Not in Kansas Anymore: Contrasts and Influence in Indonesia
Jan Edwards Dormer, jan.dormer@gmail.com
Okay, a couple of disclaimers to start. First, I’m not actually from Kansas, but Indiana wouldn’t conjure up the “other world” point of my title. Second, I realize that readers of this newsletter are all over the world—some even in Indonesia. But I doubt that there are any CETC readers within about 50 million people of where I sit, and that is the contrast that I’m going for.
I have worked for 6 years in Indonesia as an educator, and daily experience frustration at the enormity of what needs to be done here and the lack of people to do it. However, I also experience a sense of satisfaction that may be hard to rival elsewhere, as I am often in the frontline position of bringing “new” educational ideas to schools and teachers. This article is based on my own experience, with its diversity and limitations. It is an effort to highlight some of the struggles that I have faced, which I imagine could be echoed by TESOL educators who work in other underdeveloped situations. I first describe three contrasts that I see between TESOL work in developed and underdeveloped contexts. Then I address the issue of Christian service within such contexts, in an attempt to perhaps raise our collective consciousness as Christian educators as to how we may be able to help.
Specialist versus Generalist
As I sit here in Indonesia, like many of my colleagues in TESOL education in North America¹ I am swamped with end-of-year tasks. But there the similarity ends. Back “home,” educators are likely wading through papers and projects that have something to do with TESOL, linguistics, or a related field. In contrast, my to-do piles include a stack of books to read in preparing a course on K-12 school improvement; papers to grade from a recent course on curriculum development for 30 teachers from every imaginable content area and age level; and notes and Internet articles on the topic of seminary education, in preparation for a training seminar for seminary professors. This is all in addition to my “real” work: developing and running a master of education program with an emphasis on foreign language education.
While those in developed countries are busy specializing in areas within TESOL, which one must do to stay ahead of the game amidst the proliferation of research in TESOL, I must head in the other direction, becoming ever more of a generalist. I accept diverse speaking and teaching invitations, simply because I know that no one around is really qualified to give them. So, I spend endless hours researching outside my field of TESOL, in other areas of education. I attempt to meet local needs as best I can, though this use of my time does not bode well for my prospects for developing a specialization and getting published.
Vast versus Sparse Resources
Another contrast is the availability of resources. Almost daily here I must deal with issues stemming from our lack of material, financial, and human resources. Most professional books are not readily available in Indonesia. Even when books are locally available, what teacher earning $100 a month can afford a $30 book? Our students need access to professional journals, but we can’t afford them. Our MEd students pay $300 per year for our program and still many require a 50% discount. This doesn’t give us a lot of extra funds to build up our library. And Indonesia is not on the list of “underdeveloped” countries qualifying for reduced rates for online academic journals. How can teachers here read widely in their field, let alone ever have a hope of publishing for a larger audience?
The dearth of human resources is probably the most troublesome. Though there are a few local TESOL degree programs,² they often suffer from the same ills affecting higher education in general in this country: minimally qualified instructors, corruption in higher education, and transmission approaches to education. The quality of education received in such programs is unpredictable at best. Our MEd program runs on faith alone: I have yet to find local instructors qualified and willing to deliver our courses, and must bring in foreign professionals who are willing to teach short intensive courses as volunteers.
Quality versus Quantity
It is perhaps ironic that in a country where everyone studies English as a foreign language, many for 4 to 5 years in both public and private settings, there has not been better development of the field of TESOL. English schools are abundant, and within the past 10 years great numbers of private “international” schools have sprung up, often started by Christian groups, which provide K-12 education either partially or fully through the medium of English. And yet when I visit these schools it is not uncommon to discover that few on staff, including the leadership, have any background in education. When private schools are looking for teachers, their primary concern is finding bright young people who speak English. Such young people are usually graduates in economics, computers, or business—not education. Education is a “fall-back” career choice here; if you can’t get into any better program, you become a teacher. It is even rarer to find someone on staff who knows a lot about foreign language acquisition, much less the nature of foreign language learning in a language immersion school setting. Few people have any formal understanding of how children acquire foreign languages, and schools simply provide what equally ignorant parents demand: full instruction in English, lots of homework and paperwork, and at least one White face on staff—and usually any White face will do.
My first job is usually to convince people that there is indeed a field of study on foreign language acquisition, and that their school would be better off if they knew something about it. Ironically, I often find myself trying to convince local school leaders to include Indonesian as a medium of instruction for some subjects, and to provide training for their teachers in both education and language immersion. I am often in the difficult position of being the one to point out that the “English immersion” that children are receiving is really immersion in an error-ridden version of English, common among vast numbers of Indonesian English teachers.
In sum, life and work in these circumstances is not easy.
Christian Influence
Many Christian foreign workers are in this country teaching English.³ But though some have taken short certificate courses, very few have degrees or extensive training in TESOL, and I have not yet met any other foreigner in my small province of 35 million who would identify with the label “TESOL Professional.” What about local Indonesians? Though I work with many dedicated Christian Indonesian English teachers, most of these enter our programs and courses with no prior training in TESOL, and many were previously not even aware of the need for such training.
Disjuncture Between U.S. Training and Indonesian Reality
I was excited a year or so ago when I was asked to supervise the internship of an Indonesian student enrolled in an MA TESOL program in a large, well-respected Christian university in the United States. She completed her internship in a local school here in Indonesia, went back to the United States to graduate, and then returned to Indonesia. But much to my dismay, she is now working in her parents’ business and is not teaching English. She says she doesn’t really feel prepared to teach English here. Though part of this may stem from a cultural tendency to acquire a degree primarily for status rather than for use, I suspect it also has something to do with a disjuncture between typical MA TESOL program content in the West and the realities of English teaching here in Indonesia. In the mind of this graduate, the two have very little in common. I have not lost hope for her yet, however. I have been asked to develop a program to increase the English proficiency of teachers in a Christian bilingual school. Because it is run by this young woman’s church, I have asked her to assist me and to take over the class when I go on furlough.
I have worked with a few Americans here, as well, who had acquired certificate-level TESOL training in North American Christian universities. As I meet and talk with them in their real teaching settings, they often speak of skills needed here that were not a part of their training. Such skills might include teaching children, teaching grammar, or teaching in limited-resource contexts. How can we better prepare English teachers for contexts like Indonesia? In the case of the Indonesian MA graduate, hopefully the mentorship experience will help her see how her American MA degree does provide a good foundation for teaching English in Indonesia. But could anything have been done differently in her MA program to help her return to Indonesia with that perspective in the first place? And can certificate-level programs provide opportunities for teachers with particular overseas destinations to hone in on skills that will be essential for them?
Many Educated, but Few Going
I hope I have shown the need for qualified teachers and teacher educators here. There are many well-respected Christian TESOL education programs in North America. Why are more graduates of these programs not showing up to serve in underdeveloped parts of the world? Do they not know about the needs? Do they not see TESOL as ministry? Are they not prepared for the financial challenges? I am at times baffled by the fact that the bigger and better and more professional our Christian university TESOL programs become, the more difficult it seems to be to interest newly minted TESOL professionals in going where they are so needed and could have such an impact through Christian service. Research in missions has shown the training of workers from underdeveloped countries in the United States to sometimes be counterproductive, in that such “nationals” may then be unprepared to return to ministry in their own countries. Could we be seeing a similar problem emerge among Western-trained TESOL professionals? Would field-training programs in real EFL contexts be better?
The Role of a Christian TESOL Professional Organization
Will the contrasts that I have highlighted here become even more pronounced when we are no longer a caucus? Perhaps now is a crucial time to consider what we want to accomplish as Christian TESOL professionals in a major international organization. Do we want to be more effective in bridging the gaps that I have highlighted? Can we become more intentional in reaching out to English teachers in countries like Indonesia with resources and expertise?
It was a tremendous blessing when four of the teachers in our MEd program received scholarships to attend the CELT conference in Thailand in 2006. Only one had ever been outside Indonesia, and none had ever been to a professional conference. All four teachers now speak of that trip as a turning point—a time when they began to view themselves as professionals. I hope we will make an effort to continue to provide both regional conferences and scholarships for teachers from underdeveloped countries. In light of the financial limitations involved in such endeavors, I hope we will also look for low-cost ways to provide resources for a larger number of teachers. The Christian English teachers that I know in Indonesia would be thrilled, for instance, to have some kind of membership status in a Christian TESOL organization, and be eligible to receive a newsletter like this one.
Many of the Indonesian teachers that I know are dealing with multiple challenges that would be a strain on anyone: having to teach content through the medium of English despite having limited English skills, having little or no training in any kind of education, and getting very low pay, to name just a few. Paulina, one such teacher who has recently joined our MEd program, wrote me this e-mail:
Dear Jan, I found my self know nothing about education. I have spent 5 years of teaching, and even become a grade leader, but there are still a lot of things to be learnt. I realize, I am far from the expectation to become good educator. I read the news about Human Development Index that has been published by UNDP, Indonesia is on very low level. I feel desperation. Will I make an impact? Is it too big to dream? I become a frustration teacher then.
Can we, Christian professionals in TESOL, do anything to support our colleagues and lessen the frustration of teachers like Paulina? Whatever direction we go, I hope we will try. Please feel free to contact me with ideas and suggestions or offers to help address some of the challenges I that I have noted.
Notes
¹ My apologies to those in other parts of the world for using “North America” as the “developed world” part of this comparison. I do so because this is the context with which I am familiar.
² Indonesia does have a few good TESOL programs, mostly located in major cities. However, in light of its population of 260 million and the fact that nearly everyone studies English at some point, the average Indonesian is much more likely to be taught by poorly rather than by well-qualified English teachers.
³ The majority of those in this category are working hard to do the best job they can with what they know. Many are self-taught, and several have enrolled in courses that I teach, overjoyed that such training is available locally. I have never yet met a person who did not care about providing quality English instruction even though he or she may have additional ministry goals.
Jan Edwards Dormer has worked in ESL/EFL for 20 years, in Canada, Brazil, and Indonesia. She completed her EdD at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT) in Canada. She and her husband currently work in higher education in Indonesia. In her spare time she enjoys singing with her two teenage daughters.
