A Study on the Communicative Competence of Indonesian Teachers at Bilingual Programs

Heny Hartono

doi:10.22437/ijolte.v4i2.12178

Abstract

Teaching with English as a medium of instruction can be challenging for teachers in non-English speaking countries including Indonesia. The use of English as the language of instruction has become a part of marketing strategies for private schools to get more students. Apart from the marketing issue, the quality of the teachers should be on the top priority. Are the teachers qualified to serve as teachers at bilingual programs? Teachers’ communicative competence should add the general teaching competences of in-service teachers at bilingual programs. Unfortunately, schools hardly assess teachers’ communicative competence. This study aimed to find out the level of in-service teachers’ communicative competence and the correlation among the level of communicative competence aspects. This sequential explanatory study involved 82 in-service teachers who taught in English. The results of this study reveal that the subjects of this study were found in safe zone. It indicates that teachers of English speaking programs under this study can perform their tasks adequately although they cannot be called competent yet. From the Spearman correlational analysis, it was found out that the coefficient correlation was above 0.76 indicating a very strong correlation between communicative competence and its aspects and strong positive correlations among the communicative competence aspects. The results of this study provide valuable input of teachers’ communicative competence which can be further followed up with suitable trainings to improve teacher’s English competence.

Highlights

Along with the prominent role of English as an international language, the number of English speakers is significantly increasing in the last few decades
The result of this study provides a description of in-service teachers’ communicative competence and a discussion on how the level of teachers’ communicative competence may affect their performance as teachers of bilingual programs
Based on the assessment results, it can be concluded that overall, the in-service teachers’ communicative competence under this study falls in Moderate level category. 2.44% of the respondents were categorized as intermittent communicators, 23.17% were limited communicators, 25.61% were moderate communicators, and 48.78% were considered competent communicators

Summary

Introduction

Along with the prominent role of English as an international language, the number of English speakers is significantly increasing in the last few decades. In Indonesia, English itself is one among other foreign languages such as Chinese and Arabic, which are commonly taught and used in this country. Using English as the medium of instruction in class can be challenging for local teachers within the foreign language context. As a foreign language, English is mostly taught as a subject at school. Teachers and students rarely use English as the medium of communication both inside and outside the classrooms. The exposure to English as the target language is so little outside the classroom. With these facts, most schools do not use English as the medium of instruction except those which run English speaking programs such as bilingual or immersion programs

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Results