Indonesian Language a Casualty of Poor Teaching, Parents' Preference for English

[Francis Hult]

Jakarta Globe

Indonesian Language a Casualty of Poor Teaching, Parents' Preference for English

Two-year-old Alvaro Zafransyah is Indonesian, with both his parents born and raised here, but at his home in Jakarta he is encouraged to speak English exclusively. 

Milla Narendra, Alvaro's mother, said that she had been teaching her son English ever since he was a baby. 

"English is the second mother language these days," she said. "I want my son to get used to it as early as possible." 

Many other parents are taking the same approach as Milla nowadays - teaching their children English, and even Mandarin, from an early age. Their aim is to make it easier for their kids to flourish in an era when both languages are deemed to be of vital importance. 

However, the trend of studying a second language may be having an unintended side-effect. Next week, 80,000 of the 154,000 senior high school students who failed the recent national examinations exams are set to repeat their Indonesian language tests.

 

Full story:

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/indonesian-language-a-casualty-of-poor-teaching-parents-preference-for-english/372923

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