“They can speak English, but they don’t want to use it.” Teaching Contents through English in a Bilingual School and Policy Recommendations

Abstract

The growing need for English as a key to global communication, relations, and information, is noticeable in schools around the world. In response to these imperatives of global competitiveness, one of the private bilingual schools in Indonesia has adopted English as a medium of instruction (EMI). The aim of this study was to explore the implementation of English as a language of instruction in a bilingual school in teaching contents in one private bilingual school in Jambi City, Indonesia. The data were collected through demographic profiles, documents, and semi-structured in-depth interviews. The documents were used to find out the comprehensive overview of the bilingual education program while the in-depth interviews were used to ask participants to narrate their accounts and perspectives on the use of English as the medium of instruction at a micro (classroom) level. Overall, the findings of this study revealed that the successful implementation of English as a language of instruction in a bilingual school were interrelatedly challenged by teachers’ attitude and ability to use English, language policy, teaching materials, students’ English proficiency, curriculum, student assessment, and admission policy. Implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed.