LANGUAGE POLICY DEVELOPMENT:
BOOSTING ACADEMIC CLIMATE IN ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
F. Aziez
Faculty of Education
Abstract
This study explored the development of language policy designed to boost academic climate in English Education Department of Education Faculty, Muhammadiyah University of Purwokerto. The development involved three phases: planning, implementing, and evaluating. The subjects of this study were all students of our department. The data on which the development was based were collected through interview, observation, questionnaire, and test. Interviews with students and lecturers revealed poor academic climate characterized mainly by the low interest in reading and mark-oriented study. They also displayed students’ weak areas of language competence. Observation yielded data confirming the poor climate and the need for a policy. Questionnaire data from 150 students representing all batches showed constraints students encountered in accessing learning sources, time spent in reading outside campus, the number of English books they had read through, language elements hampering reading, their opinion about the language policy, types and number of books they were willing to read in one semester, and evaluation and its uses. Tests disclosed students’ language proficiency and vocabulary size. Utilizing these data a language policy was then designed. Data obtained from discussions with colleagues and a second questionnaire on the evolved policy was employed to refine the design prior to implementation.
Key words: reading, academic climate, language policy, curriculum, language proficiency, grammar mastery, and vocabulary size.
1. Introduction
Upon the status transfer from teacher training institute to university in 1995, the then rector set a goal of making Muhammadiyah University of Purwokerto produce English proficient graduates. His goal, resembling its counterpart in Taiwan (Lineman, 2005), was to take a mid-sized local private university and make it equal in stature to larger national universities as a means of improving university visibility, thereby attracting a larger number of students to the school from an already dwindling national student population. To do this all English language faculty, were gathered and requested to offer suggestions, which the rector could act on resulting in reaching goal achievement. A three-year English instruction included in curriculums of all departments was introduced, and to assure the attainment of the goal a special unit was established under the supervision of the faculty of English letters. A number of new lecturers were recruited to back up the unit.
Despite the rigorous policy and other contingent measures to enhance English command of the university students, poor performance in English was still complained by the English lecturers. In English Education Department itself, students still showed below standard capacity.
A recent research (Aziez 2009) even proved that English students’ vocabulary size tended to slope batch by batch. As shown in the table below the average
Table 1 Students vocabulary size of three batches
| No | Batch | Vocabulary Test | |
| Correct Replies | Vocabulary Size | ||
| 1 | 2000 (IV) | 40,07 | 3000 |
| 2 | 2005 (V) | 34,65 | 2300 |
| 3 | 2006 (VI) | 26,80 | 2000 |
vocabulary size of two classes of semester IV students of batch 2000 reached 3000 words. This exceeded the size mean of batch 2005 students, who were at the time of test already at semester V. They only had the knowledge of approximately 2300 words. Worse still, the 2006 batch students, who at the time test were at semester VI, knew only 2000 words. The declining trend in the students’ vocabulary size of the department sent an alarming sign to the staff.
A study (Aziez 2008) on reading vocabulary sufficiency of students of the same department also exhibited that the average vocabulary insufficiency was 29.86%, falling short of the maximum 5% from the total running words.
Table 2. Reading Vocabulary Test Results
| Resp No | Crct Repl | Wrg Repl | % of Crct Repl | % of Wrg Repl | % W > Token | % P > Token |
| 1 | 32 | 11 | 74.42 | 25.58 | 16.92 | 83.08 |
| 2 | 31 | 12 | 72.09 | 27.91 | 18.46 | 81.54 |
| 3 | 30 | 13 | 69.77 | 30.23 | 20.00 | 80.00 |
| 4 | 29 | 14 | 67.44 | 32.56 | 21.54 | 78.46 |
| 5 | 28 | 15 | 65.12 | 34.88 | 23.08 | 76.92 |
| … | | | | | | |
| 23 | 20 | 23 | 46.51 | 53.49 | 35.38 | 64.62 |
| 24 | 20 | 23 | 46.51 | 53.49 | 35.38 | 64.62 |
| 25 | 18 | 25 | 41.86 | 58.14 | 38.46 | 61.54 |
| 26 | 18 | 25 | 41.86 | 58.14 | 38.46 | 61.54 |
| 27 | 18 | 25 | 41.86 | 58.14 | 38.46 | 61.54 |
| | | | | | | |
| Mean | 23.59 | 19.41 | 54.87 | 45.31 | 29.86 | 70.14 |
As shown in Table 2 above, the highest achiever knew only 83.08% of the words in the text and the lowest knew only 61.54%. This data confirmed the conjecture that most students could not even read the national English newspaper successfully. As Newmark (1988) pointed out, for a reader to be able to guess difficult words from context he needed to have the knowledge of at least 95% of the running words. In other words, only one in every 20 words is unfamiliar to the reader.
In grammar areas, we can clearly see the same picture in their written work. Students still produced such sentences as
| o With teacher using this media can increase vocabulary. o What Rina said have made hurt her parents. o That Danu learned how to swim well. o Mother buy me a pair of shoes. |
In spoken language, their lack of grammar control causes their speech to be barely comprehensible.
All lecturers seem to have the same ground on this phenomenon: curricular problem. The current curriculum lacks the power of generating a favorable academic climate in the department. This is particularly apparent in its failure to create students a reading community: an entity, which will not only solve the problem, but also promises a better language. A language policy can then be attempted in this case.
However, as far as language policy is concerned, a great care must be taken to secure its success. As we know, a language policy might not operate in the way we intended if developed without involving stakeholders and students. As proven in many contexts, curriculum policy implementation in any educational jurisdiction involves a variety of stakeholders. Their roles in executing the curriculum policies contribute to the degree which new or revised curricula will be implemented in the local institutions (Wang, 2009).
Wang (2009) concluded that lecturers as the policy implementers did not always do as told nor did they always act to maximize policy objectives for some reasons: they are resistant to change; they are just lazy; the lack the capacity necessary to work in ways that are consistent with policy. What is meant by capacity here refers to knowledge, skills, personnel, and other resources.
When teachers hamper the success of the policy implementation through their failure to do as told, which are due to a variety of causes, like laziness to adopt innovation, lack of capacity, and misunderstanding, students obstruct it through a number of different factors. Their low entering capacity might lead to uncooperative behavior to an instruction bearing too ambitious objectives. A low motivation might result from curriculum, which was developed below their maximum potential. In short, policy objectives, which ignore students’ objective condition and attitudinal aspects, might be more viewed as ‘forced goals’ than ‘needed goals’.
It is for the very reason that any educational policy development, like language policy, requires the involvement of the stakeholders and students. Their involvement will not only result in objectives and methods that are consistent with implementers’ aspiration and capacity, but also with students’ expectation and preferences.
2. Methods
The development of the policy will entail three phases: planning, implementing, and evaluation. Planning consists of conducting a preliminary study, evolving initial policy design, administering a second study, and refining the design. Implementation of the policy comprises socialization of the policy and bringing it into effect. Evaluation process actually starts from the beginning of this venture, when a pretest is administered in the planning phase. The main issue of this phase, however, occurs at the end of the first year of implementation.
Planning
The first phase of the study commenced with a preliminary study, which aimed at gaining information on students’ language proficiency, vocabulary size, reading habit, reading problems, preferred books, reading attitude; students’ opinion about language policy; accessibility of learning resources; and evaluation system. Information from lecturers was also collected to support the data obtained from students. This information ranges from feasibility of the policy, their support, until reading materials provision.
Interview, which was administered informally, was used to gather information about students’ and lecturers’ stance on the language policy plan. Observation was utilized to collect information about students’ reading habit.
Questionnaire was used as a main data-collecting instrument, since almost all information needed were acquired through this means. The questionnaires cover the following areas.
Figure 1. Questionnaire coverage
| 1 | Whether Central Library serves satisfactorily students’ reading needs. |
| 2 | Whether Department library serves satisfactorily students’ reading needs. |
| 3 | Whether students go to libraries only for assignment purposes only. |
| 4 | Whether students rarely read in campus due to uneasy feeling (fear of being considered ‘a smart-aleck’). |
| 6 | Whether their mates read a lot outside of campus. |
| 7 | The approximate time spent on reading a day. |
| 8 | The number of English books students have so far read. |
| 9 | Titles of books students have finished reading. |
| 10 | Whether reading English textbooks is difficult. |
| 11 | Factors causing reading problem (vocabulary, grammar, or messages) |
| 12 | Students’ opinion about academic climate in English Department. |
| 13 | Whether students agree if the Department set a language policy to improve the climate. |
| 14 | Whether students agree if the policy requires students to read a certain amount of books each semester. |
| 15 | What type of fiction books students prefer. |
| 16 | What type of non-fiction book students prefer. |
| 17 | The number of fiction books students can read in one semester. |
| 18 | The number of non-fiction books students can read in one semester. |
| 19 | Whether students agree if this reading activity is evaluated. |
| 20 | Whether students agree if the evaluation results are integrated into the evaluation of relevant subjects. |
The tests were used for two crucial data: students’ language proficiency and vocabulary size.
Taking into consideration all the data gained from the first study, a language policy was designed. However, for the plan to be successfully implemented a second preliminary study was conducted. This was done through administering a survey on students’ and lecturers’ opinion about the policy prototype. A ready to use policy plan was produced after the refining process using the second study data. The policy looks as follows.
Figure 2. Language policy plan
| NAME |
| Boosting Academic Climate through Language Policy |
| OBJECTIVES |
| This policy is designed to meet two primary objectives, namely
which will in turn improve their communicative competence. The communicative competence is defined here more as the ability to read and write. The two skills get emphasis in this plan since the two skills play more important roles in the academic life of the students. |
| ACTIVITIES |
| A. Fiction Book Reading During the eight semester course students are obliged to read 28 novels, with the following terms. a. From semester one up to semester three, students are to read six simplified novels each semester. The arrangments are: Semester 1 : Grade Green (easy) Semester 2 : Grade Red (medium) Semester 3 : Grade Blue (rather difficult) b. From semester four upward they will have to read two original novels each semester. B. Non-fiction Book Reading During the eight semester period, students must read four non-fiction books, under the conditions below. a. Every two semesters students will read one book, namely Semester 1 : Practice and Progress (L.G. Alexander) Semester 2 : Practice and Progress (L.G. Alexander) Semester 3 : Developing Skills (L.G. Alexander) Semester 4 : Developing Skills (L.G. Alexander) Semester 5 : Fluency in English (L.G. Alexander) Semester 6 : Fluency in English (L.G. Alexander) Semester 7 : A Practical English Usage (Michael Swan) Semester 8 : A Practical English Usage (Michael Swan) b. Every semester they will read half a book for contents and language. C. Note-book Keeping
· Difficult and/or important vovabulary with their meanings, · The original phrases or sentences where the words occur, · Important or interesting phrases, · Interesting or important sentences, · Important sentence patterns or structures, · Characterizations and settings (in novels) · And other important language elements. |
| ACTIVITY EVALUATION |
| A. Time
B. Format a. Evaluation instrument will be of oral test. b. Testers are students’ academic counselors. c. Test materials are taken at random from novels and books. C. Scoring System
Novels : 75% / 15 items Textbooks : 25 % / 5 items
D. Evaluation Result Use
|
| POLICY MACRO EVALUATION |
| Macro evaluation is administered to measure the extent to which the language policy has accomplished its intended main objectives. For the purpose, evaluation will use test as the data collecting instrument. The tests are TOEFL-like test and vocabulary size test. The two tests will be administered simultaneously to all students of all batches at the outset of the policy implementation (pretest) and at the end of every academic year (posttest). Therefore, during the four academic years, the first semester students at the time of the pretest administration, will sit four posttests. Test results from the pretest and the posttests will be used for statistical analysis to determine the achievement of the policy |
Having developed the policy, preparation of reading materials followed. This included the purchase of novels, both the simplified and original. As for the textbooks, students are required to buy them in bookstores or from campus bookstore. In case of textbooks unavailability, the Department orders them direct from the publisher.
Academic counselors, who will guide and test students, will have to take part in a short training designed to equip them with clear ideas of what the policy is all about and how to test and score students.
Implementing
Upon completion of the development, the policy will then be put into practice. At the beginning of the implementation, the counselor will explain to their students everything about the policy, like the purposes and evaluation. During implementation, counselors will offer help to students who have problems and show them what to do with the novels and books. Special attention should be given to the use of dictionary in order for students to be cognizant of the wider functions of dictionary, such as the secondary meanings of words, the idioms, and the sample sentences.
Evaluating
As shown in the above figure, evaluation of this policy is of two types. The first is semester-based evaluation, which is carried out to measure the achievement of individual students at the end of each semester. The mode of evaluation is solely oral test. The resulting scores will be integrated into the evaluation of relevant subjects.
The second is the macro evaluation, which is intended to measure the effectiveness of the policy in boosting academic climate and consequently students’ vocabulary and grammar mastery.
3. Discussion
Though the policy itself is yet to be endorsed for approval from the Rector, it has been through a comprehensive study, involving longitudinal observation, interviews, questionnaire, and tests, and is now ready for use. Observation conducted for years have shown to the writer that academic climate in our Department has so far been far from being conducive. Students are rarely spotted reading, discussing academic matters, or doing group assignments in campus. Students spend most of their time in campus for chatting or sending electronic messages.
When speaking, students keep halting, making grammatical mistakes, and showing poor pronunciation. This of course causes a communication dilemma for lecturers. They are in doubt whether to speak in English or in Bahasa Indonesia as a medium of instruction. This also has raised debates among lecturers about possible methodological treatments to address the problem. The former Head of the Department prefers student-centered, communicative, meaning focused approach, while some lecturers are in favor of explicit instruction of grammar and vocabulary. The former Head ruled out the teaching of grammar in the four language skills classes, while others wanted inclusion of grammar and lexical discussion in those classes.
Informal interviews with lecturers revealed firm facts that lack of vocabulary and grammar mastery underlie students’ communicative problem. This is confirmed more with the students’ writing work. Poor grammar and spelling characterize most apparently their written language. Little lexical variety in their sentences is just to add severity of the problem. Interviews with students presented information that they have a very limited collection of English books. The books they possess are only those included in the book-package, purchased by students at the beginning of their study; and one or two grammar books.
Further informal interviews with lecturers suggested an urgent need of a language policy. Lecturers put emphasis on the ability of the policy in addressing students’ vocabulary and grammatical problems. Besides, since revisiting the existing curriculum is deemed impractical, the policy should cope with the problems mostly outside the classrooms.
With supports from lecturers, a policy development commenced. A study design was then set. An observation guide, interview protocols for lecturers, and two questionnaires for students were devised. Information gathered through observation and interviews is discussed above. Questionnaires for students revealed that 76% of the students agreed that Central Library had satisfactorily met their reading needs. However, they (85%) confessed that the amount of time spent on reading a day was less than one hour. They also admitted that their mates rarely read in campus (90%) and this according to many of them (64%) was due to the uneasy feeling. Another paradox was there in the fact that they were (86%) satisfied with the Department’s library collection but had so far read less than two books through. This was probably caused by their limited vocabulary (76%) and weak command of grammar (24%) rather than by messages contained in the texts.
A large proportion of students (78%) preferred novels as the obligatory reading materials for the fiction category. Only some of them (22%) preferred poetry and drama. For the non-fiction category, most students (90%) chose books discussing grammar and dealing with vocabulary but accompanied with stories. As for the maximum number books they can read in one semester, most of them (97%) answered more than three books.
All students agreed with the language plan, but reminding that this plan had to be consistently put into effect.
4. Conclusion
Low performance in communication using English among English Department students must not be accounted for with excuses, such as the low quality raw input. English Department is there to help the low quality input achieve high standard performance. A number of measures can be attempted in this connection and language policy is one of the many.
By taking into consideration students needs and preferences, and lecturers’ perception, it is hoped that the study will yield an effective policy in boosting the academic climate in the Department, which will in turn affect the students performance, especially in the areas of grammar and vocabulary.
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