English Language Teaching in Indonesia: Past – Present

Since Independence Day, the government of Indonesia has placed English language teaching as one of
the compulsory subjects in the schools. The government has played an important role in determining
the school curriculum, textbooks, teachers, and so on. The government has changed the English
curriculum five times.

The first curriculum was introduced in 1945. It was a grammar-translation-based curriculum. During the
Dutch occupation of Indonesia, the Dutch educational system had been widely used. When the Dutch
surrendered and were forced to leave the country, most of the English teachers also returned home.
Due to the limited human and material resources, only local English teachers stayed and continued the
program. As Dardjowidjojo (2000) and Sumardi (1993) have indicated, the teachers preferred grammar
translation because it was suitable for large classes, cheap and only required grammatical mastery of the
language.

The second curriculum was introduced in 1958; this was an audio-lingual based curriculum. This was
based on the involvement of Ford Foundation of the United States. It introduced a two-year training,
“Standard Training Courses” (STC) held in Jakarta and Bukittinggi. This program increased the quality of
teacher training due to a number of reasons. All the teachers provided were native speakers, mostly
American. The language laboratory was available for the students during the training. Fifty students
were selected through some tests each year. English became the main language when the students
were in the campus. The curriculum was good and almost all of it concerned English. Moreover, the
students stayed in a boarding house. However, there was still a disadvantage because of the limited
number of participants who joined the training. The Standard Training Courses produced high quality
graduates. However, the number of the students was small compared with the need of English teachers
throughout the nation Dardjowidjojo (2000) and Sumardi (1993).

The next curriculum applied in the Indonesian education in 1975 was the revised new style, audio-
lingual based curriculum. This was the first curriculum in the beginning of the “new era”. The
government, for the first time, introduced new textbook series for the junior high school (English for the
SLTP) and senior high school (English for the SLTA). These books become compulsory for the students.
Tjokrosujoso and Fachurrazy (1997) point out the revised curriculum contained more systematic
teaching guidelines that covered all curriculum components, such as teaching objectives, materials, and
approaches and evaluation. This was mostly focused on the achievement of a working knowledge of
English (Priyono, 2004). The Department of Education as cited by Jazadi (2004) argued that the
structure-based audio-lingual 1975 curriculum was not successful because the curriculum did not
support the achievement of the learning objectives, so a new curriculum that encouraged
communication (both receptive and productive) needed to be introduced.

Later, in 1984, the new curriculum was launched, which was a structure-based communicative
curriculum. This curriculum was considered to develop communicative skills. However, Jazadi (2004)
argues that the 1984 curriculum was still form-focused with language structure as dominant feature as
shown in the English for Junior High School and English for Senior High School textbook series in 1988.
The structure-based communicative curriculum focussed on the development of language skills,
functions, and the mastery of vocabulary. It reminds me when I first learnt English in Junior High School
in 1985, most of the materials talked about tenses instead of communicative learning. The teaching
method at that time focused on memorizing the words. I argue that it was probably one of the reasons
why most of the students including me disliked English at that time. Priyono (2004) concludes that there
are a n