TEACHERS’ BELIEFS ON THE POLICY OF ELT IN INDONESIA

Abstract

The policy of ELT in Indonesia has attracted so much attention from those working in the field of English language teaching. This is because the policy has been changed from time to time and the changes of the policy always require English teachers to keep adapting their teaching practices to comply with the new policy. In theory when English teachers believe in the importance and benefits of the new policy they are likely to be willing to implement the policy in the classroom level. However when the teachers have no beliefs in the importance of the policy it is unlikely that they are going to bring the new changes in their teaching practices. Therefore it is important to conduct a study in the field of teachers’ beliefs as it is teachers who can bring the policy down into the classroom level. This paper reports the findings of a small study on English teachers’ perceptions about the policy of ELT in Indonesia. This study has been conducted in Pekalongan University by involving 37 preservice English teachers who were required to complete a questionnaire. The findings suggest that these pre-service English teachers have various beliefs regarding the new policy of ELT in Indonesia which results in different concerns related to the practices of English teaching.