CURRICULUM OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION IN EXPANDING

CIRCLES: English teachers with best teaching skills or the

ones who are best-English proficient?

SusiloMulawarman University, Samarinda Kalimantan TimurEmail: Olisusunmul@yahoo.com

Defining the terms:

• Curriculum: structure of curriculum in Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE)

• Expanding Circles countries: countries where English is used as a FL

• Two Strands in the core of Curriculum of SLTE

Kachru’s Concentric Circles of English

The Expanding Circle• China, Egypt, Indonesia,

Israel, Korea, Nepal, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Russia, Zimbabwe

The Outer Circle• Bangladesh, Ghana, India,

Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Zambia

The Inner Circle• USA, UK, Canada,

Australia, New Zealand

The core of curriculum in SLTE programs generated a debate on the two strands

• knowledge about and knowledge how (Burns & Richards, 2009)

• practical teaching skills and academic knowledge (Johnson in Burns & Richards, 2009)

• content and delivery (Singh & Richards, 2009).

Learning English!!• What happens in the expanding

circle countries?– Less exposure– Less human resources (teachers)

Out-class English exposure for learners in Expanding circle countries

• The learners have no enough room for using English after they go out from the English class;

• only certain individuals have access for watching TV Channels with authentic English programs, or reading authentic English magazines or newspapers;

• Even in a very remote area, learners cannot have an easy access to get English books for learning

• The quality of the teacher is often a common problem

• The local government policy is not supporting

SK MENDIKNAS NO 232/U/2000

Total Credits for Sarjana (144-160 Credits) consisting of:• Kurikulum Inti (40-80%)

– Subject matter (Language courses, research courses, teaching skills), Personality (Pancasila, Pendidikan Agama and Pendidikan Kewarganegaraan), Community Service (KKN), etc.

• Kurikulum Institusi – Local content courses – decided by the institution itself

All are classified into:– group of courses (MPK) –personality development– group of courses (MKK) – main skills and science– group of courses (MKB) – skills for creativity– group of courses (MPB) – behavior to be creative– group of courses (MBB) – learning to empower community

Research Courses

Teaching courses (...%)

Language Courses (...%)

Subject Matter Courses in the CurriculumOf English Teacher Education in Indonesia

LPTK should

• produce English teachers with best teaching skills?

• Produce high-proficient English teachers?

Six domains of content as the Core Knowledge Base of SLTE (Richard, 2000)

1. theories of teaching, 2. teaching skills, 3. communication skills, 4. subject matter knowledge, 5. pedagogical reasoning and decision making, 6. context knowledge.

English learning contexts in Indonesia:

• Different cluster of regions in Indonesia regarding with the circumstances of TEFL

Cluster 1: less developed regions where resources is still poor, infrastructure is inadequate, etc.

Cluster 2: resources are a bit better, but gives less infrastructure for learners so that they feel difficulties to get good learning environment access

Cluster 3: both resources and infrastructure are better

Recommendation • Scheme 1:

– Soft skills: communications knowledge, context knowledge (periphery)

– Hard Skills: subject matter knowledge (core) – theories of teaching, teaching skills, pedagogical reasoning and decision

(periphery)

• Scheme 2– Soft skills: communications knowledge, context knowledge

(periphery)– Hard Skills: subject matter knowledge (periphery) – theories of teaching, teaching skills, pedagogical reasoning and decision

(core)• Scheme 3:

– Soft skills: communications knowledge, context knowledge (periphery)

– Hard Skills: subject matter knowledge (core) – theories of teaching, teaching skills, pedagogical reasoning and decision

(core)

Reasons:• Scheme 1: teachers are supposed to

create teaching materials since it is very difficult for them to adopt materials

• Scheme 2 and 3: no problems with materials since the learning environment is supporting.

THANK YOU