English
in Indonesia Should be Learned from Early Childhood Education
By: MOH. FAUZAN, S. Pd.
Language is a means
of human communication. With language we can
understand what other person conveys to us and we can also convey our ideas to
other persons. There are many languages those are used by all people around the
world, like: Japanese and Thai. However only
English that is currently used
by all people around the world, because English is an international language, means that we
will also learn knowledge and culture of other nations. If
students in Indonesia learn English as early as possible, then they will gain
the knowledge and culture of other nations as early as possible as well. The question is, is it suitable if English
should be learned from early childhood education?.
There are some reasons why this policy should be opposed. In terms of mental
readiness, school fee, and culture.
First, the problem is
related to mental readiness. Indonesian education
system that requires every
students to be smart in all lessons they learn make that policy is not suitable
to be applied to the students in early childhood education. Indeed, the
children in this age have high intellect and memory, but the children in this
age have no mental readiness.
When the
children are depressed in every English lesson it will make the children
difficult to understand English lesson. Moreover, English is as
a foreign language in our country which the dialect and the meaning are
different from Indonesian. Although the words using alphabet like Indonesian
words, but this situation will make the children difficult to understand
English lesson that is taught and after that only less children that want to
learn English in the future. In Finlandia (the country that has the best
education quality in the world now) doesn’t require the student to be smart.
There is no teacher pressing their students to be master in his lesson, if
there is student has difficulty in his lesson or if the student can’t go up a class there
will special teachers to help children to understand the lesson in the school
until they can. This way will be very effective to make the children are not be
depressed in the school and the lesson can be understood by students well,
because the student relax when they receive the lesson.
Second, the problem is
related to school fee. English is one of expensive language to be learnt. Let’s
look at the fact in the real life: if the students want to learn English
properly then they must study in the school that has expensive fee too, because
expert teachers of English are only in expensive school. Even if there
are English teachers in low-cost school, they can’t be taught English properly.
In other side, there are still many people in our country who live in poverty.
Instead of get a good education, get money to eat, they are still difficulties.
So it is not fair if only rich students that can get good quality education.
Third, the problem is
related to the culture. Western nation is
the owner of the English. In addition, they teach
their language, they
also teach their
culture to the world.
Western culture is contrary with eastern culture which is adopted
by Indonesian in general. Western
culture doesn’t follow the rules
of religion. Even though, all religions have taught how to use dress and associate
politely. In
our country itself, western culture
has penetrated the
majority of young generations, such as: young woman that
use tight cloth,
drunkenness, doing free sex with no control. Consequently,
there are many young women who become
victims of immoral, many young men and
young women are dying
needlessly because of
drunkenness. If we have known how bad influence of
western culture, then do we still apply the policy to require the students to learn English
from early childhood school education?. Only
a foolish person who has this crazy idea.
Destroy the young generations means
also destroy a
nation, because young generations are the successor to the
life of a nation in the future.
In conclusion, a policy is prepared to change the unfavorable policies previously, but to implement the
new policy still needs experiments and surveys in the real life, whether the
new policy is suitable to be implemented or not. Require English to learn from
early childhood education is a misguided policy. The reason which
says if English is international language, if we learn English as early as
possible, then we will gain the knowledge of other nations as early as possible
as well is also the
wrong reason. The children in early childhood education
is the children that still need to play and socialize with their peers, don’t burden the children to have to learn the
language which the language is as a foreign language
in this country, the language which is used only a minority of people in Indonesia, the language which is much different from the language in Indonesia and also the language which bring bad culture to our
country. Better our government requires the children to learn local
language and introduce them the culture in Indonesia, Because
language and culture
are state assets and
the children are exactly who would be the successor
to maintain the
language and culture in our country in order that it won’t be extinct
in the future.
