The Readiness of Teaching English to Young Learners in Indonesia

Abstract

This study attempted to investigate teachers, students, and schools' readiness in conducting English programs for young learners in Indonesia. Therefore, the participants of this study were from three aspects, as mentioned above. There were two levels of schools involved in this study. Those were elementary and pre-school levels consisted of 10 elementary school teachers, pre-school teachers, elementary and preschool students, elementary and pre-school schools in several areas of Indonesia. The data were collected through the questionnaire and focused on their readiness to conduct English at their level. This study showed that students’ readiness to learn English was very high even though they often encounter obstacles or difficulties in the process of learning English in class. Meanwhile, facilities readiness to support the teaching-learning English process was not fully complete; the conditions and facilities were limited. On the other hand, the teacher readiness was high, although they lack confidence in using English in the classroom, and it was found that the teacher's educational background became one of the reasons. Additionally, teacher training was stated to be needed to develop their professionalism. However, they also stated that they had not joined that training yet. Therefore, less professional development training became a factor in decreasing the teacher readiness to teach at elementary and kindergarten levels.

Identifying the teaching of English to early young learners at Stepping Stones School Surabaya

“…About teaching English to young learners especially in Indonesia, other researchers have found out important findings such as the teachers teaching English to young learners in Lampung were not ready to teach English that they teach English fully in Bahasa Indonesia (Apriliana, 2018). The findings of the previous researchers mostly about the readiness of the teacher that they need further training in the using of English though those teachers were confident enough to teach English to the young learners (Mutiah et al, 2020) as also stated by the other researcher (Nufus, 2019). In West Sumatra, a researcher found out that there were some essential requirements in teaching English to young learners such as curriculum, teacher competency, media, and method used (Pransiska, 2016).…”

Integrating the Technology in Teaching and Learning Process Through Digital Media Creation as A Way to Improve Indonesian EYL Teachers’ Competence

“…In reference to Williams (Williams, 2006), the teacher should know the children's characteristic, emotional aspect, and interest in their cognitive, which is different from adult learners because it will be an important role in how the young student certainly involved in the learning process, how they respond and how they achieve the objective lesson. Musthafa (2010) as cited in Mutiah et al (Mutiah et al, 2020) mentioned that children have a short attention span. It means that, unlike adult learners who can focus longer on their study, the children could only pay attention for about twenty minutes in their study.…”

“…Furthermore, young learners, in general, are very active and imaginative (Mutiah et al, 2020;Nurefendi, 2015). Based on ten principles in TEYL, participatory activities, such as drawing, storytelling, listening to music will attract students to contribute.…”

The Analysis of Phonological Process on the English Consonant Sounds of Balinese EFL Students' Pronunciation

“…These productive skills are crucial as they give students the opportunity to practice real-life activities and communication. Indonesian students do not habitually use English as means of communication in their society even though it is normally taught in schools from the earliest level of education nowadays (Mutiah et al, 2020). This lack of practice might lead them to the major problems that students are mostly having difficulties in producing certain English sounds (Farhat Jahara & Hussein Abdelrady, 2021).…”