Should Bilingual Education be Banned in the School?

                People in today's society have opposite opinions on how to approach the issue of bilingual education. Basically, the sides are split on the issue of teaching bilingual education in Indonesian’s schools. There are many excellent points and arguments for each side of the tape. Personally, I chose to believe that we should keep bilingual education out of the Indonesian education because we need to learn and know English. Bilingual education is considered as one of the hottest issues in the country of Indonesia. There are also opponents that states that they want English language to be the second national language in Indonesia. However, there are some individuals who want their children not to learn English language. The existence of bilingual education plays a vital role in most of the children in the country of Indonesia since bilingual education will help them know English language better aside from the usual language they use in writing and communicating. There positives and negatives side of bilingual education.

            The first advantage of Bilingual Education is knowledge. When a student learns new information in a language that he does not understand, he will not be receiving any comprehensible input. However, if the teacher provides instruction in the student's native language, it gives the student knowledge. This knowledge helps make the students to learn English language much more comprehensible. When the students already get the knowledge it will be easier for them to use it and practice it to the native speaker. Nowadays is a modern era, people who cannot speak English well will live behind. Bilingual Education must be the top priority to obtain the accountability standards. It is a fact that most of the students who are part of bilingual education have the ability to learn a wide variety of English language training as well as the other foreign language that are being use all around the globe.

            The second advantage is confidence. Although this may be considered as a subjective factor to use as supporting evidence, confidence can be seen as another reason why bilingual education is a positive asset to the educational system. It can be said that this system gives an extra boost of self-confidence to students participating in that program. Crawfrod (1989) & Cummins (1984) said that Bilingual education can have a positive effect on a student's confidence and self-esteem because it stresses the importance of a student's background knowledge and allows the student to use this knowledge by integrating it into their daily learning. One of the reasons that some students are unable to achieve full fluency in a second language is because they are afraid to make mistakes which might result in embarrassing themselves and being laughed at by their friends. A self-confident, secure person will be able to learn language more successfully.

            On the other hand, some people believe that Bilingual Education is not time efficient. Opponents of bilingual education are saying that it is not time efficient because it takes too long for students to gain proficiency in English through the bilingual education program because they tend to want to fall back on their native language, refusing to learn English and know into the mainstream. It is only natural for students to take a long time before becoming proficient enough in English to be able to enter the mainstream classroom without having difficulty in the other academic subjects. Opponents of bilingual education also believe that bilingual education programs cause students to fall behind their friends in all-English programs in terms of language proficiency. Nevertheless, studies show that not only do the students in bilingual programs catch up, but they also often pass by their friends both academically and linguistically, scoring higher on tests. Zelasko, n.d. said the longer students spend in bilingual programs, the better they perform in academics and in language.

            Another reason that some people oppose Bilingual Education is the ability of the teacher itself. Many teachers in Indonesia cannot use English language as the bilingual education. The book that is used by the teacher is already in appropriate way, but teacher cannot teach the students by using English. Therefore, the schools have to study the teacher also to help them to teach in English. The teacher can switch into Indonesian language if the materials are difficult to understand by the students. There is a wide gap between the teachers, who are both confident and capable of handing the intense pressure associated with managing a class of students requiring special attention in using bilingual education.

            There are many people who are opposed to and in favor of the bilingual education system for various reasons. However, studies prove that bilingual education is actually a better educational system for the students' language and academic learning. Instead of putting students in an Indonesian-only or using local language atmosphere and forcing them to learn a new language, it is better to provide this new information in a language that the student can understand. There are will always has their positive and negative sides of having bilingual education in class.

References:

http://study.com/article_directory/Hot_Topics_in_Education.html

http://apecsec.org/bilingual-education-pros-and-cons/

By: Tisyrinul Awwal
Academic Discussion