such as The Jakarta Post. There were three librarians, one of whom, the coordinator,

was a teacher. The two other librarians mentioned that the library was visited much in recess time

and after school time. The students sometimes did their tasks in the library when the teacher asked

them to summarize some news from a newspaper, magazine or novel. The library was small but it

was comfortable. There was an English corner as well, providing English dictionaries and other

teaching materials. Five computers with internet access were very much used whether to play

games or do the academic tasks. The library was in the same building as the school mosque and

there was an air conditioner as well.


Concerning assessment, all the English teachers clarified that there had never been class

observation of teachers’ performance in the classroom. Neither the principal nor supervisor from

the district education office evaluated their teaching performance. The supervisor remarked, “I am

not only supervising teachers at the level of the district but also at provincial and national levels. I

sometimes go to other provinces such as in Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Jakarta. That’s why I did not

supervise the teachers”. She added, “The number of supervisors here is very limited, there is one

supervisor for SMA (senior high school), two for SMP (junior high school) and two for SMK

(vocational school)”. In addition, one of the English teachers said, The supervisor comes here only

to meet the principal”. It seemed to indicate that classroom observation was not an issue since one

of the English teachers was an English teacher coordinator at the district level, and the senior

teachers had been sent to participate in technical guidance (bimbingan teknis) in the form of

workshops conducted nationally by the Directorate General for Management of Primary and

Secondary Education in Jakarta.

At school level, the evaluation was in the form of a questionnaire given to students and teachers.

This feedback would be given to teachers, and there was no further discussion on such issues with

the principal. In other words, the monitoring and supervising that should be conducted by the

principal and supervisor would be very minimum.

Regarding the tests given to students, the teachers devised the tests themselves. For the final

semester, however, the tests were from the district principals’ forum. In terms of the time when the

test was conducted, it depended much on teachers except for mid and final semester tests that had

been scheduled at the beginning of the academic year. By the time the researcher interviewed one

of the English teachers, there was an English teachers meeting attended by some teachers from the

district. They met to write tests that would be used for the district education level through the

district principals’ forum.

Conclusion

English language programs in this school seemed to be well implemented. It could be seen from the

students’ score for the national examination. In fact, however, there were some issues that needed

to be considered in this case. Students’ input was good and the school together with parents

provided extra English classes in cooperation with some popular English course. Students’

motivation was good as well. They learnt English from various media, however, they were still

unable to communicate in English even though the status of this school became international pilot

school standard.


Most of the teachers’ English teaching competence were insufficent regarding the philosophy of

English language teaching and learning. For senior teachers, English language teaching and

learning might be easy but the junior teachers for example found it difficult, but they rarely

discussed issues except when they had problems. As a result, they failed to create interesting

teaching and learning in class. The vice principal remarked, ‘students respect more the teachers

from an English course rather than their teachers. It might be due to lots of homework given by

their teacher at school”.

Another noteworthy point was that in these two years, there was an issue in which parents asked

the school to teach only the four subjects examined in the national exam for the second semester of

Year Nine (interview with the vice principal). It seemed to indicate that parents prefer lessons

focused that emphasized the four subjects for the national examination, resulting in ranking which

were very acceptable as it indicated their child’s relative learning performance.

Concerning facilities, due to improvements in learning, the school had been provided with wifi

access, including the use of information technology in teaching and learning. In fact, some teachers

still found it difficult to get learning resources for their teaching in order to create more challenging

and interesting teaching lessons. Teachers’ workshops whereby are badly needed and the

monitoring, evaluating and supervising need to be performed as well by the principal or the

supervisors of the district.


Case Study 05: A government junior high school located in a hilly farming area serving a far-

flung community, mostly farmers

This junior high school was located at the top of a high hilly area reached after about two hours of

driving up a road with many sharp turnings. The area was rarely visited by outsiders on week days.

It was mostly covered with farming lots (90 % of rainfed rice drylands), vegetable plots, timber

cutting, small light industry and mining (limestone, pumice stone, calcite, zeolite, quartz sands, etc)

together with fishing in the nearby ocean complemented with beach tourism. The beaches were

located not too far away, about 65 kms in distance along the south coast bordering the Indian

ocean. The car trip passed beautiful scenery of beaches at the side of the village streets and the city

could still be easily seen. Public transport was rare; however, over the weekend lots of people

visited these beautiful beaches in their own vehicles.

This school is located geographically far from the centre of the district but quite close to the sub-

district office. The district office managed to ignore this school because of its distant location and

the sub-district office also took little direct interest because of their preoccupation with other

municipal and village affairs. The bus terminal was about two kilometres from the school and close

to it, a small traditional market which opened at 8 a.m every day. The people of this area bought

their daily needs in this market; however, they preferred to buy other important items in the other

district which was closer than its own district.

There are in total five government and two private junior high schools in this sub district. To

continue further study, there was only one government senior high school, so the students (60 %)

would continue on to either the senior high school or a vocational school either in the sub district,

another sub district or to a town or even the city. The remaining forty per cent did not continue on

and would find work some distance away in shops, small restaurants and as house maids. The

motivation of the students to continue to further study was as a consequence not really good.

Perhaps, it was due to the low family income and teenage children were needed to help their family

to survive.

The people living here had mostly graduated from junior high school, with farmers (83 %),

government employees (8 %), casual workers (5 %) and small entrepreneurs (4 %) being the

parental occupational profile. To run their lives, the people used their own transport such as

motorcycles and mostly bicycles due to the serious lack of public transport. The subsistent nature

of the farming meant their incomes were low - 36.56 % fitted this category. Some had their own

farming lots while others did farming for others.


The school was close to an open field and a medium sized mosque which was used by the public

and students to pray in the morning (dhuha) as well as for afternoon prayer. The school had a

beautiful garden with a small fountain. Various trees of medium height with their names written in

Latin on an attached tag gave an overwhelming appearance of cleanness and freshness. As well,

there were lots of English notices around the school. When the first observation occurred, there

were two medium-sized buses parked in the open field. The researcher asked one of the teachers

about the buses - she responded that they were the only public transport for students who lived

quite far from the school.

This junior government school is categorized as a National Standard School or SSN (Sekolah

Standar Nasional). There were in total 586 students in eighteen classes having 32 students on

average for each class. The parents preferred to send their children to the government school rather

than private schools even though it was far from their houses. It is free. The students mostly went

to school on the public bus early in the morning and some rode a motorcycle. In addition, one of

the small private junior high schools was close to this school.

The teachers, however, rode their motorcycles to school because the buses going there were very

rare and they could be late, according to the vice principal. So they departed home in early morning

and arrived back home late afternoon. The closest distance for any of the teachers was 25 kms from

their house though most lived in another nearby district. These distances impacted on their teaching

and student learning as well as their professionalism. Professional collegial discussion as friends

inside the school was very rare; moreover, there was no time for teachers to improve their

knowledge outside the school because in-service training sessions delivered by the district rarely

happened.

When the researcher first arrived at the school, it was late afternoon and there was still an English

course being conducted by a teacher. He said that the principal had gone to Mecca to do Haji (Hajj)

and he gave the contact numbers of the vice principal and two female English teachers. Though a

senior teacher, he made it very clear that he did not wish to be observed – that privilege should be

best reserved for the female teachers.

Regarding motivation of students in learning English, the following were some of their responses:

English is important in senior high school

English is an international language

English is important for our life

English is tested in the national exam


The students further mentioned that they were eager to develop English speaking habits in which

they could use English in their daily communication. They wanted to have good pronunciation by

practising and listening to teachers. However, this school still had not responded. The teacher in the

classroom frequently used Bahasa Indonesia as the medium of instruction in class. Another issue

was the language laboratory. They wanted to listen to how English native speakers talk. They said,

“We understand non English native speakers, but we find difficult to understand English native

speakers”.


The KTSP curriculum was first introduced in 2007 in this school but without much knowledge.

Luckily, the school gained a grant from the government to design the whole school curriculum

based on the school context in 2009. Then there was a workshop attended by teachers and parental

representatives led by a presenter from the provincial quality assurance unit funded by the grant.

After that, the KTSP curriculum was implemented in this school.

In the middle of 2011, this KTSP curriculum was revised and the school invited a parental

representative and a supervisor from the district. The vice principal said that the school spent much

money to invite the presenter, the supervisor and parents. This signified that such a meeting seemed

a rubberstamp because the school had already revised the curriculum. Such revision was about the

additional teaching hours for English, from four to six hours per week per class, the limits on the

number of students joining extracurricular activities (minimum 10 students per activity).

Furthermore, the principal’s job in revising the school curriculum was to arrange teachers’

workloads and it was then realized in the form of a decree, taking into account the academic

calendar as well as teachers’ schedules. The problem came up when deciding the minimum score

for students. In 2010 the school decided upon 7 as the minimum pass grade for all subjects,

however, it was lowered to 6.3 in 2011 according to the vice principal even though all official

documents said it was the government stipulated 7.5. This seemed to indicate the school tried to

‘negotiate’ it among teachers. “The big issue for this school is that of students’ motivation to learn.

When for example the students gained bad scores, they usually prefer to stay at home and because

of this teachers find it difficult to motivate them to improve their grades”, said the vice principal.

So, the important issue was how to create innovative learning which was interesting as well as

motivating students to learn actively.

With regard to the number of English teachers in this school, there were five English language

teachers teaching 6 hours per week per class teaching 108 hours of class time in this six-stream


school per week though only for the regulation 40 minutes. The following table shows the English

teachers’ workload.



Hour

Realization Reason

1. Teacher A 24 24 Full-time English teacher

2. Teacher B 24 24 Full-time English teacher

3. Teacher C 24 24 Full-time English teacher

4. Teacher D 24 24 Full-time English teacher

5. Teacher E 24 12 Part-time English teacher

The table shows that most teachers had their minimum teaching hour in class, 24 teaching hours;

For the part time teacher who had 12 hours, the principal asked this teacher to teach information

technology subject for the other 12 hours.

Accordingly, extra classes of the four subjects – English, mathematics, natural science, and Bahasa

Indonesia - were compulsory for all grade nine students conducted after school hours. This was to

prepare students for the national examination. However, these extra one hour classes were often

cancelled due to “the bad weather” and the teacher asked students to go home early, according to

the English teacher. Furthermore, the data showed that English was always the lowest score gained

in the four national examination subjects. The vice principal remarked, “We still do not know the

cause of students’ failure in the English subject. To me, the English language teachers here are

good enough”. This seemed to imply that he thought English language teachers in this school had

sufficient competence in teaching. In fact, he was wrong.

Of the four subjects examined in the national examination, mathematics, natural science and

English were taught for six hours per week, while Bahasa Indonesia was for five hours. Social

science was taught six hours. For religion, the 2011 school curriculum mentioned three hours per

week. Regarding the local content, this school provided Javanese for two hours and domestic

science which also took two hours. So, English was given 13.6 per cent of the 44 total teaching

hours per week. Accordingly, an extra English class was compulsory for all grade nine students

conducted after school hours by the English teachers. This activity was funded by the school

operational fund.

Regarding students’ self-development, English was offered as one of the extracurricular activities

aimed at developing their English language ability in terms of story telling. According to the vice

principal, this school had won some championships for story telling at the district level. A further

noteworthy point was that this activity was guided by a very competent female senior teacher who


was to be moved to another school due to the long distance from her home to this school, about 38

kms one way.

Concerning the curriculum evaluation, the district supervisor said, “The KTSP curriculum in this

district is mostly ‘copy paste’ from the example given by the government. It can be clearly seen

when we read the strength and weaknesses of the school. They are all similar”. This seemed to

indicate that most schools in this district were unable to develop their own curriculum. This can be

clearly seen from the content of the curriculum which was similar year to year. It did not change.

The graduate competences that were to be achieved were not seen in its content. “The school is not

‘brave’ to explore their own curriculum”, added the supervisor. Further of note was the capacity of

teachers to revise curriculum, syllabus and lesson plans which seemed to be another “copy paste”.

The curriculum seemed to be documents for the district education office only. Regarding basic

competence, this supervisor added, “The teaching of English seems to be about reading

comprehension. And so, when for example there should be a five meeting class, it then becomes

two meeting class” - as a result the teachers sometimes were able to finish the classroom material

in a short space of time. In contrast, the teachers sometimes ‘ignored’ some basic competences that

they thought were simple.

In terms of assessment, the supervisor said, “The school invites us together with the parental

representative to rubberstamp the curriculum at the beginning of academic year”. When there was

any revision, it was minor such as on format and spelling. This curriculum then was signed off by

the head of the district. Such a shortened process was agreed to by principal and teachers. They

acknowledged, “Random classroom observation rarely happened, perhaps not even once in a

semester. When it happens, the supervisors are not from an English language background but from

various subjects and they observe any subjects”.

Added to this, there was a kind of supervision given by the school. In this case, the vice principal

arranged a schedule for peer observation that happened once in a semester. A teacher would be

observed by a senior teacher accompanied by an ‘observer’ (a teacher as well). This observation

then was reported to the principal. The principal eventually called the teacher when something

wrong happened in class. It seemed to imply that the principal was concerned about the teacher’s

professionalism. The vice principal remarked, “An English teacher should not be clever, but they

should be able to motivate students to learn and can guide them to be more successful in many

ways” – in other words, the English teacher’s primary duty is to motivate the students.

As well, the survey of the non-English teachers found that the teachers agreed that Bahasa

Indonesia was the most important subject to be taught, followed by mathematics, natural science


and, lastly, English. The English language program in this school, according to the teachers, is

taught by good staff, and provided sufficient facilities, although more English reference books and

learning resources should be provided.

With regard to students’ motivation in learning English, the student survey showed they learnt

English (70 %) with textbooks; and most of students said only very rarely did they learn English

with the computer and internet either at school or home. This might be because their farming

parents had a low education background with very limited support. Concerning the language they

used daily, most students spoke in Javanese in the family. The students spoke Bahasa Indonesia

only at school.


The observation commenced after recess time with a female junior teacher (in terms of teaching in

this school) teaching grade seven. She finished her undergraduate studies in 2004, but she had

started to teach in 1989 in a private junior high school, and moved to this school in 2001. The

teacher first went to the class and a little later (10 minutes) she then invited the researcher to join

the class. It seemed the students had been ‘prepared’ for the sake of observation. The teacher first

greeted students and introduced the researcher in English, “Good morning, everybody. This

morning we have a guest and she wants to see our classroom”. The teacher then created and wrote

a functional text on the whiteboard as follows:

There will be a flag ceremony. All students must wear white uniform.

Don’t be late.

Headmaster

She asked students in English with some mispronounced words, “What is it? What is

announcement? Do you remember announcement? We talk about it maybe...last month...after this,

I want you to understand the content of this announcement”. She explained what was meant by

announcement in Bahasa Indonesia. She highlighted that the announcement consisted of who, to

whom and the content. She translated the text written in Bahasa Indonesia. She eventually

distributed a paper, one per two students and asked students to understand the content of the

announcement. She said in English, “Read and study the announcement”. When the students tried

to understand it, the teacher kept explaining in Bahasa Indonesia while moving around the class.

The teacher wrote some questions about the two texts on the whiteboard about when, where, to

whom and what it was. After a few minutes, the teacher and the students discussed the answers

orally in language. Eventually, the teacher gave another task to be done individually. While she

was writing, the students kept being noisy, speaking to each other in Javanese. She said in English,


“If you finish, answer questions on the whiteboard”. The bell rang; the students did the task at

home, the teacher then simply left the class.

From the observation, it seemed to imply that the teacher had already discussed the short functional

text (announcement). However, the students’ engagement was minimal. Some students paid less

attention and talked to each other. The teacher in this case was quite good due to her loud voice and

her position standing in the middle of the class. The students at the back kept silent, not actively

participating in responding to the teachers’ questions.

Regarding lesson plans, this junior teacher acknowledged that she created lesson plans once at the

beginning of the academic year and it happened similarly year by year. She remarked, “I write a

lesson plan when there is an observation from the district and it happens very rarely, once or none

in a year”. An example of a lesson plan was given by the teacher written in her handwriting. It

seemed to indicate she had just finished writing and chose the material that she liked and felt

confident about. It could be seen from her statement to the students. “We talked about it...maybe

last month”, said the teacher in English.

Another noteworthy point was the teacher had finished participating in an in-service training for

teacher certification program in 2009 and she had been ‘assessed’ by the researcher. It might be

implied that she found herself nervous ‘acting’ in front of the students and the researcher. She

sometimes looked to the researcher and tended to speak in Bahasa Indonesia rather than speaking

in mistake-filled English.

In interview, this junior teacher preferred to be interviewed with the senior teacher. The researcher

found it difficult to get ideas from her because she seemed to ‘repeat’ what had been said by the

senior teacher though the interview was conducted in Bahasa Indonesia. She tended to keep silent

and gave lack of comments regarding her capacity in English language teaching. It was perhaps due

to her ‘junior’ position and the previous experience with the researcher.

Based on the data, this teacher remarked that reading and writing were more important than

speaking and listening. Grammar and vocabulary items should be taught to students rather than

pronunciation and the structure of the text. Textbooks were the most important learning resource

followed by magazines, newspapers, videos and on-line references as the last. Regarding the

medium of instruction in the class, this teacher said that English teachers needed to speak in

English because they are the ‘models’ for students. In fact, she mostly spoke in Bahasa Indonesia

rather than in English. She simply said that it was to help students to understand easily.


The second observation took place in the late afternoon with a female senior teacher who had

begun teaching in this school in 1997. She was a graduate of a state university in English language

education in 1996. She had just finished participating in in-service training for teachers’

accreditation in 2010. When she came to a grade 8 class with the researcher, she talked about many

things from her experience when she did the in-service training. Arriving at class, students greeted

the teacher and she asked the researcher to sit at the back. The teacher first asked students to check

their homework. For those two who had not done the homework, the teacher asked them to sing a

song. It seemed the students felt alright singing in front of other students and everybody was happy

learning with this teacher. The students voluntarily wrote their answers on the whiteboard. The

teacher together with students checked the sentences one by one and she asked students to translate

as well. Based on their homework, the teacher made a conclusion about the simple past tense and

past continuous tense. This episode suggested the students looked happy learning English because

they were actively involved in the teaching process.

The teacher then began her new lesson about a recount text which was not in the Indonesian text

(culture). She asked the students, “What are the elements of recount text? ... well, open your book

page 176 ... what do you see on the pages? ... what is in your book?”. The teacher asked students to

find the verbs and mentioned the generic structure of the text. She explained the structure of the

recount text, and eventually asked students to arrange the paragraph into a complete recount essay.

She moved around the class to check students’ writing. Some students finished early; but when the

teacher checked, the paragraphs on the textbook had been arranged. The students had ‘copy paste’

answers written in by a previous class because the books had been borrowed before by the previous

year’s students. The teacher said, “Are you sure that the answer is right? Check it please!”. The

teacher then checked other students’ work. While the students were doing the task, the teacher

asked students in pairs to perform their speaking test. It seemed the students’ dialogue had been

memorized at home. The teacher scored students by listening to them without any indicators to

measure students’ speaking performance.

In her teaching and learning at class, the teacher always used Bahasa Indonesia. She was close to

students and very kind. When talking to or asking students, her intonation was low and she usually

called her students by ‘nak’ (kid), a positive informal form of address used often by parents.

Regarding English language teaching, this teacher said that the most important skills were reading

and writing followed by speaking and listening. Language features that were important were

grammar, vocabulary items, pronunciation and the structure of a text. To her, textbooks were the

most important resources compared to magazine, newspaper, video and on-line references. She

further mentioned that she preferred authentic texts rather than textbooks, in fact, she felt in doubt


with the word of ‘authenticity’. Based on observation, the teacher used textbooks, such as Let’s

Talk and students’ workbook. “We find it difficult to teach speaking to students. We create the

texts and write it on the whiteboard. We then ask students on the left to be A and students on the

right to be B. They read the dialogue. Most dialogues basically are taken from the textbooks”, said

this senior teacher.

Based on the two observations, it seemed to indicate that the classroom instruction for both

teachers was Bahasa Indonesia. Their English speaking competence was sufficient, but they feel

more confident communicating in Bahasa Indonesia. Regarding the KTSP curriculum, the teachers

said, “The KTSP curriculum is good to implement because it accords with students’ characteristics

and it shapes the character building of the students”. Furthermore, they added that, “We are just

confused because the 2004 curriculum or competency based curriculum had just been

implemented, but then it was changed to the 2006 curriculum, so we have no idea about the

competency-based curriculum (CBC). We feel good with the school-based curriculum (KTSP). Our

difficulty is to get the texts because we need more texts to be examples, practice and assessment”.

This signified that both teachers had insufficient knowledge about the aim of teaching English for

both curricula. They simply concluded that teaching English was to prepare students to do the

national examination, that is testing students’ comprehension of various texts. In addition, the

teachers believed that teaching grammar should be avoided because there would be no time for it.

Their understanding of teaching English was for reading comprehension as well as new lexical

items and the generic structure of a text. It seemed these teachers who had been teaching for more

than a decade still found difficulties to understand the aim of teaching English. It seems to have

been caused by their lacklustre interest in participating in in-service training in the district and

provincial levels. The junior teacher for example participated in a workshop in 2007 only. They

further clarified that their understanding of the teaching paradigm was gained from in-service

training for their certification, and it was for the sake of getting a double salary.

Such a view was supported by the district supervisor, saying it seemed teachers and the district

staff were happy with the performance of the curriculum. When for example the document

mentioned character building, the supervisor would be satisfied. The supervisor said, “The syllabus

has been ‘created’ by the government, all teachers did simply a copy paste. They are unable to

write indicators, teaching material selection as well as the assessment. Added to this, lack of

assessment carried out by both the principal and the supervisor”. Another point to highlight was the

in-service training of 2010 in the district and provincial level focussed more on character building

and ignored the substance of the KTSP curriculum, according to the district supervisor.


Regarding teaching material development, the supervisor remarked, “The teachers in this district

are unable to comprehend the substance of the curriculum. Their lesson plans have been devised, so

they did a copy paste. When they wanted to develop the materials, they emphasized more on

activities in class”. This seemed to infer that the teachers found difficulty in developing activities

both at home and school. As the result, the textbooks would be maximally used for any kind of

activity.

In terms of the syllabus and the accompanying lesson plans, they were devised by a panel of

subject teachers from the district. These documents were then further developed at school level. In

fact, what was contained in the curriculum was merely a repetition from previous years. Only the

senior teacher made her own lesson plans in detail. She was able to develop after having had in-

service training for certification while the junior teacher wrote her lesson plans very simply. They

further added that they had a panel of subject teachers at the school level; however, there was a

lack of formal and informal discussion among English teachers.

Further noteworthy aspect regarding lesson planning, the junior teacher seemed to imply the

current ‘format’ as the district supervisor asked. She acknowledged, “I rewrite my lesson plan

when there is an observation from district, and I write it in a complete way, such as mentioning

character building as well as moral value and stages (elaboration, exploration and confirmation)

recommended by the government, while the senior teacher preferred to have her own format she

believed that the students were more curious and focussed on the teaching material.

Concerning the aim of teaching English, these two teachers were confused because what they

gained from a seminar or workshop was the students needed to comprehend the text and no need to

learn about grammar. That was the reason why they did not explain grammar of the text. But if they

think it was necessary to do, they discussed it at glance, not long due to the time limit, according to

the teacher. The teaching material to them was too much to be explained Further noteworthy point,

the English teachers said that students’ motivation here was just to finish school, and then help

parents by working.

With regard to learning resources, Let’s Talk was provided in the library. The teachers in this case

depended much on the textbook and the student workbook although they were published as far

back as 2005 . The librarian said that Let’s Talk was lent to students, one book for each student.

When the researcher was observing, all students had their Let’s Talk and student workbook on their

tables. Other references provided in the library were some English stories. The vice principal said

there were five computers in the library with internet access available for teachers. The students

could use the computer laboratory to access the internet. However, they used it for social


interaction such as facebook. They never used it as a learning resource as they did not understand

how to find them because the teachers themselves never asked or taught on-line references.

The process of teaching and learning was quite different between the senior and the junior teachers.

The former was motivating, while the latter was monotonous since the teacher’s dominance of the

class was quite obvious in that she spent most of the time explaining the material which was then

followed by an activity. It might be because ‘the culture’ of learning is that teachers are people who

know, and they transfer the knowledge to students. Students merely respond to what teachers ask.

As a result, communication happened from teachers to students, nothing was from students to

teachers nor students to students.

Accordingly, based on focus group discussion, students needed more facilities such as a language

laboratory that they hoped would be able to make their English much better. Computers and

internet access were badly needed by students at this school because they had no facilities at home

due to their parents’ economic background. “This school had WiFi but a small number of teachers

use it, it might be the very slow access and teachers’ motivation and knowledge of computers”, said

the vice principal. In fact, what was mentioned by the vice principal regarded only the slow access,

but it probably happened due to lack of motivation and knowledge of computers. In-service

training conducted at school or elsewhere was lacking.

Survey data showed that most teachers use the whiteboard to explain the material and sometimes

with pictures. Electronic media was still difficult to realize, while non-electronic media was rarely

used due to teachers’ time availability to create and difficult to obtain learning resources.

In terms of assessment, English teachers made their own tests. They created and sometimes copied

from various resources or examples given. Teachers still found it difficult to assess students. They

did not understand how to make indicators and how to create the assessment based on indicators.

What they did was to look at the sample and previous tests and create a test based on the example

from any tests, especially the national exam.

In short, the problems arose, beginning firstly with how to understand the basic competence and

develop it into indicators that will be assessed at the end of teaching with an appropriate scoring

system for the four skills. Teachers mostly test students’ reading comprehension as it is examined

in the national exam; for oracy (listening and speaking), they conducted the test once in a year due

to its impracticality.


The last point to consider from this case study is the monitoring of teaching and learning. This

responsibility belongs to the supervisor, principal and the district education office. Teachers were

assessed when they were about to participate in a certification program and those who had already

gained their certification need to organize the documentation and report to the district education

office every three months. In terms of monitoring, teachers were observed normally once every six

months by another senior teacher and an observer (a teacher). This was scheduled by the vice

principal. In contrast, the supervisor from the district education office rarely visited the school to

observe. This happened due to a lack of supervisors in the DEO and such observations for example

were performed by any of the supervisors. In other words, it could be an English teacher would be

observed by a mathematics teacher and the reverse. The principal supervised teachers based on the

input given by the teachers. The feedback was given orally; there were no fixed indicators – it was

all done in numeric terms.

The two English teachers further remarked openly that they prepared the teaching material

particularly on the character building and moral value to be written in the lesson plan and syllabus.

So these revised documents were written for the sake of the observation by the district supervisor.

It seemed to indicate that the supervisor focussed on ‘administrative works’ rather than to supervise

teachers in class. Further noteworthy aspect was the junior teacher said that she was confused

sometimes on the government policy such as stages in teaching, she used to have the PPP

(Presentation, Practice, Production) strategy, but then the government mentioned it should be EEC

(Exploration, Elaboration, Confirmation). “I eventually was told by a lecturer from state university

that for English teachers, PPP is fine. But if the district supervisor asks me to write in the form of

EEC, I write it without understanding”, said the teacher. This episode clearly signified that the

‘revised’ lesson plan and syllabus in the form of documents were more important rather than the

implementation in class. This might happen due to the district supervisor understanding or the lack

of supervisor.

Conclusion

The school-based curriculum in this school put Javanese and domestic science as the local content

and some extracurricular activites such as scouting, sport, traditional dancing and music, and

English story telling. To run these activities, there should be at least ten students in one activity.

Regarding the English subject, the six hours of learning in the classroom was sufficient, but the

teachers needed to motivate students to become much better in English. For grade 9, the school

provided an extra class for all four subjects funded by the school operational fund from the

government. It was aimed at gaining good scores in the national examination.


The English teachers’ competence regarding curriculum implementation was inadequate, even

though they have Panel Subject Teachers at school level. Lesson plans were made by panel subject

teachers at district level and most teachers did a complete ‘copy paste’. So the lesson plan and the

actual practice in class could be totally at variance.

In terms of learning resources both for teachers and students, improvement needed to be made,

such as language and multimedia laboratories that can be used as learning resources. Due to the

economic status of the family, it seemed the students only learnt at school with limited access to the

media to learn as well.

In brief, based on the triangulation of data, it can be concluded that standard of process, standard of

content, standard of assessment and standard of infrastructure and standard of personnel had not

been well implemented in this school. It might be because of its location which was quite far from

the district office and quite far from teachers’ homes.


Case Study 06: A government madrasah junior high school located in a village serving a

farming area

This school was previously a four year institution to educate adult students to become teachers of

the Islamic religion as a school subject. To respond to the needs of society as well as the

government regarding religion teachers, in 1968 the MORA changed the four year program into a

six year program. At the beginning of 1980, this institution was changed into a government

madrasah junior high school, years one to three became a junior high school student and years four

to six a senior high school. In 1994, the school had a new building some distance from the district

education office. From this year, the society responded positively and sent their children to this

school. It became in total five classes with 36-40 students in each class. Due to goverment

regulation saying one class consisted of 32 students, it then became 6 classes altogether with a total

of 568 students in the academic year 2011/2012.

This government madrasah was still categorized as a school under national standard school

(sekolah potensial) with its score A that could be upgraded into national standard school when all

the eight national education standards had been realized. There were two other private madrasah

junior high schools in the village.

The location of this school was far from the district education office. The area was covered with

farms, paddy fields and crops. The ricefields were a kind of dryland rainfed rice (90 %), and tourist

sites were close to this school. The school was far from the noise of the main road though it was

located on the main road to some beautiful beaches. The whole environment was characterized by

peace and tranquillity, only some trucks and personal vehicles passed through.

Some students came to school by motorcycle and others on a medium sized public minibus

carrying 10-15 passengers. It seemed public transport was quite adequate even though the condition

of the street was not really good. The total number of teachers was 43 and most of them came to

school by riding motorcycles travelling 45 kms one way trip from their house; they mostly lived

outside the district and they in average spent more or less two hours to come to school. Those who

lived in the city, for example, passed along a busy main road with many sharp turnings.

This medium-sized school was being renovated with more classrooms. Due to this renovation, the

students of grade seven started their school time in the afternoon. The overwhelming appearance

was one of hotness because the middle yard where students had the flag ceremony, had a lack of

trees. The trees were of medium height and there were some potted plants in front of all rooms.


When the researcher first came, she was asked to sit in the principal’s guest room. The room was

quite big with a comfortable sofa. A large glass cabinet was filled with lots of championship

medals and cups which were proudly displayed. Lots of medal had been gained in Religion

activities such as reading the Qur’an and hadrah (Islamic songs) and sports competition. There was

a chart showing students’ passing curve each year as well as the principal’s biodata. From the

display, it was written that the principal was a master graduate in religion and he was awarded as

the best principal in province. He was kind and welcoming to the researcher and directly appointed

the vice principal to accompany the researcher.

After having a short talk with the vice principal, two English teachers had been appointed to be

observed. The first was a female junior teacher and a male senior teacher. The vice principal then

let the two teachers know about the observation and asked the researcher to come the following

day. She asked the researcher for the questionnaire for other teachers, and she herself distributed

the questionnaire in recess time. Firstly, she asked for ‘snacks’ to reward the 20 teachers who filled

in the questionnaire. However, the researcher did not prepare such food and they agreed eventually

to give souvenir pens to the teachers.

Concerning parental occupation, the school census showed that parents was mostly farmers (69.1

%), entrepreneurs and merchants (20.4 %) and government employees (10.5 %). According to the

teachers, many students lived with their grandparents, while their parents worked outside the

village, in town or city and even abroad as household helpers in Middle East countries.

Regarding motivation of students in learning, due to living in a quiet village that was far from

noise, education was something not really important except as a compulsory government

requirement. They just simply thought they would become farmers or housemaids like their

parents. Learning English, for example, was for the sake of the national examination and of

communication to native speakers if necessary. Based on the survey data, the students (60 %) said

they liked to learn English at school, but they disagreed when asked English was the most favourite

subject and learnt at home after school. In addition, they never learnt English with computers

whether at school or at home. They learnt when the teacher gave them homework in the textbook.

Concerning the most favourite subject, they firstly liked Bahasa Indonesia, mathematics, science

and English. Based on the results of the 2011 national examination, Bahasa Indonesia was in

average 8.24, science 5.22, mathematics 4.41 and English 4.59.

The survey of the non English teachers seemed to indicate that about 60 per cent stated that Bahasa

Indonesia was the most important subject followed by mathematics, science and English. Another

noteworthy result was that they (79 %) agreed that the KTSP curriculum was implemented to


junior high school, while 16 per cent disagreed. They (63 %) supported a multimedia laboratory

rather than a language laboratory (32 %). Regarding English language teaching at school, 79 per

cent agreed English be taught at school; while 21 per cent agreed learning English was outside the

school. In terms of the English language teaching at school, they said that English was taught

unwell (37 %) and 63 per cent felt unsure about it; they stated as well that the teachers’ competence

(11 %) was sufficient and (41 %) insufficient. This seemed to indicate that teachers in general had

their doubt on English teachers’ competence. It might happen due to the result of the national

examination which was the lowest of the four subjects.


The KTSP curriculum had been implemented for the first time in this school in 2006, but every

year it had revised and the name became the KTSP curriculum of the government madrasah junior

high school in the academic year for example 2006/2007, 2007/2008, 2008/2009 and so on.

In the academic year 2011/2012, this Islamic based school stated that the total teaching time was 49

hours with 12 classes, covering ten hours for religion, including the Arabic language, six hours

each for mathematics, English and natural science, while five hours were devoted to Bahasa

Indonesia and four for social science, But Bahasa Indonesia became six hours in year nine. One

teaching hour in the government perspective is 40 minutes over one period, or in other words, 12

per cent of the whole forty nine hours per week of teaching.

The local content for this school was Javanese, while students’ self development was devoted to

counseling guidance and reading the Qur’an. The year nine students had one hour for reading the

Qur’an and another one hour was for Bahasa Indonesia. In addition, the four subjects examined in

the national examination were added for another three hours to conduct extra classes at school, so

the total time for the four subjects were nine per cent each. With this extra class, it still did not

bring about good results significantly. It could be seen in the results of the examination which was

under the standard stipulated by the directorate. The students in this case actively participated in

those activities such as reading the Qur’an, scouting, marching band, sports, tonti and calligraphy.

Regarding the KTSP curriculum, the vice principal said that the curriculum was revised annually

by a team formed by the principal. When this team had finished, the parents who were represented

by a school committee were invited to rubberstamp it. In revising the KTSP curriculum, the

principal of the madrasah was firstly invited by the district education office (under MONE) or the

district education office (under MORA) if there was something new from the government such as

in 2010 when it stipulated character building should be embedded in teaching all subjects. “The


policy of the district education office mentions that English subject be taught four hours a week,

but for our KTSP curriculum, it is taught six hours per week. It depends on the school but we still

have to follow the policy of MONE and MORA. So, it’s not 100 % designed by the school”, added

the vice principal. It seemed to imply that the KTSP curriculum was from the government

(MONE). The school changed merely the number of teaching hour of particular subjects as well as

the local content taught in this school. Another noteworthy observation was that the vice principal

was in doubt whether the KTSP curriculum had been successfully implemented in this school since

the grade/score was from the government through the national examination. She looked dissatisfied

with a system in which the grade for all schools were similar. The government did not differ

schools in city, town, village with good or bad facilities in grading students’ score.

In terms of the number of teachers, there were 43 teachers, including five English teachers. The

English teaching time was six hours per week per class. The compulsory workload minimum of

each teacher teaching in class was 24 hours (Indonesian Constitution No. 14/2005, Government

Regulation No. 74/2008 and MONE No. 39/2009). So, English takes 102 hours per week in this

six-stream school. The following table shows the English teachers’ work load:



Minimum Hour

Realization Reason

1. Teacher A 24 12 Full-time teacher, but more teaching

hours in the government school in

another district



4. Teacher D 24 24 Full-time junior teacher

5. Teacher E 24 24 Part-time junior teacher

The table showed that most teachers had their minimum work load, 24 teaching hour; For teacher

A due to the distance, he had 12 hours teaching for three days, while another 12 hours was done in

another school close to his house though this madrasah was the first place to begin his career

teaching English in 1995.

Accordingly, extra classes conducted after school-hours of the four subjects – English,

mathematics, natural science, and Bahasa Indonesia were compulsory for all grade nine. This was

to prepare students for the national examination. Furthermore, the data showed that English was

always the lowest score gained in the national examination. The principal remarked, “English is

important particularly when they want to work abroad. However, the teaching of English failed

even the students who have learnt English for three years but they are still unable to speak in

English”. This seemed to imply that the English language program basically failed either in the


national examination and communicative capacity. The principal himself did not understand why it

happened so.


The beginning of the week was the first observation as stated by the vice principal. The researcher

arrived out early morning, five o’clock because the vice principal said not to be late coming to the

class. Arriving about 6.45, fifteen minutes to the first period, the researcher phoned the vice

principal telling that she had arrived at school. The vice principal came up and said, “I am sorry I

forget to tell you that all grade seven will be learning in the afternoon class due to the school

renovation. So, come here at three o’clock in the afternoon and I’ll tell the teacher about your

observation.”

In the afternoon, the researcher came about two o’clock and interviewed a hajj female teacher

wearing a hijab teaching grade seven. She was a Diploma (a two year program) graduate of English

language teaching in 1987 and she further studied Islam education in a private college and gained

her bachelor degree in 2011. She started her career first in 1987 as a staff member in the district

education office (MORA). She then changed her career to become an English language teacher in

this madrasah in 2005. This change had been due to her status as a single parent, taking care of a

small child. She never participated in any kinds of in-service training dealing with English

language teaching. She simply said, “I learn English by doing (teaching)”. She was eager to

improve her English language teaching but she had no time to do it, so she learnt English by herself

and it is for the sake of her teaching. From the interview, her unhappy feeling was shown when the

researcher asked about her teaching professionalism. She said, “I am just starting my career as an

English teacher which is not easy, I must learn a lot in my busy day taking care of a small child and

I live in the city. The school, however, has concerns more for senior teachers teaching grade nine”.

This seemed to infer that this teacher was eager to improve her knowledge but this was difficult to

realize due to time, family, the distance as well as opportunity given by the school.

It was late afternoon, about three o’clock, and the class observation commenced. There were 40

students in this grade seven class. She started her teaching by saying Assalamualaikum

warahmatullahi wabarakatuh, then greeted in English the students, “Good afternoon every body,

how are you?”, the students in choir answered, “I am fine, thank you. And you?”. She then checked

the roll and after that asked the students to open their textbook. “Please open your book about

advertisement”. She wrote on the whiteboard the meaning of new vocabulary items in Bahasa

Indonesia, such as “for sale = dijual”. She asked some of the students to read in turns loudly and

checked students’ comprehension on the advertisement. The teacher spoke always in Bahasa


Indonesia to explain the advertisement. She always looked at her textbook even though she did not

move at all her position, standing in front of the class at one of students’ tables. Only a few

students, all in the first row paid attention to her. Most of the students kept themselves busy. Some

talked in Javanese and some copied the meaning of the new vocabulary. The class was noisy

because everybody seemed to talk one to another.

After she finished explaining the advertisement in Bahasa Indonesia, the teacher asked the students

to do a matching task. She helped the students by writing the meaning of the lexical items in

Bahasa Indonesia, such as match = jodohkan, sell = menjual, medicines = obat-obatan, think =

berpikir, things = barang-barang, can = dapat/kaleng, grocer = pedagang menjual bahan-bahan

pokok.

Some of the students looked bored; they always looked at the clock on the back wall. A few

students looked enthusiastic doing the task on their textbook. The teacher sometimes sat on her seat

and sometimes came to students who asked her. The noise continued. When the bell rang, students

shouted altogether, ‘yes! Hooray’. It was the time for students to go home. This episode signified

that the students were happy finishing their ‘boring’ English class.

The classroom observation seemed to indicate that the students did not have a good motivation in

learning. They were passive and always spoke in Javanese when answering the teacher’s questions

and talked with friends. The teacher herself failed in creating interesting learning for students. She

dominated the class by explaining in Bahasa Indonesia. The communication happened one way,

from the teacher to the students. In addition, the teacher did not have a lesson plan with her. When

the researcher asked for the lesson plan, she simply said, “I give you all the syllabus and lesson

plans in a file. All is in my computer at home”. She added that her syllabus and lesson plans were

from one of her colleagues teaching in a government junior high school in the district. She just

‘changed’ the name of the school. It seemed to imply that she did a ‘copy paste’ both of the

syllabus and lesson plan. Such idea was supported by the vice principal as well. She said, “The

syllabus and lesson plans of teachers here remain similar to previous years”. This indicated that the

teachers had no capacity in developing lesson plans. In brief, the lesson plans did not accord with

students’ characteristics in the school.

When the researcher asked about the competency-based curriculum (CBC), she said, “The

curriculum is good because it depends on the school conditions now such as writing greeting card,

notice, advertisement and so on. The students are asked to write simple sentences; while our

previous curriculum is simple”. This seemed to indicate that the teacher had an inadequate

knowledge of English language teaching. She added that CBC ‘accorded with the era’. When the


researcher asked what was meant, she could not answer. Regarding the KTSP curriculum, she

stated, “I have no idea about that. My focus is still learning what and how to teach English. My

problem is my English competence as well”. It seemed to imply that she had doubts about her

competence of English language as well as how to teach English appropriately.

Regarding in-service training, she mentioned that she had participated once in 2006 but she could

not concentrate properly due to her divorce. Sometimes about once a year, a panel subject teachers

in the district (MORA), provided such training, but the invitation was for undergraduate teachers

and teaching the ninth grade students. It seemed she found difficulties in teaching but she did

nothing to improve it.

She also told the researcher that once she had been observed by the supervisor from the district.

She made extra preparation by asking her colleague what and how to do it. At that time the

supervisor was not from an English background and based on the observation, the supervisor

concluded that she had a good teaching methodology at class. She was really surprised with the

feedback. Observation had occurred only once since she first began teaching in 2005.

Concerning English language skills, she believed that listening was the most important skill

followed by reading, writing and speaking. She further mentioned that the vocabulary item was the

most important language feature followed by pronunciation, grammar and the structure of a text. In

terms of learning resource, she acknowledged that magazines, news papers and videos could be

used sometimes; however, the textbook was badly needed for both the teacher and students. In

class, this teacher said that the medium of instruction should be a mixture between Bahasa

Indonesia and English though based on the observation, she spoke mostly in Bahasa Indonesia in

class.

The second observation was with a senior male teacher teaching grade eight. A teacher for 16

years, he has become a certified teacher, thus receiving a double salary each month and he was

very proud of this. The class observation commenced in the second morning period. The researcher

first was introduced by the vice principal. The teacher looked happy with such observation and he

was welcoming to the researcher to join his class shortly.

When the researcher and the teacher came into the classroom, the class was very noisy. The teacher

asked the students to clean the classroom first because it was dirty. Two students swept the floor,

while others kept talking in Javanese. The teacher said, “Be quiet please” repetitively. Some

students laughed and imitated the teacher’s speaking, “Be quiet please”, “Come on”. He then let the

researcher sit at the back. To start his teaching, he first greeted students and said in English, “In


five to ten minutes, please you asked me anything about English, maybe you do not know the

meaning of a title of the film”. Some students did not pay attention to him. The teacher explained

“making a request”. He talked in English and directly translated in Bahasa Indonesia. The students

continued with their noise and kept busy by themselves. He spoke fluently in English though he

sometimes mispronounced the words as well as making unsuitable choices of word, such as he said

in English, “Look at your previous notebook”, he meant ‘Check your writing in your book’. The

teacher kept explaining ‘request’ as well as how to respond. He just stood up at the front, no

writing on the whiteboard. He then changed the topic about ‘asking for information’ and ‘asking

for opinion’. From the very beginning of teaching, he never wrote the English expression on the

whiteboard. He kept talking by himself over two periods of teaching. He talked as well about the

story of an Indonesian film, ‘Laskar Pelangi’. It seemed to indicate the aim of teaching was

confusing. The students did not respond positively. Some students turned their head around

sometimes to look at the clock on the wall. Eventually the bell rang, the students said, “hurray”.

This observation showed that the teacher frequently used the expressions in English such as, ‘come

on’, ‘any question maybe’, ‘no’, ‘be quiet’, ‘be calm’, ‘bla bla bla’ repetitively.

With regard to the competency based curriculum, he said that the English subject could not be

properly developed in this curriculum due to the Islamic nature of the school. He stated, “Hadrah

and Islamic culture can be developed here, not English”. It seemed the teacher had no

understanding of the competency based curriculum. When the researcher asked what was the basic

competence of his teaching, he said, “I teach the students speaking skill because speaking is

important”. He further said that he did not know any kinds of curriculum, syllabus and lesson plan.

When the researcher tried to question what was meant by competency standard, basic competence,

and indicators, he was able to identify but unable to give the example of his explanation. He simply

said, “I don’t understand completely about those issues, what I know teaching is do what I can do

through reflecting, such as what it is supposed to be at the end of my teaching. Anyway, the

material is what I feel convenient and I enjoy teaching speaking. I want the students to speak

fluently in English”. This indicated that this senior teacher did not completely understand the aims

of teaching English to junior high school students.

In addition, he said that the principal never observed his teaching and English teachers in this

school never discussed issues about English language teaching. He remarked that teaching in this

school was very convenient for him. He clearly stated in English, “No preparation, no matter, no

problem”. It seemed he was very happy with his way of teaching. He added that the students were

passive in learning English, and the principal gave no attention as well as his colleagues, so he

concluded he did not need to prepare anything for his teaching.


When the researcher asked about the syllabus and lesson plan, he confirmed that he got such

documents from the junior teacher in this school. He said, “I got the syllabus and lesson plan from

ibu Hajjah; but, what are documents for? They write for the sake of document. What is happening

in the classroom is completely different. Teachers now do many ways to get any necessary

documents for the certification program, such as syllabus, lesson plan, certificates and all things

can be obtained easily. Most teachers cheat”. This indicated that this teacher did not pay attention

to any written documents for his teaching. Furthermore, he said that, “When I am teaching, I just

see the standard competence and basic competence, that’s it then I come to the classroom”. In fact,

based on the observation, he was himself in doubt about the aim of his teaching because he kept

moving from one topic to another and there were no activities for students to practice.

Another noteworthy feature was that he said that his aim of teaching English was to make students

speak fluently in English; while he thought that other teachers in this school taught English to

prepare for the national examination. He made his own conclusions though there was no

‘interaction’ among English teachers.

Regarding assessment, the vice principal remarked that this was the job of supervisors in the

district under MORA. She added that the number of supervisors was limited and the supervisor

assessed any subjects whether it was in line with their educational background or not. “The last

observation was done over the last two years and the supervisor observed teachers who nominated

to participate in teachers’ accreditation” said the vice principal. This was confirmed by the junior

teacher saying the same thing.

In his perspective, English skills should be taught separately; listening was the most important

subject to teach followed by speaking, reading and writing. Grammar and vocabulary items would

be more important rather than pronunciation and the structure of a text. Concerning the learning

resource, he said that textbook, magazine, newspaper and video were more important than online

references though he further mentioned that he used the textbook as the only learning resource; and

in terms of medium of instruction in class, he remarked that English teachers spoke in English or a

mixture between Bahasa Indonesia and English though based on the observation he spoke in

English but then he directly translated into Bahasa Indonesia.

By the time the researcher wanted to see the principal in his room to thank him, there were some

teachers and a male lecturer from Islamic State University. According to the vice principal, he gave

teachers advice and it seemed only for teachers who had problems.


In addition, the vice principal seemed to think that the teachers were good because the result of

students’ English test conducted by the teachers were good. She said, “I have never observed their

teaching and learning at class. It seems the students are happy and motivated in learning English.

Sometimes other teachers give their time for English class”. This indicated that English teaching

was completely supported by other teachers.

However, the teachers’ intention to perform an interesting class seemed difficult to be realized. The

vice principal said, “Teachers here are not creative. They just do a copy paste of the syllabus and

lesson plan. They teach without a lesson plan. They do have their lesson plan when the class is

observed by the supervisor who very rarely comes to the school”. For teachers’ professionalism,

the teachers had a lack of participation in in-service training conducted by the Panel of Subject

Teachers. Only the teacher teaching grade nine participated in such activities due to the preparation

for the national examination.

In terms of facilities, this school had a laboratory computer for the information technology subject.

There was neither a language laboratory nor a multimedia laboratory nor wifi access. In the

classroom, there were only a whiteboard and outdated chairs and tables. In the teachers’ room, it

seemed one computer and printer provided for teachers’ preparation in teaching. When the

researcher was in the teachers’ room, some teachers had their own laptop.

Regarding learning resources for the English subject, the library provided English textbooks from

the directorate entitled ‘English in Focus’. There was no other learning resources such as

magazines, newspapers or novels in English. Two English books given by some parents were about

the history of the United States. There was neither a computer nor internet access.

Conclusion

The KTSP curriculum had been implemented since 2006 in this school; however, the revision that

was done annually was done by some teachers. This impacted on the teachers’ understanding of

their own subject. The teachers tried to get the syllabus and lesson plans from their colleagues.

They submitted their syllabus and lesson plan for the sake of the curriculum document. They had

no idea how to write their own lesson plan. It was due to lack of understanding about the KTSP

curriculum particularly a new paradigm of English language teaching. It might happen due to lack

of participation in inservice training and lack of supervision from the district as well as the

principal.


This situation was made worse when the school only provided limited facilities. So learning

resource that the teacher and students had was the only textbook which was given by the district.

The teaching then began from what was in the book rather than looking at the competency standard

and basic competence that wanted to be achieved by the students.

Regarding the curriculum, the guideliness was given by the district under MONE; while teachers’

supervision and assessment was under MORA. To make it worse, the district supervisors under

MORA were in very limited number and various background; and only teachers who were about to

join or to get the teacher certification program. This seemed to indicate there was no

communication between MONE and MORA and it impacted to teachers’ professionalism such as

in class, they were unable to create a lesson plan which accorded with students’ characteristics.

Their lesson plan was ‘a copy paste’ planning and it was for the sake of document for the district.

To conclude, of the eight national standard that should have been achieved by the school, the four

important standards the so-called, process standard, content standard, graduate standard and

assessment standard, in this government madrasah junior high school still had to be improved.


Case Study 07: A small private junior high school located in the centre of a sub-district

serving mostly a local farming population

The school located on a small plot of land of about 3000 square metres for both junior and senior

high schools, was built in 1967 by the Indonesian teachers’ association which still controlled it in

the form of seminar or workshop to develop staff’s competence, not the fund for the school itself,

according to the principal. It was near to a T-junction which was at the heart of the sub-district, so

it was ‘crowded’ in terms of daily activities – it was very near to the sub-district office and a

medium sized traditional market, always crowded from early morning to late afternoon. When the

researcher arrived early in the morning, the sellers were parading their wares right to the very edge

of the street. Transportation to the school was thus relatively easy for the students.

There were, in total, 130 students in six classes, each having about 22 students on average. This

school was located very close to a government junior high school (just nominated as a pilot school

international standard), an Islamic sponsored private junior high school, and two other government

schools some distance away. The district education office and the local community supported

education as well as having a strong commitment to Islam, according to the principal.

The students were from families with low educational and economic status. Most parents were

farmers (75 %), together with casual workers (10 %), small merchants (10 %) and entrepreneurs (5

%). To get to the school, the students mostly passed by dryland, rainfed rice plots and herb and

vegetable farms at the side of the street.

This school had a small mosque (musholla) in its school yard which was used for both junior and

senior high school students for morning prayer (sholat dhuha) and afternoon prayer (sholat

dhuhur). The school building was not in good condition, outdated and unrenovated despite its age

and damage caused by the 2006 earthquake. The furniture in the teachers’ room and the principal’s

office was very sparse and not in good condition with broken and dusty chairs, tables and

cupboards. Several months previously, thieves during the night had stolen the only five computers

owned by this very poor school – only two had been replaced.

When the researcher first arrived to ask the school principal for permission to do the research, it

was late afternoon and only a few students remained, close to the school gate right on the main

street. She asked some teachers who were talking together. They responded, “the principal of the

junior or senior high school?”. Eventually, the principal came up and the researcher introduced

herself. He was very welcoming and kind. He was a graduate with a bachelor’s degree in English

language education from a private Yogyakarta university. Previously he had been an English

teacher at the school since 1983, becoming the principal in 2003. He did not reveal that he also had


a master’s degree in educational management – this reluctance perhaps indicated his ambivalent

success as a principal. He had never taught in other schools. Yet, the principal was very concerned

about the school’s development. It could be seen from his initiative, for instance, in asking alumni

who were successful in their careers to motivate students and inviting motivation training experts

for all staff, teachers, parents as well as students when the national examinations were about to

commence.


The KTSP curriculum was first implemented in 2009. Since then, every year, at the beginning of

each academic calendar, in July, the school had conducted workshops regarding the curriculum

such as the structure and the target of the curriculum, according to the principal. After the

workshop among teachers, the district supervisor and parents representative were invited to

rubberstamp before the head of the district signed off the documents.

With a total of 23, mostly part-time teachers, this school was struggling to maintain the students’

academic performance. In fact, the students’ average score for English in the academic year

2010/2011 was a very low 4.08, Indonesian (6.32) and mathematics (5.16). The English and

mathematics grades were far under the government-stipulated minimum of 5.5. The principal said,

“The national examination grade depends on teachers’ knowledge of English and teaching

methodology, infrastructure, students’ motivation as well as parents’ support”. The school

curriculum document stated that some of the weaknesses faced by the school were limited space

and lack of laboratories, and lack of parental participation due to low family income, teachers’ part-

time status as well as their very distant accommodation.

The school data showed the 23 teachers were living mostly in the city, an hour’s motor cycle ride

with sharp turnings on a busy main road. Only the principal had a master’s degree in management,

74 per cent had a bachelor degree while just over a fifth (21 per cent) had a diploma or were senior

high school graduates.

Regarding English language teaching, there were four teachers teaching six classes. This seemed to

indicate the teachers teaching English in this school were not full time. Three were female teachers,

two with a bachelor degree in English language education and one was still undertaking her

bachelor degree. The teachers seemed to have completed their compulsory workload minimum in

class of 24 teaching hours (Indonesian Constitution No. 14/2005, Government Regulation No.

74/2008 and Ministry of National Education Rules No 39/2009) except that the junior teacher had

no limit workload. English was taught 6 hours per week per class which is only 40 minutes in the


government perspective. So, English took 36 hours of class time in this two-stream school. The

following table shows the English teachers’ workload:



Minimum Hour

Realization Reason

1. Teacher A 12 6 A Principal (Indonesian

Constitution No. 14/2005)

2. Teacher B 24 12 Part-time teacher

3. Teacher C 24 12 Junior teacher (a college student)


English was taught for six hours with forty minutes of actual teaching time per hour, so the total

time for English language learning in the classroom was 240 minutes per week. It represented 14

per cent of the total weekly class time of 44 hours. The curriculum document of this school

stipulated 6 hours for four subjects – English, mathematics, natural science and Bahasa Indonesia,

while three hours were devoted to Religion. Other subjects such as sport, civics education, art and

culture, and information technology took two hours each on average. The local content was

Javanese language with two hours teaching and 1 hour was devoted to the school foundation

subject focussed on the Indonesian teachers’ association. As well, students’ self development

subject was given to one hour of teaching after normal school hours. To try and gain good English

levels for the national examination, the school had agreed to have extra classes for year nine after

school time. The funds for this were taken from the operational fund given by the government.

According to the curriculum document, the school had clearly stipulated the minimum requirement

grade for the students was 65 for English, mathematics, Bahasa Indonesia, science, and civics

education; while other subjects – religion, art and culture and sports - were 75. Each year in

evaluating the curriculum, these grades could possibly be increased or at least be similar to that of

the previous year.

With regard to students’ motivation in learning English. The reasons they gave as to why they learn

English varied. Among their comments were:

I like to learn English

I love English

It is for the national examination and it is completely difficult

English is difficult

When the researcher asked about the policy of the principal’s role regarding curriculum

implementation, the principal responded,


“Firstly, I need to motivate students as well as teachers to keep them motivated in learning in this

school with very limited facilities. I sometimes motivate them by inviting achievement motivation

training from a private institution, particularly at the time of the examinations. Secondly, for the

subjects for national examination the government stipulates four hours, but this school has six hours.

Thirdly, the minimum grade has been changed annually though it is still difficult to reach as the

government stipulates, 7.5.”

He further added that the issue in this school was about teachers’ skill and knowledge in teaching,

infrastructure such as media and learning resources, and students’ motivation which he admitted

was not good. Based on the student survey, 60 per cent of students put English as their favourite

subject but 95 per cent said that English was not part of their future neither for further study or

needed for any future livelihood. Regarding parental support 85 per cent of students stated their

parents did not give sufficient support to learn English. Forty five per cent of students learnt

English with computers at school and 80 per cent with textbooks borrowed from library; 95 per

cent of students liked teachers speaking in English in class. In addition, the survey showed that the

preference list of subjects that the students liked was mathematics, natural science and Bahasa

Indonesia with English in last place.

Based on the teachers’ survey, non English teachers put Bahasa Indonesia as the most important,

followed by mathematics, English and natural science. Regarding the teaching of English in this

school, 88 per cent of teachers agreed English was taught by good staff, sufficient facilities were

provided even though there were no laboratories and English was liked by the majority of students.


The English teachers that were about to be observed were appointed by the principal. He said, “The

English language teachers here are mostly young female teachers and they are really good in

teaching English even though one of them is in the twelfth semester in her college course”. The

reality would prove to be otherwise.

The first observation class was of a senior teacher who had started her career in 2004 after finishing

her bachelor’s degree. She firstly taught English in primary school, and then applied to teach in

junior and senior high school as well as vocational schools. So she had taught in four schools, from

primary up to senior high school level in different areas.

The observation commenced in the first period, 07.00 a.m. Some of the students had come and

talked in front of the school. Some teachers came, and the principal as well. He told the researcher

that the senior English teacher’s child was sick. After waiting 30 minutes in the principal’s room,

the English teacher then came. She directly asked the researcher to come to the class together with


her. In class, she asked two male students to find a chair for the researcher. This medium sized

class was quite dark and consisted of a blackboard and untreated and outdated chairs and tables.

The teacher started teaching, saying “Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh”, followed

then by a greeting and asking students to pray. She asked one of the students to lead the prayer. A

female student said in English, “Pray begins” - after 10 seconds she said, “Finish”. The teacher

then asked for students’ homework and students responded that there was no homework.

The teacher said, “Can you help me to close the door, please, Dimas?”. She then said in English,

“Let’s we continue the material and review it”. The teacher sometimes mispronounced the English

(such as kemon to say come on) and made grammar mistakes in her classroom language as well as

her writing, such as ‘let’s me help you: mari/ijinkan’. But she kept trying to speak in English. She

wrote a dialogue on the blackboard and asked students to understand it:

Father: “Susi come here, please”

Susi: “What can I do for you dad?”

Father: “Can you help me pass a glass of coffee here?”

Susi : “Sure, dad, here it is. What else, dad?”

Father: “Take me the newpaper too”

Susi: “All right”

Father: “Thanks girl”

Susi: “You’re welcome”

While the teacher was writing, the students copied on their books. The teacher stopped writing and

asked students not to write and to repeat the dialogue after her. She read line by line and the

students repeated, and she sometimes deliberately pronounced some words several times. She then

translated the new lexical items and the sentences as well. She finally asked students to read in

pairs and she directly corrected students’ pronunciation and asked them to write in their book. The

class was quiet. It seemed to indicate students’ motivation was good. It was seen from the students’

involvement and responses. The teacher could conduct the class well with her clear voice. While

students copied the dialogue, the teacher encouraged them to write the dialogue and new

vocabulary items tidily.

She eventually wrote a conclusion about expressions of ‘command’ and ‘offering for help’ as well

as the response and gave students particular situations as the task, written on the blackboard. She

explained what the situation meant and asked students to perform one of the dialogues as a role

play. The following are two situations written by the teacher on the blackboard precisely as

follows:


1. You look an old lady bring a heavy basket full with vegetables in the street and you want to help her

bring the basket. What should you say to her?

2. Anto moves the table by himself. You want to help her to finish his job. What will you say to him.

She always translated both situations into spoken and written Indonesian, such as

lady=woman=wanita, heavy=berat, want=ingin, say=katakan, move=menggeser. When she had

finished writing, the bell rang and she simply stopped.

Based on the observation, it could be concluded that the teacher dominated the teaching and

learning and talked too much; however, she was able to engage students by questioning them, and

students responded when they were asked. The class was not noisy. Most of students paid good

attention. However, to understand the dialogue, the teacher tended to translate into Bahasa

Indonesia and she could finish explaining one basic competence within fifty minutes (30 minutes

were wasted in the 80 minute class). There was no elicitation or prompts created by the teacher to

make students understand the dialogue.

In terms of in-service training, this teacher said that she actively participated in any in-service

training conducted by the district panel of subject teachers, twice in a month. However, in 2008,

such activities were replaced by workshops that rarely happened. Since then, she had never

participated in any kind of training. The last in-service training she attended was conducted in this

school about the assessment for the four subjects in the national examination. The in-service

training that the teacher explained was not conducted under the auspices of the foundation, as the

principal proudly mentioned at the beginning that the foundation still contributed to teachers’

competences development.

Regarding curriculum, she had an inadequate knowledge about the competency based curriculum.

She said, “I don’t understand about competency based curriculum. What I know is the KTSP

curriculum which depended on students’ characteristics and school condition”. Furthermore, this

senior teacher remarked that she had ‘a copy paste’ of syllabus and lesson plan from the district

panel teacher. She did not ‘adjust’ to the school and the students’ context. Whether she was

teaching in either government or private schools, all the document, syllabus and lesson plans were

similar. She further added that the difference was on the ‘technique’, but she could not explain

what it meant. It indicated that what she did was different from what she had in her mind. Another

further note was that the teacher remarked she had problems on the best way to teach vocabulary

items, teaching methodology, and students’ motivation in memorizing the lexical items.

The second observation was with a junior teacher undertaking a bachelor’s degree in English

language education and she had started teaching English in this school in 2010. The teacher and the


researcher came into the class. This Year Eight class with 19 students in total was located in a

classroom at the end of the school, very close to some ricefields. It was dark with no globes in the

sockets and the sound of a machine cutting wood nearby made for a noisy classroom. It seemed the

school was being repaired.

The students greeted the teacher in Bahasa Indonesia and the teacher led the students in prayer

before starting the class. She then checked the roll for absentee students before asking about the

previous lesson. Students responded, “offering and accepting” in English. She asked students to

write their homework of translating English vocabulary items into Indonesian on the blackboard

such as coffee=kopi, cup=cangkir, listening=mendengarkan, cookies=kue kering, eat=makan,

cinema=bioskop, water=air, mostly items that the students should have already known from

previous years. The teacher checked students’ writing. The next activity was to match sentences

from the textbook about offering and accepting/refusing expressions. Some students had not

brought their textbooks, and the teacher asked them to go to the library and borrow the textbook

and a dictionary. The teacher checked the work of students sitting in the front seats and she kept

explaining the task in Bahasa Indonesia. The medium of instruction was always Bahasa Indonesia,

and the students spoke in Javanese. It seemed to imply that the teacher’s proficiency in English was

not sufficient and she failed to create an interesting lesson. It could be seen from students’ lack of

involvement, some were drawing and others talking with friends.

The junior teacher was still undertaking her bachelor’s degree at the state university. Regarding in-

service training like the other teacher, she had once participated at the school in sessions about the

assessment of the four subjects of the national examination. Her lack of participation might be

because of her limited time she had for her study and her teaching commitments. Regarding the

curriculum, her understanding was clearly inadequate. She said,

“The competency based curriculum means students are active and the teacher is facilitator and this

curriculum is from MONE; while the KTSP curriculum has the same meaning in which students are

active, and this curriculum is developed by the school. The development itself is about the teaching

materials and teaching strategy, such as three phase techniques.”

It seemed to indicate she had a very limited knowledge and comprehension about the curriculum

paradigm even though those curricula were being discussed and studied in the university and she

was writing her thesis about English language teaching as well. Furthermore, she remarked that the

problems in this school were the students’ low motivation and the inadequate school facilities.

“The students here do not take English seriously and do not pay attention in its learning”, said the

teacher.


Another problem regarded the syllabus and lesson plan; she remarked that the lesson plan was for

the sake of documents from the district panel subject teacher, and she never wrote lesson plans for

class. “I teach differently from the lesson plans made by the district panel of subject teachers. I

‘develop’ my teaching for class”. This implied she had no clear plan of what to teach. In the last

minute of the interview, this junior teacher broke down and cried; she said, “I’m sorry, I don’t

know what to say, I sometimes cry if it’s difficult to say”. It had taken several minutes for her to

regain composure. Her weeping might be because of the researcher’s question regarding her final

comments about English language teaching. She perhaps was ashamed of her answers and

comment as well as her status as a twelfth semester student.

Based on the observation, the two female teachers were different. The senior was able to encourage

students in the teaching process by trying to speak in English and creating a dialogue by herself,

though in the interview she said she depended much on the textbook, Let’s Talk and the students’

workbook; the junior spoke in Bahasa Indonesia and put attention more on activities from a

different textbook, English in Focus. Both of the teachers agreed that textbooks were badly needed

in their teaching though in the observation, the senior teacher directly created the dialogue and the

tasks by herself. It seemed that she had specially prepared these tasks for the researcher’s

observation. The senior teacher acknowledged, “I usually have English in Focus, students’

workbook and Let’s Talk for the learning resources, though the school has provided only English in

Focus for students”.

Concerning facilities, the school had very limited support. The building itself such as the library,

the classrooms and the teachers’ room was dusty and looked dirty. The rooms were dark because of

a lack of electricity bulbs. There was no laboratory. Two computers were used mostly by the staff

(mostly administration staff); one of them was connected to the internet. This computer was

sometimes used by the junior English teacher to make a test particularly to find a reading text; the

senior one preferred to access the internet from a computer cafe (warung internet – warnet) close to

her house.

Regarding teaching materials, both teachers depended very much on textbooks. The library in this

case lent the students the textbook, English in Focus, though one book was for two students. This

textbook could be downloaded from the Ministry of National Education website; however, these

textbooks were given by the district in book form as hard copy. In addition, the students were

strongly recommended to buy the workbook (Lembar Kerja Siswa) written by local teachers in the

district, which was cheaper than the textbook.


In terms of student assessment, the teachers devised the tests themselves. For the final semester,

however, the tests were from the district principals’ forum. Otherwise, teachers made the test

themselves from books or internet. They needed more reading texts and they sometimes took them

from online access. When they made the tests, they did not match test content with what had been

taught and what the test should be testing. They simply said, “We find a text and create questions

based on the text. We sometimes see first the examples of tests such as tests for national

examination and the district principals’ forum”.

The last point to consider from this case study is the monitoring of teaching and learning. This

responsibility belongs to the district supervisor as well as the principal. Teachers were assessed

‘administratively’ according to the senior teacher. In terms of monitoring, teachers were observed

normally once in six months by a supervisor from the district education office and once from the

principal himself. This happened due to a lack of supervisors in the DEO and such observations for

example were performed by any supervisor, whether English or otherwise. In other words, it could

be an English teacher would be observed by a supervisor with a mathematics background and the

reverse. The feedback was given orally and it was all done in numeric terms. It seemed to indicate

that classroom observation was not a big issue.

Conclusion

While it had a good location, close to the centre of the sub-district as well as to government and

private junior high schools, this school was struggling to survive. With limited space, no

laboratories, and almost totally reliant on part time teachers, and with students lacking motivation,

the existence of the school was being severely compromised as its results in the national

examinations highlighted.

The KTSP curriculum had been implemented since 2009 in this school; however, the revision was

done annually by only some teachers. This impacted on the teachers’ understanding of their own

subject. The teachers then did a ‘copy paste’ of the syllabus and lesson plans for the sake of the

curriculum document. They taught mostly without lesson plans. Due to virtually no preparation and

unsure what and how to teach, the teaching and learning process had become uninteresting. The

students became demotivated. English was merely one of the subjects to be examined in the

national examination. The teachers were unsure about how to write their own lesson plans. It was

due to lack of understanding about the KTSP curriculum, particularly with a new paradigm of

English language teaching. It might result from a lack of participation in in-service training and a

lack of supervision from the district as well as the principal.


Such a situation became worse when the school was not provided with sufficient media and

laboratories. So the learning resources that the teacher and students had was the one textbook given

by the district. The teaching then began from what was in the book rather than looking at the

competency standard and basic competence that was to be achieved by the students. The senior

part-time English teachers including the principal felt unsure about the English language teaching

paradigm. This was unrealistic.

To conclude, of the eight nationals standard that should have been achieved by the school –

standard of competency, standard of content, standard of process, standard of personnel, standard

of facilities, standard of management, standard of funding, and standard of evaluation – most still

had to be very much improved. The district education office should have been giving more

attention to this failing school. The principal was well-meaning but.....


Case Study 08: A small female junior high boarding pesantren located in a medium-sized

town serving an area of farming and small business owners and their employees

This female boarding school was located close to a busy main road connecting a major city to two

districts. This road is used by heavy as well as light traffic because the road connects business

activity from three districts. On both sides of this road, there were a variety of shops and small

restaurants. Located on land measuring 6100 square metres for the two schools (junior

(tsanawiyah) and senior high school (aliyah) with a two-storey building and with a total of 210

including 93 junior high school students, the school was located in a very quiet enclave, far from

the noisy bustle of the main road, and surrounded by private residences. The overwhelming

appearance of the area was of cleanliness and freshness. There was another boarding school for

males under the same pesantren sponsor some distance away as well as two schools located quite

close to this girls’ boarding school, one a government school and the other a private Islamic school.

This boarding school was founded in 1986 and it was one of the schools beginning from

kindergarten up to senior high school level sponsored by an Islamic foundation the so-called

Persaudaraan Djemaah Haji Indonesia Yogyakarta (PDHI Yogyakarta), a charitable organization

founded to deepen people’s faith for those who have already completed their pilgrimage (haji) to

Mecca. It sponsors many monthly or weekly meetings in the form of Qur’anic recitals or

discussions held in various places in the Yogyakarta province. From these kinds of activities, the

generated funds were given for schools, the building of mosques and for hospitals. The members

are from various organization such as Muhammadiyah, Nahdlatul Ulama and so on. This

foundation emphasized Muslim commitment in general.

When the researcher entered the school, lots of championship medals and cups, the customary large

glass cabinet were proudly displayed in the principal’s room. There were posters advertising the

vision, mission and the aims of the school. This school had a medium sized mosque (musholla) in

the school yard used by both junior and senior high school students when they had prayers, from

morning up to late evening (sholat Isya) and when the students had activities such as the Qur’an

recital (pengajian) and public speaking contests, English on Thursday night and Arabic on Sunday

night. For these activities, the students were grouped and they were given a specific topic such as

smoking, global warming and so on. The groups found out any related information about the topic

and consulted the teachers. Each member presented the topic and used one of the languages in

front of teachers and other students.

Concerning parental occupation, the school census showed that parents was mostly farmers (47 %),

entrepreneurs and merchants (29 %), government employees (13 %) and casual workers (11 %).


According to the principal, who was in charge of both schools, many students came from other

provinces because it was a pesantren. This school was quite popular due to its educational system

which was similar to the best boarding school in East Java.

The students lived in this boarding school with some teachers, the so called guru pengasuh (guru

dalam), carer teachers. These 14 teachers – ten females and four males – were responsible for

monitoring students’ daily activity, ensuring the students’ safety, managing life skills activities, and

guiding students’ language performance in which during the first and the second weeks of each

month the students communicated in English while, in the third and the fourth weeks, they used

Arabic. These teachers were helped by some senior high school students, namely ‘managers’, to

keep watch. When the students spoke in another language such as Javanese, these managers would

give out a punishment such as running in the school field, or writing something either in Arabic or

English. The other teachers, the so called guru luar, the external teachers, 24 in total, were

responsible to teach students in class though they did not live at the school as the term, guru luar,

suggests. This boarding school had a six day week with Friday as their day off. The students could

stay one night at home and came back on Friday afternoon, twice in a month. “The students who

are not from Yogya stay at school due to the long trip, limited time, and the financial problem.

Most of the students here are from low income families”, added the principal.

Regarding motivation of students in learning English, their reasons varied. Among their comments

were:

English is for further study

I want to be a flight attendant

English is to look for better job

English is an international language

I want to be an English teacher

Based on the survey data, the students (48 %) said English was their most favourite subject. They

(56 %) learnt English through games on computers, and 85 % from textbooks. The students (89 %)

liked their teachers to speak English inside and outside the class. Concerning the most favourite

subject, they firstly liked mathematics, science, Bahasa Indonesia and English. Based on the results

of the 2011 national examination, Bahasa Indonesia was on average 7.74, mathematics 6.13 and

English 6.92. The senior English teacher said that a small number of students continued their study

abroad such as in Malaysia, Pakistan and Middle East countries after finishing their senior high

school (aliyah).

The survey of the non English teachers seemed to indicate that about 60 per cent stated that bahasa

Indonesia was the most important subject followed by English, mathematics and science. Another


noteworthy result was that they (88 %) agreed that the KTSP curriculum was implemented in this

junior high school. In terms of English language teaching at school, they said that students (39 %)

liked English and it was taught well (34 %), but 50 per cent felt unsure; they stated as well that the

teachers’ competence (27 %) was sufficient and (22 %) insufficient, 51 per cent felt in doubt about

the teacher’s competence. This seemed to indicate that teachers in general had their doubts about

the English teachers’ competence. It might happen due to the educational background of the

English teachers and their professional development. “The problems faced by this school is

teachers’ competence and the school facility”, said the principal who had headed the school since

2008.


Regarding the curriculum, this school strove to combine the two missions of the madrasah and of

the government. These two missions were revealed in the form of the 2011 school based

curriculum when for the first time the school implemented the KTSP (school-based curriculum)

after conducting one seminar and workshop at the school in 2009 regarding this new curriculum.

The principal remarked, “This school had just implemented the 2004 competency based curriculum

in 2006, but in 2008 there was an issue of curriculum change. After having socialised since 2009

by the MORA and MONE, we began the training for teachers in 2010, and the middle of 2011, we

implemented the KTSP curriculum which were derived from madrasah and the government

mission”. It seemed to indicate this school was ‘late’ in understanding and implementing any

curriculum. This might happen due to “ignorance” of the school about the national education

standard. What had to be emphasized was religion due to its character as a Pesantren, as it tried to

have the same pedagogical system as one of the best pesantrens in East Java. The principal added,

“We need to target both missions from the foundation and the government. Because it’s difficult to

accomplish the two targets, the students eventually performed their best in neither; the national

examination, they do not really succeed in and the religion exams were not performed as well as

they might have been. Furthermore, our location is in Yogyakarta; if we just pay attention to

Religion and no attention to the national examination, less students will enroll in this school.”

The KTSP curriculum had been implemented for the first time in this school in the academic year

2011/2012. This Islamic based school stated that the total teaching time was 46 hours with four

classes, covering sixteen hours for religion, including the Arabic language, six hours each for

mathematics, while four hours were devoted to Bahasa Indonesia, English, natural science and

social science. One teaching hour in the government perspective is 40 minutes over one period, or

in other words, nine per cent of the whole forty six hours per week of teaching.


Another noteworthy feature was that the English teaching was divided into grammar,

listening/speaking, reading and writing. So one teacher was responsible for one skill, and just one

skill. This format was totally unique to this school. The following table shows teachers’ workload:


No Teacher Feature Year 9

Year 8 Year 7 Total

Teaching

hour

A B A B

1. A (senior) English √ - - - - 4

2. B (junior) Grammar - √ √ √ √ 4

3. C Reading & Writing - √ √ √ √ 4

4. D Listening & Speaking - √ √ √ √ 4

From the table, it can be seen that teacher A taught only year nine to prepare the students to do the

national examination; while other teachers had responsibility for four hours with one language

feature/skill. This workload showed ‘the uncommon division’ of English language teaching. It

might happen only in this school.

The local content for this school was Javanese, together with special subjects for pesantren: khot

(developing students’ competence in the Islamic arts such as calligraphy with the results sometimes

being sold on pesantren exhibition days), mahfudzot (developing students’ competence in Arabic

such as memorizing Islamic proverbs and wise sayings regarding community life), and mutholaah

(developing students’ competence in Arabic and memorizing vocabulary items e.g. information

technology terms), while students’ self development covered counseling guidance, scouting, tapak

suci (martial sports), qiroah (reading the Qur’an), hadrah (Islamic songs such as shalawat (a

prayer) to Prophet Muhammad), drum band practice and muhadhoroh (public speaking).

Regarding students’ performance in public speaking, the principal and teachers said that it helped

students to communicate in the three languages – Bahasa Indonesia, English and Arabic; however,

students felt nervous and worried when they spoke in English because they said English was

difficult with different pronounciation between the spoken and written production. “What I do not

like from public speaking is to find out as much information as possible and memorize it which is

uneasy to do. We have lots of homework and lots to memorize”, said one of the students. However,

the principal and the teachers said, “The students are much better speaking in Arabic rather than

English both in public speaking and in their daily communication”. It indicated that students spoke

fluently in Arabic because they had memorized the presented material.

Concerning the four subjects to be examined in the national examination, the principal remarked,

“We have no extra classes for the four subjects. Once one of the parents sent a teacher to teach the


extra classes. If it is for all students, it’s not a problem. But we prohibit if it is only for their own

children, anyway, it is hard for the students to have extra classes due to their daily busy schedule,

from early morning up to late night”.

In terms of the number of teachers, there were 26 teachers, including four English teachers. The

English teaching time was four hours per week per class. The noteworthy point from interview and

observation was that the four English teachers taught different skills, such as teacher A taught

students who faced the national examination (year 9), teacher B for grammar, teacher C for

listening and speaking, and teacher D reading and writing. This would indicate that the principal

and the English teachers did not have sufficient information about English teaching paradigm

though they claimed that the school previously implemented the competency based curriculum.

“We implemented the competency based curriculum in 2006, at that time, we still do not

completely understand. Then it is changed to the new curriculum that we have just implemented

now in this school”, added the principal.

Regarding the students’ English performance, the principal said, “I do not know what is happening

in this school. The students here speak English sufficiently, some speak fluently; but the result of

English in the national examination is not good. Most of the students gain sufficient grade for

English, about six on average, though one or two students reach nine”. In fact, the performance of

the students in English in the national examination, certainly in 2011 was quite good.


When the researcher came to this school for the first time, one of the staff asked her to set an

appointment first directly by phone with the principal. She phoned the principal and the meeting

was scheduled the following week. When she first met him, an elderly man with four years’

experience as principal, he was welcoming and answered briefly all the questions. He asked for the

questionnaire for teachers and indicated he would distribute it the following day. He appointed as

well the two teachers, one female junior and one senior male English teachers. The junior one lived

in the school with another one female English teacher and students; while the senior male and his

daughter, another female English teacher, lived close to the school.

The first observation was with the female junior English teacher teaching grade seven. She was

quite young and energetic. She taught grammar to year seven and eight. “Guru asuh does not teach

at class”, in fact, she was one of the guru asuh (staying at school) but she taught as well.


The class observation commenced just before recess time. The teacher and the researcher came

together to the class, and the teacher greeted the students, “Assalamualaikum warahmatullohi

wabarakatuh...”, the students responded, “Waaalaikum salam....”. The teacher then asked students

to read basmalah together to start the lesson. She greeted the students as well as introducing the

researcher in English. The following is the excerpt:

T: “Good morning students, how is life?

Ss: “Everything is under control, how about you?” (in chorus)

T: “I am very well, thank you. Students, are you surprised about her? She wants to

follow study here, never mind?”

Ss: “Never mind”

T: “Ok, see me, see me....”

The teacher first asked about the top scores of the students’ previous English test. She

congratulated them and asked those who had gained bad scores to learn much better. She then

explained about proper nouns by reading her grammar book on her seat. She sometimes wrote

examples of proper nouns on the whiteboard while sitting on her seat. She kept explaining about

proper nouns and common nouns and eventually asked students to do the task from their grammar

textbook – read, write and judge whether the words were proper or common nouns. When the

students did the task, the teacher moved around to check students’ writing. The students sometimes

asked and called the teacher Ustazah. She eventually asked students to come one by one to her

table and she signed it off if their answers were correct. When the bell rang, she asked the students

to continue in their recess time and submit at night. She closed the lesson by checking the student

roll. The English lesson took forty minutes only, beginning with her explanation about nouns and

followed by written activities from the teacher’s grammar book. Based on the interview and

observation data, she preferred to speak in English fluently though the grammar, choice of words

and pronunciation sometimes were inappropriate. She tried to make ‘English speaking a habit’ for

herself and all students even though she sometimes spoke in Bahasa Indonesia with students

outside the class.

This teacher was still young, a graduate of a senior high school and took English class for nine

months in 2007 somewhere in East Java. After having finished the nine month class, she went to

Yogyakarta and immediately began teaching in this school in 2009. She had never been to

university, and she was basically untrained. Her reason not to continue further study was she was

still responsible for her brother’s tuition fee as well as for her family living in her village though

she mentioned that her salary of about Rp 500,000 or AUD $ 50 per month, was all sent to her

family. To keep her living expenses low, she was employed as guru dalam (staying at school) and

ate daily in this boarding school. Another noteworthy point was that the school had offered a

scholarship for her study; however, she said that she did not want to be ‘engaged’ to this school;

she was thinking of establishing an English school in her village.


During her career, she participated in in-service training conducted by the district panel of subject

teachers three times in 2011. Her intention to improve her English was quite good as she was eager

to know what and how to teach English though she was difficult to understand. She said verbatim

in English:

“I am confused first how to teach in a formal school, I ask my senior, to me, teaching English is to

improve students’ English ability and the way I teach is like how my teachers in senior high school,

some years ago, teach me English. I don’t know any methods or strategies of teaching English.”

It seemed to indicate that her understanding about English language teaching, particularly

regarding the curriculum, syllabus and lesson planning, was very insufficient. What she understood

was how to make students speak in English. This might happen because of her limited educational

background and lack of participation in in-service training.

Accordingly, the medium of instruction was mostly in English and the students were quite active in

responding to the teachers’ questions. The teacher spoke English fluently with ‘her own style’. She

said in English “I know my grammar is so broken, like that”. When she explained, she tended to

say, “Do you understand?”. It indicated that her English language competence was inadequate as

well to be a teacher and a model for the students.

Regarding the syllabus and lesson plans, she wrote them by herself. She first asked her senior

teacher about the syllabus and lesson plans. The senior teacher simply gave the example of them,

she then modified them according to her understanding. She copied the format but she created the

competency standard and the basic competence which actually had been stipulated by the

government. It implied that she had insufficient knowledge about the English language teaching

syllabus. She proudly showed her creation of the syllabus and lesson plan to the researcher and

said, “This is the syllabus and lesson plan that I create by myself.”

In terms of English language skills, this teacher said that speaking was the most important skill

followed by listening, reading and writing; and they were taught in an integrated way. Concerning

language features, she further mentioned that vocabulary items were more important than

pronunciation, grammar and the structure of a text; while learning resources mostly used were

textbooks, online references followed by magazine, newspaper and video. In fact, the teachers

depended much on textbooks, according to the students. As a medium instruction in class, she

preferred to speak Bahasa Indonesia and English to anticipate students’ understanding.

The second teacher was a male teacher with 36 years of experience teaching English at a private

Islamic-based junior high school close to his house. His knowledge of English had been gained

from one year of English class after his senior high school. He first became a tourist guide and he


then tried to be an English teacher in junior high school. He then undertook a three year diploma,

not in English or English education, but in the Faculty of Social Politics at a state university in

Yogyakarta.

It was very difficult to make contact and arrange the schedule of interview and observation. It

seemed he was unhappy to be observed by the researcher. He said that he had lots of things to do

besides teaching in this school and had more teaching hours in the private junior high school. After

several times contacting him, he eventually gave his schedule and asked the researcher to come on

Sunday, the first period at 7 o’clock. He was in his sixties and lived close to the school. When he

first met the researcher, he said, “What do you want to know about me? I think it is unnecessary to

see how I teach. What about if I simply signed off any related document regarding your research

and be done with it”. This indicated clearly that he was unhappy to be researched. What he

understood was the research was about his weakness in teaching and it was unnecessary for him to

be observed due to his ‘long experience’ in teaching. At that first meeting, he talked about lots of

things, proudly about his life as well as good and successful career including his role when this

school was first founded in 1986 and up to now he was still the treasurer.

Early Sunday morning, the researcher came to the school. The situation was still quiet, some

students cleaned their classroom, others walked around, a few sat in the mosque and others stayed

in the classroom. Although it was Sunday, the situation was similar to weekdays. The researcher

waited in the guest room and at five minutes to seven, this senior teacher asked her to go to the

classroom together. He taught the ninth grade students where he was supposed to prepare students

to face the national examination. He said, “I usually teach grade nine to make them well prepared

in doing the national examination”. It implied that the aim of teaching English was how to gain a

good score in the national examination, not unreasonable.

The following is the excerpts of the teacher beginning his lesson. He said verbatim:

T: “Assalamualaikum warahmatullohi wabarakatuh”

Ss: “Waalaikum salam warohmatullohi wabarakatuh”

T: “Good morning, students”

Ss: “Good morning”

T: “How are you this morning?”

Ss: “I’m fine, thank you, and you?”

T: “Fine fine fine. This time for us to study, before that, all student present?

Ss: “No, Nining is absent”

T: “Oh, Nining from Bengkulu Utara, right?” OK, this morning we are to special dictation after that

about many sentence, you prepare your dictation book. The sentence is about the culture, are you

ready? OK, number 1.”


The teacher then dictated sentence per sentence; there were ten sentences altogether and they were

unrelated to each other. Sometimes the students interrupted the teacher due to unclear

pronunciation or new vocabulary items. This teacher looked unhappy when the students

interrupted, asking about the unclear words; he simply responded, “Write what you know, that’s

it”. This teacher made a lot of mispronounced words in his dictation, such as six /sɪk/, were /wɛː/,

folktale /fɒktil/, promise /prɒːmaɪs/. He then wrote the answers on the whiteboard and translated

one by one. The students eventually corrected the sentences and counted how many mistakes they

had made. Fifty minutes was spent to translate the ten sentences. Thirty minutes to finish, the

teacher said to the students in Bahasa Indonesia, “Students, I have something to do with bu Yuyun,

so you learn by yourself”. The students responded by smiling. Before leaving the class, the teacher

asked students to do tasks from Sukses Unas (be successful in the national examination). Another

noteworthy feature was that one of the students had two thick books discussing grammar. Those

books are commonly used by undergraduate students.

During the class, the teacher spoke mostly in Bahasa Indonesia. The class seemed noisy; the

students sometimes asked the teacher in Bahasa Indonesia or Javanese. When they asked, they

called ustad to the teacher. Due to the small sized class, the teacher was able to control the class.

When the researcher asked for the lesson plan, the teacher said, “I teach without a lesson plan. I

start with students’ interest to learn”. It indicated that this teacher ignored the importance of

planning in teaching, so the target of the teaching was unclear for each class. In addition, he had no

syllabus and his understanding about the curriculum was very inadequate. This might happen due

to his educational background as well as his lack of participation in in-service training. He

acknowledged that he had actively participated in in-service training when he was ‘young’ and the

training sessions were conducted by the district panel of subject teachers under MONE and

MORA. “Now is the time for young teachers to participate in such training, I don’t get a chance to

go”. This implied that the teacher participated in such activities because the school sent him;

otherwise, he tended to be ‘satisfied’ with his knowledge and thought it unnecessary to improve his

teaching professionalism. He further remarked, “I know my pronunciation is not really good, but

the most important thing in teaching English is to motivate students to learn English and to teach

them as many new lexical items as possible because if they know the vocabulary items, it means

it’s easier for them to learn English”.

When the researcher asked about the syllabus and lesson plan, he said, “I don’t have the syllabus

with me, and I have never used lesson planning in my teaching. I have a printed file of lesson plans

that I got from the district panel of subject teacher; and I keep it at home. You can take the folio if

you want”. The statement inferred that this senior teacher did not pay attention to the importance of

planning to achieve the standard competence stipulated by the government. As well, the learning


experience given to the students would be unclear; thus, for him the textbooks were totally

important. It might be due to his ‘position’ preparing students to pass the national examination. So,

in this case, the students were ‘drilled’ in many kinds of questions.

Regarding the English language teaching, he said, “The four skills are important because language

is as a means of communication, and these skills were taught separately”. In terms of language

features, he believed that vocabulary items and pronunciation should be taught rather than grammar

and the structure of a text; while learning resources mostly used were magazines, newspapers,

videos and textbooks even though based on observation he depended much on the textbook

particularly questions related to the national examination. Concerning the medium of instruction in

class, he mentioned that English teachers spoke in English and sometimes a mixture between

Bahasa Indonesia and English.

Based on the observation and interview data, it seemed that the two teachers rarely attended in-

service training even though this school was under the management of two ministries, the MONE

and the MORA. The principal stated, “When it regards in-service training, the district education

office under MONE provides activities for the teachers including the Principals’ Forum; while

Majelis Pendidikan Dasar (Mapenda – the district education office of the MORA) plays an

important role in teachers’ assessment”. It seemed there might be some misunderstanding regarding

teachers’ professionalism and their assessment due to the different management roles of MONE

and MORA.

Regarding supervision, the principal remarked that the school staff had monthly meetings to

address new information or emerging problems. The complaints from students, teachers and

parents were discussed and solved directly. “I sometimes ‘sack’ teachers when for example the

students complain about the same teaching material”, said the principal. It implied that the principal

‘took for granted’ the selected strategy or method used by the teachers to achieve the standard

competence or it might be simply that the principal himself did not understand the content of the

KTSP curriculum in that school.

“The supervision of teachers here was done by the supervisors of the district under the Ministry of

Religious Affairs, the so called Mapenda. It occured once a month. The supervisors in this case just

moved around and observed from outside the classroom through the window for a very short time.

They had never given any feedback to teachers. The feedback sometimes was given in the

workshop for all teachers; and, “It rarely happened due to the limited number of the supervisors

and sometimes they have different educational backgrounds”, added the principal. By the time the

researcher interviewed the principal, the supervisor observed one of the teachers with an


assessment paper. From its appearance, it seemed the teachers were assessed on a numeric score.

This kind of assessment would be copied and given to the principal as documents. This was

confirmed by the senior and junior teachers saying the same thing.

Another interesting feature was that both English teachers made the tests themselves. It emphasized

the vocabulary items rather than the basic competence stated in the school curriculum document.

This was perhaps because of the teachers’ competence in English language teaching and

assessment. “I find difficulties in assessing students. The school formulates a complicated formula.

To me, I assess the students ‘globally’; if the students have good competence, so they deserve a

good score. I do not use any formula to score the students”, said the senior teacher. It simply

inferred that the teacher had an inadequate capacity to perform student assessment. When the

researcher asked for an example of the tests, the senior teacher asked another teacher who kept all

files of all subjects and put them in a folder. The researcher wanted to copy them and the senior

teacher reminded the researcher to keep it because the teachers sometime ‘took’ the test from that

folder.

In addition, the principal remarked, “I have never observed the teaching and learning in class

formally. I observe them by moving around from room to room observing each class from the

corridor”. It seemed to indicate that class observation to assess teachers’ performance was not a

big issue. If the class was quiet, it was ‘good’.

In terms of facilities, this school had a multimedia laboratory with internet access and one

computer in the teachers’ room connected to the internet. This laboratory was used to find any

kinds of information from the internet regarding their tasks or for public speaking. There were 30

computers in total. However, this facility was used mostly in the Information and Technology

subject. English teachers had never used this laboratory for teaching English or to find online

references. “I only use the tape recorder and cassette in class but it happened a long time ago”, said

the senior English teacher. Regarding the language laboratory, the principal remarked, “The school

area is the students’ language laboratory. They communicate two weeks in English and two weeks

in Arabic. If we had a language laboratory, we would need a laboratory technician to take care of it,

and as I told you, the problem of this school in implementing the KTSP curriculum is the

insufficient competence of school staff including teachers and school facilities. This school

depends much on the funds given by the foundation (PDHI) and parents”.

The junior teacher added that another English teacher who was good with the computer would

teach with his or her laptop and LCD provided by the school. It occurred very rarely and the other


teachers tended to teach with whiteboard and markers. It might be due to the very limited time

teaching (40 minutes) for one teacher, because it took time to set up all the equipment.

Another noteworthy fact was that in the medium-sized hall in the school yard, there was a big flat

television on the wall. This television was turned on only on Thursday night and students watched

together the Indonesian television program. In the classroom, there was only the whiteboard, chair

and table.

Regarding learning resources for the English subject, the library books was provided by the district

education offices both from MONE and MORA. Various English learning resources such as books,

novels, magazines, textbooks, cassettes and the Qur’an with English language translation were

displayed in the library. Generally, the quantity of Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic language learning

resources was greater than for English language.

Conclusion

In this school, the KTSP curriculum was derived from the combination of the two angels,

Madrasah and government. It had just been implemented for the first time in the academic year

2011/2012, though the curriculum socialization (‘sosialisasi’ in Indonesian) and the accompanying

workshops had been conducted since 2010. In fact, school staff, particularly the principal and

teachers, had insufficient understanding of the curriculum. They implemented the school based

curriculum in ‘their own way’. For the sake of the document for the district, they ‘labelled’ their

curriculum as a school based curriculum and that would be signed off by the two ministries in the

district.

In addition, planning had a less important role in class because the teachers depended much on any

kinds of textbooks. This impacted on the teachers’ understanding of their own subject. The teachers

tried to obtain the syllabus and lesson plans from their colleagues. They submitted their syllabus

and lesson plans for the sake of the curriculum document. They had no idea how to write their own

lesson plan. It was due to a lack of understanding about the KTSP curriculum, particularly the new

paradigm of English language teaching. It might happen due to a lack of participation in in-service

training and lack of supervision from the district as well as the principal.

This situation was made worse when the school only provided limited facilities to access

information. The provided learning resources were mostly in the form of printed materials given by

the district. The teaching began from what was in the book rather than considering the competency

standard and basic competence of the students. This perhaps was due to the teachers’ capacity in


understanding the English language teaching paradigm. However, these unconducive factors would

not affect students’ motivation to learn much better.

In brief, the standard of content, standard of process and standard of assessment that had been

stipulated by the government and stated in the school curriculum document was not matched with

the implementation performed by the principal, particularly on content, process and assessment

standards.


Case Study 09: A government junior high school located in a hilly farming area serving

mostly a community of farmers

This junior high school was located in a quiet village at the top of a high hilly area overlooking a

river to the west. This sub-district, at first glance, could be seen as a fertile hilly area full of shady

trees and cool in the rainy season. However, in the hot, dry season, it becomes somewhat arid due

to scarce spring water while the trees lose their leaves. Most of the people here were subsistent

farmers living in poverty with low educational background. This was one of the factors why

previously there were a limited number of schools but this had changed as parents had come to

understand the value of schooling.

This school was first founded in 1975. At that time, the head of the village and its community

strategically thought that they needed a school for elementary school graduates. The provincial

office then established a technical junior high school which had two classes at that time. However;

the community voluntarily built more classrooms and in 1980/1981, there were 12 classes with 387

students in total. In the academic year 1985/1986, the students all passed 100 % for the so-called

Ebtanas (Evaluasi Belajar Tahap Akhir Nasional or National Learning Evaluation). Based on the

website of the Yogyakarta provincial office, there are now four government and one private junior

high schools as well as one senior high school and one vocational school in this sub-district.

The school was in the heart of the sub-district, and close to a small sub-district hospital. The

environment was very quiet away from the centre of the village which was alive with the daily

bustle of the people living in this village. The school street was not busy as it was used only by

personnel working in the village office. People living here were mostly farmers (80.94 %),

government employees (4.20 %), private employees (10.39 %), members of the Indonesian army

(0.25 %) and others (4.22 %) as the parental occupational profile showed. To run their lives, the

people used their own transport such as motorcycles and bicycles due to the scarcity of public

transport. Regarding the teachers’ housing, about half (50 %) lived in the village within the same

sub-district with less than 10 kms to travel from home to the school.

Regarding the number of students in the academic year 2009/2010, there were 384 students in total

with twelve classes altogether. According to the vice principal, this number had decreased

gradually because of a lack of primary graduates; some students in class eight had moved to

another school and there were more schools being provided in this sub-district.

When the researcher first came to the school, the overwhelming appearance was of freshness with a

variety of plants giving shade. Inside the gate, there was a medium-sized garage full of motorcycles


and bicycles belonging to teachers and students. With 13,250 square metres, this school was large

and tidy with a big open field for students for sports activities and the flag ceremony. In the

afternoon, the sun shone brightly, and the weather had become hot; however, it also had become

windy with the shady trees providing welcome respite.

The researcher at that time met the principal, a medium-aged male, who was about to leave for a

workshop in another province. After the researcher introduced herself, the principal appointed two

female teachers from a possible three to be observed and the new reluctant vice principal regarding

the school curriculum though the interview was in fact done with the previous vice principal. The

twenty questionnaires were handed to the senior female English teacher to be distributed – and

twenty responses were received.

Based on the survey, most of the non English teachers (67 %) said that a teacher with an

international qualification should be teaching at this junior high school and 100 % agreed that

English learning resources should be provided at the school; all teachers should be actively

participating in the development of information technology and the school needed a relationship

with a school or with students from English speaking countries. Regarding English language and

teaching, the teachers said that English was the favourite subject followed by science, Bahasa

Indonesia, and mathematics and it was supported with sufficient equipment, including internet

access in the multimedia laboratory. In the students’ perspective, English was the most important

subject followed by mathematics, science and Bahasa Indonesia.

Concerning students’ motivation in learning English, based on the survey, almost all (90 %)

students said that they needed English for further education and for the future. According to the

students, parents supported them in learning English though it contrasted with the school staff

statement saying that parents gave little support to the school due to their economic background

and low education profile. The teachers said, “Parents here have low education background. They

give all the responsibilities to the school and they do not even want to give any contribution at all”.

The teachers further said that some parents even thought that they got some money in the form of

school operational fund. In learning English, students (76 %) learnt it with the textbooks borrowed

from the school, and only a limited number of students had a computer at home. One of the

students said, “I want the school to have a multimedia laboratory in which we can learn from online

access because we don’t have a computer at home”. In fact, the English teachers used textbook and

whiteboard and sometimes pictures in teaching classes and very rarely used in the multimedia

laboratory. Their reason was that such a laboratory with the computers and internet access would

be used for the information and technology class which took only two hours of teaching in each


week. Another reason given by both English teachers was that preparing material for teaching

using electronic tools took up too much time, so it was very inefficient.

Based on the focus group discussion, the students showed good motivation in learning English.

Their reasons varied, such as:

I want to go abroad

I want to speak with foreigners

I want to be a flight attendant

I want to be a tourist guide

I want to go to further study

I want to have a good job and a better life

Some students said, “We love to learn English but it is complicated particularly in spoken

utterance. We cannot understand when the teacher speaks in English, so the teacher mostly speaks

in Bahasa Indonesia”. It seemed to indicate that their motivation was good but the English teacher

and the facilities at school did not support them in learning. One of the students said, “The teacher

always asks us to translate the reading text”. It seemed to indicate that the class was focused more

on ‘translation’ rather than English communicative competence as stipulated by the government.


Basically the KTSP curriculum was implemented first in 2006. At that time the school combined

the 2004 competency based curriculum and the 2006 KTSP curriculum but without much

knowledge. In the academic year 2008/2009, the first workshop was held on syllabus and lesson

plans with the district supervisor as the presenter, attended by all school staff, and school

committee representatives, according to the vice principal.

When the school invited the parents to school regarding the curriculum evaluation that occured at

the end of the academic year, only the head of the school committee (parents representative) came

and shared nothing and put all responsibility onto the school. It indicated that their coming to

school was simply to rubberstamp the curriculum. “We sometimes invite parents when there was a

meeting regarding extra classes for year nine students of the four subjects examined in the national

examination, though again, they do not make any contribution such as funds etc. What the parents

want is to send the children to school for free”, added the vice principal and the English teachers.

Another noteworthy feature was that the KTSP curriculum was revised annually but the content

was always similar to the previous years. This could be seen when the researcher asked for the

2010/2011 curriculum, and the vice principal gave the 2008/2009 curriculum and said that there

had not been much change to the 2010/2011 KTSP curriculum. “The change is to the syllabus and


lesson plan, that is moral values and character building”. She further remarked that the revision was

particularly focused on the teaching hours, the minimum grade and the academic calendar. The

change to the teaching hours, for example, was that mathematics, natural science and English were

raised to six hours from four hours as stipulated by the government; while Bahasa Indonesia had

five teaching hours and four hours for social science. Other subjects such as religion, sport, civics

education, art and culture, information technology took two hours per week on average. The local

content taught was Javanese language, domestic science and particularly carving. Besides these

compulsory subjects, the school offered extra curricular activities such as scouting, sports and

traditional dancing. According to the teachers the school always gained many medals for traditional

dancing in any regional competition.

In addition, the district supervisor in a separate interview had remarked that most schools in the

district developed their school based curriculum by ‘adaptation’. “In fact, most schools adapt the

curriculum given by the BSNP. They just ‘change’ a little bit on, for example, the local content, life

skills, and particularly character building as stated explicitly in the syllabus and lesson plan”.

Regarding the English syllabus, this supervisor clearly mentioned that there was no difference

between the 2004 and 2006 curricula. This episode signified that the curricula including the

syllabus were similar to the example given by the BSNP. It simply inferred that the school based

curriculum document developed by the schools in this district was a ‘copy paste’ curriculum.

The second change regarded the minimum grade for all subjects according to the vice principal and

the English teachers. The following table shows the minimum grades for the academic year

2008/2009 which was determined by the teachers and the principal agreed on such grades.

Table 9.1: Minimum Grades of the Four Subjects in the Academic Year 2008/2009

No Subject Year

VII VIII IX

1. Bahasa Indonesia 70 70 70

2. English Language 66 67 68

3. Mathematic 63 64 65

4. Natural Science 65 66 70

The above table shows that the grades were still under 75, the minimum score which the

government had stipulated. This grade needed to be improved annually, but it just stayed the same

and was similar to previous years.

Another noteworthy aspect was that the syllabus and lesson plan attached to the curriculum

document was improved by adding details about character building values embedded in the

teaching. However, this character aspect was developed together with the panel of subject teachers.


It seemed to indicate that the teachers were unable to develop their syllabus to accord with the

students’ characteristics. This argument was acknowledged by the teachers saying,

“We submit the syllabus and lesson plan made together in the workshop of the district panel of subject

teacher. That is all for the sake of documents; and, it’s different from what is happening in class. The

English syllabus, for us, is very general as well as confusing, there is no limitation such as the theme

of each text.”

This implied that the teachers’ capacity in developing a syllabus with a lesson plan was

insufficient. They much preferred the syllabus devised by the district panel of subject teachers. This

might be due to their lack of competence, limited time or their laziness, according to the senior

teacher.

Based on the curriculum document, English with six hours per class per week was given 14 per

cent of the 42 total teaching hours per week. Accordingly, for all four subjects examined in the

national examination, the school provided an extra class conducted after school hours even though

in fact the reality was few students came to the extra class, according to the English teachers. This

activity was funded out of the school operational fund and it was supposed to be compulsory for all

grade nine students. The extra effort had been made by the school but the students’ grades in the

national examination were still low. “We have given extra classes to face the examination, but the

results showed an insignificant increase; and we do not know why it happens so”, said the teacher.

Regarding the number of teachers, there were 31 teachers altogether including three English

teachers teaching the 72 hours per week in this four-stream school, which is only 40 minutes in the

government perspective. The following table shows the English teachers’ workload.



Hour

Realization Reason




From the table, it can be seen that all English teachers reached their minimum teaching load in

class, 24 hours per week as stipulated in the Government Regulation No. 74/2008 and MONE No.

39/2009.



The first observation commenced after the recess time in a class seven with 29 students in total.

The researcher and the teacher came to the classroom located at the back of the school. From this

class, a beautiful sight of a hill covered with shady trees was clearly seen. The classroom itself

looked dirty including outdated chairs and tables.

The teacher was a senior teacher who had been teaching for thirteen years and had started teaching

in this school in 2005. Coming to the class, she greeted the students in English saying, ”Good

morning students, how are you? The students responded, “I am fine, thank you, and you?”. The

teacher then explained in Bahasa Indonesia about the teaching material for that day. “We talk about

reading aloud of the text that we have discussed such as announcement and shopping list. Now I

want you to repeat after me the words on the whiteboard”.

The teacher wrote some vocabulary items from her shopping list. While she was writing, the

students kept being noisy, speaking to each other in Javanese. Some written words precisely written

on the whiteboard were:

1 kg of eggs, ½ kg of flour, five sachet of shampoo, chillies ¼ kg, potatoes 1 kg

When the teacher finished writing, she said, “Well students, now you repeat after me”. The teacher

read the words - if the students made mistakes in pronunciation, she asked them to again repeat it.

She sometimes asked students at random to read loudly. At last, she asked students to copy the

words onto their books. This episode signified that she taught a short functional text, however, she

did not explain the grammar, such as the noun phrase. The teacher focused more on word

pronunciation rather than how to understand the noun phrase. When the researcher read the lesson

plan she had made, it seemed she had insufficient knowledge on the standard competence and basic

competence. The basic competence was to reveal the meaning of a short functional text; but she

stated that the aim of teaching a shopping list was to ‘mention’ a list of things. This episode

signified that there was not ‘a matching lesson plan’. This senior teacher acknowledged verbatim,

“We do not know whether our lesson plan is good or not because the principal didn’t analyse it. He

just simply signed off”. Further noteworthy was that the syllabus and lesson plan devised by the

district panel of subject teachers was handed to the principal for the sake of the curriculum

document. She said,

“The syllabus and lesson plan is for the curriculum document only which is signed off by the head of

the district. The lesson plans that we ‘have created’ are very simple. We have a ‘customized’ lesson

plan when the supervisor comes to visit, and it should accord with ‘the rules’ such as mentioning

clearly the character building and the three phase techniques stipulated by the government –


Exploration, Elaboration, and Confirmation. To be honest, we are confused about such a three phase

technique.”

This clearly implied that the lesson plans which were handed in accorded with the supervisor’s

request such as stating the three phase teaching techniques stipulated in the process standard

(Exploration, Elaboration, and Confirmation), including character building - the teachers basically

felt in doubt about lesson planning and the technique. Thus, it did not consider the students’

characteristics, interest and the basic competence outlined. A further fact was that the presented

teaching material mostly had been discussed and taught previously.

Basically, the researcher asked the two teachers their lesson plans on that day, but they said that

they wrote the whole lesson plans at the beginning of the new academic calendar, and they were all

devised by the district subject panel teacher. The junior teacher eventually handed a file of lesson

plans of previous years and further said, “That’s all my lesson plan, the change happening this year

in the lesson plan was on character building and moral value that should be clearly written down on

both the syllabus and lesson plan.

The medium of instruction was mostly in Bahasa Indonesia. When the teacher spoke in English,

she automatically translated in Bahasa Indonesia. She remarked,

“I cannot speak English in class because the students do not understand me and if they don’t

understand, their motivation becomes worse. They often say, ...mam...mam...what do you want to say.

Please speak in Javanese or Bahasa Indonesia not English.”

She further said she spoke in Bahasa Indonesia when it was a kind of conclusion such as the

grammar and the structure of a text. It inferred that the teachers’ competence in English speaking

skill was sufficient particularly in scaffolding classroom language. She seemed to use more Bahasa

Indonesia as the medium of instruction. In addition, in this observation she had the same teaching

materials as previously as it is more convenient and provided a more comfortable feeling in class.

Regarding the curriculum paradigm, they had inadequate overall knowledge concerning the current

curriculum. They said,

“The 2004 competency-based curriculum is the teacher as the learning resource; while, in the KTSP

curriculum, the students are active in finding learning resources by reading the textbook or

downloading from internet. The similarity of the two curricula is they talk about daily activity and

accord to the students’ environment”

The second observation was with a female junior teacher who had been teaching in this school

since 2007 and had twelve years of experience teaching English in junior high and vocational

schools in the district. When the researcher came to the class, a year eight with 28 students, the


teacher introduced her to the students. She said verbatim, “I want to introduce her to you. She

wants to look at your study in this class”.

This teacher began the lesson. She said in English,

“OK students, we are going to continue to our lesson now. We began to reading aloud or membaca

nyaring. You should practise your pronunciation by reading aloud in order we know about the mistake

or help you ever to read it in good pronunciation. While your friend read the text, all of you should

give your attention by look at the text, yes..you..Bayu, read the text.”

The teacher spoke slowly and nervously. She paused her spoken utterance and sometimes she

looked at the researcher. She tended to stand up in front of the class, at one of the students’ tables

and mostly nodded her head to look at the text. One of the students read and the others talked each

other in Javanese. It seemed the students did not pay attention to the teacher or to the book as the

teacher asked them to do. The student finished reading and the teacher said, “Well students...you

find the mistakes? Yes, many....such as island /ɪslænd/, general /ɡɛn(ə)r(ə)l/, arrival /aˈrɪvə/ and

diving /diːvɪŋ/. Well...repeat after me...”.

The teacher read the text, some students did not pay attention at all and they did not repeat the

teacher’s reading. In fact, the teacher herself had mispronounced words such as ‘saw’ /saʊ/, and

‘easy’/ˈɛseɪ/. She read very slowly and carefully. She then discussed the meaning of each

vocabulary item in the paragraph. At this stage, she mostly spoke in Bahasa Indonesia. Finally, she

asked students to translate the text and retell it in Bahasa Indonesia. Only students sitting at the

front were responding to the teacher’s instruction. The students at the back kept being noisy and

some drew pictures. The teacher asked the students to answer the three comprehension questions

orally. “Well students, what is the purpose of the text? What is a recount text? What is the generic

structure?”, asked the teacher. In fact, the teacher herself answered all questions. The bell rang and

the students said ‘Yes’.

This observation showed that the teacher failed in creating an interesting class lesson as the

students kept talking themselves. The teacher communicated only to students sitting at the front.

She did not move at all, standing; there was no writing on the whiteboard over the two periods (80

minutes). When the researcher asked her about the aim of her teaching, she responded that it was

about reading aloud. It seemed to indicate she had insufficient knowledge about the basic

competence as well as indicators. She basically taught without a lesson plan. She simply remarked,

“I have the whole lesson plan and it is from the district panel. To be honest, I never develop it

because I don’t use it in my teaching”.


According to her, the syllabus had been devised by the district panel of subject teachers including

the indicators that should be achieved at the end of teaching. “The name is school based curriculum

so the teachers should develop it, and accords to the students’ characteristics”, said the English

teachers. In fact, what was given by the district was copied by teachers. “This might happen due to

our busy time or our laziness”, confirmed the senior teacher. She further acknowledged, “the

syllabus is too general and I find it difficult to understand, that’s why I do not use any syllabus and

lesson plan in teaching. I just read the basic competence, and come to the class with the textbook.

The learning development happened in the teaching process”. It was difficult to comprehend what

she meant by this very last comment, but it seemed to indicate “to go with the flow” of the class

rhythm.

Regarding the aim of teaching English, they unequivocally mentioned it was for the sake of the

national examination. She proudly explained that she taught all skills in an integrated manner,

beginning with listening (to the teacher), reading the text, speaking and writing with less emphasis

on the grammar. But then she asked, “Do we need to teach grammar? I heard that in the 2004

competency-based curriculum, we did not teach grammar. We teach texts and the structure of it”.

This implied that she had an inadequate knowledge of the 2004 and 2006 curriculum.

Both English teachers participated actively in any workshop and seminar at the province and the

district levels. Concerning the media used in the teaching process, they acknowledged that media

had been never used particularly electronic equipment, such as tape, TV and computer. “We don’t

have enough time to prepare media for teaching. If we use for instance a media in class such as the

computer, we spend much time preparing, and it is wasting time”.

Based on the questionnaire, both English teachers acknowledged that reading and writing were

more important than listening and speaking because of the national examination. In terms of

language features, they put pronunciation and the structure of a text followed by the vocabulary

items and grammar, all was taught in an integrated way. They were confused whether or not to

teach grammar in class. Regarding medium of instruction, they mostly mixed Bahasa Indonesia and

English. In Fact, they spoke in English but then directly translated.

Regarding the learning resource, the students had the textbook entitled Let’s Talk and students’

workbook. The teachers however had more textbooks from different publishers as well as grammar

books such as Essential English and English Sentence Structure. This inferred that the teachers

enriched the teaching material from various references, outdated books used by undergarduate

students, written by local, national and international writers.


Concerning students’ assessment, they had their test made by the teachers and the test was monthly

conducted. It was done when they have finished discussing three basic competences according to

the teachers. For the final test particularly to assess the next grade, the district provided the tests. It

was to measure and compare students’ competence among schools in the district.

In terms of teachers’ assessment, the teachers said the district supervisor supervised very rarely due

to their limited number of. “They come here once a semester and randomly observe us. We were

observed by supervisors with no background of English, and as usual we get confused because we

need to write a lesson plan that accords to what they want”, said the English teachers. This implied

that the teachers wrote their own lesson plan once and tried to give the best teaching, and the two

teachers preferred to ‘repeat’ the teaching material by improving the lesson plan for sure.

Conclusion

Although the 2006 curriculum had been implemented since the beginning, this school showed

insignificant improvement, particularly in the process of teaching a class. The teachers’

competence in the curriculum itself was insufficient. It influenced the students’ motivation as well

as the students’ understanding. It could be clearly seen in the low result in the national

examination.

The school provided insufficient facilities for learning resources. In the library, for example, the

English textbook was limited in terms of its variety; while online access which was in the

multimedia laboratory was rarely used particularly by the English teachers. It seemed they were too

‘lazy’ to prepare the equipment to maximize its learning potential.

In addition, the English teachers were quite active in participating in the in-service training

conducted by the district and the province. However, the knowledge that they gained seemed not to

be applied in the classroom.

To conclude, all eight standards stipulated by the government had been realized in document form

though in reality it was different. The standard of content, standard of process and standard of

assessment were very poorly implemented.


Case Study 10: A small-sized Islamic school located in the village serving a community of

farmers

This village school is located close to the central Java province, some distance from a busy main

road connecting two provinces. To arrive at the school, one passed along a village street not in

good condition with paddy fields on both sides leading up to a sizeable hill behind the school.

There was no public transport neither for the people nor for the students travelling to school.

The school with a total of 150 students, has been rated as good (Baik) for its last accreditation in

2008. Each of the six classes had about 25 students on average and was the nearest school on the

hill leading down to the busy main road. There was a small traditional market close to this school

though it was busy only in the early morning. This market met the daily needs for people living

nearby. In addition, the school was the only one private Islamic school in the village. There were

three government schools and two private Islamic school spread across five villages in the sub-

district.

This small-sized Islamic school seemed to be a better alternative for parents and students living at

the top of the hill because it was close to a busy area in the sub-district. Having a ‘good location’,

however, had no impact on the school’s facilities - there was only the science laboratory plus a

lonely computer connected to the internet that was used by the administration staff. There was also

a ‘small mosque’ located within the school and a library with limited references both for teachers

and students.

Regarding the parental occupational profile, there was no clear information from the school census.

The principal with eight years of leadership experienced had been in this school since January 2011

and was unable to detail the occupation profile of the students’ parents. He simply said, ‘We still

have no data about students’ parents, but most of them are subsistent farmers on very low

incomes”. The English teacher remarked, “Parents here are mostly primary school graduates and

work as farmers, then they are followed by small traders or sellers in the traditional market and a

small percentage of government employees working in other districts and housemaids working

some distance from their homes who leave their children to live with their grandparents”. It seemed

to indicate the students enrolled here in general were from a low educational and socio-economic

background. “When for the first time I began leading this school, I soon understood that students

were coming to school without breakfast. Their parents are too busy with daily activities to be able

afford time and money for breakfast”, said the principal sadly.


The English teacher added that the parents gave no attention to motivating the students nor to their

learning. When, for example, the students were absent for a couple of days and the school sent a

warning in the form of a letter, the parents simply do not respond. Finally, when the school asked

parents to come to the school for the last warning, they simply said, “I myself can’t control

him/her”, implying that it is the school’s decision as to whether their schooling is continued or not.

“We need to persuade the students to go to school”, said the teacher. Such episodes signified that

the parents put all the responsibility on the school as they continued their struggle to work so as to

live.

As further evidence of this lack of educational commitment, the principal remarked that it

sometimes happened that the students got married because of sexual harassment - for the parents it

was a common occurrence and would be much preferable for the students to get married soon and

quit school. The students got married after they had finished their junior high school or even

before. “I do not know why some students sometimes have pornographic videos on their mobile

phones, that’s why sexual harassment sometimes happens”, said the teacher. She added, “Parents

have never consulted us about the students’ academic improvement”. It simply indicated that the

parents gave virtually no attention to their children; thus, schooling was not a major issue for

parents, according to the principal and the English teacher.

Another sign of this came from an incident when one of the year seven male students came and

interrupted the interview with the English teacher and said in Javanese, “Teacher, teacher, I want to

see my saved money”. The teacher responded calmly, “OK, but the school saving day is Friday, not

now; come to the class please”. The student then entered the class and kept staring at the teacher

and the researcher. The teacher said, “this student has a mental illness. It can be seen from his way

of speaking and acting. He should be in a school for disabled children”.

Concerning students’ motivation in learning English, their reticent responses were not clearly

articulated, and they tended to keep silent. Their comments were, for example:

English is difficult

I don’t like English

It is for the national examination

The survey data showed that Bahasa Indonesia was the most important subject for the students

followed by science, mathematics and, in last place, English. Similarly, the teacher agreed that

Bahasa Indonesia was the most popular subject, science as the second, mathematics as the third and

English for the last choice.


To meet the principal was not a simple thing, as he lived far from the school and he rarely came to

school due to his busy agenda. He was an elderly man wearing a Kopyah/peci (Muslim prayer head

covering). At the very beginning of the interview and observation, he was very welcoming and

answered the questions clearly. He had arrived to lead this school just 11 months previously. In his

leadership stints, he often participated in in-service training for principals at district and province

levels. “I participate in workshops for principals’ forum at least twice or three times at the district

level and once in a year in the principals’ Islamic organization at province level, but these activities

occur when there is a ‘project’ regarding school development, such as lesson study etc”, said the

principal. He sometimes explained his view about the education system in Indonesia generally and

particularly at the district level:

“The issues among teachers now in the district is ‘the abrupt transferring of teachers’ and teaching at

primary level. Another one is all the government employed teachers in private schools will be put into

government school. This happens because the head of the district is not from an educational

background; this is all about dirty politics (KKN – Korupsi, Kolusi, Nepotisme).”

All this was referring to his worry about the only English language teacher who was a government

employee and according to him, she was the best English teacher in the school though no

comparison could be made.


The KTSP curriculum was first implemented in 2009 with a very limited knowledge on how to

plan a school based curriculum. In 2011 the school gained a grant from the district to revise it.

Since then, a workshop had been held talking about the curriculum with a supervisor from the

district. The response was good; however, it seemed that both the principal and the staff could not

understand the KTSP curriculum thoroughly enough. The significant evidence was from the

interview data:

“We make the curriculum based on the principles given by the province, district and our organization.

We then ‘socialized’ the school staff and formed a team to devise the curriculum. After it was written,

the rough draft was shared to stakeholders such as school representatives, our organization and the

district supervisor. For us, it is not easy to interpret the principles in revising the curriculum. The

curriculum policy keeps changing and it depends on who is the head of the district who sometimes is

from a non educational background. We are confused on how to respond to such policy.”

Further evidence was from the English language teacher, saying, “The school is strongly

recommended to design the curriculum, as according to its name, school-based curriculum, in fact,

we find difficult to write it. So we write based on the guideliness given by the district. We copy the

example and the change is on the teaching hour. We want six hours for English, but there is only

one English teacher, so, we teach English four hours as stipulated by the central government”. This

signified that the staff could not design the curriculum, so they just copy the guideliness.


Regarding the implementation of the school based curriculum, the principal remarked that the

school had problems such as the teachers’ competency as well as their status. He said:

“Full time teachers find difficulties with more administrative work, for example, there are 35 kinds of

documents for each subject which need to be fulfilled such as writing the syllabus, the lesson plan, the

monthly, weekly, daily programs for each class she/he teaches, including the assessment and the

learning evaluation as well, and this takes a lot of time for the teachers to do such work.”

In terms of the number of teachers, there were in total 24 teachers, mostly casual teachers and only

four full time teachers, including the female English teacher and the principal. These casual

teachers were paid based on their attendance, for example, when she/he taught ten hours per week,

she/he deserved to receive a monthly payment of Rp 240,000. or equal to AUD $ 24. “The salary of

a housemaid is much better than a casual teacher here”, said the school treasurer, alias the English

teacher. In addition, most teachers lived about fifteen kilometres far away on average, riding

motorcycles to come to school.

The school was Islamic based with six classes and 46 teaching hours per week, covering seven

hours for religion, including aqidah, mu’amalah, Al Qur’an and Hadist, akhlak, tarikh, the Arabic

language and the school organization subject. Six hours were for mathematics, five hours were for

natural science and social science; while four hours were devoted to Bahasa Indonesia and English.

One teaching hour in the government perspective is 40 minutes over one period, or in other words,

nine per cent of the whole forty six hours per week of teaching or four hours per week per class.

So, English takes a total of 24 hours in this two-stream school, and this matched with the minimum

requirement for the single teacher to fulfill her 24 teaching hours as stipulated by the government.

Other subjects such as sport, civics education, art and culture, and information technology took two

hours each on average. Another noteworthy feature was that the teacher of the information

technology subject taught ‘the theory’ about computers and the students never understood how to

operate one as the school had no computers for students to learn.

The local content was the Javanese language with two hours teaching and one hour was devoted to

the students’ self development subject after normal school hours. To try and gain good English

levels for the national examination, the school had agreed to have extra classes for year nine after

school hours twice a week for 90 minutes. The funds for this were taken from the operational funds

given by the government.

Regarding English language teaching, the principal remarked that the English teaching hours were

still minimal due to the number of teachers in the school. Added to this, there was no cooperation

with the universities or colleges to send their students doing teaching practice to this school. This


possibly happened because of the far distance of its location and the public transport issue. “I

myself find it difficult teaching alone here, but who wants to teach here a far distance away from

home and no public transport to get. I depart home early morning and arrive back late afternoon

riding a motorcycle travelling 30 kms on all six days”, added the English teacher.

In terms of the national examination, the students had gained an average English score of 5.08,

Bahasa Indonesia 6.9 and mathematics a very poor 4.61 in the previous academic year of

2010/2011. This English grade was categorized as a very low score because the minimum standard

required to pass and become enrolled in a senior high school is stipulated as 5.5 (this score is the

final score based on the national exam (60%) and on the school exam (40%). This low score was

probably heavily influenced by the students’ lack of motivation.


When the researcher came to school for an interview, there was an ‘imunisasi’ (immunization)

session held by the district. All students were treated by a doctor and his assistant in front of the

school, medium-sized space with two tables, still inside the school gate. It took place up to late

afternoon.

The class observation was of the female English teacher wearing a hijab who had started her career

in 1991 straight after her senior high school for teacher training (Sekolah Pendidikan Guru). She

believed that her English knowledge was not sufficient, and she then continued her two year

diploma in English language teaching in 1998 from a Yogyakarta state university. She took further

study, a bachelor’s degree, in English language teaching at a private university in the district of

Central Java, finishing in 2002.

The observation commenced after the recess time. The teacher told the researcher that she taught

two classes of year eight students, ‘The noisy (8 B) and quiet classes (8 A)’. For the sake of this

class observation, she preferred to teach the quiet class. The class was medium sized with

blackboard and chalk as the teaching aids. In class, she asked two male students to find a chair for

the researcher.

The teacher started teaching, saying “Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh”, followed

then by a greeting in English. The teacher then said, “Now we talk about recount text. What is the

purpose of the text?”. It seemed the students did not respond to the teacher’s questioning. They

kept themselves busy and the other class (8 B) disturbed the teaching and learning by making much

noise and peeping through the wall. Some students were standing up to look outside the classroom.


The disturbance was more from the other class rather than this class. There was no teacher for this

other class because their schedule was actually English and the teacher preferred to teach 8 A for

the observation class.

The teacher continued the class by asking students to open their text books that the teacher

distributed at the beginning of the lesson. One book was for one table, two students. She again

explained the recount text at a glance such as the definition and the purpose of recount texts. She

then loudly read the paragraph. After having finished reading, she asked the students the more

difficult words. The students kept silent, no response at all. It seemed to signify that the students

paid attention to other things such as looking out the window and saw students passing by or

standing close to the window. The teacher wrote vocabulary items on the blackboard:

Degue fever a drip = infus

High temperature no

Unfamiliar/different now

Emergency unit keeping in my house clean

The teacher read the text for the second time, and asked students to read aloud in turn, one student

per one paragraph. When one of the students read, others kept busy; they did not pay any attention.

The teacher sometimes shouted saying, ‘Be quiet please’. She eventually read the text and after that

she explained past verbs to students. As the first task, the teacher asked the students to find past

tense verbs and change them into the present tense, such as what she wrote on the blackboard:

felt – feel = merasa

While the students tried to find the verbs, the teacher kept talking explaining past tense verbs and

passive voice. The students had not finished but the teacher asked them to find passive verbs as

well. This episode indicated that the students were confused about the difference between past

tense verbs and passive voice, particularly the third person form of the verbs. This might have

happened because of the linguistic difference between English, Bahasa Indonesia as well as

Javanese (the language frequently used by students).

To check the students’ comprehension, the teacher wrote questions on the blackboard. The

following are the questions written by the teacher on the blackboard precisely as follows:

Who was infected degue fever?

When did she infected degue fever?

What kind of text is it?

Finally, the teacher discussed the answers together with the students and she concluded the topic

herself. The medium of instruction was both English and Bahasa Indonesia. When she spoke in


English, she then translated into Bahasa Indonesia though the students mostly spoke in Javanese

with their friends.

In terms of syllabus and lesson plan, this teacher said openly she had prepared the material well for

the sake of the class observation. She remarked proudly that she was the only accredited teacher in

the school and it was difficult for her to manage her time, developing her teaching professionalism

as well completing her administrative tasks. The teacher said, “I often discuss the syllabus and

other things with my friend, an English teacher in the government school. I copy the teaching

material from her and change a little bit on the documents”. This indicated that the syllabus and

lesson plan were ‘made’ by another teacher. This might be because her lack of understanding of the

syllabus. She further acknowledged that she never participated in in-service training held by the

district or teachers’ association. But she also acknowledged that the school had not received any

invitation letter to participate in any kind of seminar or workshop. “This is because the school was

a private school and too far from the main road, or the district perhaps does not understand that

there is a school here”, said the teacher. However, when the researcher mentioned an invitation to a

workshop conducted by the British Council, free of charge and equipped with various modules as

well as snack and lunch, she did not come. She said, “I was very busy on that day and the

workshop was far from the school”. When the researcher came to interview the teacher, she

remarked, “I will be at the district to attend the meeting regarding the national examination”. In

fact, she again did not participate in it. This indicated that to improve the teaching and learning, she

was ‘reluctant’ to attend. It was perhaps due to her busy time and her pride that she had only

recently finished in-service training for teachers’ certification in 2009 and she gained the certificate

as an accredited professional teacher and thus deserved to get the double salary each month.

The class observation indicated that the teacher had prepared the teaching material previously and

presented it in a reasonable way though the students’ class participation was not good. She taught

the students related grammar and the vocabulary items to achieve students’ reading comprehension.

Though efforts had been done, it seemed difficult for the students to engage in the teaching and

learning. “English is difficult, especially the translation”, said the students. It indicated that in

learning English, students needed to translate every single word to gain comprehension. This might

happen because the teacher spoke mostly in Bahasa Indonesia in the classroom, and students

communicated in Javanese rather than in Bahasa Indonesia both at school and home. The teacher

remarked, “Most parents here are primary school graduates and they live with grandparents. In

teaching English I emphasize more on teaching vocabulary items”.

A further noteworthy point was the teacher believed that reading was the most important skill

followed by writing, speaking and listening and she believed that all skills were taught in an


integrated way. According to the teacher, the reading skill should be focused since the national

examination was about texts. So, the vocabulary items and pronunciation would be emphasized, not

grammar or the structure of the text. Such a view signified that the teacher had insufficient

knowledge regarding English language teaching and the national examination. She further said that

she got ‘pressure’ on how to achieve better results for the national examination; thus, she ignored

other skills. Though she mentioned some learning resources such as magazines, newspapers, and

videos; but the textbook was commonly used by the teacher and students with very limited number

of books. In terms of medium of instruction, this teacher found it difficult to communicate with

students in English. She said, “I speak Bahasa Indonesia in explaining. If it’s in English, the

students will not understand”.

In terms of references, the school had a very limited books regarding English language. The

number of textbooks provided by the district were less than the number of students; so, in learning

English, the teacher distributed one book to two students, and when the class had finished, the

students handed them back to the teacher. When the researcher asked whether the teacher gave

other activities at home, the teacher said, “I give homework to students very rarely and it is not

from the textbooks due to lack of learning resources for students to learn at school or home”. Once

a week, every Monday, there was a ‘library’ from the district and many students borrowed a book,

magazine or novel, all in Bahasa Indonesia.

In addition, the school had only a science laboratory. Regarding computers, there was the one

computer the school had. It was connected to the internet; however, this limited equipment was

used only by the office staff. It was never used by teachers in general.

Concerning teachers’ supervision, the principal rarely conducted any kind of assessment such as

observing in the classroom or through examining their lesson plans; except when teachers prepared

documents for their certification program which were rubberstamped. As well, they were assessed

when ‘promoted’ to higher academic status which happened very rarely. It was simply concluded

that such supervision was done for the sake of the administrative document. In addition, the district

supervisor observed teaching and learning (teachers’ assessment) only once every six months,

perhaps longer. So, their lesson plan and performance were to be observed. “This kind of

supervision is more on administration such as monthly or weekly program, syllabus and lesson

plan. If we have those things, the supervisor is happy”.


Conclusion

The KTSP curriculum was first implemented in 2009, and it had been reviewed in 2011. This

revision was done by a team of five teachers appointed by the principal in relation to the school

accreditation in 2012. With insufficient knowledge about the curriculum, they had a copy paste

style from the guidance given by the National Education Standard Agency (Badan Standar

Nasional Pendidikan), they revised the curriculum and handed in to the district education office to

be signed off at the end of 2011 even though it had been implemented at the beginning of academic

year, July 2011. There was a meeting to which were invited the district supervisor and the parents’

representative to do the rubberstamping.

The principal with eight years experience in another Islamic school had headed this school only

since the beginning of 2011. Under his leadership, probably previous managements, this school had

the only four government teachers including the principal himself and the English language

teacher. He was appreciative of the only English teacher in terms of her position as school treasurer

as well as her English teaching experience. In fact, the class observation would show otherwise.

With limited school facilities, media and learning resources, this school had remained in existence

due to the parents’ wish to send their children to an Islamic school, its ‘strategic’ location and the

much better discipline compared to other private schools which were mostly located at the top of

the hill. Though this school was about four kilometres away from the busy main road, it did not

impact on the education district’s attention.

To conclude, this school was really struggling to reach the eight national standards stipulated by the

government. Though the school was far below these national education standards, the parents still

wanted to send their children to this smallish Islamic school even though the teaching and learning

realities were very different to any expectations the parents might have had.


Case Study 11: A government junior high school located in a medium-sized town serving

mostly casual workers, government and private employees, and small business owners

This national standard school (Sekolah Standar Nasional), with an excellent accreditation (score A)

and having in total 431 students, is located on a busy main road connecting two districts. Crowded

into a total area of 2,950 m2, this two-storey school had 15 classrooms each having about 28

students on average. Its location is closer to a major city and another district rather than to its sub-

district office. Since early morning, bicycles, motorcycles, big and small vehicles had passed along

the main road which was just two metres from this school and generated much noisy bustle. On

school days, the main gate was always closed but not locked due to this main road. It is not difficult

to reach this school because big and small buses pass along this road. A small gate to a crowded

private residence is located precisely at the right side of the school. “This school was previously a

government school in the city. In 1995, it became a government school in the district”, remarked

the English teacher. There are some schools close to this school, such as one government and four

private junior high schools as well as a school for disabled children located on the opposite side of

the road.

When the researcher visited for the first time, she met the acting principal, an elderly lady. She told

the researcher that the principal was in Mecca to do Hajj. She then arranged the time to observe the

two English teachers, a female senior teacher and a male junior teacher as well as distributing the

questionnares to teachers and students. She asked the researcher to meet a teacher who was in

charge of the 2006 curriculum, a medium aged female teacher wearing a hijab.

Regarding parental occupations, it was dominated by casual workers (45 %), private employees (20

%), government employees (15 %), and small entrepreneurs (20 %). This census seemed to indicate

that the economic background of the families could be appropriately categorized as in the medium

and low family income range. “The families’ backgrounds are from the average medium and low

income families, but they support their children’s education, such as they agree to pay for extra

classes for English though the class happens once in a week to all grade seven, eight and nine

students”, said the vice principal. This indicated that parents on such incomes agreed to pay for the

extra classes though it contradicted the government regulation regarding the nine year basic

education system. It was clearly stated that the government gives operational funds to realize the

nine year basic education program and that all schooling up until the end of Year Nine should be

free.

This operational fund seemed to be well managed by the school staff. It could be seen from the

national examination results which were above the minimum standard stipulated by the


government, such as 7.74 for Bahasa Indonesia, 7.28 for mathematics and 6.85 for English in the

academic year 2010/2011, scores higher than those for most of the twelve case study schools.

Regarding the school facilities, this two storey building had sufficient space for students with a

basketball court for all sports in the middle of the school yard and used for sport as well as for the

flag ceremony every Monday morning. There was also a small canteen for students. However,

there were only two laboratories, one science and another computer. This computer laboratory was

connected to the internet but it was not generally used by teachers and students; only the

information technology subject was conducted in this laboratory. “We very rarely use the internet

in the teachers’ room or computer laboratory due to its slow access. Our teaching material is mostly

from the textbook, so it’s not necessary to have internet access”, said the two English teachers.

Based on the survey, the non English teachers (95 %) said that the English language should be

taught at junior high school and 85 per cent agreed with the KTSP curriculum. As well, 85 per cent

agreed that English learning resources should be provided at school, 90 per cent of teachers said

teachers should be actively participating in the development of information technology and the

school needed a relationship with a school or students from English speaking countries. Regarding

the most popular subject, the teachers said that Bahasa Indonesia was number one followed by

English, science, and mathematics, while from the students’ perspective, mathematics was the most

important subject followed by English, science and Bahasa Indonesia.

Concerning students’ motivation in learning English, based on the survey, 90 per cent of students

said that they needed English for further education and for their future lives. According to the

students (79 %), parents supported them in learning English and the students (82 %) learnt English

through textbooks. The students (68 %) liked English teachers who spoke in English in class while

54 % agreed that the teachers needed to speak English at school. In the classroom, the students said

that English teachers mostly used the whiteboard in teaching. The English teachers said that when

preparing material for teaching, using electronic tools required too much time, so it was very

inefficient.


The KTSP curriculum was first implemented in 2006. At that time, the school conducted a

workshop regarding this new curriculum. The workshop was attended by the district supervisor as

well as the quality assurance personnel from the province. The vice principal remarked:

“We had a workshop at the beginning of the school based curriculum implementation. It was

attended by all school staff with presenters from district and provincial levels. That event was


conducted only once due to our lack of budget. We revise the curriculum annually as highly

recommended by the district supervisors though we do not know why. The revision is about the

additional teaching hour for some subjects, such as English which is taught four hours according to

the National Education Standard Agency (Badan Standar Nasional Pendidikan); we add one hour

for year eight and nine students. This additional hour is devoted to the four subjects examined for

the national examination.”

This seemed to indicate that the content of the curriculum was still based on what the National

Education Standard Agency stipulated; in other words, the graduate and content standards were

from the central government, referring to the national education standard system. The very name,

school based curriculum, was a contradiction in terms because of the centralized stipulation and

also with the national examination. The vice principal noted further about the curriculum itself. She

said:

“To me, I don’t understand why it’s called ‘school based curriculum’. If the curriculum is made by

the school, why does the government ask the school to achieve the content standard devised by the

government and why is there a national examination? If it’s a school based curriculum, so the

assessment depends on each school, not the government; in fact, the passing grade is the

combination of the national and school examination with a ratio of sixty per cent for the Ujian

Nasional (national examination) and forty per cent for the school examination (ujian sekolah).”

This implied that the school staff, particularly the vice principal, who dealt with the curriculum was

still confused about government policy regarding the national education system. It seemed they

were not ‘free’ to design their own school curriculum. So, what about the teachers’ understanding

of the curriculum? This became an interesting question to research.

In terms of the number of teachers, there were 38 teachers, including ten male teachers and most of

them were government employees. There were three English teachers, two female and one junior

male teacher. The English teaching time was four hours for Year Seven and five hours for Year

Eight and Nine per week per class. The compulsory workload minimum of each teacher in class

was 24 teaching hours (Indonesian Constitution No 14/2005, Government Rules No 74/2008 and

Ministry of National Education Rules No 39/2009). So, English takes 70 hours in this five-stream

school. The following table shows the English teachers’ work load:



Minimum Hour

Realization Reason



3. Teacher C 24 20 Junior part-time teacher

Accordingly, extra classes in the four subjects – English, mathematics, natural science, and Bahasa

Indonesia - were compulsory for all students and conducted in school hours. This was to prepare

students for the national examination though in general, students gained good scores with the


lowest score for English. “Students here especially grade seven keep thinking that English is

difficult and English is not interesting; so their motivation to learn English is low”, said the junior

English teacher. However, the survey data showed that the students liked mathematics, English,

science and Bahasa Indonesia. Non English teachers agreed that the most popular subject for

students was Bahasa Indonesia, English, science and mathematics. Regarding English teaching, the

non English language teachers said that the English teaching in the school was good even though it

was supported by very limited media. This seemed to imply that they thought English language

teachers in this school had sufficient competence in teaching. In fact, they were not quite right.

Of the four subjects examined in the national examination, mathematics and natural science were

taught for six hours per week, social science for five hours. For Religion, the 2011 school

curriculum mentioned two hours per week. Regarding the local content, this school provided

Javanese and batik painting for two hours, while one hour was for domestic science. So, English

was given 8.2 per cent of the 41 total teaching hours per week. Accordingly, an extra English class

was compulsory for all students conducted after school hours by the teachers. This activity was

funded by parents.

Regarding students’ self-development, scouting and extra classes for four subjects were

compulsory subjects for students to participate in while some programs such as music, reading the

Qur’an, drama, sports and journal writing were offered to develop students’ life skills.

Concerning the curriculum, the English language teachers said that the aim of teaching English was

to gain good scores in the national examination. Both English teachers acknowledged that they had

insufficient knowledge about the competency based curriculum as well as school-based curriculum.

What they understood was that the current curriculum accorded with the characteristics of the

school but they were unable to explain what it was.


The first teacher to be observed was the senior female teacher wearing a hijab. She had started

teaching in the school in 2003. She had gained her bachelor’s degree from a private university

majoring in English language education in 1997 and became a casual teacher in some secondary

schools including in this school in 2003-2006, she then became a full time teacher in 2006.

The class observation commenced an hour before the recess time. The teacher at that time preferred

to have it in a ‘conducive’ class in terms of students’ motivation and competence which was ‘good’

according to the teacher. She came to class saying Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi

wabarakatuh.... Students responded, “Waalaikum salam warahmatullahi wabarakatuh“. Then the


teacher asked one of the students at the back to check and cleaned the table and chair for the

researcher to sit. She then asked about homework or assignment but then she said that they would

discuss it later. She continued teaching to this grade eight with a total of 30 students. The following

is an excerpt of the teacher speaking verbatim in English together with low variety Bahasa

Indonesia:

T: “Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh....”

Ss: “Waalaikum salam warahmatullahi wabarakatuh”.

T: “Good morning students, how are you?”.

Ss: “Fine, thank you, and you?”.

T: “I am very well, thanks. Do you have homework? Yes? We are going to discuss about homework.

Who is absent today? OK this morning, hmm.... first of all I want to make a deal with you. Would

you like if ... how if we have a break later. No? I don’t know? How if we have a break later?

Istirahatnya belakangan, gimana? Wah? Berapa orang yang Yes, sisanya No berarti? OK, It’s OK,

berarti kita istirahat. It’s OK nanti abis istirahat masuk lagi ya? And now keep away your

homework and this morning we are going to discuss about that we have talked last week about short

message and announcement. Have you ever heard about announcement? Tugasnya dimasukan dulu,

sekarang kita masuk ke materi kedua tentang announcement and short message. Gak dong dari tadi

yas yes aja... What do you know about announcement? Have you ever heard an announcement?

Contohnya apa? For example? Yes. Kalau diminta contoh, I don’t know. Apa pengumuman

contohnya Fahrudin, misalnya? Kalau dikampung pengumuman contohnya kayak apa sieh, gotong

royong, kerja bakti, pengajian, berita lelayu, ibu-ibu PKK, ada juga yang ini, kepada teman-teman

yang mengikuti TPA dimohon hadir karena sudah ditunggu kakak-kakak dan teman-temannya. Itu

contoh spoken announcement? What is spoken announcement? Apa itu spoken announcement? I

don’t know lagi, Pengumuman yang dibicarakan atau diucapkan, now we are going to discuss

about announcement. I will write about announcement?”

The class from the beginning was noisy; students kept themselves busy. When the teacher spoke in

English, the students kept silent; but some said, “Yes....No....I don’t know”. The teacher

acknowledged, “It’s difficult for me to speak in English. The students simply respond ‘yes, no, I

don’t know’. They know what I say but it’s difficult for them to respond in English. That’s why I

teach mostly in Bahasa Indonesia”. This implied that the teacher failed to use English as the

medium of instruction and she blamed this more on students’ incapability to respond in English.

When the researcher interviewed the teacher, she tended to use English and her English was quite

good though some mistakes in grammar and pronunciation happened. It seemed to indicate that she

had not made efforts to have the students engage with an English learning environment. She

remarked,

“I want the students to actively communicate in English. The previous principal was from an

English language education, so we had a ‘one day English’ program in which the students should

speak in English when they meet teachers; however, it was not successful. Another, an English

language teacher, was invited to teach teachers English though the response was not really good,

just some participated actively.”

This seemed to indicate that this teacher felt ‘frustated’ in engaging students and other staff in

speaking English; that is why she used mostly Bahasa Indonesia in communication. The teacher

continued the lesson by writing an announcement on the whiteboard precisely as follows:


Monday, April 21 is Kartini Day. To celebrate it, each class must present a couple of boy and girl.

They have to wear and perform traditional customs. Also there will be cooking competition. For

more information, please confirm your class teacher.

She then discussed the meaning of the underlined words and together with the students translated

into Bahasa Indonesia the whole text. After translating, she asked the students to make an

announcement. She prompted in Bahasa Indonesia, “Kepada anggota OSIS, besok ada rapat jam

9”. The teacher asked one of the students to translate it into English in a spoken utterance. The

teacher then wrote on the whiteboard:

To all OSIS member. There will be a meeting at 09.00 a.m tomorrow. Please don’t be late.

Chairman

This teacher again wrote the third example on the whiteboard precisely as follows:

To Yanuar

Yan, are you free this afternoon? If you were, whould you come with me to the mall. We could do

window shopping. How does the sound?

Anis

For the third time, the teacher translated word by word together with the students. She then said in

Bahasa Indonesia, “Jadi...poin-poin apa yang terdapat dalam invitation (what should be included

in an invitation?”. The students kept silent; she again wrote on the whiteboard:

Points included in an invitation, announcement and short message:

1. The title

2. Address

3. Day, date, place/time

4. Who to contact

She eventually asked the students to make a short message, and she wrote:

Make short message to your friend. Tell her (Anis) that you cannot go with her because you join

cooking competition at school.

The teacher moved around to see the students’ writing and she sometimes talked and explained

again the material to some students. After about fifteen minutes, the teacher asked two students to

write their answers on the whiteboard and checked them together with students.

From the observation, it seemed to indicate that the teacher taught English in Bahasa Indonesia.

She claimed that it would be easier for the students to understand. Another noteworthy feature was

that she created the examples written on the whiteboard by herself that had been planned and

written in her lesson plan and given to the researcher the day after the observation. It implied that

she had carefully planned and got self confident in teaching. However, her focus in teaching short

functional texts was more on the structure and the vocabulary items. She did not explain the

grammar or how to arrange the words and become a meaningful text. “I heard that grammar is not


the main emphasis of our English language teaching. Grammar is not important, the most important

part is students’ comprehension”, added the teacher. In fact, in her lesson plan, she assessed the

grammar and the assessment she wrote was taken from Brown (2004) - in the researcher’s

understanding, that would be a kind of copy paste assessment shared by the district panel subject

teachers.

Regarding the curriculum, she had insufficient knowledge of both the 2004 competency based

curriculum and the 2006 school based curriculum. She said,

“I’m completely confused about the term, competence. What I understand and do is the teaching

material accords to students’ life skills, then I teach it, no reference or special books for me

concerning the teaching material, but I ask students to have books with them. I emphasize students’

reading comprehension. On the other hand, I agree with the school based curriculum because the

minimum grade is according to the students’ competence in that school though it is very difficult to

achieve national standard stipulated by the government, that is 7.5 for English. Students here are

mostly from low income families and students’ motivation is not really good, particularly in

learning English.”

She further stated that she taught based on the syllabus devised by the the district panel subject

teachers. She sometimes added more indicators to her lesson plans that she made in cooperation

with English teachers in that school. They discussed their indicators, lesson plans, teaching material

and assessment, particularly when there was a lesson study program in the school level though,

according to the junior teacher, there was an unclear schedule for such discussions among friends.

“To me, the most complicated problem is that the teaching material now is very general and so I

am sometimes confused. I feel much better, for example, when the government gives us a theme or

topic for junior high school level such as in the 1994 curriculum. So we know what is to be

examined in the national examination”, she added. This seemed to imply she felt in doubt about

what to teach. This happened because she started to think what material to teach rather than what

competence or learning experience the students needed to know. This was the basic thing for

teachers to understand. In terms of in-service training provided by the district or English teachers’

association, she actively participated when she was still a casual teacher. Since she had become a

full time teacher, she acknowledged that she had had no time to participate in in-service training.

The second observation was with a junior male teacher. He had gained his bachelor’s degree

majoring in English language education from a private university, similar to the female English

language teacher. He started teaching in the school as a part time teacher in 2009 while the senior

teacher was away on confinement leave. He was energetic and enthusiastic regarding English

language teaching. In fact, his teaching in class was different.


The class commenced after the music class at the end of the school day. When the researcher and

the teacher came to class, nobody was there. The music class was conducted in another room.

About ten minutes later, the students came to the class.

The teacher started teaching, saying, “Assalamualikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh...”, followed

by a greeting in English and he said, “who is absent today? Nobody? Alhamdulillah...well students,

today we will study about map...”. The teacher then stuck two papers of A3 size on the whiteboard,

but they could not be seen clearly. The teacher said, “OK, if it’s unclear, I will use another media”.

He had forgotten to bring his USB and he directly took it from the teachers’ office. He opened the

laptop and tried to connect it with the LCD. It seemed he found difficulty using the equipment. The

students patiently waited for the media to be displayed. He looked stressed because he could not

solve his problem and the students started to make some noise. An information technology teacher

eventually came to help and the teaching material now was on display. It took another ten minutes

for the teacher to prepare the teaching material.

He explained the map (class map) about the students’ seats. “Students, do you know the function of

this map? This is to help you how to tell your seats. To get more understanding, I give the

explanation of the map. Have you heard the words in front of, beside, behind...well, let’s match the

sentence and the map”. The teacher always spoke in Bahasa Indonesia and Javanese in explaining

and giving the examples. When he read a sentence in English, then he directly translated into

Bahasa Indonesia. There were about twenty sentences altogether. “I underlined important words

and now please you find the meaning of the underlined words by yourself. Don’t ask your friend,

but you can use your dictionary if you find difficulties”, said the teacher. He moved around to

check students’ comprehension. He finally discussed the meaning of the underlined words in

Bahasa Indonesia word by word.

To continue his explanation, he showed a different picture about the school map and said, “This is

the map of your school, only the first floor, and I made this up to two o’clock in the morning; and I

do it because of you”. Some students smiled while others showed no reaction. He further explained,

“Now, I want you to describe the rooms according to the picture (map), but, do not worry because

you just answer the questions. I have written down on this small paper and please answer

correctly”. He distributed the papers and asked the students to answer directly on the paper. Some

students looked confused in understanding the questions. The teacher finally explained the map in

Bahasa Indonesia. When the bell rang, the students had not finished but the teacher asked them to

make a map of their own house.


This observation indicated that the teacher always spoke in Bahasa Indonesia and sometimes in

Javanese. The emphasis of his teaching were the vocabulary items, that is, prepositions of place. He

did not explain the grammar or the structure of a descriptive text. When the researcher asked him

about the aim of his teaching, he said, “In the syllabus given by the district panel of subject

teachers, there is a topic about maps. So, I’m teaching about maps”. He had no idea about what and

how to teach descriptive texts. He basically had inadequate knowledge about the aims of teaching

English. He simply said, “Teaching English is to prepare students to do the national examination”.

Regarding the curriculum, even though he was a fresh graduate, he had insufficient knowledge

about English language teaching including communicative competence, curriculum, syllabus and

lesson plans. He said that he always asked his senior teachers and made lesson plans together with

them. In fact, he basically felt unsure what and how to teach. “What I need to do first is to motivate

the students to learn English in a fun way”. However, the term ‘fun’ could not be seen in his

teaching. He always spoke in Bahasa Indonesia with an ‘extra’ preparation. “I prepare the media up

to two o’clock in the morning. This is done for the students, to motivate them”, said the teacher.

But, what he thought would be motivating was not reflected in students’ class participation such as

in answering the questions in written or spoken responses.

According to the senior teacher, this junior teacher helped senior English teachers in terms of

making media particularly when it was related to computer. “He is helpful and diligent. I never

prepare my lesson as good as him”, said the senior teacher. In fact, when the researcher did class

observation, he did prepare the teaching material; but it was the tasks which had been typed by

himself, no powerpoint or interesting colorful pictures for presentation. Concerning the teaching

material on that day, he drew the map/picture on an A3. Nothing was special about his picture.

Another noteworthy feature was that this junior teacher said that the English teachers made yearly,

monthly and weekly planning together in the form of a workshop. However, in practice, they

‘customized’ their planning which accorded with the students’ characteristics of each class. In fact,

this junior teacher, for example, preferred to have one customized lesson plan for all classes at the

same level. This implied that students’ characteristics of each class was not a big issue to consider.

How can the teacher make sure that the lesson would be interesting for all classes? Each student in

each class would be different.

In terms of in-service training, he sometimes participated when the school sent him; otherwise, he

preferred to stay and prepare for his teaching. He said, “Our school is the most diligent one

attending the lesson study program in the district. To him, such seminars or workshops gave a

small return to him as well as to the students. “I feel that a lesson plan that is planned and acted on


by the group of teachers in lesson study, for example, is awkward. Based on my observation so far

the teachers seem not to be free and relaxed because they are dictated by the lesson plan. They are

not creative. I don’t like a lesson plan which is ‘awkward’. I like to develop the strategies which

accord with students’ need and interest in class and I always give them jokes in order not to make

them stressed learning English. For year seven, they are still afraid of learning English because in

their mind English is complicated”, added the teacher. This seemed to indicate his lack of attention

on how to plan a lesson to be interestingly taught by the teacher. To make it worse, he had an

inadequate knowledge of what and how to teach English, and in the school context, there was an

unclear schedule for collegial discussion amongst the English language teachers. But, he had good

self confidence and seemed to keep thinking what he did was correct.

Concerning English language skills, both teachers agreed that listening, speaking and writing were

more important compared to reading; they illustrated how learning process began with listening

and imitating. In fact, data interview showed that reading skill was the emphasis to prepare students

to face the national examination. As well, they believed that the vocabulary item was the most

important feature followed by grammar, pronunciation and the structure of a text. As the medium

of instruction, both teachers agreed that a mixture between Bahasa Indonesia and English would be

fine.

Regarding the media and learning resources, the school provided two laptops and LCDs for

teachers to explain the teaching material as well as English textbooks and dictionaries. The school

provided some dictionaries, English-Indonesia, English in Focus for students; while other

textbooks such as English on Sky, English in Context, students’ workbook or Lembar Kerja Siswa

such as Ratih and Rasio as well as dictionaries were strongly recommended by English teachers.

In terms of supervision, the district in this case ‘took it for granted’. “The supervisors help us revise

the curriculum concerning the ‘language’ neither the content nor the teaching process. The attached

lesson plans are only the samples, not all, and this is for the sake of documents; even when they

observe teachers, their concerns are more on administration or documentation”, said the vice

principal. This seemed to indicate that the school staff preferred to have good documentation rather

than the quality of the teaching and the role of district was to rubberstamp the documents. “We feel

that the lesson study program at school level helps us to understand the strategies applied in class.

In this program, a ‘model teacher’ teaches other teachers under the same subject and students

including the principal. After that the principal gives comments of our strengths and weaknesses in

a forum”, added the vice principal. This seemed to imply that the principal played an important role

in developing teachers’ professionalism; however, the principal should have clearly understood the


best techniques for various subjects, in fact, he/she sometimes understood one subject which was in

accordance with his/her educational background.

Conclusion

The school had been implementing the school based curriculum (KTSP) since 2006 with

insufficient knowledge; however, the curriculum was revised annually as highly recommended by

the district supervisors, though the role of the district in this case was only to rubberstamp the

documents.

English teachers needed to develop their own competence due to a lack of supervision given by the

district supervisors. It might happen because the number of supervisors were insufficient and the

supervisors’ education background mostly was not in line with the teachers they supervised.

The facilities that should be provided by the school such as a language or multimedia laboratory

were still difficult to realize. As well, the school had a lack of printed material for both teachers and

students such as English textbooks, novels, magazines and newspapers. It contradicted the school

location which was supposed to be ‘strategic’ in terms of access from the district as well as the

province.

In summary, this SSN school with an excellent accreditation (score A) might be questionable

because the all eight national education standards were basically still bad particularly on the

content, process and assessment standards that should have been a ‘Sekolah Standar Nasional’.


Case Study 12: A small-sized private school located in the village serving a community of

farmers and casual workers

This one-stream school with a commendable B (good) accreditation was located on the top of a

hill, some distance away from a kings’ burial area, with sharp bends to negotiate when driving

higher and higher. There was limited public transport in this area, and not much to a busy

traditional market which was located down the hill, quite close to the sub-district office and mostly

used by people, not students. The school was far from the noise of the main street. It was

surrounded by forest, clifts, and a small number of private residences; in brief, the whole

environment was characterized by peace and tranquillity, interrupted only by residents passing

along the street on their own bicycles or motorcycles.

To reach this school, the researcher passed along the main street with its sharp turnings and

beautiful hilly scenery with pine forests, paddy fields and crops on both sides of the street as well

as a desolate hill. There was a large sized fruit garden and farms that were commonly used for

family gathering, formal meetings, outbond and other environmental education activities.

The school, founded in 1979, had been the only school in the area, but years later, a government

school very close to this small private school was built; as a result, most parents sent their children

to the government school. When their children could not be enrolled in the government school due

to their low scores in elementary school, they would be enrolled in this school. Now there are a

total of two government, five private junior high schools some distance away and one private

senior vocational school within the perimeters of this junior high school.

The 2006 earthquake had damaged the school. So the teaching and learning after the earthquake

had taken place in the principal’s house which was quite close to the school according to the

principal and the teachers. But then the government gave funds to rebuild the school, including

replacing the furniture.

The principal was in his early seventies and he had been retired from work. He was a graduate of

teacher training at senior high school level (Sekolah Guru Atas or Sekolah Pendidikan Guru) in

1965 and continued his study in 1981 in the Faculty of Education majoring in Philosophy and

Sociology of Education from a private university in Yogyakarta. He was previously an elementary

teacher in 1965; in 1979, he had become the first principal and led the school up to 1992. He

continued his career as the head of education in the sub-district; and, in 2007 he again became the

principal in the school. The principal had written down there were 74 students in the school


whereas the researcher herself, supported by the supporting evidence of two teachers, had counted

only forty eight students (Year Seven 10, Year Eight 15 and Year Nine 23).

When for the first time the researcher arrived at the school, there was a flag ceremony happening at

about 7 o’clock and there were only two teachers; one young male teacher stood up at the back of

the students, and an old male teacher as well as the principal stood at the front. When it was

finished, the researcher met the principal and he directly arranged the time to interview him, and he

appointed the English teachers to be observed as well as to distribute the questionnaires. The first

English teacher was a senior female teacher teaching year eight, and the second was a fresh male

graduate teaching year seven. The teacher for year nine was a full time government teacher

(pegawai negeri) teaching in another school and taught in this school due to reaching the minimum

standard teaching for his certification. Basically, the principal was very proud of the teachers,

particularly the English teachers.

“They are the best teachers here. The junior one has just finished his sarjana but has been teaching

here since 2007. The senior teacher is a sarjana from Jakarta and has just passed her certification

program through a teachers’ in-service training in Yogyakarta, so she is a professional teacher.”

A further noteworthy feature was that the principal accompanied the researcher observing the

junior English teacher. As the first impression, he was kind, welcoming and informative though he

sometimes did not answer the questions straightforward and preferred to say general things about

education rather than comment of his own school. However, when the researcher had finished

collecting the data in this school, he eventually asked for money or a set of computer or books for

students. He thought that the researcher’s coming was for the sake of giving funds to the school; he

had no idea about research. This might have happened because the school’s condition was not

really conducive in terms of facilities. There were in total seven rooms: three classrooms, one

teachers’ room, one small staff room with an outdated and broken-down computer, one ‘dusty and

rarely opened’ library and one ‘dusty and messy’ science laboratory. This science laboratory

seemed not to be used as it was supposed to be - it was commonly used as a prayer room for the

teachers and students though the researcher never observed anyone at pray. The classrooms were in

good condition with ceramics floors compared to other rooms which were dark, dusty with cement

flooring that looked dirty.

Concerning parental occupations, the school census showed that parents was mostly farmers (49

%), casual workers (39 %) and small merchants (12 %), but seemingly based on the guesswork of

the principal. According to the principal and teachers, the parents’ own education background was

mostly elementary school and nothing further. To provide for their families, parents worked hard as

casual workers during the hot and dry season and some had traditional home industry of bamboo

that was sold in the market. Otherwise, they worked their own paddy fields for their family’s food


needs rather than to sell. Due to the hilly area, they depend much on the rain for their farms to

prosper.

Regarding school motivation, most parents gave no attention for their students to learn; they

seemed too busy providing for themselves; this impacted on student motivation to learn. “They

come to school, but they just talk among friends and give no attention in class and sometimes they

prefer to stay at a small shop located in front of the school”, said the principal and the teachers.

This seemed to indicate that the students did indeed lack motivation and might have been

happening because of the school’s condition, the parents’ attitudes and the surrounding farming

environment which seemed to show that they did not need education for their lives. Among their

comments were:

We are bored in this school

Teachers are often absent

No media for learning, such as a computer

My parents support me to learn at school

This seemed to indicate that the students had low motivation because of various factors, family,

environment and the school. In terms of English, they said that they did not like English because it

was difficult and there were limited learning resources such as textbooks. “My parents buy me the

English textbook which is not expensive”, said two students speaking slowly in Javanese. It seemed

to imply that the English teacher depended much on various textbooks and the students’ workbook.

In the rarely opened library, there were limited English textbooks, novels and fables which were

given by the district; however, just a small number of students borrowed these library books and it

happened very rarely. “Students rarely come to the library, that’s why the books seem ‘untouched’

and dust everywhere”, remarked the Bahasa Indonesia teacher who managed the library. There

was, of course, no librarian.

Based on the survey data, only eight teachers of twenty three filled in the questionnaire. One of the

teachers said,

“Teachers here rarely come even on days, for example, of their teaching schedule. They come only

when they have spare time, not according to their schedule. That’s why we have a schedule here but

it is very ‘negotiable’. And when they have finished teaching, they directly go home or do other

things, not in the school.”

The eight teachers agreed that Bahasa Indonesia was the most popular subject followed by English,

science and mathematics; in contrast, the students put mathematics as their most popular subject

followed by science, Bahasa Indonesia and English. They said English was difficult to learn and

they did not need English for their future life. It was clear from the focus group discussion that they

found difficulty communicating in Bahasa Indonesia. They spoke mostly in Javanese.



From the first time the researcher interviewed the principal, it seemed to be difficult for him to talk

about education, particularly the curriculum. It might be due to his age and his understanding of the

current curriculum. “This school implements the KTSP curriculum”, said the principal. However,

when the researcher asked for the document, the principal remarked that the school did not have the

soft copy of the curriculum even on the only computer at school. He said:

“We had the printed copy of the curriculum. The syllabus and lesson plan belong to the teachers, so I

keep the only hard copy of the curriculum. If you want to copy, you give us the money and I’ll copy

it.”

When the researcher eventually obtained the KTSP curriculum from the principal by paying about

AUD $ 20, she read it through thoroughly, and it seemed to indicate that the curriculum might

belong to other schools. It could be easily observed, for example, that (1) the extra curricular

activities which were supposed to be done in the document after school days, Monday to Saturday,

when in fact, nothing happened, (2) the strengths and weaknesses of the school were not clearly

mentioned nor correct, (3) there was no page numbering, (4) there were handwritten notation to

correct the document and (5) the attachments was very simple. As well, there were neither syllabus

nor lesson plans attached. The principal further said:

“The accreditation of the school is B (good); it means all the data and documents are good.

I keep them well.”

However, when he tried to find out the curriculum in the small cupboard in the teachers’ room, he

could not find it. He said, “When will you take the document? Just let me know. I’ll copy it but you

give me money for it”. This implied that he needed the time to find out the curriculum. Another

noteworthy point was that the principal did not clearly mention when the school based curriculum

was first implemented in the school. He simply said that the curriculum change occurred but it

happened very slowly. It was begun at a teachers’ workshop (unclear about the time and place) on

the syllabus and lesson plan and the school then explained to the parents’ representative that the

school had implemented the school based curriculum. Based on the document, the researcher

concluded that the workshop happened at the beginning of 2009 as it was signed off by the district

in July 2009. So, the school based curriculum was first implemented in 2009 with very limited

knowledge. In fact, both the principal and the staff could not understand the KTSP curriculum

thoroughly. The principal remarked:

“We at first used our previous curriculum, and it gradually changed into the school based curriculum.

We do workshops and tell parents about the curriculum. But up to now I’m still confused about it. The

name is the school based curriculum, but, why is the national examination still from the central

government? To me, it seems the central government ‘rips off’ students’ right to go to school because

their further study is judged by the centre, not the school itself. That’s why after the national

examination, teachers come to me to negotiate the scores upwards because we still have 40 % grade to


let the students pass. If it is a school based curriculum, let the school itself conduct and decide whether

or not students pass. The students here are totally different from students in the city such as in Yogya.

Their schools have good facilities, but here, students do not even have breakfast before going to

school.”

This indicated that the principal did not have adequate knowledge about the curriculum as he was

supposed to have. To make it worse, he seemed to ‘ignore’ the teachers’ professionalism; for

instance, when the researcher asked for the syllabus and lesson plan from the English teachers, they

said that in this school, they did not have any. So they taught without a lesson plan, and it was still

fine. The principal seemed not to remind teachers about their attendance nor as well about their

teaching performance in class.

In terms of the number of teachers, there were 23 teachers with three English teachers. Most

teachers were part time, and taught in this school to reach their compulsory workload minimum of

24 teaching hours (Indonesian Constitution No. 14/2005, Government Regulation No. 74/2008 and

MONE Regulation No. 39/2009). There were six casual teachers including the English language

teacher. The English subject takes fifteen hours in this one-stream school. The following table

shows the English teachers’ workload:



Minimum Hour

Realization Reason

1. Teacher A 24 5 Part-time English teacher

2. Teacher B 24 5 Part-time English teacher

3. Teacher C 24 5 Casual English teacher

English was taught for five hours with forty minutes of actual teaching time per hour, so the total

time for English language learning in the classroom was 200 minutes per week. It represented 12

per cent of the total weekly class time of 43 hours. The curriculum document of this school

stipulated 6 hours for three subjects – mathematics, Bahasa Indonesia and social science, while five

hours were devoted to English and four hours for science. Other subjects such as sport, civics

education, art and culture, information technology and the school foundation subject took two

hours each on average. The local content was the Javanese language with two hours teaching and

another two hours was devoted to domestic science. As well, students’ self development subject

was done such as Sholat Dhuha and flag ceremony, with no other extracurricular activities as

written down in the curriculum document. There was no extra class for the four subjects examined

in the national examination. This perhaps happened because of various factors, such as the

teachers’ time availability, the lack of funds as well as the problem of student motivation.

“Teachers here teach when they have time not based on their schedule. So, students should be

ready at any time to study the various subjects”, said one of the teachers.


According to the curriculum document, the school had clearly stipulated the minimum requirement

grade for the students was 60 on average for all subjects, except Religion and sports. In evaluating

the curriculum, these grades seemed to be similar to that of the previous year.


The first class observation commenced with a junior male teacher who just finished his bachelor’s

degree from a private university in Yogyakarta in 2011, but he had been teaching for four years in

this school. The principal was his uncle and this single teacher lived with him, very close to the

school. He had just started to work as well for one of the mobile phone providers in Yogyakarta.

He said he lacked experience in English language teaching; in fact, he had no intention to improve

his knowledge in teaching. It might be due to his pride of having just finished his degree.

When the researcher came to the classroom accompanied by the principal, this teacher had just

begun teaching year seven with ten students in the class. The principal first introduced the

researcher to the teacher in front of the class. “This is our teacher who has just finished his

university”, said the principal proudly. The teacher let the researcher sit at the back. On the

whiteboard, the teacher wrote vocabulary items that just came into his head and asked the students

to find the meaning of the words. The students copied the words on their books and the teacher sat

down on his seat at the front. The students sometimes asked about the unclear spelling and some

talked with friends in Javanese. There was no textbook on students’ tables. After a couple of

minutes, the teacher asked the students voluntarily to write the meaning of the words on the

whiteboard. They then discussed the meaning together. After that the teacher wrote precisely on the

whiteboard:

Samsudin Rofi Indri Rosyid

163 cm 145 cm 169 cm 163 cm

The teacher explained in Bahasa Indonesia the teaching material. He said, “Well students, now we

study about the degree of comparison”. He wrote the examples and directly asked the students to

copy them onto their books. About ten minutes later, the teacher asked the students to translate the

dictated sentences about comparison on their books. He preferred to sit on his seat rather than

moving around to check the students’ writing. He sometimes checked the students’ answers sitting

in front of the class. There was no textbook on the students’ tables. When the students sometimes

found difficulty in the lexical items, they asked him in Javanese, and he first responded in Javanese

and then in Bahasa Indonesia.

The teaching learning process seemed to be passive as well as uninteresting. The teacher tended to

explain the material in front of the class and the medium of instruction was Bahasa Indonesia and


Javanese. It seemed to indicate the teacher had a distinct lack of competence in speaking English

and teaching strategies even though he was a fresh graduate of an English language education from

a private university in Yogyakarta. He remarked,

“My English speaking skill is not good and I have a lack of experience in teaching English”

In fact, he had been teaching in this school for four years and had just finished his degree. It might

happen due to his passive attention in developing his competence in English language teaching as

well as his status as a casual teacher. He had never participated in any kind of in-service training

and he had no idea when and where to go. It seemed to indicate he had no intention to improve his

knowledge. This was perhaps due to his lack of motivation to be a teacher in this school. Regarding

salary, he got Rp 750,000. (AUD $ 75) per three months’ teaching grade seven. This was

insufficient to provide for his life as a ‘student’ previously and now as a casual teacher. This

perhaps impacted on his motivation to look for another job and he had just started working in a

medium-sized mobile phone provider company as an operator being paid considerably more.

Regarding documents for teaching such as syllabus and lesson plans, he said that he never had

them. He acknowledged,

“I don’t have a syllabus, you can ask the senior teacher here. I just have my own lesson plans when I

was still in the university taking ‘micro teaching and teaching practice subjects, and I still use them

in my class now”

This indicated that although he was a young and fresh graduate teacher, he was too ‘lazy’ to create

a lesson plan. It might have been due to various factors, such as his motivation, ‘time management’

and competence in writing lesson plans.

Concerning English language skills, this junior teacher believed that speaking was the most

important skill followed by writing, listening and reading. They were taught separately. It seemed

to indicate that what the teacher taught was not in line with what he thought. The speaking skill

was important, however, he never spoke in English and taught language expressions to the

students. He further mentioned that the vocabulary item was the most important compared to

grammar, pronunciation and structure of a text. In terms of learning resources, he acknowledged

that the textbook was commonly used as well as magazine, newspaper, video and online references;

in fact, according to the students, the teachers always used textbooks in class as the learning

resource, sometimes used pictures as the media, and always used whiteboard in class.

The second observation was with a senior female teacher wearing a hijab with six years’ teaching

experience. She was a Bachelor of English language education graduate from a private university


in Jakarta in 2005. Since then, she moved to Yogyakarta and became a ‘guru tetap yayasan’

(private teacher). She gained her certification representing this school; however, she taught more

teaching hours in a private madrasah under the MONE in the district. This possibly happened

because this school had very limited classes and the distance was quite far with limited public

transport.

The researcher had departed early in the morning for the school since the traffic on the main road

was very busy. She arrived at seven o’clock and was ready to observe the class; in fact, the English

subject was supposed to be held in the first period, 7 o’clock. The researcher waited in the teachers’

room and one of the teachers talked to a female staff in Javanese, “There is no English teacher, so I

will teach the school foundation subject”. The staff responded, “That’s alright, English will be

taught at the last period because the teacher is late”. At that time, the principal added that would be

alright. He said further, “The teaching time here for teachers is very negotiable”. This seemed to

indicate the schedule made by the principal was not fixed. It still depended on teachers’

availability. For students, this would be a problem because they sometimes did not bring the books

for the subjects that the teachers taught.

Eventually, the English teacher came, still late, and directly prepared the lesson in the teachers’

room. “Give me time to prepare the lesson”, said the teacher to the researcher. The teacher kept

busy turning over page by page one of the English textbooks. There were five books; but the

researcher did not see any papers indicating a lesson plan. All were books, not papers. The teacher

together with the researcher came to the classroom, year eight with in total fifteen students. The

students seemed not to have the motivation to learn in the last teaching hour. The class was noisy;

the students talked to each other in Javanese. The teacher ‘shouted’ the Islamic greeting,

‘Assalamualikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh’ and students directly responded in chorus,

‘Waalaikum salam Warahmatullohi Wabarakatuh’. The teacher then greeted them in English and

the students responded as well in English in chorus. The following is the teacher speaking in

English to begin the afternoon class,

T: “Good morning class...”

Ss: “Good morning, teacher”

T: “How are you today?”

Ss: “ Fine, thank you. And you?”

T: “Nice to meet you, fine too. Hm...Have you homework...Punya PR?”

S1: “Punya, bu (we have), tapi (but)....”

The students made a noisy outcry ’protesting’ at the homework, and finally some of them spoke in

Javanese,


Ss: “The library is always closed, mam”

T: “I asked you to go to the library to write a text...OK, now we would like study about story, do you

know story. What’s the meaning of story, Heri...?”

S2: “Toko (shop) mam...”

S3: “Cerita...”

T: “What story have you ever read? OK...Heri, let’s read about papa cloth and mama cloth”

Then the teacher and the students listened to one of the students reading the text, and sometimes the

teacher corrected the students’ pronunciation mistakes. After reading one paragraph, the teacher

said in English, “Have you write number one up to number 10? Now you write”. The teacher wrote

the ten comprehension questions on the whiteboard. It was done because the students had no

textbooks on their tables. The medium of instruction was Bahasa Indonesia while the students

spoke in Javanese. “If I speak in English, they do not understand me and the teaching material, so

it’s useless”, the teacher clarified. She herself was from Jakarta and did not speak Javanese though

she probably understood some of it.

The students copied the questions onto the books and the teacher sat down on her seat. Some

students talked to friends, not about the text. Fifteen minutes later, the teacher discussed the

answers, but it seemed the teacher answered all the questions even though the teacher had

translated the questions as well as lexical items in the text. The students did not respond to what the

teacher said though in fact the answers were in multiple choice. As well, the teacher seemed to ask

a lone male student as he was the only student giving a response. Other students kept silent. From

this observation, it can be noted that the teacher found difficulty to engage students. Student class

participation was very minimal though the teacher always translated and spoke in Bahasa

Indonesia.

The teacher then gave another text from the textbooks borrowed from the library and asked the

students to work in groups. It was still a text followed by a multiple choice task to check the

students’ comprehension. The students wrote the answers on a piece of paper. Only one student

wrote while others did nothing. The teacher did not check students’ writing, she just sat down and

read her textbook. After a couple of minutes, the teacher discussed the answers with the students

and asked them to submit their papers. From this, it can be noted that the teacher gave the answers

and then asked students to submit the answers eventually. The researcher had no idea why the

teacher submitted the paper because it seemed that the teacher did not correct ‘the discussed

answers’.

The teacher asked the students to prepare another paper and wrote a paragraph and questions on the

whiteboard. She said in Bahasa Indonesia, “Well students, now you have a test, do it individually”.

The students did it and they always opened the dictionary to comprehend the text and the questions.


They had borrowed dictionaries from the library. The teacher finally asked the students to submit

the test and gave homework from another textbook. “Heri, please copy these two pages in order not

to write this long text, copy for fifteen students”, the teacher said and gave money. It seemed to

indicate that the teacher was not well prepared to teach though she had been certified as a

professional teacher and gained the double salary per month.

The other classes had finished and their students had gone home; while these year eight students

were still waiting for the homework photocopied by one of the students outside the school, about

three minutes by motorcycle. While waiting, the teacher reminded the students that they would

have a test next week covering various text types, such as narrative, descriptive, recount, procedure

texts, and short functional texts. The students did not respond, they kept talking with their friends

in Javanese. After the homework had been distributed, two students were responsible to put back

the textbooks and dictionaries; and the others went home. This year eight was the last class to go

home. This happened because the teacher came late and the students still waited for their

homework that should be submitted this week, before the final semester test.

When the researcher asked the teacher for her lesson plan regarding the teaching material for the

observed class, she simply answered,

“I never create a lesson plan for this school. I wrote lesson plans by myself and for another school,

madrasah, but I use sometimes lesson plans for the madrasah in this school. If I find difficulties or

problems in writing a syllabus or lesson plans, I ask my friend who I think has a good

understanding. When I teach, I think about the topic and try to find the text from any textbook. My

difficulty in teaching English is the students have no dictionaries, so they always borrow from the

library.”

This episode signified that the teacher did not consider the basic competence that should be

achieved by the students. She focussed more on a topic to get students’ comprehension of the texts.

This indicated that her understanding the aim of teaching English was insufficient. She further

proudly remarked,

“I never participate in any kind of seminar or workshop conducted by the district because there has

been no invitation. Maybe the district has missed this school.”

Regarding her understanding of curricula, she said that the competency based curriculum was

‘learning’ while the school based curriculum was ‘teacher as a facilitator’. Her answers indicated

that she had inadequate knowledge of the two curricula, and she said that the aim of teaching

English to junior high school was to introduce the English language but she could not clarify what

and how to introduce it. This contrasted with her professionalism where she had just finished

participating in PLPG (Pendidikan dan Latihan Profesi Guru) – a 10 day in-service program for

those who did not pass portfolio/documents in the teacher certification program.


In terms of English language skills, she believed that all skills are important except writing, and the

language features which are important are grammar, vocabulary items, pronunciation and the last

the structure of a text. However, she had no idea whether those were to be taught in an integrated

way or by teaching the four skills separately. This signified that she felt unsure about what to teach.

It was clearly seen in the class observation in which she did not know what material and it was

clear she had only prepared five minutes before coming to the class.

Regarding the assessment of teachers, both the principal and the district supervisors never

conducted such supervision. This implied that the teachers’ professionalism was not a big issue.

This might be happening because most teachers were part time and casual teachers. They taught to

reach their teaching requirement for their certification. One of the teachers remarked, “the principal

is kind hearted and helpful. He welcomes any teachers to teach here”. As a result, he fully ‘trusted’

all teachers teaching in this school. In fact, no supervision performed by the principal and

supervisors could impact on students’ grades in the national examination, such as bahasa Indonesia

5.8, English 4.6 and mathematics 4.5.

Conclusion

This potensial (under the national standard) school was experiencing very great difficult to achieve

what a school was supposed to be. It lacked of students, teachers, facilities as well as learning

resources. Its isolated location seemed to result in this school being unobserved by the district.

Thus, this lack of district attention made it very difficult for the school to develop though parents

still sent their children to this school. The sponsoring organization also paid no attention.

To conclude, the eight national standards were still far from being achieved. The principal basically

should reform the whole ‘system’ running in this school with support from the district since the

decentralized system puts responsibilities on the district. Perhaps it would be more sensible to

simply close this school.

Appendix 3: Plain Language Statement Page 439

Appendix 3

Appendix 3: Plain Language Statement Page 440

Appendix 4: Consent Form Page 441

Appendix 4

Appendix 4: Consent Form Page 442

Appendix 5: Permission Letters Page 443

Appendix 5




Documents

Appendix 1 - RMIT Universityresearchbank.rmit.edu.au/view/rmit:160956/Yulia_Appendices.pdf · 3. The KTSP curriculum This question is assessing your opinion about the implementation