W

ith Indonesian students lagging behind their ASEAN peers when it comes to communicating verbally in English, the government has decided to change the way the language is taught in the country.

Indonesian students, the government said, spoke English poorly as they spent too much time studying grammar in classrooms and not enough time actually speaking the language. That style of learning, according to the Culture and Education Ministry, has to change.

Realizing that English communication skills are crucial if the country’s workforce wants to compete with other ASEAN countries, especially now the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) has begun, the ministry plans to overhaul formal English education in Indonesia.

The overhaul will begin next week with a pilot project in several public and private high schools in Jakarta and Bandung, West Java. The British Council will be involved in the project.

“The pilot project aims to make English learning more fun and joyful. Therefore, learning English is not simply a matter of translating, but it’s also a matter of understanding foreign culture,” the ministry’s senior advisor on innovation and competitiveness, Ananto Kusuma Seta, told The Jakarta Post.

Therefore, students will be required to practice their English skills outside of school.

For instance, students who are interested in agriculture might be required to learn about it outside class, while practicing English at the same time.

“After lunch, they will be taken to an agriculture showcase. But they have to communicate in English there,” said Ananto.

If the pilot project proved successful, it would be replicated in other cities, he added.

According to the 2016 Education First (EF) English Proficiency Index (EPI), the English proficiency of Indonesians between the ages of 18 and 20 was lower than that of people between 21 and 25.

That defies worldwide trends, where the English proficiency of those below the age of 20 is typically higher than those above 20.

“It means that formal English education in Indonesia needs to be fixed,” said Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) senior economist Berly Martawardaya.

Hermawan Sutanto, cofounder of bizzy.co.id, a B2B e-commerce start-up, said Indonesian millennials could usually read and write well enough in English. “But when it comes to verbal communication, they still have to learn how to articulate their message,” he said.

According to the 2016 EPI, Indonesia ranks fifth among ASEAN countries, behind Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Indonesia only scored higher than Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.