Muhammadiyah Higher Education (PTM) needs develop English learning models, which refer to international standard. The development engages curriculum renewal and teaching methods. It is necessary to enhance the quality of students and graduates of English Education Department in PTM across Indonesia.
The aforementioned paragraph was stated by Dean of Language Education Faculty (FPB) of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Jati Suryanto, S.Pd., M.A. in Workshop Teaching Learning Strategies of FPB’s lecturers, attended by 11 Muhammadiyah Higher Educations across Java. The event took place in Mini Theater of Language Training Center (PPB) of UMY on Monday (5/1).
Jati conveyed that many English Education Departments had not pointed to international standard learning models yet. He provided instances as UMY and Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta (UMS) that, even though the English learning models have already been quite good, they referred to the standard of DIKTI. “While, fostering the quality of students and graduates, English departments need develop the learning models using international standard. Thus, students could employ English learning, gained at college, well when they get involved in international sphere,” he uttered.
Hence, Jati continued, the workshop of Teaching Learning Strategies, besides aiming at formulating and developing the English learning models in international-standard PTM, it was also pointed at arranging English curriculum referring to International standard. “Therefore, the English Education system in PTMs could be more advanced. The quality of students and graduates of English Education Department would also enhance. I expected that the development of international-standard learning models and curriculum could also be valuable for students who are not taking PBI but are willing to learn English well,” he continued.
Moreover, Jati added that lecturers of Center for English Language Communication (CELC) of National University of Singapore (NUS) would attend the workshop, carried out till Wednesday (7/11). They would give briefing and information dealing with language education management at NUS. NUS was selected as the speaker of the event since it was considered as appropriate model of international language education.
“This event has been prepared for 2 years by Association of English Department. Previously, conducted workshops only informed teaching methods to students. On the other hand, this workshop would concern with the arrangement of language education curriculum as other international-standard universities. The speakers would be NUS since we argue that it could be reference,” he told.
This event, according to Jati, was supported by the cooperation of Temasek Foundation (TF) and PBI UMY as the organizer. Temasek was an institute that conducts trainings for teachers abroad. Nevertheless, Temasek would be not only the practitioner but also financier of all agendas, which would be carried out for 2 years until 2016.
Furthermore, a lecturer of CEELC NUS, Dr. Willy A Renandya, presented effective ways of teaching. He argued that lecturers were not supposed to deliver materials in front of class endlessly, but they should be able to create two-way discussion like engaging students to speak in a relaxed atmosphere. “Delivering materials, either inside or outside class, it is necessary to involving two-way discussion between the teacher and students. For instance, the teacher ask students to speak elatedly,” he maintained.
The workshop on the 5th – 7th of January 2015 was planned to be delivered by lecturers of NUS who were Assoc Prof. Wu Siew Mei (Director of CELC), Ms. Susan Tan (Deputy Director of CELC), Dr. Willy A Renandya (Senior Lecturer of National Institute of Education-Singapore), Dr. Gene Segarra Navera (Lecturer of CELC), Ms. Happy Goh (Senior Lecturer of CELC), Dr. Radhika Jaidev (Senior Lecturer of CELC). (Shidqi)
