The portrait of primary school English in Indonesia: policy recommendations

ABSTRACT

In response to the need for teaching English in primary education, this exploratory case study examines the enactment of English as a locally-tailored school subject in Indonesian primary schools. Data of this study were collected from multiple interviews with six English teachers teaching in two Indonesian primary schools that offer English as an additional language (EAL). The findings reveal that the status of English as a locally-tailored school subject brings about such problems as no official curriculum guidelines, English teachers’ quality, and a lack of learning resources and facilities. Drawing on these findings, policy recommendations are discussed in this article.

KEYWORDS:

• Case study
• Indonesia
• language policy
• primary school English

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.