Teaching English in Elementary Schools

         The policy of our government about teaching English is very great. Teaching english is not only in junior high schools or senior high school but also in elementary schools.” In the Ministerial Decree of the Department of Education and Culture no. 060/U/1993 it was stated that English could be introduced to the fourth grade students of primary school as a local contentsubject ( Lestari.A.L, 2009:1).” The aim of this program is that students will get more exposure to English in order they can improve their motivation and skill in continue level (Sumiarsih, 2009:p.1). Based on above, teaching English in elementary schools will give advantages for our education. Futhermore, there are still many problems which come out from this program. Those probelms are the curriculum which is unclear, the lack competence of English teachers, the lack of teaching material and media. 

         Firstly, the curriculum of teaching English for elementary schools is unclear. In elementary school English only as extra subject (muatan lokal). Content lokal (Muatan lokal) is the program of education  which content and media must be suitable with requirement in each region (Tirtarahardjo &La Sulo, 2008:275). “In order that the teaching of English at the primary school succeeds, a syllabus or a curriculum must be developed (Lestari.A.L, 2009:7)". Based on that statements, it seems that it can brings constraint. One of problems which be faced is unavailability the spesific syllabus English subject ( Listia&Kamal: 2010:p.4). The fact that making syllabus is difficult. Many teachers who do not know to make the syllabus. In this case, it is very important for government to makes the curriculum and syllabus which are clear, so the teachers are not confused. 

        Secondly, the lack competence of english teachers. Teaching English for elementary school needs the proffesional teachers. “Teaching language to children needs all the skills of the good primary teacher in managing children and keeping them on task, plus knowledge of the language, of language teaching, and language learning (Cameron, 2001; Muhtohhar, 2009:2).’’ In fact, many teachers who have not background in teaching English but they teach English subject. Thus, when they are delivering the subject, they are not optimal as they do not master in English. It is very bad for young learners. Whereas the age of young learners is the most optimal time to explore their ability. If the teachers give the wrong materials, young learners will do the same mistakes continously. As Rizali.A,et.al (2008:18) said teachers must be competent with the material which he teaches, if not the teachers will make students who are not competent. The solution of this problem that the teachers should have the background in teaching English because young learners are the first ones who study English. Besides, the government should makes program for English teacher, for example teacher training program for elementary school. 

        Thirdly, the lack of teaching materials and media. “ Other requirement that should be fulfilled to make the teaching of English successful is the availability of teaching and learning facilitiesthat allow teachers to select and develop teaching materials to meet the needs and the characteristics of the students (Lestari.A.L, 2009:8)." Thus, Ratte (1967:279) in Kamal and Listia (2009:p.14) say that learning foreign language should uses the material, media which are relevant with the things in daily activites, so it can improve students’ motivation in learning english. Factually, neither the teaching materials nor media are definite. Different from schools in cities the materials and media are easier to be got, but schools in village are diffucult to get them. Actually, schools in village are not the reason because we are in global era now, where all thing are easy to be got. Furthermore, many teachers in village just transfer the material by their traditional ways because they think that the teaching media is expensive whereas English only the muatan lokal subject. Hence, students are bored with the teaching learning process. They are lossing their curiousity and their motivation. The problem can be solved with the join among government, teachers and students. The government should give special attention to schools in village and the teachers have to be more active to searching the materials and making the variation on using the media in order students are not bored. 

         In conclusion, the policy of our government about teaching English for elementary schools has not run well. There are many problems which come out from this program, those are the curriculum which is unclear, the lack competence of english teachers, the lack of teaching material and media. Those problems can be minimize if the government, teachers and so on join together in order to achieve the aim of teaching English for elementary schools.