Competency-Based English
Language Teaching
Emilia Karjadi
Ridha Mardiani
A recent study dealing
with experiences of Indonesian students studying overseas by Karjadi (2003)
revealed that the majority of the students experienced culture shocks because
of communication breakdowns. The research also showed that inadequate, or even
lack of knowledge of the language and the culture of the host country led them
to culture shocks. From the research findings above, it is obvious that
teaching English must be equipped with teaching the culture of English speaking
countries, especially, teaching of cross-cultural understanding (CCU) that will
contribute much to students in understanding the target culture. In the
Indonesian context some teachers perceived that teaching CCU is difficult
because of some problems, i.e. 1) lack of time 2) expectations of students’
exposure and 3) language and culture concerning communicative skills that are
separated from each other. To overcome this problem, we developed a way for
language teachers to facilitate culture learning through language teaching or
vice versa language learning through culture teaching. We also developed
instructional strategies of teaching CCU that could be used in and out of
class, adapted from Ned Seelye. We modified some principles and adjusted them
to Indonesian context in order to have a method that is feasible to apply.
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Karjadi, E., &
Mardhiani, R. (2003, October). Competency-based
English language teaching. Paper
presented at the 51st TEFLIN International Conference,
Website: www.geocities.com/eltindonesia
Email: eltindonesia@yahoo.com