Societal Bilingualism - Bilingual Educational Program in Indonesia - Case Study Example

Societal Bilingualism Student’s name Institution Macro- and Micro-Context Bilingual educational program in Indonesia As the swing of paradigm on the educational context in Indonesia, as a result, of change role of English language to be an international language in the global era, the Indonesian government through the ministry of education makes effort in establishing English to be the target language among the locals. As the language of technology, the government made efforts among the citizens to maximally acquire it through the introduction of a bilingual school programs as an innovative effort. These programs were to be implemented in elementary schools and secondary school levels embodying three prominent school types’ namely junior, senior and vocational high schools. Utilization of English a means of communication will enable the students to attain high levels of proficiency in English as well as global perspectives. This is thus essential to help them in figuring out global challenges that will demand skilled and educated individuals in the global era. Nevertheless, the use of English as a means of communication in the classroom by the bilingual teachers will facilitate the students to be accustomed to English use in an educational context that help in generating a bilingual mind on the students part (Duflo, 2004). This is crucial as the learners have a meaningful English learning process in dealing with the English materials of selected subjects, as well as the classroom communication practices. The utilization of two languages in combination with educational programs strengthens the concept of the meaning of the subject that is learned and as well helps in the establishment of an automatic translating system in the learner’s brain (Bartlett, 2007). Indonesia republic act advocates that the Indonesian government authorities, as well as the local government, needs to establish a unit of education that holds the standards of national and international levels of education. Thus, every province in the country needs to establish a bilingual class program from elementary level to secondary school level. Educational programs in bilingualism ought to aim at facilitating the students to gain higher language global perspectives as well as enable the children to acquire English as the target language because it is an international language that is used in many fields i.e. technology, education, trade, information and communication and social culture (Mullen, 2012). Implementation of bilingual education in Indonesia commenced in the year 2004 and has gained strong popularity in the last years. About 1300 schools have since been established since the campaign referred to as international standardized schools by 2012. However, the bilingual program has received a lot of critics by parties that argue arguing that the program has led to discrimination between the rich and the poor as the international standardized schools providing bilingualism are mostly assessed by the rich rather than the poor. In addition, the bilingual students are treated in relation to their school facilities and academic issues as compared to the non-bilingual students. This further complicating the situation. Parties have taken the case into judicial review under the act of law on the implementation of a bilingual class program. In regard to the matter, the Indonesian judicial court agreed that the abolishment of the bilingual class program on the basis that it violates the basic laws of the Indonesian republic. However, diplomats and supporting authorities emphasize on the importance of a bilingual class program for the students if only they are going to face the global challenges. Concerning the issue the paper provides an educational design program as well as designing an assessment program of the bilingual education that is currently a major controversial issue in Indonesia (Rolstad, 2005). A Description of the Bilingual Program Bilingual education refers to the utilization of two languages a means of presentation of the classroom instructions of the selected subjects. The two languages ought to include a minor language and a major language. From the educational program design, a minor language is Indonesian while the major language is English. English will be used as a the selected means of classroom instructions for the students in the program. The bilingual program chosen aims at ensuring that all the Indonesian citizen have an even distribution of educational opportunities, there is enrichment of the elite through bilingualism, enhancement of the world communication increased mutual understanding as well as pluralism awareness (Rolstad, 2005). The objectives are ensuring quality improvement, relevance and efficiency in education management to face the local, national and global challenges facing the people. The program also aims to promote the graduates of secondary school in facing the global demands as well as establishing the students to become elite multi-linguals or bi-lingual who have the capability of using different languages at different contexts on the grounds that having the knowledge of different languages, they will be able to survive in the globalization strands. These strands will require high English proficiency in making contacts with people from different countries coming from different social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Thus, the bilingual program will help in fostering understanding and development on the individuals (Bhatia & Ritchie, 2008). To successfully implement the program, it is important to carry out some of the challenges that are facing bilingual programs. This entails the challenges the bilingual teachers of the secondary in teaching English language. Thus, the teachers need to be actively involved in training programs as well as other innovative programs are i.e. sending them abroad, facilitating them to improve on their education level as a measure of enhancing the process. This is essential in equipping the bilingual teachers with competence in handling the learning and teaching processes effectively using the two languages namely Indonesian and English taking English as the dominant of the two to be used as the means of classroom interaction. Besides, the program will promote the bilingual school and equip the bilingual class with modern equipment as a measure of enabling both the bilingual student and the teacher to be autonomous during the learning process. This is the importance in ensuring the success of the program. In terms of progress, the implementation of bilingual educated started back in 2006 and has gained much popularity in the past years. Thus, the program will work hard in hard in collaboration with the already established schools and supporting programmes to ensure that the bilingual educational program becomes a success(Rivera Mindt et al., 2008). To counter the levels of critics raised between discrimination of the rich and the poor because the rich could only afford the education, the program will work to bridge the gap and ensure that even the children from the poor family have access to bilingual education. This is crucial, as educational programs in bilingualism ought to aim at facilitating all the students irrespective of the background, in gaining higher language global perspectives as well as enable them to acquire English as the target language because it is an international language that is used in many fields i.e. technology and education (Bialystok, 2001). In terms of the perceived benefits of bilingual education, it needs to be aimed in the establishment of addictive bilinguals in the sense that students need to achieve two languages proficiency (Mullen, 2012). This includes the first and the target language that is directed to be the substitute of the first language. The educational program design can be analyzed into three perspectives; namely being transitional, providing enrichment and maintenance to the students. In the transitional model teaching and learning is by use of the bilingual languages. However, the teachers in the classroom dominantly employ the target language in the approach while the first language is used in teaching the basic learners. The educational program however has to ensure bilingual education is not constrained by the curriculum, the teaching methodology, use of languages used in the learning activities, as well as the number of students using a particular language in the classroom (Edwards, 2012). Models of bilingual education for the program Models to be utilized for the educational program are transitional bilingual model, maintenance bilingual model, submersion and immersion models. The educational program will utilize the transitional bilingual program where the first language will be the medium of communication for the students for the first few years in school. During this period, English as the target language is taught and eventually there will be a shift to the second language to be the means of conveying instructions in the classroom, which will be gradual (de Jong, 2002). Another model to be utilized in the educational program will be the utilization maintenance bilingual programs. The programs are very essential in the development of literacy skills at both language i.e. native and second language thus enhancing bilateral-fostering development. It is important to maintain the use of the native language throughout the program as it provides the basis of learning the target language. Submersion programs are very important for the educational program. In the model, the language instruction ought not to the Indonesian language to some of the students but will be considered the first to the rest. This is so especially when new immigrants enters the school and can only be taught in their own language. This is essential for the education program to incorporate and met all the needs of each student regardless their status. Eventually, they absorb English as they focus on the subject matter (Bialystok, 2010). Immersion models ought to be incorporated in the educational program. They are meant to immerse students in a language that is different from the ultimate native language. Their main goal is building strong academic literacy skills in the target language as well as enabling the learners have access to the subject matter taught in the second language. The first language is Indonesian in this scenario, but the method of conveying instruction to be utilized is English. However, all the models are similar because they grade appropriate level for academic achievement (Wei, 2009). They also ensure that there is functional proficiency in the target language and as well will enhance appreciation and understanding for the culture of the target language group? A Description of the Bilingual Assessment Assessment ought to play a very essential role in every aspect of the educational program especially for the limited English proficient students. It is important in identification of the students who need the program more than others and putting them in the correct levels of the program. Assessment is also essential in monitoring the progress of the students, improving the program that serves them and in the determination on when the program is no longer needed. The paper will offer an assessment program for the limited English proficient students in Indonesia. However, it provides a foundation on issues that the program planners ought to consider when selecting their assessment approaches formulated around the importance of testing bilingual education and English as the target language. Different assessment instruments are described in the program describing language proficiency, achievement testing as well as assessment for special education (Bedore & Peña, 2008). Research questions for the assessment tool Research question considered in the assessment tool testing bilingual education include: 1. Whether the language of assessment has any influence on the bilingual children’s performance 2. Whether a difference exist in the bilingual children performance when using either verbal or non-verbal assessment procedures 3. If any multiple measurements and informants ought to enhance the construct validity in making assessment decisions 4. Whether the evaluator prior knowledge, the conceptualization of measurement constrains as well as cultural and linguistic backgrounds has any influence on the assessment decisions. Instrumentation for the program The home language survey- among the instruments for the program is the utilization of the home language survey. The survey was developed by Gonzalez and consists of openly headed question and linker scales involving the parents in the assessment process. The parents will self-rate their Indonesian and English proficiency, rate their children Indonesian and English proficiency, rate the frequency of use at home of Indonesian and English, provide the ages of the children at their homes as well as well as provide background information of the parents to identify their identity. All the self-rating assessment i.e. on the English proficiency, rate of language use will be assessed in a total of 10 points (Sanchez et al., 2013). Teachers and parents rating scale of creativity (TPRSC)- similar to the home language survey but consist of seven open-ended questions asking the respondents to describe the children linguistic, problem solving, individual and group working and playing abilities both at home and at school. The teachers and the guardians ought to provide descriptors for their children abilities as well provide additional comments (Shin, 2000). Qualitative utilization of English and Indonesian tasks (QUEIT)- involves determination of usage of English and Indonesian tasks to determine their proficiency. A model explaining the concept formation process upon the bilingual children and identifies the knowledge representational systems that are dependent on the particular linguistic, cognitive,, as well as cultural characteristics of the content learned. The first conceptual representation system is universal, abstract and non-verbal while the second abstract verbal, semantic and linguistically-culturally bound. The cognitive ought to be considered as abstract knowledge representations installed in the cultural symbolic systems, as well as the linguistic structures and markers. Cultural and linguistic elements were selected because Indonesian's assigns lot of linguistic gender for inanimate and animate conceptual categories that correspond to the culturally symbolic distinctions expressed through linguistic markers and rules. However, in the contrary, English only assigns linguistic gender to only some animate conceptual, abstract categories. Thus, verbal and non-verbal classifications are designed assessing the bilingual children linguistic and general gender and conceptual processes (Sanchez et al., 2013). The language assessment scale, oral (LAS-O) Three language assessment scales will be used for the program. The pre-language assessment scale for the young children approximately four to six years of age, LAS-O1 for elementary grade levels as well as the LAS-O11 for the secondary level. It will be self-administered representing the oral language tasks i.e. supplying the correct vocabulary for pictures and objects, give appropriate respondent to tasks and questions as well as the provision of oral language to picture stimuli to determine the English proficiency on the students (McKay, 2006). The tasks ought to be scored on the basis or either the right or wrong answers during a separate category that will account for half of the score utilizing a scale of 5 0r 100. The language assessment scale classify the students in the broad categories that are non-English speaking students, English speaking student and the fluent speaking. It is important for a number of purposes. It is used in the initial identification of the limited English-speaking students thus additional and alternative programs and services will be provided to improve their proficiency. However, depending on the structure of the alternative program, it can be utilized in the placement of the students in different instructional groupings. Thus will act as a track on the annual progress in oral English proficiency and used as a criterion for re-designing the students to be no longer limited in English and eligible for existing in the program. The language assessment scale two kinds of score the proficiency level 1-5 and the converted scores to 100. The levels of proficiency will be utilized in categorizing the student’s eligibility to the bilingual school program as well as provision of data depicting the characteristics of the bilingual schools (Fall, Adair-Hauck, & Glisan, 2007). Conclusion There is a controversial debate in the implementation of bilingual education programs in Indonesia. However, it is clear that bilingual programs in the country from the elementary to the secondary school level could be very beneficial in the facilitation of the students in facing the global challenges as the bilingual education program establish qualified and competitive students the meet the global demand. The paper provides an education program reducing and discouraging the discrimination existing among the Indonesian societal members and the bilingual schools that resulted to banning bilingual programs in the country. In the context, it is important for the involved parties to think deeply on the preserved benefits of bilingual education. More over bilingual education programs are important in in enhancing the meta-cognitive awareness and cognitive development of the students. Thus, it is crucial to look for an appropriate measure of dealing with the problems facing bilingual educational programs. Setting up and executing an assessment program for a bilingual program is not an easy task. It requires consideration of many factors as well as a comprehensive assessment program involving staff at different levels. The home language survey, the language assessment scale, Qualitative utilization of English and Indonesian tasks and teachers and parents rating scale of creativity are described in the assessment program fostering bilingual education. The utilization of English a means of communication among the people of Indonesia will enable the individuals in attaining a high levels of English proficiency as well as global perspectives. This is thus essential to help them in figuring out global challenges that will demand skilled and educated individuals in the global era. References Bartlett, L. (2007). Bilingual literacies, social identification, and educational trajectories. Linguistics and Education, 18, 215–231. Bedore, L. M., & Peña, E. D. (2008). Assessment of Bilingual Children for Identification of Language Impairment: Current Findings and Implications for Practice. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Bhatia, T. K., & Ritchie, W. C. (2008). The Handbook of Bilingualism. The Handbook of Bilingualism (pp. 1–884). Bialystok, E. (2001). Bilingualism in development: language, literacy, and cognition. books.google.com (p. 288). Bialystok, E. (2010). Bilingualism. 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