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CURRICULUM OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION IN
EXPANDING CIRCLES:
English teachers with best teaching skills or the ones who are best-English proficient?
Susilo
Mulawarman University, Samarinda Kalimantan Timur
Email: Olisusunmul@yahoo.com
Abstract:
Countries classified as expanding circles by Kachru often have endless worries about
qualities of the products of Teacher Education (LPTK in Indonesian concept). This
happened due to the fact that never are such expanding circles able to give enough rooms
for English learners to have real-life practices since English is not the lingua franca.
Similarly in Indonesia, an issue of highlighting qualities of the products of Teacher
Education has become an endless problem that never leave satisfactory solution. At the
moment, this issue might be becoming a blip in a situation where new curriculum will be
implemented soon. In fact, attempts have been made to increase qualified products of
LPTK in Indonesia for years; yet the results are not better than expected. Six domains of
content (i.e. theories of teaching, teaching skills, communication skills, subject matter
knowledge, pedagogical reasoning and decision making, and context knowledge)
presumably might have been used by Indonesian LPTK as the core knowledge base of
Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE); however, since Indonesia has various
geographical areas which implies various contexts of SLTE, these six domains of content
might not be differently adopted in all parts of Indonesia. Highlighting how important all
the six domains of content in the development of Indonesian SLTE are presumably leads
to how much attention should be paid on each domain. Reviewing these six domains of
content, specifically this article intends to analyze how those domains are synchronized in
composing the core content of the English Department curriculum in LPTK. Are they all
equally important?
Key Words:
SLTE, LPTK, Pre-Service Teacher Education, and Six Domains of Content in SLTE.
Introduction
According to Kachru’s (in Jenkin, 2006) most influential model of World Englishes,
Indonesian belongs to the so-called “expanding circle” where different patterns of acquisition
and functional allocation of English in diverse cultural context were found. Since English is
not spoken in a daily life, World English speakers in the expanding circle grow up bilingual
or multilingual, implying different circumstances of acquisition. This results in, among other
things, the fact that they only have fewer rooms for real-life practice, but are also faced with
unique characteristics of learning contexts. English teachers, English teacher-producing
institutions, and English language education are epicentres of increasing both qualitatively
and quantitatively English learning of non-native speakers in this expanding circles.
Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE) would be a fundamental issue in talking
about those epicentres. In the field of TESOL, there has been a long debate on whether or not

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SLTE programs should focus on practical teaching skills and academic knowledge (Johnson
in Burns & Richard, 2009). Two strands within the fields of SLTE has been problematic – the
one emphasizing pedagogical issue and the other focusing on academic knowledge, i.e.
knowledge about language and language learning. As a matter of fact, there is no general
consensus on what kinds of knowledge should encompassed in the SLTE programs as
Richards (2000) proposed six domains of content to constitute the core knowledge base of
SLTE – i.e.
theories of teaching, teaching skills, communication skills, subject matter
knowledge, pedagogical reasoning and decision making, and context knowledge – which are
good, in my opinion, to be used to see how the Teacher-Producing Institutions prepare their
products, i.e. English teachers. In the context of Indonesian educational system, formally
English teachers should be the products of Institutes of Teacher Training and Education
(STKIP or IKIP) or Teachers Colleges in a university (FKIP). In Indonesian terminology,
both teacher training institutes and teacher colleges are formally labeled as LPTK (Lembaga
Pendidikan Tenaga Kependidikan).
Content of the LPTK curriculum should meet the national curriculum of higher
education which is represented by ministerial regulation, i.e. SK MENDIKNAS NO
045/U/2002 and SK MENDIKNAS NO 232/U/2000, which divide the national curriculum in
Indonesian universities into two parts, i.e. core curriculum and institutional curriculum. The
core curriculum should contain at least 40 – 80 % of the entire courses that the students take;
while the rest is the institutional one. This means that nationally in Indonesia, LPTK would
not show significantly different content in its curriculum structure. All LPTK in Indonesia
apply approximately similar core content of curriculum including curriculum of the English
Department.
This article would like to review Richard’s (2000) six domains of content in the core
knowledge base of SLTE and analyze how those domains are synchronized in composing the
core content of the English Department curriculum in LPTK. Have Richard’s six domains of
content equally been represented in courses stipulated in the English department curriculum
of LPTK?
English in Expanding Circles and the Implication for Pre-Service Teacher Education
Kachru’s (1986) three concentric circles — with the countries traditionally enjoying
ownership of English treated as the “inner circle,” the postcolonial communities which use
English as a second language for intra-national purposes labeled as “outer circle,” and all the
other communities increasingly using English as a foreign language, primarily for

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international purposes, labeled the “expanding circle” — situated different varieties of
English in its historical context. As a consequence, the so-called “World Englishes”
strengthens the debates on the teaching of English as a Foreign Language in the countries
where English is not spoken in their daily routines. In these countries, English is taught as a
foreign language in schools; meanwhile in everyday activities the students speak their local
or national language. This condition leads to the lack of out-class learning exposure for
learners of English. The learners have no enough room for using English after they go out
from the English class; only certain individuls have access for watching TV Channels with
authentic English programs, or reading authentic English magazines or newspapers. In short,
compared to learners of English in the “inner or outer circles”, the learners of English in the
“expanding circles” have less opportunities to practice the target language outside the class.
Similarly, English teachers should also be faced with that circumstances.
In Indonesia, various regions implies continuum of circumstances from the highly
facilitated English learning environment to the highly poor one. In the perspective of learners,
this suggests that good English exposure can be easily gained in more developed regions, like
Java, sumatera, etc where learners of English are easily able to get access for supporting
learning environment, for instance, buying authentic English books, magazines, or getting
English TV Channel access. On the contrary, in the developing regions such as Papua,
Kalimantan, Maluku, etc, learners of English will make an extra attempt to get that access.
From the teacher’s angle, this context implies various quantity of holding in-service trainings,
such as seminar, symposium, etc, to make the teachers’ professional developments increased.
In more developed regions, teachers can easily get chance to participate such trainings, or
sympposium; meanwhile in less developed regions teachers have less opportunities for
joining those professional developments. All these circumstances would remind everybody to
revisit the structure of curriculum in the pre-service teacher education (i.e. LPTK).
Pre-service teacher education in Indonesia follows the formal regulation for
establishing structure of the core content in the curriculum of higher education as stated in
“SK MENDIKNAS NO 232/U/2000, which should accomodate bigger portion of subjects in
the core competence. In the English Department of Pre-Service Teacher Education, the core
competence, according to this regulation, has been manifested in, I called, ‘three division’,
which includes all English subject matter courses that the pre-service teachers need for their
field. That division contains some courses of teaching contents, e.g. TEFL, issue on TESOL,
Curriculum Design, etc.; some other courses of language content, e.g. Semantics, Pragmatics,
Sociolinguistics, and so on; and few other of research content, like Thesis Writing, Research

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in Language Teaching, etc. This core competence has met the grand design of preparing
English teachers in the context of teaching English in ‘expanding circle’; however, which
portion of the three divisions should be given more to pre-service training students? Should
the Pre-Service English Teacher Education produce English teachers with best teaching skills
or the ones who are best-English proficient?
Since the field of TESOL emerged in 1960s, the core of curriculum in SLTE programs
generated a debate on the two strands, i.e. knowledge about and knowledge how (Burns &
Richards, 2009), or practical teaching skills and academic knowledge (Johnson in Burns &
Richards, 2009), or content and delivery (Singh & Ricahrds, 2009). The relationship between
these two strands has been problematic in composing the structure of LPTK curriculum. The
more courses representing teaching skills put in the curriculum, the more tendentious the
LPTK to produce English teachers with best teaching skills; meanwhile the more courses
representing academic knowledge stipulated in the curriculum, the more tendentious the
LPTK to produce teachers are best-English proficient. As a matter of fact, making dichotomy
between these two strands is now considered as a traditional view in the TESOL field since it
holds the perspective that teacher learning was seen as a cognitive issue. Teacher learning in
this sense as viewed as a questions of improving the effectiveness of delivery. Meanwhile the
more recent view of teacher learning is, in fact, focusing on the mental process where
learning is not application of theory to practice but rather theorization of practice. Keys to
this mode of learning is the roles of participants, the discourse they created and participated
in, the activities that take place, and the artifacts and resources that are employed (Burns &
Richards, 2009). In short, to see the structure of LPTK curriculum, it is no longer important
to maintain debates on wheather or not focusing on teaching skills or academics knowledge,
but rather it is indeed that the structure of LPTK curriculum (i.e. English Department) should
be contextually flexible.
Six Domains of Content of Core Knowledge Base of SLTE and the Core Curriculum of
of LPTK in Indonesia
Richard (2000) argued that there six domains of content which he proposed as things
constituting core knowledge base of Second Language Teacher Education, i.e. theories of
teaching, teaching skills, communication skills, subject matter knowledge, pedagogical
reasoning and decision making, and context knowledge. In principle, these core domains
might intersects as well as overlaps each other, since the cores covered may be represented by
the same courses in SLTE. However, this proposed concept is comprehensive enough to
describe what students should possess in equipping themselves with knowledge in relation to

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the arts of teaching language in SLTE programs. For instance, theories of teaching, according
to Richard (2000), is more philosophical as well as methodogical aspects of teaching theories.
It consists of teachers’ deep understanding on views or beliefs in relation to specific methods,
strategies, or techniques. The skill is, of course, needed by the teacher candidates because
they have to understand the nature and the importance of classroom practices.
However, in fact, this domain intersects other domains, i.e. teaching skills, pedagogical
reasoning and decision making, and communication skills. Teaching skill refers to aspect of
pedagogy, organizing and managing classroom, ways of delivering lessons, etc. In other
words, it includes, among others, how to select learning activities, how to ask questions for
students, how to give feedback and so on.
Communication skill is the ability to communicate effectively; and the skills of
pedagogical reasoning and decision making focus on the ability of the teacher candidates to
make decisions that are appropriate to the specific dynamics of the lesson they are teaching.
Three domains are skills which deal with delivering subject matter, which means that they
have something to do with approaches, methods, strategies, or techniques that the teachers
use in the process of teaching and learning in the classroom. In the curriculum of the English
Department, these skills are manifested in the courses like TEFL, research in language
teaching, issues on TESOL, public speaking, etc.
Context knowledge is a significantly different domain which, according to Richard
(2000), includes ability of the teacher candidates to understand that language teaching is done
in different contexts; for instance dealing with key factors like language policy, sociocultural
factors, administrative practices and so on. The other quite different domain is subject matter
knowledge which refers to teacher’s knowledge about the subjects that the teacher candidates
teach. This includes specialized concepts, theories, and disciplinary knowledge of second
language teaching field. In a nutshell, the six domains argued by Richard (2000) actually can
be reformulated into three, i.e. 1) domain of teaching, 2) domain of context, and 3) domain of
subject matter. In addition, these three domains as a matter of fact, are equivalent of th three
division; for instance, domain of teaching is similar to teaching content, domain of subject
matter equals to language and research contents, while substantially, some courses in
language content, like sociolinguistics, meets the domain of context.
Recommendation
Debates on dichotomy between the concept of teachers with best teaching skills and the
ones who are best-English proficient might have been questioned by some parties in
reviewing the products of pre-service English teacher education in Indonesia. Proponents of

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the former concept argued that pedagogical competence is very important; they believed that
a teacher who is highly proficient in English cannot be quaranteed to be best English teacher
if he/she does not have enough teaching skills; while proponents of the latter concept stated
that teaching is an art so even with no teaching skills everyone can learn to teach as far as
she/he is very proficient in English. Both proponents are correct, I believed.
Seeing dichotomy between two strands, i.e. focusing on teaching skills and
emphasizing academic knowledge in SLTE seemingly leads to traditional perspective that
learning is viewed as a cognitive issue. The recent perspective is a focus on context in teacher
learning which encorporates communities of learners engaged in social practices and
collaboratove construction of meanings (Burns & Richards, 2009). Therefore the curriculum
structure of English pre-service teacher education might cover all Richard’s domains of
content by considering the circumstances of the various LPTK in various regions in
Indonesia. In this sense, I proposed three schemes focusing on the domains to be differently
implemented in structuring nationwide curriculum of LPTK.
Scheme 1:
Soft skills:
Hard Skills:
Scheme 2
Soft skills:
Hard Skills:
Scheme 3:
Soft skills:
Hard Skills:
communications knowledge, context knowledge (periphery)
subject matter knowledge (core)
theories of teaching, teaching skills, pedagogical reasoning and decision
(periphery)
communications knowledge, context knowledge (periphery)
subject matter knowledge (periphery)
theories of teaching, teaching skills, pedagogical reasoning and decision
(core)
communications knowledge, context knowledge (periphery)
subject matter knowledge (core)
theories of teaching, teaching skills, pedagogical reasoning and decision
(core)
These three schemes might be better implemented to meet certain charactersitics of
each cluster regions in Indonesia regarding with the circumstances of TEFL. For instance,
scheme 1 might be appropriate for LPTKs in less developed regions where resources is still
poor, insfrastructure is inadequate, etc. English teachers in this cluster region should be bestproficient; Scheme 2 is good for the curriculum in a bit developed regions since in this cluster
region, resources are a bit better, but gives less infrastructure for learners so that they feel
difficulties to get good learning environment access; and scheme 3 is suitable for LPTK in
very developed regions where both resources and infrastructure are better.

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Conclusion
It is obvious that Richards’ six domains of content for SLTE might be the ones which at
the moment are really comprehensive to include when restructuring nationwide curriculum of
LPTK specifically the English Department. The domains should seemingly be synchronized
with the geographical regions of Indonesia where different infrastructures implying different
out-class learning exposure for learners of English in expanding circles. These three schemes
offer possible ways to accomodate the different circumstances in different parts of places of
Indonesia where students will learn English as a Foreign Language.

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REFERENCES
Burns, Anne and Richards, Jack K. 2009. Second Language Teacher Education. (eds).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kachru, B. B. 1986. The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Functions and Models of NonNative Englishes. Oxford: Pergamon.
Jenkin, Jennifer. 2006. World Englishes. A Resource Book for Students. London & New York:
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group
Richards, Jack C. 2000. Beyond Training. Perspectives on Language Teacher Education.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
SK Mendiknas no 045/U/2002. Tentang Kurikulum Pendidikan Tinggi
SK Mendiknas no 232/U/2000. Tentang Penyusunan Kurikulum Pendidikan Tinggi dan
Penilaian Hasil Balajar Mahasiswa