February 2022 – Volume 25, Number 4
Anita Lie
Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University
<anita
ukwms.ac.id>
Siti Mina Tamah
Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University
<minaukwms.ac.id>
Imelda Gozali
Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University
<imelda.gozaliukwms.ac.id>
Abstract
In 2018 the Indonesian Ministry of Education established a teacher certification program via a blended learning platform in partnership with teacher colleges. The program engages teacher-participants in online learning, face-to-face workshops on a designated campus, classroom action research and teaching practices. This study aims at exploring the impact of the certification on the teachers’ use of English in their teaching. The researchers conducted a survey and a proficiency assessment of these English teachers. The ninety teachers of English in this study demonstrated various levels of English proficiency. Then the researchers selected these teachers based on their scores, interviewed them, and observed their teaching. This study found that teachers’ participation in the certification program brought about different levels of changes in their use of English. While the immediate impact of the certification program on the English teachers’ language use was not clearly evident, some teachers showed renewed commitment to use English after several months had passed. Results of this study have yielded implications that English teachers’ sufficient proficiency is not a given capital at the beginning of teacher service. Thus, a serious collaboration among English teacher colleges, the Ministry of Education, the school stakeholders, and the professional learning communities is required to drive teachers of English to engage in their professional development continuously.
Keywords: in-service teacher professional education, English proficiency, teachers of English, Indonesia
Professional Education Program for Teachers of English
Most education authorities know that teacher quality has a direct influence on the learning processes and thus student achievement. Yet, a prevailing challenge in some regions in the developing world is that schools accept under-qualified teachers because of the lack of resources to provide adequate renumeration for teachers. This situation made the teaching profession less attractive for the cream of the crop among the young people. In a study in three provinces in Indonesia, only 76% of in-service teachers have achieved a four-year degree program’s qualification standard (Harjanto et al., 2018). At the time of writing this article, uncertified teachers still earn below the mandated minimum wage and the pay grade does not increase much in comparison with other professionals with the same level of education and the same years of service. Simply increasing teachers’ salary would not immediately solve issues in teacher quality as the teaching force had been filled with unqualified teachers. Thus, for more than a decade, the Indonesian Ministry of Education has attempted to improve teacher quality by launching policy reforms through Teacher-Lecturer Law no. 14/2005, aimed at enhancing teacher quality and professionalism through certification. Beyond the four-year degree program, all full-time teachers in Indonesia had to take part in professional development (PD) and submitted teaching portfolios to obtain teaching certification. This Law was also intended to provide extra pay to certified teachers given as certification allowance. The pay increase significantly improved teachers’ satisfaction with their income, reduced the incidence of teachers holding outside jobs, and reduced self-reported financial stress. Unfortunately, a World Bank report indicates that after two and three years, the increase in pay led to no improvement in student learning outcomes (Ree et al., 2017).
In 2011, the certification was instituted as Teacher Professional Training and Education (Pendidikan dan Latihan Profesi Guru or PLPG), whereby teachers went through 10 days of training comprising 22 periods (each period is 50 minutes) of theoretical foundation and 68 periods of practice. At the end, teachers did a written test and a teaching practice test. Since then, the PLPG model has been the subject of more research and development in its practice and implementation.
Since 2018, the PLPG has been restructured into Teacher Professional Education (hereafter, TPE) for Pre-Service and In-Service Teachers. The program utilizes a hybrid learning platform setup by the Indonesian Ministry of Education in collaboration with 57 teacher colleges. The certification program engaged participants in 12 modules of online learning and 256 hours of face-to-face workshops on campus and teaching practices in school. During the Covid-19 pandemic, all TPE activities were conducted online. At the end of the program, participants had to take a series of assessments. Those who failed the first assessments were allowed to retake the tests. When they failed for the second time, they had to repeat the whole program. As of the end of 2020, the TPE has certified a total of 63,470 in-service teachers nationally and 14% (or 8920) of whom were teachers of English. Teacher participants from all over the nation were randomly assigned to one of the 57 teacher colleges to complete this TPE. Their passing rates were around 70% for first-takers and ranged from 40% to 80% for re-takers. Their assessment grades revealed an inequality issue among teachers of English from all over the nation as seen in the following table depicting the 2020 Cohort assessment grades:
Table 1. Assessment Results of the 2020 Cohort Teachers of English
| Participants (N) | Average Score | Highest Score | Lowest Score | SD | Passed and Certified |
% |
| 2,246 | 71.37 | 96.67 | 40.83 | 9.6 | 1.331 | 59.26% |
Source: National Committee of Teacher Professional Education Competence Assessment, 2021
Within this context, concerns about the quality of English language teaching have emerged (Renandya, Hamid, & Nurkamto, 2018). The TPE was expected to improve the quality of teachers. This study was, therefore, conducted to examine the impact of the TPE on the teachers’ use of English in class. Focusing on the first three cohorts of ninety English teachers who have completed their TPE at our university as one of the TPE Centers, this study was guided by the following two questions in the inquiry process:
- What was the immediate impact of the TPE on the teachers’ use of English?
- What was the continued impact of the TPE on the teachers’ use of English?
Literature Review
With the increasing importance of English for global communication, schools need more qualified English teachers to provide better English instruction. Therefore, teachers are obligated to demonstrate a satisfactory level of English proficiency. Teachers’ English proficiency has drawn research interest particularly in countries where English is not the lingua franca (Harvey et al., 2010; Richards, 2017; Richards et al., 2013). Gadella-Kamstra (2021) proposed an ecology-oriented approach to improve teachers’ professionalism and, in the long run, to assist EFL teachers in Spain to enhance their motivation to improve their professional experiences. The study recommended the policymakers’ intervention to upgrade teachers’ working conditions to improve teachers’ extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Included in EFL teachers’ professional experiences was teachers’ use of English in class which requires teachers’ satisfactory English proficiency. Richards (2017) confirmed that a proficiency threshold level was needed for teachers to teach English through English instead of using their first language. Along the same line, Tsang (2017) studied twelve English teachers in Hong Kong and concluded that it was important for English teachers to reach a proficiency threshold. However, other factors such as pedagogical practices played a more significant role than the English proficiency per se in overall teaching effectiveness. Tsang (2017) asserted that “teachers’ high proficiency without sound pedagogical practice may, ironically, be an impediment to student learning” (p. 111).
Issues in teachers’ English proficiency in Indonesia have also drawn a few studies. Renandya, Hamid, and Nurkamto (2018) and Tanang and Abu (2014) urged to set competency standards for Indonesian teachers of English. Wulyani, Elgort, and Coxhead (2019, p. 271) suggested that “while the EFL teachers taught English as a foreign language in Indonesian high schools, they experienced a period of declining use.” Our previous study (Lie et al., 2019) on 149 secondary school teachers of English from five regions in Indonesia found that teachers demonstrated different commitment levels regarding their professional development. Likewise, at the entry point, teachers did not start at the same level of competence. Despite the standards of higher education set by the government, teacher colleges had different standards of quality assurance.
In consideration of different standards of quality assurance among teacher colleges, a teacher certification program and in-service teacher professional development are deemed necessary to level the teachers’ quality. Several studies evaluated the effectiveness and impact of TPE on various dimensions of teachers’ skills. Bayar’s study (2014) collecting 16 teachers’ voices about their experiences with professional development activities revealed these six components that make up an effective professional development: 1) fulfillment to teacher needs, 2) fulfillment to school needs, 3) teacher involvement in the design/planning of the development activities, 4) active participation opportunities, 5) long-term engagement, and 6) high-quality mentors. Ingvarson, Meiers and Beavis (2005) revealed that TPE, which provides opportunities for active learning and reflection on practice, brings about significant effects to the teachers’ changed practice. A TPE in the form of summer online courses given after teachers had completed their in-service training proved to have a lasting effect on teachers’ self-efficacy even after six years (Watson, 2006). A study on college English teachers in China suggested complementing teachers’ professional development with a professional learning community, wherein the teachers could do more collaboration and mentoring (Zhao, 2013). On the other hand, Thai English teachers identified teaching and assessing productive skills (speaking and writing) as their most significant needs in a TPE program (Noom-Ura, 2013).
Examining the relationship between TPE and English teachers’ proficiency in Indonesia, Zein (2016) investigated government-based training agencies’ effectiveness for English for Young Learners in Indonesia using the Complexity Theory and suggested a PD model that considers teachers’ pedagogical, linguistic, and professional needs. Wati (2011) discovered that English teachers in Riau experienced increased motivation and confidence after attending a TPE program but perceived that the program did not significantly improve their basic English skills. Rahman et al. (2015) proposed a Teacher-Based Scaffolding model, a four-step framework wherein the teachers’ needs and involvement were essential, as the approach that promoted the highest gain on teachers’ content knowledge. A study investigating four experienced English teachers revealed that they preferred, and perceived more significant benefits from, self-directed Professional Learning program (seminars and workshops) rather than the top-down, centralized TPE (Utami & Prestridge, 2018).
Method
This study used a mixed-method approach. An English Proficiency assessment was administered and a survey was distributed twice to ninety teachers from the TPE at a university. A descriptive statistical analysis yielded a mapping of their proficiency scores, the extent of their use of English in school and their efforts in improving their proficiency. To complement this descriptive quantitative data, this study focused on selected individual teachers. Interviews and observations of class recordings were conducted with the shortlisted teachers for a more in-depth study of the issues.
The inquiry process is summarized in the following design:
Figure 1. Research Design
This longitudinal study spanned through a period of one year and looked into the immediate impact on the teachers’ use of English right after completion of the TPE and the continued impact three months and one year afterwards. Contacts with all teacher participants certified through our TPE Center were maintained in WhatsApp Cohort groups.
Participants and Context
The 90 participants were the first three cohorts of the In-Service TPE at a private Catholic university. Two of the authors were among the program instructors. This study was conducted right after they had completed the program to assure that their participation should be strictly voluntary and would not affect any judgment of their certification. After a briefing on the study’s purpose and procedures, all teachers agreed to participate in the study and signed a consent form. Participants were English teachers from various regencies in East Java, Indonesia working on their certification. The following table summarizes these teachers based on their years of teaching service, as well as the means of their Proficiency Test Scores:
Table 2. Teacher Participants in Three Cohorts by their Years of Service and Means of Proficiency Assessment Scores
| Years of Service | Stage | Means of English Proficiency Test Scores |
N |
| < 5 years | Novice | 56.92 | 7 |
| 5-10 years | Apprentice | 67.52 | 59 |
| 10-15 years | Mid-Level | 70.83 | 18 |
| > 15 years | Senior | 56.32 | 6 |
| Total | 90 |
The table reveals that most participants belong to “between 5 to 10 years” of teaching experience. This fact was apparently due to the recruitment policy of the In-Service TPE Program aiming to invest in younger teachers who would serve in the profession for more years following their certification. The mid-level group of teachers scored the highest while the senior teacher the lowest. The preliminary data accord with the identification of the stages that notes the development of confidence and familiarity with the field during the third stage and the decline in ambition for professional development among senior teachers (Huberman, 1995).
For a more in-depth investigation of the issues, this study focused on a sample of individual teachers. A stratified sampling based on the proficiency scores, survey results and years of service, six teachers were selected for an in-depth interview which further probed into their reasons for using or not using English in their teaching. Two of these six teachers scored below 65, two in the middle range (70-80) and two above 80. In addition, the interview participants also represented all the four categories of seniority–one novice, one senior, three apprentices, and one mid-level. These six teachers were interviewed twice, right after completion of their TPE and three months afterwards.
One year afterwards, four teachers from the first two stages were contacted to participate in the third stage and asked to send a recording of their classroom teaching. These four were selected to represent the range of poor (below 65) to very good (above 80) English proficiency. Out of the four contacted, one declined to participate and three of them agreed to send their recorded classroom teaching. The researchers observed the recordings and interviewed them for the third time.
Data Collection and Instruments
The English Proficiency assessment was administered to appraise their language competence preceding the three stages of data collection (Survey-Interview 1, Survey-Interview 2 and Recorded Class Observations-Interview 3) and select research participants. The surveys were designed to assess the extent of their use of English in school and their efforts in improving their proficiency. Based on the proficiency scores, survey results and years of service, six teachers were selected for an in-depth interview which further probed into their reasons for using or not using English in their teaching (Please see Table 7 for their profiles). The second survey and interview were modified based on the results of the first administration and conducted three months afterwards. In the last stage of data collection, recorded class observations and in-depth interviews complemented the results of the second stage of data collection.
To gain further insights into teachers’ journey to improve their English, in-depth interviews were conducted with selected participants. Interview questions included what they thought about their use of English, whether their participation in the TPE had changed their use of English, and what they did to improve their English. The second survey and interviews were conducted in January 2019 and March 2019 for teachers from the first two cohorts and early August 2019 for the third cohort. Third interviews were conducted in December 2019. Below is the data collection procedure:
Table 3. Data Collection Procedure
| Time | Instruments | Mode | Number of Participants |
| After completion of the TPE for each cohort (Nov 2018, Dec 2018, and May 2019) | English Proficiency Assessment | Google Form | 90 |
| Survey 1 | Google Form | 90 | |
| Interview 1 | Face-To-Face | 6 | |
| Three months afterwards (January 2019, March 2019, and August 2019) | Survey 2 | Google Form | 90 |
| Interview 2 | Video-Call | 6 | |
| December 2019 | Classroom Observation | Recorded Classroom Session | 3 |
| Interview 3 | Video-Call | 3 |
Administration of the assessment, survey and interviews were done at different periods following the TPE schedules of the three cohorts. The first cohort lasted from June to November 2018, the second from July to December 2018, the third from January to May 2019.
The researchers administered an online survey and assessment of their English proficiency right after completion of TPE. The devised English Proficiency Assessment test has reached the category of ‘average’ level of item difficulty and the classification of ‘good’ at discriminating between the high and low achieving test-takers (for further info on the test construction, please see Tamah & Lie, 2019). The results were used to select six interview participants
Three months afterwards, a second survey and interview were conducted. In December 2019, four teachers from the first two stages were contacted to participate in the third stage and asked to send a recording of their classroom teaching. These four were selected to represent the range of poor (below 65) to very good (above 80) English proficiency. Out of the four contacted, three of them agreed to send their recorded classroom teaching. The researchers observed the recordings and interviewed them for the third time.
This study used a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and recorded classroom observations. The survey questionnaire and interview questions are available through these links: https://bit.ly/SurveyPDUPT2019.
The survey and interview had been tried out to in-service teachers in a Master program, and ambiguous questions were revised accordingly. The recorded class observation protocol involved classification of the use of English as a medium of instruction in the participants’ classes as follows:
Table 4. Use of English as a Medium of Instruction-Observation Guide
| Teacher 1 | Teacher 2 | Teacher 3 | |||||||
| Researcher | R1 | R2 | R3 | R1 | R2 | R3 | R1 | R2 | R3 |
| Total Utterances in English | FR1T1 | FR2T1 | FR3T1 | FR1T2 | FR2T2 | FR3T2 | FR1T3 | FR2T3 | FR3T3 |
| Episodes | |||||||||
| Content | FcR1T1 | FcR2T1 | FcR3T1 | FcR1T2 | FcR2T2 | FcR3T2 | FcR1T3 | FcR2T3 | FcR3T3 |
| Organization | FoR1T1 | FoR2T1 | FoR3T1 | FoR1T2 | FoR2T2 | FoR3T2 | FoR1T3 | FoR2T3 | FoR3T3 |
| Off-task | FtR1T1 | FtR2T1 | FtR3T1 | FtR1T2 | FtR2T2 | FtR3T2 | FtR1T3 | FtR2T3 | FtR3T3 |
Note: R = researcher; T = teacher; F = frequency
The classification is adapted to match the issue of English as a medium of instruction for different purposes of class interaction. The content episode indicates teacher utterances when discussing the lesson. Organization episode refers to the planning and organizing of the lesson, including the teacher talks on classroom management. An off-task episode is typically social interaction linked to the use of language by the teacher for socializing purposes unrelated to the lesson. FR1T1 means tally of frequencies by Researcher 1 on Teacher 1 use of English as seen in the video recording. FcR1T1 means tally of frequencies by Researcher 1 on use of English utterances when discussing the content of lesson by Teacher 1 as seen in the video recording.
Data Analysis
Results from the different instruments were analyzed, converged, and interpreted to shed light on the impact of teachers’ participation in the TPE on their perceived changes in their use of English in their teaching. Analysis and interpretations were made based on the survey results, interviews, and recordings of their classroom processes. Ultimately, the teachers’ interview transcripts were coded into related themes to reveal patterns for further interpretation (Miles, Huberman, & Saldana, 2014). Teachers’ responses in the interviews were clustered into themes of teachers’ perceptions of their English use and proficiency, students’ abilities, reasons for using or not using English in class, challenges in teaching English in their situations, and teachers’ efforts. The three researchers analyzed the transcripts separately and then gathered to discuss their findings. The video recordings of the classes were used to triangulate teachers’ responses in the interviews regarding their use of English. The insights gained through the class recordings and interviews were collected to investigate the immediate and continued impacts of the TPE on teachers’ use of English.
Each recorded classroom session was watched by three researchers separately using the same framework of classroom interactions in terms of episodes as seen in Table 4 (Bales, 1951; Blatchford et al., 2006; Ellis,1997; Hogan et al., 1999; Jacques, 2000; Sinclair & Brazil, 1982 as synthesized by Tamah, 2011). Each researcher coded each of the teachers’ utterances based on the episodes independently. Then when there was disagreement in the coding, a discussion was held to arrive at a unanimous decision.
Findings and Discussion
This study found that teachers’ participation in the certification program brought about different levels of changes in their use of English. Their participation has given rise to greater opportunities to brush up on their English proficiency and their pedagogical competence as well as to interact with fellow English teachers from different regions. This experience in turn opened their eyes and inspired them to change and enhance their professional development. Two main findings are discussed below. Teachers’ utterances in the interview were quoted as they were spoken to maintain authenticity. All the names are pseudonyms.
Immediate Impact on the Use of English
The teachers in this study claimed to continue improving their English proficiency after completing the TPE program. The table below summarizes the number of teachers choosing specific ways to enhance their English proficiency:
Table 5. Preferred Ways to Improve English Proficiency
| No. | Ways to Improve English Proficiency | Number of Teachers | Percentage |
| 1 | Use English in teaching | 76 | 84% |
| 2 | Find friends to communicate in English with | 53 | 59% |
| 3 | Make use of English books/blogs/vlogs | 43 | 48% |
| 4 | Take extra English lessons | 21 | 23% |
| 5 | Take Master program | 2 | 2.2% |
| 6 | Nothing | 2 | 2.2% |
Note: Surveyed teachers could choose more than one option
The majority of teachers claimed to use English in teaching. However, regardless of the intention to use more English in school, teachers’ use of English did not seem to change immediately after completion of their TPE, as revealed in the following table.
Table 6. Changes in the Use of English (Survey)
| No. | How much do you use English in school? | Before TPE | After TPE |
| 1 | Very little or almost none | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | Only for certain classroom instructions | 15 | 14 |
| 3 | Attempt to use it to explain materials but switch back to Indonesian | 33 | 32 |
| 4 | Almost the whole class time, except for only a few words | 31 | 33 |
| 5 | The whole class time and when conversing with students outside class | 11 | 11 |
| Total (N) | 90 | 90 |
There was only a very slight increase in the use of English. Only about 30% of the teachers (31 and 33 out of 90 before and after TPE, respectively) used English optimally in class. Another 30% code-switched between English and Bahasa Indonesia. Only 11 teachers used English in class and outside class when talking with their students.
Two teachers with scores below 65 were chosen for interviews. Sony was not comfortable conversing in English and so responded to interview questions in Indonesian. He felt more capable when he was still in college because he was exposed to more English then. As an apprentice teacher, he felt he had lost valuable opportunities to practice his English. Teaching in a vocational high school in a town around 270 kilometres Southeast of Surabaya, the provincial capital, Sony did not have any colleague to whom he could speak English. Sony often skipped meetings with English teachers from other schools in the Subject Teacher Working Group (Musyawarah Guru Mata Pelajaran or MGMP) because the venue was too far, and he thought they were just a waste of time. MGMP is a national structure of teacher working groups based on respective subjects to cater to teachers in each region’s geographical cluster of schools. The second teacher, Diah, was a senior teacher teaching in an Islamic boarding high school in Tegalsari, Banyuwangi (around 284 kilometres from Surabaya). Like Sony, Diah used Indonesian as the medium of instruction in her class because she felt that her students would not understand her if she spoke English.
When Sony and Diah were contacted for second interviews three months afterwards, they reported attempting to use English in their teaching but said that their students were not able to follow them. Therefore, they resorted to using mostly Indonesian in their teaching. This finding is in line with Richards (2017, p. 13) that “EFL teachers’ use of language while teaching is not only influenced by his or her own language proficiency and discourse skills but will also be impacted by the learners’ proficiency level and their participation in PD activities.” Wulyani, Elgort, and Coxhead (2019) also found that the EFL teachers had used English with their teacher educator and classmates during their teacher education program. Unfortunately, when they graduated and started teaching in an EFL teaching context, they could not use English much because they rarely had counterparts to communicate in English with.
Putri and Eddy, who scored between 70 and 80, were also interviewed. Putri was a novice teacher but felt fairly comfortable about her English communication abilities, while Eddy was somewhat confident about his English proficiency. At the time of interviews after their TPE completion, Putri taught in an Islamic boarding school in Bojonegoro (around 110 kilometres West of Surabaya) and Eddy in a state junior secondary school in Surabaya. Both teachers struggled to respond in English during the interviews. Their English was adequate, but they occasionally still stumbled on some expressions. Putri mentioned, “I can’t use full English in class because they–my students would not understand me.” Eddy expressed the same issue but still maintained to use as much English as possible. Their participation in the TPE had exposed them to a broader circle through online discussions, workshops, and conversations with their peers in English. This experience had motivated them to use more English. Three months later, in the second interview, they reported that they had been using more English and believed they ought to keep doing it to improve their own English and their students’.
Last, two teachers with scores of above 80 were also interviewed twice. Both teachers were very confident in their English and could describe their professional journey as English teachers fluently. Both teachers continued to pursue their Master degrees in evening classes while teaching during the day. At the beginning of her teaching career, Pipit felt her English was inadequate because her school used a Cambridge curriculum, and many of her students spoke English at a near-native speaker level. “My students challenge me to improve my English. They like to discuss English novels and movies with me, asking me about new expressions. So after 6 years of teaching, I feel that my English has improved.” Completing the TPE did not significantly change her use of English in school because she had been using English frequently. Nevertheless, she felt that the TPE contributed to her enhanced knowledge of the English syllabus. Like Pipit, Meyse did not perceive a significant impact of the TPE on her use of English. Instead, as an English teacher, she felt the need to keep herself updated with the advances of technology and pedagogies. Mesye said, “The program [TPE] helped me upgrade my pedagogical knowledge as well as enlarge my professional network. Through contacts during the program, I was asked to serve as an officer in MGMP.” However, to practice her English speaking skill, she attempted to use English to communicate with her peers in the PD sessions. This finding supports the survey result that speaking English with peers was the second most popular way to improve their English use (See Table 5).
In summary, the results of in-depth interviews show that teachers’ use of English in their classroom is not affected by their years of service. The determining factor is apparently their initial English proficiency. Those teachers who are proficient in English tend to use English more comfortably in and outside class. This habit would further stimulate them to enhance their English proficiency. On the other hand, those with lower proficiency or who are not confident about their English tend to avoid using English and thus deprive themselves of the opportunities for necessary practices. The sense of inadequacy in their own English mastery has predisposed this type of teachers to pinpoint external excuses such as lack of school resources and students’ limited English proficiency. As revealed by Pipit, students’ high English proficiency level may indeed be a driver to propel teachers to use and improve their English. However, students’ limited English proficiency should not be an excuse for teachers to avoid using English in class. It is, as a matter of fact, the reason why they are hired. In some schools that put more investment in English learning and where teachers are more motivated to use English in their teaching, many students start their early years of schooling with very little proficiency as English is not a second language in Indonesia and yet teachers engage them in English-instructed learning activities with proper teaching strategies. This investment pays off as students gain their proficiency over the years. By the same token, in after-school English courses, students with limited English proficiency are taught by teachers who use English optimally to expose them to rich language input.
At that point in time, teachers’ participation in and completion of the TPE did not seem to have any impact on their actual use of English, although they reported being more motivated to improve their English and gaining more knowledge of the English language and teaching. If truth be told, enhancing English proficiency is a long, arduous process that English teachers need to embark on beyond the TPE.
Continued Impact on the Use of English
To explore the continued impact of the TPE, the researchers analyzed the recordings of three participants’ classroom interactions and interviewed them for the third time. Two of the participants (Sony and Diah) scored low in the Proficiency Test, and one (Pipit) had excellent proficiency.
One year after he graduated from the TPE, Sony expressed appreciation of his certification. Besides receiving additional quarterly pay, he was grateful for the government’s recognition of his professional status as a teacher. When starting the new academic year in July 2019, he took further action, that is, executing a Teaching Contract with his students. They agreed to a class policy of 50% English and 50% Indonesian. While in the first two interviews, he admitted using Indonesian mostly in his class because of the concern that his students would not understand English, his renewed commitment to using more English has emerged and driven him to adhere to the Teaching Contract even though his vocational high school students mostly come from low socio-economic class and his school was not the first choice for students in the region. Sony’s commitment to using more English was also maintained by his drive to prepare his students to participate in the debate competition in the region. He was hoping to drive his students to win the competition at the provincial level.
During the third interview, Sony acknowledged gaining more knowledge of English, in particular expanded vocabulary, different styles of speaking, and writing genres from his teacher educators, fellow teacher participants, and the materials in the TPE. Besides, he also gained an enriched repertoire of teaching methods. While he had often skipped meetings in MGMP before his TPE participation, he began to regularly attend the monthly meetings to practice his English with other English teachers in the MGMP forum. In the meantime, he still felt reluctant to speak English with the other two English teachers in his school out of apprehension at other teachers’ negative perception as English is not a lingua franca in most parts of Indonesia. As Sony reported, the other teachers even expressed their aversion:
Kalau kami bicara bahasa Inggris, mereka bilang “Wah ngomong bahasa planet yo.” [Translation: Whenever we talked in English, they would say, “There you speak in the outer space language.”]
Sony realized that the three English teachers in his school should have created an English learning environment for their students by speaking English among themselves. However, they found it hard to overcome the resistance to speak English in his school because they were not confident of their proficiency.
Diah spoke English pretty fluently during the third interview. She reported using more English in her class than before but still finding it hard to get students to speak English:
Now [I speak] about 50% English and 50% Indonesian and Javanese. Before, [I spoke] mostly Indonesian and Javanese. But even now, my students–they did not want to answer in English. They are not interested in English.
In class, Diah used English when opening the lesson and organizing learning tasks, but she used Indonesian to explain the lesson. When she used English, she had to translate it into Indonesian to make her students understand. Even when giving classroom instructions in English, she felt that only some of her students would respond, but most just ignored her. Therefore, she had to repeat her instructions in Indonesian.
Teaching in an Islamic boarding school, Diah found it hard to make her students speak English and create an English language learning environment because she did not get enough support from the school stakeholders.
In pesantren, the Kyai [a religious leader of an Islamic boarding school] said “Kamu di sini itu niatnya untuk belajar ngaji. Di pesantren. Kalau mau sekolah biasa, ya di luar banyak. Kamu nggak harus ke sini.” [Translation: You are here to learn to read the Qur’an in the pesantren. If you want regular schooling, lots of schools out there. You don’t need to be here]. … In their mind, they are not really … need English. Actually, I always remind them. You don’t know what will happen to your future. You don’t know what you gonna be. You have to learn it, study it.
This environment frustrated her, but she would still do her best, as she remembered how her fellow teacher participants in the program persevered in their professional journey. She found the TPE really helpful as she learned many new ideas, including the use of media. In her school reality, however, not all the ideas can be implemented. Her school had only four LCD projectors for a total of 23 classrooms, and so she would have to go through the hassle of checking it out and setting it up in her classroom before class amidst her tight teaching schedule.
Despite teaching a total of 35 periods per week (equal to 26.25 hours), she still attempted to read and improve her English. She also tried to speak English with her colleagues, except with the most senior English teacher who was uncomfortable speaking English. The other two colleagues were not as fluent as she, but she continued to use English with them. Diah remembered her interactions with fellow TPE participants from different schools. The fact that many of them were more articulate in English motivated her to keep up her use of English.
In terms of English use, Pipit did not seem to have changed much. She had been using full English in her class interaction before the TPE and continuing to do so. Yet, she still acknowledged her gains from the TPE, such as a few grammatical points and expanded vocabulary from the lecturers. As she had been using English well in her class, she set a new bar for herself, namely to communicate in English more effectively. Occasionally, some of her students would still correct her use of English. Teaching privileged students has driven Pipit to improve her English.
In summary, within three months after completion of the TPE, teachers’ use of English did not seem to change significantly. However, the third interviews indicate positive changes, as revealed in the following table.
Table 7. Summary of Interview Subjects
| Teacher | Written Proficiency Test Score | Oral Proficiency | Years of Service | School | Use of English in School | |
| within three months after completion of TPE | one year after completion of TPE | |||||
| Sony | 61.53 | poor | 5-10 | a private vocational high school near Banyuwangi | minimal, mostly Indonesian as the medium of instruction | exercised Teaching Contract: 50% English and 50% Indonesian |
| Diah | 54.16 | poor in the first two interviews but more fluent in the third | >15 | Islamic boarding junior secondary school near Banyuwangi | minimal, mostly Indonesian as the medium of instruction | 20-50% English and 50% Indonesian + Javanese |
| Putri | 78.84 | adequate | < 5 | Islamic upper secondary school in Bojonegoro | a mix of English and Indonesian | declined to be interviewed |
| Eddy | 73.8 | adequate | 5-10 | state secondary school in Surabaya | mostly English and code-switch to Indonesian occasionally | not interviewed |
| Pipit | 80.83 | very good | 5-10 | private junior secondary school in Surabaya | 100% English in class and sometimes out of class with students and some colleagues | 100% English in class and sometimes out of class with students and some colleagues |
| Mesye | 82.69 | very good | 10-15 | junior secondary school in Surabaya | almost 100% English in class | not interviewed |
Sony and Diah reported using more English in class despite the constraints. The TPE did not change their use of English within three months of their completion, as seen in Table 6. Interestingly, the impact emerged one year afterwards.
Observations of the recorded classroom teaching confirmed the interview results for Sony and Pipit. Three researchers tabulated the use of languages in teacher utterances (Sony = 148, Diah = 99, Pipit = 111) in one teaching session. They coded them under classroom episodes of Content, Organization, and Off-task with an inter-rater reliability Kappa of 87.84%, 81.82%, and 84.38%, respectively. The fourth researcher verified the results. Below is the average percentage of language use in the three teachers’ classrooms:
Figure 2. Average Percentage of Language Use in One Teaching Session.
As the graph shows, Sony used English even more than promised in his Teaching Contract. Overall, he used 71% English in his teaching. On the contrary, Diah claimed to use 50% English, but the recorded teaching shows that only 20% of her utterances were English. She needed to overcome the mental barrier of attributing low value in secular subjects, including English set by the religious leaders in her school. Besides her justification that she won’t be understood when speaking English, the resistance to use English may be due to some other reasons such as lack of confidence, fear of making mistakes, or notion of English as a language of Western imperialism. This conjecture is yet to be examined in further research. Pipit consistently used 100% English throughout all three classroom episodes. This finding came as no surprise given the international emphasis of her school. It is interesting to note that the contrast between Pipit’s and Diah’s language environments and priorities would lead to a linguistic divide among young Indonesians. Indonesia needs to re-examine its language policy and resolve the dilemma between preserving cultural identities and equipping its young citizens with sufficient global literacy skills (Lie, 2021).
Implications and Conclusion
Through analysis of the findings and the researchers’ involvement in the TPE, this study yields three implications in relation to teachers’ use of English. First, this study finds that there is a variety of individual teacher readiness to teach in English. At the beginning of their teaching career, teachers do not stand at the same starting point. The Ministry of Education has determined minimal higher education standards, and all study programs, including teacher education colleges, are evaluated periodically through an accreditation system. However, in reality, teacher colleges have different available resources and levels of commitment to quality improvement. Furthermore, the urgent need for teachers, especially in underprivileged regions, compels the government to recruit teachers below the quality standards. Therefore, teachers in our study demonstrate various levels of English proficiency. The TPE has thus managed to bring together teachers from different regions and open their eyes to improve their English proficiency continuously. Through their interactions with other English teachers from various schools in the TPE online discussions and workshops, teachers are made aware of their positioning and the need to improve themselves. Thus, teachers need to be further encouraged to enhance their professional development beyond TPE.
Second, although participation in the TPE did not seem to have any significant impact on a short-term basis, it made most of them aware of the need to improve their English. Teachers have benefitted from the TPE on a longer-term basis.
Third, when teachers end up in schools with different levels of stakeholders’ expectations, they also have different needs to use English. Those in better schools are continually challenged to use and improve their English through the stakeholders’ demands. In contrast, others in underprivileged schools have less agency to remind them of the urgent need to use English. However, the modules, the online discussions, the face-to-face workshops with teacher educators, and the interactions with fellow teachers in the TPE have ushered teachers into a wider world whereby English is a necessary global communication skill and driven them to prevent the linguistic divide among young Indonesians from widening. To extend the impact of TPE, teachers need professional learning communities to grow further, and thus the MGMP needs to be strengthened.
This study has attempted to explore the impact of the certification program on English teachers’ language use. This study wishes to recapitulate that English teachers’ sufficient proficiency is not a given capital at the beginning of teacher service. Thus, it requires serious collaboration among English teacher colleges, the Ministry of Education, the school stakeholders, and the professional learning communities to drive teachers to continuously engage in their professional development.
About the Authors
Anita Lie is a professor at Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University and a consultant on school improvement in remote regions in Indonesia. Her research interests include teacher professional development and heritage language learning. In 2011, she was a research fellow at UC Berkeley. Her research on heritage language learning among Indonesian-Americans was funded by AIFIS. She got a 2018 Dedicated Scholar Award from kompas.id. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4818-2811
Siti Mina Tamah is a senior lecturer at Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University, Indonesia. Her research interests include cooperative learning and language teaching methods. Her current research topics are related to Cooperative Learning and Assessment. ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6078-7381
Imelda Gozali is a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate School of English Language Education, Faculty of Letters, Universitas Negeri Malang. Indonesia. She obtained her master degree in English Language Education from Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University, where she is also working as a faculty member. Her current research interest is in teaching English writing, the use of technology in language learning, and teachers’ professional development. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1276-6452
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Hartono Pranjoto, Ph.D. and his team of the Research and Community Service Institute, Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University for their kind support and assistance that enabled the completion of this research project.
To cite this article
Lie, A., Tamah, S. M. & Gozali, I. (2022). The impact of teacher professional education program on English language use. Teaching English as a Second Language Electronic Journal (TESL-EJ), 25(4). https://tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej100/a6.pdf
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