The
Application of Bilingual Class in Indonesia should be Re-examined
Introduction
Bilingual became very popular in Indonesia in recent years.
Most Indonesian schools struggling with bilingual education issue. Parents sent
their children to bilingual school with aims that their child will became a
great person in the future. In bilingual schools, all of the references book
use English. Students and teachers should be able to use English as well. Means that every day they will use English in teaching process,
it is good for students because they will practice English every day and became
good-quality students. There are so many advantages in bilingual school but bilingual
school also has disadvantages. Before we go further, what is bilingual
education? Bilingual education is a form of education in which information is
presented to the students in two (or more) languages. Any educational system
that utilizes more than one language is bilingual.
Students are the target of bilingual school and they are the
product of this program. It is the students’ process and product achievement
that becomes the success indicator. Some students think that they are happy and
enthusiasm in bilingual school because they can be more creative in using two
languages and can sharing their knowledge with students in the world. For some students,
they will be frustrated because of they should use more than one language in
their daily activity and translate their lesson into English.
Teacher as the facilitator that has a direct contact with
their students should be mastery English. Teachers must teach their students
using English and change their mind set from teaching using Bahasa only into
teaching using Bahasa and English. In this case, teacher is the key of
bilingual program. If they can deliver their lesson in English to their
students it can be successful program. But for those who can’t deliver their
lesson in English it can be disaster. In some lesson there is difficulty using
English in teaching process. Teacher should be efficient in deliver their
lesson and give instruction or their students will get confused.
If we talk about parents in this program, they will fell proud
because their children are on bilingual school. However, the big consideration
goes back to their children readiness. Their roles are very important, for
instance between the children and the parents should have a transaction
communication at home.
Bilingual school is a good idea for us to increase our
education quality. It can be very good for us if there is readiness from
students, teachers and parents. But it can be disaster if they fails do their
duty in this program. Government should re-examined school that doing this
programs, is their school ready enough or only want to be a popular school.
Why I choose this topic is because there are a lot of
students and teachers that fails doing their duty. Some students don’t
understand their teachers’ explanation and can’t use English in their
communication. Some teachers fail doing their duty because they can’t deliver
their lesson clearly. Government should re-examined bilingual school because
there are many schools that they not ready enough for this program. They choose
this program only want to increase their rate and become popular school.
Bilingual school is a good idea and can be a good way to increase our human
resources if there is good correlation between students, teachers and parents.
Objectives
My essay will provide reasons why Indonesian Government
should re-examined Bilingual school and the advantages and disadvantages of
bilingualism application.
Review
of Related Literature
The Act
of the Indonesian
Republic Number 20
Year 2003 Article
50 Verse 3 advocates that the Indonesian
government and the local government have to establish at least a unit of
education which holds
the international standard
at all levels
of education including elementary school
and secondary school
levels. This implies that every
province of Indonesia including Yogyakarta Special Province has to establish
bilingual class program from elementary school to secondary school level. This
program is primarily aimed at facilitating students to gain global perspectives
and to highly
acquire the target
language (English) as
the international language used
in many different
fields such as
education, information, communication, technology, trade, and
social culture.
The implementation of
the bilingual education
in Indonesia started
in 2004 and
gained its popularity for about 8
years establishing 1300 schools
categorized as international standardized schools in
2012. Since 2011
the bilingual education
program have been
criticized by some parties
which argue that
such a program
has discriminated the poor from
the rich as
those international
standardized schools are
mostly enjoyed by
the rich rather
than the poor.
This means that a great number of students of those schools are from the
rich family. Added to this,the bilingual class students are exclusively treated
in terms of school facilities, academic issues compared to non-bilingual class
students. This drives some opponent parties to take the case into judicial
review of the Act of the Indonesian Republic Number 20 Year 2003 Article 50
Verse 3 about the implementation of the bilingual class program. With
regard to this
issue, the Judicial Court in Indonesian
called MakamahKonstitusi came to the agreement that the bilingual
class program has to
be eradicated on
the grounds that
it violates the
basic laws of
Indonesian Republic Year 1945. In
other words, the bilingual class program has been banned to be carried out
since January 2013. To counter the decision of the Judicial Court, some
headmasters of the bilingual
schools state that
the bilingual class
program is beneficial
for students to
face the global challenges.
With regard
to the above
issue, this paper
attempts to provide
theoretical justification of the
bilingual education program
which has currently
become a controversial
issue in Indonesia.
It primary aims to
review a theoretical
framework of the
bilingual education program
which is believed to be an
effective way to face some challenges of the global lives.
Mostly parents are happy send their kids to bilingual
school, but the rest are anxious about their kids’ language development.
Parents’ anxiety is understandable as studies on bilingualism often produce
mixed results. Some studies have demonstrated positive effects of bilingualism,
but many others have shown just the opposite. J.F. Hammers and M.H.A Blanc
(2000) in their book Bilinguality and Bilingualism have managed to document
numerous studies showing that bilingualism results in a greater ability in
reconstruction perceptual situations and a greater sensitivity to semantic
relations between words, produces superior results on verbal and non-verbal
intelligence, better performance in rule-discovery tasks, and a greater degree
of divergent thinking.
Indonesia is suffering from what Steve Krashen, a renowned
American education specialist, dubs “English Fever” like other countries in
Asia such as China, Japan, and Korean.
Analysis
Bilingualism is good for countries that have already
prepared all the things that regarded to it. Meanwhile Indonesia is not ready
yet for this program. Indonesian government should prepare all of those things
that needed in this program. Such as qualified and competent teacher to teach
using two languages, facilities in school that support this program and also qualified
students.
In my opinion, Indonesia is not ready yet for this program.
For Indonesian teachers are not able to use target language in their teaching
process. They can open the class using target language but in their explanation
they can’t use effective language to their students. The effect of this problem
is students can’t understand what their teacher means and make them more
confuse about the subject.
This program should be re-examined because there are many
schools that don’t have qualified teachers and facilities. If this program isn’t
re-examined students will be victims and the goal of Indonesia country to
educate their citizen is fail. Students will get confuse in their learning
activity. Their score and spirit will go down, they will think that school is
boring. From language point of view, bilingualism is using two or more
languages. If their teacher is not capable using more than one language, they
will do code mixing. If their teacher does a code mixing, students can be
influence and do the same thing. Their communication will be mix between Bahasa
and English.
Parents are anxious about the condition of their children.
What happen with their children in school, why they are not enthusiasm go to
school and their communication with them is a bad (code mixing).
Summary
and Recommendation
Indonesia has problem in their education system. Bilingual
class that has a goal to make Indonesia better can be bad for students. The
problems in bilingual class are; first, the unqualified of teachers. Second,
the facilities can’t fulfill students’ need. Third, government is not ready
enough about this program and the direct action after this program.
When governments apply this program in a school that they
are not ready, it will be a program that consumes much money and the result
isn’t the expectation. Students as the product of this program can be
suffering. They will get confuse in their lesson and their politeness will be
decrease because of using more than one language that they are not mastery in
it.
My recommendation is government should re-examine this
program with more intensive supervision and assessment in a school that will
use this program.
Bibliography
Margana.(2013).
Theoretical Justification of
Bilingual Education Program in Indonesia. Yogyakarta
Rosita.Evaries.
(2010). Bilingual
Education:Problems and Solutions.
Jakarta. The Jakarta Post
Hallet. E.
Eric. (2005). Most Indonesian Schools Struggling with Bilingual Education.
Jakarta. The Jakarta Post
Fadillah.Afi.Sekolah
bilingual standar international di Indonesia. Bandung
