42

Jurnal Pendidikan Penabur - No.06/Th.V/Juni 2006

The Benefits of Bilingual Education and its Applications in Indonesia
The Benefits of Bilingual Education
and its Applications in Indonesia
Teguh Santoso
*)
*) Guru SMPK 5 dan SMAK 3 BPK PENABUR Bandung
Opini
ilingual education has recently been a
prestige for a number of educational
institutions in Indonesia, especially the
pre-university ones. Bilingual is defined
as being able to speak two languages equally well
because you have used them since you were very
young (Oxford, 2002), which broadens it
meanings to include also the written language in
bilingual education or communities. Bilingual
education refers to the use of a second or foreign
language in school for the teaching of content
subjects (Richards et. al., 1992), such as maths
and physics. This paper would discuss the benefits
of bilingual education with some Indonesian
schools, adopting bilingual programs and
heading to even international program and, finally,
it would explore the applications in the
Indonesian schools and provide solutions to some
hindrances in the field.
There have been at least three sources on which
the bilingual program hereby is elaborated, two
originated from overseas studies and experiments,
and one from observation in Indonesia. Most
studies made use of English for Academic
Purposes (EAP), meaning English is taught as
media of instructions of content subjects, such as
maths, chemistry and business.
First, Swain and Lapkins experiments (cited
in Cummins, 1986, p. 38), showed the results of
nine years of testing early total immersion students
in Ontario: 38 separate administrations of
standardized maths achievements tests from grade
1 to 8, the immersion students performed as well
as, or better than, their English-taught comparison
groups in 35 instances. By the term immersion
program, it means the same academic content in
the immersion class will be covered as in the
regular English program. The only difference is
Sekolah dengan program bilingual, yang menerapkan pengajaran suatu pelajaran dalam dua bahasa,
merupakan trend di Indonesia. Cummins (2000) menyatakan adanya kecenderungan data penelitian empat
ahli lain bahwa siswa program bilingual menghasilkan nilai lebih baik dibandingkan dengan siswa program
monolingual. Dalam masyarakat Indonesia yang multilingual, di mana bahasa Inggris diajarkan sebagai bahasa
asing, program bilingual ini merupakan suatu terobosan signifikan dengan mendorong juga penggunaan
bahasa Inggris dalam bidang studi non-Inggris (mata pelajaran lintas kurikulum).
Kata Kunci: Dwibahasa, internasional, Indonesia
It has been a trend in Indonesia to find schools with bilingual program, meaning applying the use of two
languages in teaching a content subject. Cummins (2000) states from data of four other experts that
there is a tendency the bilingual program students obtained better achievements than those in monolingual
program. In the context of the Indonesian multilingual society, where English is taught as a foreign
language (EFL), such bilingual program has become a significant breakthrough, encouraging the use of
English in non-English subjects (known as subjects across curriculum).
Abstrak
B
Introduction Theoretical Frameworks
43 Jurnal Pendidikan Penabur - No.06/Th.V/Juni 2006
The Benefits of Bilingual Education and its Applications in Indonesia
the language of instruction is students second
language. The results showed that although the
students in the total immersion program above
were taught maths in their second language, i.e.
French, they were usually tested in their first
language, English. In another subject, i.e. social
studies, the test revealed that the non-immersion
program students performed a much lower
achievement when they were tested in French than
in English, which was quite surprising as these
students were taught social studies in only French.
The results were different from those of the
immersion program students, performing better
than the counterpart group. The results showed
that bilingual education provides better
achievements, at least, in the maths and social
science studies for nine years of testing. However,
it is worth noted that it could be risky if one carries
out a testing to measure accurately subject content
knowledge when it is done in a second language
(Cummins, 1986), such as the Ontario results on
maths and social studies results.
Secondly, bilingual
education enables
students to use various
strategies to foster their
understanding. A
c l a s s r o o m- b a s e d
research project
conducted by Eileen
Chau revealed that the
adult Chinese migrants
in her study made use of nine frequently used
learning strategies, the top three of which are the
Chinese language (the learners L1) was used
through bilingual dictionaries, to check/ confirm
L1 meaning of words or comprehension, and to
ask for L1 meaning (Chau, 1993). The Chinese
adult immigrants motivation was boosted due to
Chaos use of Chinese language to teach English.
This finding is in accordance with what Cummins
synthesized from three literature reviews done by
Greene on Meta-Analysis, August and Hakuta on
National Research Council Report on improving
schooling for language-minority students, and
Rossel and Baker on the educational effectiveness
of bilingual education (cited in Cummins, 2000).
Cummins asserted that the trend in much of the
data showed there were better outcomes in
bilingual programs, which Cummins preferred to
use the term Enriched Education Program, than
in English-only or quick-exit transitional bilingual
programs. It needs to be noted, however, that the
term bilingual education should be defined more
precisely in the three literature reviews above.
Thirdly, bilingualism does not mean that the
role of the first language is neglected and totally
ignored. If that is the case, the program may not
be a bilingual program. Instead, it leads to what is
identified as international school program. For
instance, Mayor (1994) concluded that supporting
a childs first language assists the child to make
more progress when learning a second language
in terms of the language foundation and the greater
awareness of how language works. In addition,
an educational consultant, Davies (The Jakarta
Post, 2005) states that apparently Indonesian
schools have opened up the so-called national-
plus program, claiming themselves to be holding
a bilingual education. Two of the driven
motivations are the prestige of having a bilingual
education or national plus titles, thus, driving
away the real essence of
what the aims of bilingual
education are, and the
marketing reason to keep
the schools survive in the
tight competition. Davies
further noted that
Indonesian children in
Indonesian schools should
get the chance to feel such
pride in their own language; placing English, and
so bilingualism, alongside that should be done
respectfully and wisely. Both Mayor and Davies
propose the importance of the role of the first
language in the implementation of the bilingual
education.
Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to take into
some considerations that there exist hindrances
in applying bilingual education. Cummins (cited
in Moore, 1999) states some obstacles, i.e. the
economic factor to hire a qualified teacher for
bilingual program, and some possible cultural
constraint. A strong proponent of bilingual
education, Cummins (2000) and another
proponent, Chau (1993) highly encourage various
teaching strategies and efforts to boost learners
motivation.
Nevertheless, it is worthwhile
to take into some
considerations that there
exist hindrances in applying
bilingual education.
44
Jurnal Pendidikan Penabur - No.06/Th.V/Juni 2006
The Benefits of Bilingual Education and its Applications in Indonesia
More and more schools, usually the well-
established or well-funded ones, have opened
bilingual programs, mostly ranging from
Kindergarten to Primary school levels. A number
of semi-international schools in Jakarta, for
instance, adjust its national curriculum with the
Cambridge, West Australian or Singaporean
curriculum. In addition to the world recognized
Cambridge International Examination http://
www.cie.org.uk, which is taken by Gandhi
Memorial International School, the International
Baccalaureate (IB) http://www.ibo.org has drawn
interests from bilingual and international schools,
such as the established Pelita Harapan, Global
Jaya, Bina Nusantara (Binus) High, Gandhi
Memorial International School (also being a
Cambridge Centre) and also High Scope, heading
to the 2007 authorization.
A 2002 comparative study by SMAK 7 BPK
PENABUR Jakarta revealed, among others, that
Binus High provided carefully selected materials
even for laboratory materials, while IPEKA High
adopted Australian curriculum, and some of the
latters schools have had a bilingual curriculum
as claimed in its website. It was disclosed from the
discussion in Binus High, however, that a number
of students still made efforts to use their native
language outside their classrooms despite their
high exposure to English in the classrooms.
Another finding resulted from a comparative
study by BPK PENABUR Jakarta Senior High
principals and team to a Ciputra School in
Surabaya in early 2003. The selection of teaching
staff and the intense communication and sufficient
trainings were some of its quality assurance.
A number of state schools also apply the
bilingual education program, joining the tight
academic competition and prestige. To name a few
are the most favourite state school in Jakarta,
SMAN 8, and the top school in South Jakarta,
SMAN 70. They do not apply the International
curriculum to its whole classes, but open an
international class. According to a CIE
representative in Indonesia, both have not applied
as Cambridge centres, but they are taking the
Cambridge exams. What about the progress of the
bilingual education progress in BPK PENABUR?
There have been some breakthroughs by BPK
PENABUR Bogor, Bandung and Jakarta, for the
kindergarten level, by establishing either a
national plus school with a bilingual program,
such as those in Jakarta and Bogoralso with a
national plus primary school, or even an
international school, like PENABUR International
School (PIS) in Bandung at its kindergarten
programs entirely in English, leading to 2007
international primary school program to be
implemented in Bandung, and BPK PENABUR
Jakarta will also follow to implement this
international scholl program.
At senior high school level, both SMAK 1 BPK
PENABUR Jakarta and Bandung have headed
towards bilingual programs in at least 5 subjects
of science, math and English language (with
Bandung adding Physical education) since 2006
and 2005 respectively, with an international class
and carefully selected teachers.
Moreover, there comes the role of the first
language to be formally taught at school, i.e.
Indonesian language, in accordance with the
portion of the target language, i.e. English, to be
taught in the school subjects. In advent of the so-
called competency-based curriculum (CBC),
which was reported in early 2006 to be possibly
revised as the 2006 Curriculum, it would be wise
to provide more understanding on language
learning strategies, one of which is by applying
bilingual programs to enhance the understanding
of students, who experience barriers to use L2 to
express their ideas in L1, especially in the
multilingual society of Indonesia. The CBC
enables the existence of subjects across
curriculum, like English across curriculum.
As stated in the theoretical review above, it is
suggested to have various strategies to boost the
success of bilingual education not only in the
classroom. For instance, in addition to the initiative
to carry out English-across-curriculum
instructions, some schools have tried to utilize
the English club, and to support English-speaking
milieu within the school and other technological
instructions, including British Councils programs
in recent years, such as partner school with U.K.
schools http://www.globalgateway.org.uk, and
Applications of the Bilingual
Program in BPK PENABUR
Developments of the Bilingual
Program in Indonesia
45 Jurnal Pendidikan Penabur - No.06/Th.V/Juni 2006
The Benefits of Bilingual Education and its Applications in Indonesia
the Montage projects with worldwide schools
http://www.britishcouncil.org/montageworld.
Here, the role of teachers to assure the success of
the English uses in various activities related to
non-English subjects has gradually been
increasing as shown by the active participation of
teachers from the state schools, BPK PENABUR
and other private schools in coordination with
the internationally recognized British Council.
Another strategy to cope with these human
resources problems is to have a mutual
collaboration with native speakers of English
currently managed by UKRIDA PENABUR
International (UPI) to provide teacher training for
non-native English teachers since 2004 and for
the English teachers since 2005, which have been
pioneered in BPK PENABUR Jakarta, followed by
other schools in other cities. Another instance is
gained from one institution in the SMAK 7s
comparative studies above, which recruited
Indonesian experts, graduating from overseas with
specific qualification capable of teaching science
and maths, for example, to its secondary school
students. SMAK 1 BPK PENABUR Bandung, in
collaboration with a Canadian foundation, even
sent its math teacher to Canada for a three-month
teacher upgrading.
Some notions on bilingual education I have been
briefly outlined. It is further argued about its
applications in the Indonesian context to improve
the quality of the language learning. The
development of some schools with bilingual
programs, progressively shifting to the
internationally accredited programs had also been
presented. There have been obstacles as well as
solutions to the bilingual programs, such as the
economic factor and the human resources, the
latter of which could be Finally, it is believe the
efforts of revitalizing the role of English could be
facilitated with the support of its partner language,
Indonesian, to enhance students understanding
in the multilingual society in multi disciplines of
study.
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Cummins, Jim. (2000). [Online] Educational research
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educationalresearch.html
Cummins, Jim and Merrill Swain. (1986). Bilin-
gualism in education: Aspects of theory, research
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Davies, Rachel. (2005). Rising to the challenge of bi-
lingual education. In the Jakarta Posts Octo-
ber 09, 2005 as printed from http://
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Hornby, A.S. Oxford advanced learners dictionary
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Moore, A. (1999). Teaching multicultured students.
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Conclusion
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