English Proficiency of Secondary School Teachers in Indonesia

Lie, Anita and Tamah, Siti Mina and Trianawaty, Trianawaty and Triwidayati, Katarina Retno and Jemadi, Fransiskus (2019) English Proficiency of Secondary School Teachers in Indonesia. Beyond Word, 7 (2). pp. 86-100. ISSN eISSN 2338-6339, pISSN 2460-6308

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Abstract

Responding to the growing need to foster communicative abilities in English, schools in In-donesia are driven to make their students proficient in English. However, the majority of English teachers themselves are still not prepared to use English as a means of communica-tion; improving their English proficiency has thus become a matter of concern. As the first phase of a larger-scale study, this present study focuses on teachers’ English proficiency. Da-ta for this study were collected from 149 secondary school teachers of English from five re-gions (Palembang, Yogyakarta-Sleman, Surabaya, Ruteng, and Maluku). They were asked to self-assess their English proficiencies based on the ACTFL (American Council on the Teach-ing of Foreign Languages) guidelines as well as to do an English Proficiency assessment. Fif-ty-two of these participants were teachers who were completing an in-service professional education program in Surabaya. The teachers assessed their proficiencies in interpersonal communication, presentational speaking, presentational writing, interpretive listening, and interpretive reading. The English Proficiency assessment includes syllabus-oriented items, General English items, and an essay. The study also conducted in-depth interviews of select-ed teachers. This study found that there is a gap between the teachers’ perception of their communicative abilities in English and their actual English proficiency.

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