discourse analysisi and vocabulary

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND VOCABULARY

INTRODUCTION

Formal linguists have tended to focus on syntax; they have long maintained that human language is a rule-governed innate system and that those who acquire a natural language apply its rule in original and creative ways by producing utterances they have never heard before (Chomsky 1965). This perspective believes in context-free aspects of syntax. In contrast to this perspective, linguists who focus on vocabulary and grammar (e.g. Hoey, 1992; Nattinger and DeCarrico 1992; Sinclair, 1966) believe that a significant proportion of social, professional and everyday language use is formulaic, routine and fairly predictable. This perspective believes that words derive much of their meaning from context.

Vocabulary knowledge can be viewed in terms of both top-down and bottom-up strategies. The top-down pragmatically drive strategies include the speaker’s background knowledge of the topic or speech situation at hand and the knowledge shared with the interlocutors. Vocabulary items tend to group or associate around topics (lexical collocation). For example, if we know an oral discussion is dealing with the topic “Art Museums,” we can expect words like painting, sculptor, artist, curator, exhibit and the like to occur as part of the discourse. Likewise in any language, speech activities have typical steps or moves, often in a predictable sequence, with highly conventionalized used of words or phrases associated with each step or move. For example, a person who apologies will say something like “I’m (very, really, terribly) sorry” which will be responded by phrases such as “never mind”, “don’t mention it”, “it’s okay”. Knowing the vocabulary and set phrases associated with a topic or speech activity is thus a large part of being able to talk or write about the topic or perform speech activity in target language.

Bottom up strategies related to vocabulary knowledge are used when a speaker doesn’t know a word. He may ask interlocutors for assistance (“what’s the word for the thing that ...?”) or use a circumlocution or a gesture to get the meaning of the target language across. Writers normally have more time than speakers, so they can look up the target words in their dictionary.

There are several notions we need to explore these include the following: a discussion of receptive vocabulary versus productive vocabulary, Content words versus functions words, the differences among the language skills in terms of vocabulary requirement, the literal versus figurative vocabulary distinction, the qualitative differences between vocabulary, one the one hand, and grammar and phonology on the other and the use of vocabulary knowledge to analyze a discourse.

Receptive Versus Productive Vocabulary

Users of any language have much more receptive than productive vocabulary. English readers may understand words like catastrophe, and rudimentary, yet they may well be unlikely to use these words in their speech or writing. This because they have receptive but not productive control of these words; productive control implies receptive control, but the reverse is not necessarily true.

Some applied linguist feel that the major challenge in teaching is to teach more receptive language, so that learners become more efficient readers. This is no doubt because there is an enormous discrepancy between vocabulary used in everyday conversation and number of words needed for extensive academic reading.

There do seems to be ways of teaching large amounts of receptive vocabulary fairly quickly and efficiently by having learners simply associate words with meanings out of context using word lists, vocabulary cards, and so forth. Such strategies, even if they turn out to be effective for improving receptive knowledge and reading comprehension, are not necessarily effective for teaching productive use of lexis. However, it must be noted that receptive knowledge of vocabulary is a first step toward achieving productive use, i.e. toward learners’ becoming skillful speakers and writers in their second language.

Content Words Versus Function Words

The distinction between content words and function words is a useful one in analyzing vocabulary. Most vocabulary items are content words and belong to the large, open word classes, i.e word classes that readily accept new words and discard old ones that are no longer useful: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and some adverbs. Function words are those vocabulary items that belong to closed words classes, i.e. word classes that do not readily admit new items or lose old ones: pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, determiners, and may adverbs.

How Much Vocabulary for Each Skill?

With reference to the four language skills, the fewest vocabulary items are needed for speaking, while more words are needed for writing and for listening comprehension, with the largest number of words are needed for reading. However, while listening and reading require receptive understanding of vocabulary, speaking and writing require productive use of vocabulary. In other words, if listening and reading only require the ability to know the general meaning of the words and phrases in a text, to get the gist of the message, speaking and writing, in addition to that, require the ability each word’s pronunciation, spelling, it’s part of speech, its syntactic restriction, any morphological irregularities, its common collocation (other words with which it is likely to co-occur), and its common context (texts in which it is likely to occur).

Different Modality or register, Different Vocabulary

The vocabulary used by skilled speakers and writers changes according to modality and register. For some language such as Arabic, modality differences may be highly marked since the vocabulary of the local spoken variety and the vocabulary of the more classical written variety can be very different. This makes learning the literate skills (reading and writing) more of a challenge than in a language like English where there is a significant overlap between the vocabulary of the spoken and the written variety.

Sociocultural Variation in the Use of Vocabulary

Vocabulary is an obvious area for language variation. Gender is pointed out as one dimension along which vocabulary use tends to vary. In English, women are said to use more elaborate color than men. Women tend to be able to mention more precise color term than men such us to say magenta, mauve, scarlet. In addition, in American teenage girls –less often boys- use totally as intensifier, as in sentences “She is totally crazy!”. Gender-based choices also happen in other language, like in Portuguese to say “thank you”, women say obrigada and men say obrigado

Geographical dialects often reflect vocabulary differences. For example vocabulary use in British and American like the following:

British American

The cinema the movies

A film a movie

A lift an elevator

A flat an apartment

Sometimes within one countries, there may be further dialect distinction. For example two villages in North Bali which is only about 15 km away, Bondalem and Bungkulan, each has their own distinctive culturally vocabulary to describe the same thing as the following:

Bondalem Bungkulan meaning (in english)

Nare talam tray

Kalung kencrik belt-like piece of clothes

Some vocabulary variation is due to the age of speakers (Hatch and Brown, a995 in Murcia and Olshtain, 2000) such that expression of positive assessment by the speakers by the speaker have changed from generation to generation in the United States.

1940s -1950s – keen, in the groove

1960s -1970s – cool, groovy

1980s-1990s – rad, awesome

The selection of euphemism (word that is considered less direct) often reflects one or more of these factors. For example, when asking where the toilet is, there are many possible lexical items one can use as euphemism in English:

British : the loo, the W.C

American : the John (informal), the bathroom (general)

Female/ Upper middle class : the powder room

Children : the potty

Public establishment : the ladies’ room, the men’s room

Literal Versus Figurative Use: A Matter of Context (or co-text)

Vocabulary can be literal and figurative. A sentence such as “he got the axe” may mean literally that some male person went and fetched a tool for chopping wood, or it may mean figuratively that some male person was fired from his job. The interpretation that one arrives at may depend on the co-text. If the discourse continues “and he chopped down the tree,” the literal impression takes hold. If the subsequent discourse is “so now he’s looking for another job” the figurative interpretation is the coherent one. The physical context also can give the hint of the meaning. If the utterance takes place in the forest, then the literal interpretation is favored, but if it happens in an office, the figurative reading is. Therefore, a great deal of meaning of any words comes from the larger cultural context and/or the immediate co-text or situational context in which the word occurs.

Creating Vocabulary

Words are formed as creatively as sentence. In fact, new words that no one used before (and perhaps no one will ever use again) can be invented for specific communicative purpose. An example for this comes in the following story. Two tourist buses are heading to some restaurant in Bali, some of the tourists want to have pork menu and some of the tourists want to have seafood menu. The tourist guide then arrange the tourist by saying “For those who want to have pork please go to pork bus, and those who prefer seafood please go to seafood bus”. The creating of new vocabulary such as pork bus and seafood bus is done to serve a particular communicative purpose, and may probably never be used again. Vocabulary changes faster than syntax or phonology. It is the part of language that can respond immediately to changes in environment, experience, or culture. If something new is discovered or invented, language users will create a new word, borrow a word, or extend the meaning of an existing word to express the new phenomenon. On the other hand, words expressing objects or ideas no longer in use will be discarded and fall out of use.

Productive Processes of Word Formation

Every language has one major or several alternative ways of creating new words. The new word can be one that is invented or created for a particular purpose of communication, that do not last or new words that might be adopted and promoted or spread by the agents of changes such as TV, radio, the press, etc.

In English, there are three productive word formation:

1. Compunding: mailman, fifty-one, blackbird
2. Affixation : rewind, uncool, sisterhood
3. Conversion: I’d rather office here (the noun ‘office’ serves as verb)

His grass has greened ( the adjective ‘green’ serves as verb)

If a second or foreign language learner can perform the mastery of such word production processes, it indicates a gradual approximation of native-like productive lexical knowledge.

Lexical Borrowing

Words are different from grammatical and phonological systems. Native speakers of one language can readily borrow a word from another language, but they are much less likely to borrow structures or sounds from other language. However, when the speakers of one language borrow words, they often change the meaning or limit the meaning in interesting ways. For example, Indonesian speakers borrow an English word ‘tape’ which is routinely used to refer only to ‘tape recorder’. Whereas the words ‘tape’ in English has several literal meanings such as ‘a long narrow strip to record,’ ‘a cassette,’ ‘a strip that is usually sticky’, etc.

Words are slippery, they are created, die off, borrowed and change meanings. Words need to be interpreted and reinterpreted in terms of the cultural contexts and discourse context in which they are being used at any given point of time.

VOCABULARY AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Lexical Collocation and Lexical Cohesion

At the level of sentence, words come together to form collocation, i.e. they form semantic and structural bounds that become routines or chunks that native speakers can access for comprehension or production. When native speakers of English are asked to fill the blank in the following sentence, ‘ John ______ money’, they will spontaneously produce verbs from a very small set: earns, makes, has, likes, saves and needs (Seal 1981, in ....). Such collocations reflect both local word-combining tendencies and also more general content schemata or information structures that native speakers share for the word ‘money.’

Ideally, the L2 users also form the same word-combination (lexical chunks), but often this does not happen because of interference from the first language or because insufficient exposure of local collocation. For example L2 user may say ‘bridging the hole’ rather than ‘bridging the gap.’ Even though it is understandable but from the local collocation point of view it is a collocation error.

At the level of discourse (Hasan, 1984 in .... ) there are some different types of lexical relationships which collectively constitutes lexical cohesion. For example:

Ø Repetition/reiteration:

a. same word/stem minus inflections, part of speech: teeth-tooth

b.Synonym : tooth-dental

Ø Antonym : good/bad, black/white

Ø Part-whole: room-house, steering wheel-car

Ø General-specific (either direction) animal-dog; city-Reno

Ø Member of the same set: dog-cat; green-yellow

One can examine any given piece of discourse to see what lexical chain occurs in order to determine which lexical relationships are obtained. The lexical relationship of the text will form cohesive and coherent discourse. Consider the following text:

The town of Sonoma, California, launched the Salute to the Arts in 1986 as a one-day event held in a single quadrant of Sonoma plaza with some thirty restaurants and wineries, a few art displays, and one mariachi trio. Today the festival is a wine country tradition consisting of an opening-night gala and two full days of food, wine, and art featuring more than 100 restaurants, wineries, and art galleries. It benefits seventeen nonprofit arts, cultural, and educational organization.

In this short text there are several interrelated lexical chains:

Ø Salute to the arts, festival, tradition, gala, benefit

Ø Town, Sonoma, Sonoma Plaza, Wine coutry, California

Ø 1986 (a one-day event), today (two full days)

In addition, “the Salute to the art” chain has three subchains:

Ø Food, restaurant

Ø Wine, wineries

Ø Art, art displays, art galleries

Without these cross-clausal lexical relationships the text would not be as cohesive and coherent as it is. Each lexical chain can be further analyzed in terms of the semantic relationship. For example, the lexical chain town, Sonoma, Sonoma Plaza, Wine country, California can be further analyzed in that town is more general than Sonama, a specific town. Sonoma Plaza is one part of the whole town, which in turn is a part of wine coutry, which is in California.

Rhetorical Demands, Discourse Communities, and Individuals

It’s important to be aware that specific vocabulary items tend to be associated with certain rhetorical text patterns. For example: the problem-posing portion in an expository text is likely to contain words like difficulty, hinder, hamper while the solution/result portion of the same text will contain words like resolve, outcome and address (McCarthy, 1991 in ...). People who are strategically aware of such pattern will be more effective readers and writers than those who are not.

Sometimes vocabulary items used in a particular way reflect a specific discipline and the preference of insiders of that discipline. Leech (1995) in ...detect lexical-choice differences among the four discourse communities. Among the result, he uncovered that authors publishing in Memory and Cognition (M&C) and Linguistic Inquiry (LI) used different lexical phrase for what seemingly the same semantic purpose. Leech found that when making or rejecting knowledge claims either by citing previous research or by presenting one’s own research, M&C tended to use the verb “suggest” (prior research would suggest........;the data we cite strongly suggest...) whereasLI authors tended to use the verb “explain” (X’s account doesn’t explain....; the rule presented above explains.....) Leech accounts for this lexical differences by referring to the distinct research tradition of the cognitive psychologist (M&C) and the formal MIT-schools linguist (LI).

Sometimes certain low-frequency words get associated with a particular individual who have a predisposition to use them with unusual frequency.

More typically, such characteristic use of vocabulary develops in groups. Leech examples are not a matter of personal preference or style, such examples are a matter of group membership.

Bilingual children early spelling

A. INTRODUCTION

This paper aims at summarizing and reviewing an article on Bilingual which is entitled “The Development of Bilingual Children’s Early Spelling in English.” Following the introduction part the summary of the article and the review are provided. The review part contains the writer personal comments on the research methodology, the writer’s prediction or assumption after looking at the found evidence, the suggestion, and the writer’s thought on the research’s beneficial impact for academic society.

B. SUMMARY

The Develoment of Bilingual Children’s Early Spelling in English

By Susan J. Rickard Liow and Lily H.S. Lau

National University of Singapore

(Journal of Educational Psychology.2006. Vol 98. No.4. 868-878)

There are a number of research recount the importance of phonological awareness in the development of English reading and spelling skills. However, those researches always excluded bilingual children (including ESL children). This may leave us a question whether the result for English unilingual generalizes to ESL children? The other questions were what is the impact of Bilingualism when the child’s first language (L1) is different from English? ; moreover, apart from phonological awareness, do other kinds of metalinguistic knowledge influence reading and spelling in ESL children?

By using an extended version of R. Treiman M. Cassar, and A. Zukowski’s (1994) flap spelling task (wa_er is it t or d in water?), the author investigate the metalinguistic awareness of 6-year-old bilingual children from 3 different Language Backgrounds (LBs): English-LB (English L1, Mandarin L2), Chinese-LB (Chinese L1, English L2) and Malay-LB (Bahasa Malaysia L1, English L2). In the article, it is described how home languages, with different orthographic, phonological, and morphological features can influence and ESL preschool child’s untutored spelling in English.

Flaps spelling paradigm

In some varieties of spoken English, medial stop consonants in certain words undergo a process known as flapping. Speakers flap when bisyllabic words contain a single medial /t/ or /d/ that is preceded by a vowel and followed by a vowel or a vowel plus /r/. For example, when flapped the /t/ in water sound like a /d/. Before they learn to spell conventionally, children who make exclusive use of phonological processing choose the letter /d/ to spell words with spoken /t/ flaps, even with a context sentence for the target word. Ehri and Wilce (1986) looked at American English speakers’ oral spelling of /t/ and /d/ flaps in first graders, second graders and fourth graders. They found a /d/ bias overall, but there were differences across the cohorts: /d/ errors on words with /t/ flaps decreased with age. This is consistent with the claim that phonological awareness declines with age.

Rickard Liow and Poon (1998) showed that Mandarin L1 children in Singapore relied more on visual-orthographic. Bahasa Indonesia-L1 classmates showed well-developed phonological awareness. This suggest that the influence of a child’s home language on English literacy development is not unitary, and cross-linguistics transfer could have negative as well as positive consequences: Chinese characters are relatively opaque with respect to phonology, but the alphabetic Rumi script for Bahasa Indonesia (and Bahasa Malaysia) is very transparent.

Treiman (1993) and Read (1975) did an observation that early spelling attempts often results in phonologically plausible errors. However, errors also seem to depend on the kind of metalinguistic knowledge available at particular developmental stages. Therefore, differences in the use of metalinguistics skills among groups of bilingual children learning English seem inevitable not just probable.

Bilingualism and Home Languages in Singapore

Singapore’s three main ethnics –Malay, Chinese and Indian- speaks two or more of the four officila language : Mandarin, Bahasa Melayu, Tamil and English. Education policy states that children learn read and write in their respective home language as well as Standard English. However, Singaporean preschoolers’ linguistic experience depends more on the home language than on the explicit teaching/text. Children are exposed to a mix of Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) and Singapore Standard English (SSE). The author basic premise is that the spelling skills of the young Singaporean bilinguals should vary according to their linguistic experience, or LB. More spesifically, the extent to which the linguistic features of the child’s home language (Malay or Mandarin) overlap with those of English determines what advantages (or disadvantages) bilingualism might confer.

The spelling ability of English-LB Children in Singapore do not resemble their unilingual age peers since they are taught by using whole word strategy for reading English, so the English-LB children might rely more on visual-orthographic processes rather than on phonological awareness. Moreover, exposing children mostly with SCE -which is really different from the standard English- affect the spelling skills of children.

The Rumi script of Bahasa Malaysa has a rich, transparent morphological structure with syllable-size affixes such as per-, ber- and –kan. The letters of English and Bahasa Malaysia overlap but the orthography-phonology relationship for Rumi is very shallow (regular) compared with English: only three diphthongs (ai, au and oi), and apart from /e/, each vowel represents only one sound. Simultaneous exposure to this transparent script should enhance the acquisition of phonological awareness for English spelling. If metalinguistic knowledge does transfer from Bahasa to English, the Malay-LB children may be able to use more phonological and morphological awareness in their spelling than either the Chinese-LB and the English-LB.

Spoken Mandarin is morphosyllabic and tonal, with very few affixes. These features contrast with English and Bahasa Malaysia, so the phonological and morphological development of the Chinese-LB children is different from that of the other two groups. For early reading in English, root-learned associations do seem to suffice. Hence, it is predicted that Chinese-LB group would use visual-orthographic awareness more than more than phonological and morphological for flaps task.

Method

Participants : a total of 80 second-year pupils attending a government kindergarten in Singapore took part with parental consent: 30 were English-LB, 21 were Chinese-LB and 29 were Malay-LB children. All the children spent about 75 min per day learning English, so teaching methods were neither a factor nor a potential confound. A one-way ANOVA showed that the three groups were not different in age.

Materials and Procedure

Language Background Questionnaire (LBQ) was used to screen the students in terms of their most frequently spoken language at home before administrating the flaps test. 21 children who reported use of other languages were excluded from the study. Vocabulary scores which have been collected 5 months earlier by using the modified British picture vocabulary scale were available to corroborated the LBQ self-report data. A one way ANOVA on raw scores revealed a main effect of English vocabulary and planned comparisons confirmed that the English-LB group’s vocabulary scores were better than those for both ESL groups

Flaps spelling test

The extended flap test(16 cells of 10 words) comprised monomorphemic and bimorphemic, low-and high-frequency, flapped /t/ and /d/ words as well as monosyllabic and bisyllabic unflapped control /t/ and /d/ words. See the following table:

Table : Design of the extended Flaps Spelling Skills

	Control Monomorphemic/ Monosyllabic (Unflapped		Experimental Monomorphemic/ Bisyllabic (flapped)		Experimental Bimorphemic/ Bisyllabic (flapped		Control Monomorphemic/ Bysyllabic (unflapped)
Word frequency	/t/	/d/	/t/	/d/	/t/	/d/	/t/	/d/
Low	Greet	Hood	Porter	Poodle	Greeted	Hooded	Pastry	Cinder
High	late	wide	party	garden	started	wooden	sister	powder

The researcher manipulated flap type (/t/ or /d/) to look at phonological awareness, word frequency (high and low) to look at orthographic awareness, and the number of morphemes (moomorphemic and bimorphemic) to look at morphological awareness and then the unflapped control words (one or two syllable) is added. Small groups (5 or 6 children) were tested in two session at least 3 days apart. From 160 words, two 80-items subtests were developed.

The research made use of cassette recorder to run the test. A female native speaker of SSE’s voice was recorded. She read aloud the target words and the context sentences. The answer sheet were printed in large lowercase typeface with an underlined blank in place of missing letters (e.g. wa_ter and to the right of the target words were the letters /t/ and /d/). The children were asked to listen and then circle the letter they thought belonged in the blank. They were each rewarded for their help with a small bar of chocolate.

Result and Discussion

First, the researcher assessed proficiency by looking at the mean proportion correct for each LB groups summed across all the control words. The post hoc test confirmed there was no statistical difference in overall performance on control words between any two of the three groups

Orthographic Awareness: to test for differential use of orthographic awareness, the researchers manipulated word frequency for /t/ and /d/ control word (one morpheme and one syllable). There were no significant main effect of LB group or frequency, but the interaction between frequency and LB group was significant. For /d/ but not /t/, the English-LB children performed significantly better on high- than low-frequency control words. This was predicted because children from English-speaking homes are more likely to be exposed to printed text in English. The Chinese-LB children performed significantly better on high than low frequency /d/ control words, though the Malay-LB children did not. This advantage for high-frequency words for the Chinese-LB children is more difficult to explain in terms of print exposure, but learning to read logographic Chinese characters might enhance certain aspects visual processing, and these in turn support spelling of familiar English words after relatively limited exposure.

Phonological awareness: to test for differential use of phonological awareness, the researchers looked at low-frequency words and tested for group difference performance for /t/ versus /d/ on flapped and unflapped monomorphemic bisyllabic words. There were significant main effect of flap type, and word type, but not in the LB group. All three groups were significantly poorer on at /t/ flaps than /t/ control words, but no group showed a difference between /d/ flaps and /d/ control words. A one way ANOVA on /t/ flapped words showed a significant different between across the LB groups, simple effect test confirmed that the Malay LB children were significantly more likely than either the English-LB children or the Chinese-LB children to choose /d/ instead of /t/. The performance of the English-LB and Chinese-LB groups was equivalent. Taken together, these result suggest all three LB groups use some phonological awareness for spelling but, as predicted, the Malay children rely more on it.

Morphological Awareness: to test for differential use of morphological awareness, the researchers looked at the mean proportion of correct spellings on bisyllabic flapped monomorphemic and bimorphemic /d/ words. It was predicted that Malay-LB children might have better developed morphological awareness as a result of transfer from Bahasa Malaysia. If this is the case, the Malay-LB group should perform better than the other two group for /d/ flaps on bimorphemic words compared with monomorphemic words. However the result revealed a borderline main effect of morphological awareness in the opposite direction ((monomorphemic > Bimorphemic), which make it unlikely Malay-LB children were using morphological knowledge in preference to phonological awareness for low frequency words.

Syllable Awareness: to test for differential sensitivity to number of syllables across three bilingual children, the performance on the low frequency monomorphemic, mono- versus bisyllabic /d/ control words. It was predicted that Chinese-LB would be poorer on bisyllabic and monosyllabic, considering the Chinese character morphosyllabic (one morpheme, one syllable). The result, however show that number of syllable had no effect on the Chinese-LB children’s decision. One plausible explanation for this is that the Chinese-LB children treat the bisyllabic words as two separate single syllable. For English and Malay-LB children the result showed that they performed significantly better on bisyllabic than monosyllabic.

Conclusion

The following review of the result by language groups support the idea that the bilingual children’s skill remain variable even when they have been learning English in the same kindergarten for almost 2 years. First, English-LB children were using some syllable awareness and seemed better able to combine their orthographic awareness with phonological awareness to optimize performance. However, there was no evidence found that morphological awareness support the spelling skills of the English-LB children. Second, For Malay-LB children, it was found a strong eveidence of the use of phonological and syllable awareness rather than orthographic awareness, but, again there was no evidence of morphological awareness. Finally, for the Chinese-LB children, it was found that visual-orthographic skills would be more important than either phonological and morphological awareness. To summarize, there were predictable group differences in the use of orthographic and phonological awareness, but no evidence of the use of morphological awareness was found. The data provides new evidence that bilingual children often approach spelling with different kinds of metalinguistic awareness. Moreover, the use of metalinguistic may be strongly influenced by their home language.

C. REVIEW

It is a very popular belief that the first language strongly influences the second language acquisition. The most obvious example that supports this belief comes from the ‘foreign’ accent in the second language speech of learners. When a Balinese speak English, her English sounds Balinese. Therefore, I believe that different language backgrounds give different influences to the second language acquisition. After I have read the first few paragraphs of this article, I became very interested to read it further. Why so? because my prior knowledge about bilingual phenomena is so limited. I have several questions in my mind, one of those for example, beside the accent, what else of the first language can influence the second language acquisition. However, long before I found this article I have actually had a thought that there are probably similar characteristics between two different languages (the native and the second language) that may enhance the learning of the second language. For example, the word order in Bahasa Indonesia for active sentences generally places the subject followed by the verb and its object. Such word order for active sentences is also applied in English. This, consequently enhances the English acquisition since the similarities ease the Indonesian learners to apply that particular concept of Bahasa Indonesia in English. In addition, I also believe that some distinction between the native and the second language may hinder the acquisition of the second language. For example, a Chinese girl who is exposed with Chinese words -which are morphosyllabic (one morpheme is one syllable)- may think a bisyllabic-monomorphemic English word (e.g. flower) as two morphemes, whereas it is not so. She may become more confused when she is then exposed with a bisyllabic-bimorphemic English word (e.g. handed) and are told that it is a word that has two morphemes while for her it ‘looks’ like a conjugation of two different words.

After having a close reading on the article, I see some points to be commented. The following paragraphs are my personal comments on the research methodology described in the article and my thought about the research implication to the academic society.

The linguistic transfer from the first language into English has already been proved by this research. It was found that language background strongly influences a kind of metalinguistic used to approach English spelling. The idea of using bilingual children who attend the same kindergarten as the subject of the research is really excellent, for this may reduce error in sampling. By attending the same kindergarten, and being exposed with the same length of formal English instruction, then home language is left to be the only factor that may cause the variable ability in spelling English. I do agree with the sampling technique that is used. However, I wonder if the number children of each LB group should be the same. Would it give a more accurate result? In this research the number of children of each LB group is different. They were 30 English-LB children, 21 Chinese-LB children and 29 Malay-LB children. If I can say, this is one thing that makes me feel in doubt about this research.

According to the previous research by Ehri and Wilce (1986), it was found that the /d/ errors on words with /t/ flaps decreased with age. This rationalizes why the researchers needed to find out whether the subjects of the research were not significantly different in age before further administrating the research. This teaches me a very good lesson to always test any variable to make the research more reliable.

Moreover, obviously the researchers play safe in categorizing the subjects into a particular LB group. In addition to the LBQ (Language Background questioner) administration as the self report data, the researchers also used the scores of the vocabulary test as a back-up data which then can be used as a comparison to the self-report data. This way the researchers reduce the possibility of putting the subjects into the wrong LB group.

The researchers had manipulated several language components such as word frequency, the number of syllable, the number of morpheme, and the type of words (flapped and unflapped), to investigate a kind of metalinguistic used to approach English spelling. First, the researcher manipulated flap type (/t/ or /d/) to look at phonological awareness. I think through analyzing the decision children make on /t/ and /d/ flapped words will show their phonological competency. This assumption comes from the idea that children who are exposed with English flapped words will hear /d/ sound for /t/ sound in flapped words. Second, to look at orthographic awareness the researchers manipulated the word frequency (high and low). I understand this since it can be assumed that the more exposure of printed English material (high frequency words) the more visual-spelling opportunity the children have. Third, to look at morphological awareness the researchers manipulated the number of morphemes (monomorphemic and bimorphemic) and the unflapped control words (one or two syllable). Through this manipulation, I think, researchers eventually can conclude whether children have developed morphological awareness or not.

Following the researchers’ ideas I think the researchers had done such an excellent job that If it was a play I would stand and give applause on the research design. I have never read a research report or article about a research that so well-comprised as this research. I can imagine that the researchers worked day and night to think about the way to reveal things that may answer their questions. And since I have very limited experiences on doing linguistic research, I have to admit that this research covered a huge scope. The researchers tried to reveal not only phonological awareness but also orthographic, morphological awareness and syllable awareness. I know to do this is not easy. The researchers had to analyze the data over and over from different view point which may reveal evidences on those metalinguistics awareness they tried to prove.

The result of the research suggested that home language enhance a particular metalinguistic (phonological and orthographic) awareness which then influences children early spelling in English. However the research showed no evidence for Morphological awareness. This leaves us questions (1) why children did not show any morphological awareness (2) Does morphological awareness is a metalinguistic which will later be developed after phonological and orthographic? I can’t contribute answers for those questions but I think the absence of morphological evidence probably deals with the combination practice of SCE (Singapore colloquial English) and SSE (Singapore Standard English). It has been described in the article that SCE contains of very limited affixation and SSE has the full range of affixes. Therefore, the exposure of non standard form of spoken English may likely moderate the children’s acquisition and use of morphological knowledge.

The research, I think, may contribute evidence of the influence of home language towards the metalinguistic awareness which is later used as an approach for English spelling. This, then may be a worth-noting for any education practitioner to develop a particular English spelling teaching method that may work accordingly with the metalinguistic awareness the children may use. To make it possible, I think further researches on spelling teaching method that works accordingly with particular metalinguistic awareness are needed.

indonesia dalam reformasi manajemen pendidikan

INDONESIA DALAM REFORMASI MANAJEMEN PENDIDIKAN

PENDAHULUAN

Di awal abad ke-21 ini, prestasi pendidikan Indonesia tertinggal jauh dibawah Negara-negara Asia lainnya seperti Singapura, Jepang dan Malaysia. Bahkan jika dilihat dari indeks sumber daya manusia, yang salah satu indikatornya adalah sektor pendidikan, posisi Indonesia kian menurun dari tahun ke tahun. Menurut Laporan Bank Dunia tahun 1992, studi IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) menunjukan ketrampilan membaca siswa Indonesia kelas IV SD berada pada posisi terendah. Anak-anak Indonesia ternyata hanya mampu menguasai 30% dari materi bacaan dan ternyata mereka sulit sekali menjawab soal-soal berbentuk uraian yang memerlukan penalaran. Dalam dunia pendidikan tinggi menurut majalah Asia Week, dari 77 Universitas yang disurvai di Asia pasifik, ternyata 4 universitas terbaik di Indonesia hanya mampu menempati peringkat ke-61, ke-68, ke-73 dan ke-75. Indikator lain yang menunjukkan betapa rendahnya mutu Pendidikan di Indonesia dapat dilihat dari data UNESCO tahun 2000 tentang peringkat Indeks Pengembangan Manusia ( Human Development Index), yaitu komposisi dari peringkat pencapaian pendidikan, kesehatan dan penghasilan per kepala yang menunjukkan bahwa indeks pengembangan manusia Indonesia makin menurun. Diantara 174 negara di dunia, Indonesia menempati peringkat ke-102 pada tahun 1996, ke-99 pada tahun 1997, ke-105 tahun 1998, dan ke-109 tahun 1999 dan menurun ke urutan 112 pada tahun 2000. Bahkan, menurut survey Political and Economic risk Consultant (PERC), kualitas pendidikan Indonesia berada pada urutan ke-12 dari 12 negara Asia.

Lemahnya sumber daya manusia di Indonesia merupakan suatu akibat dari kekeliruan pembanguanan pada masa orde baru yang lebih menekankan pada pembangunan fisik dibandingkan meningkatkan mutu pendidikan. Padahal dengan meningkatkan mutu pendidikan, maka Indonesia akan memiliki SDM yang berkualitas yang akan mampu membantu bangkitnya bangsa dari keterpurukan ekonomi. Rosyada, (2004: 2) menegaskan kembali pendapat Dody Heriawan Priatmoko yang menyatakan bahwa Pendidikan merupakan faktor penting dalam pertumbuhan ekonomi melalui peningkatan kualitas SDM. Hal ini pun sejalan dengan konsep pemikiran Joseph Murphy (dalam Rosyada, 2004: 13) yang menyatakan bahwa kemunduran sektor ekonomi merupakan akibat langsung dari lemahnya sektor pendidikan.

Pendidikan Indonesia memang memiliki berbagai masalah yang perlu untuk dicermati. Sebagai contoh misalnya manajemen pendidikan Indonesia yang dulu bersifat sentralistik yang memiliki implikasi-implikasi yang panjang. Semua kebijakan ditentukan oleh Departemen Pendidikan yang memiliki kepanjangan tangan di tingkat provinsi yang disebut Kantor Wilayah (Kanwil), dan dibawahnya, ditingkat kabupaten ada Kantor Departemen (Kandep). Untuk SD bahkan ada Kantor Cabang Dinas di Kecamatan. Karena sifatnya yang hierarkhis itulah maka birokrasi justru menimbulkan efek negatif, lamban, dan berbelit-belit. Sehingga, terjadi suatu fenomena dimasyarakat tentang nasib sebuah sekolah, walaupun sudah ditayangkan lewat televisi atau koran, tetapi kalau belum ada ‘surat resmi’ sekolah dianggap ‘belum tahu.’ Bukan itu saja, Sumarsono (2004: 28) bahkan menyatakan bahwa adanya kekonyolan sistem birokrasi yang menghendaki agar semua informasi yang ‘serba bagus’ mengalir ke bawah, sementara informasi dari bawah yang bersifat ‘keluhan’ atau ‘kritik’, tidak dihiraukan.

Berkaitan dengan sistem birokrasi dan aturannya, ditemukan pula implikasi yang terjadi pada kualitas calon kepala sekolah. Seorang calon kepala sekolah bukannya ditentukan karena kualitas dan profesionalisme yang dimilikinya melainkan ditentukan oleh atasan “sesuai dengan birokrasi yang berlaku.” Begitu pula perekrutan guru-guru yang tidak berdasarkan kualitas. Banyak sekali jalan ‘samping’ yang bisa ditempuh seorang calon guru agar bisa menjadi guru. Hal ini menyebabkan sepanjang dia diumumkan lulus tes CPNS maka dia menjadi guru tanpa dipertanyakan apakah ia benar-benar berkualitas. Untuk seorang qualified teacher seharusnya ada tes khusus (performance tes) yang dapat mengases kualitas dan profesionalitas mereka, dan bukan hanya dengan menjalani tes tulis. Dengan demikian akan diketahui apakah mereka memiliki ketrampilan mengajar, apakah mereka cukup up to date untuk menggunakan model pembelajaran yang inovatif, apakah mereka bisa mengembangan materi pelajaran agar bersifat kontekstual dan penuh makna dan sebagainya

Hal-hal lain yang berkenaan dengan fenomena disekolah adalah pengajaran materi pelajaran oleh guru yang tidak ahli dalam bidangnya. Sebagai contoh, mata pelajaran Bahasa Inggris diampu oleh guru Bahasa Indonesia, dan mata pelajaran matematika diampu oleh guru fisika. Bagaimana kita bisa mengharapkan pendidikan yang berkualitas kalau para pendidik masih perlu dipertanyakan kualitasnya? Belum lagi banyaknya tuntutan dan beban kerja guru yang menyangkut pembuatan administrasi guru seperti program semester, program tahunan, rencana pembelajaran. Guru banyak mengeluh karena tidak hanya pembuatan administrasi guru ini tidak efisien tetapi juga sering tidak konsisten karena setiap pengawas yang datang ke sekolah membawa ide yang berbeda-beda tentang bagaimana administrasi guru yang seharusnya. Penjelasan para pengawas tentang administrasi guru lebih banyak mengarah kepada format dari administrasi tersebut, dan sangat jarang terlibat langsung dalam diskusi model pembelajaran yang bisa meningkatkan mutu atau kualitas belajar siswa. Begitu juga dengan sikap guru yang cenderung membuat administrasi guru tersebut untuk mengikuti ‘birokrasi’ padahal belum tentu apa yang dicantumkan dalam administrasi itu benar-benar dilaksanakan. Lalu sebenarnya apa yang menjadi goal pendidikan kita? Apakah memiliki administrasi guru yang lengkap dan sesuai dengan format yang benar ataukah memiliki proses belajar mengajar yang berkualitas di dalam kelas?

Bahkan, tidak hanya SDM Indonesia yang lemah tetapi juga fasilitas-fasilitas sekolah yang belum memadai. Di televisi banyak disiarkan tentang sekolah-sekolah yang bukan saja tidak lengkap fasilitasnya melainkan juga tidak layak untuk disebut sekolah. Bagaimana tidak, sekolah yang atapnya bocor, yang penyangga bangunannya rapuh dan bengkok, bahkan yang sebelah dinding kelasnya roboh masih digunakan sebagai tempat belajar.

Dengan demikian, gagasan-gasan tentang reformasi pendidikan di Indonesia menjadi sangat relevan, terutama dalam penyiapan SDM yang berkualitas. Reformasi pendidikan harus dimulai dengan perbaikan pendidikan pada semua jenjang dan jalur, meliputi perbaikan perencanaan, proses pembelajaran, dukungan alat dan sarana pembelajaran, serta perbaikan manajemen untuk mencapai perbaikan pada hasil pendidikan. Berdasarkan hal tersebut maka kita perlu lebih tahu secara mendalam apa itu reformasi pendidikan, manajemen pendidikan seperti apa yang diharapkan, apa dampak yang diharapkan dari manajemen pendidikan baru terhadap karakteristik sekolah serta bagaimana Indonesia sejauh ini menjalani reformasi pendidikan.

APA REFORMASI PENDIDIKAN

Isu reformasi pendidikan bukanlah sesuatu yang baru. Gagasan tentang reformasi pendidikan merupakan suatu refleksi pemikiran untuk melakukan berbagai perubahan pendidikan yang komprehensif sebagai respon terhadap perubahan dunia yang sedang terjadi. Kemunduran sektor perekonomian Indonesia merupakan suatu akibat dari lemahnya mutu pendidikan. Jika perekonomian Negara ingin bangkit maka sektor pendidikan harus diperbaiki karena SDM yang diluluskan akan mempengaruhi maju mundurnya perekonomian bangsa. Terkait dengan hal ini, Joseph Murphy (1992) dalam Rosyada (2004: 13) menegaskan bahwa reformasi adalah gagasan awal yang mendasari restrukturisasi pendidikan, yakni memperbaharui pola hubungan sekolah dengan lingkungannya dan dengan pemerintah, pola pengembangan perencanaan serta pola pengembangan manajerialnya, pemberdayaan guru dan rekonstrukturisasi model-model pembelajaran.

Pendidikan dalam millennium ketiga perlu direkonstruksi karena terdapat perubahan-perubahan sosial yang mengubah kehidupan manusia. Perubahan-perubahan sosial tersebut adalah proses globalisasi, demokratisasi, dan kemajuan teknologi informasi. Keseluruhan perubahan-perubahan besar tersebut mempengaruhi proses pendidikan.

Proses globalisasi ini membawa perubahan pada kehidupan masyarakat. Proses globalisasi menyatukan kehidupan manusia yang membawa perubahan tingkah laku manusia, lembaga-lembaga sosial serta hubungan antar manusia. Pendidikan tradisional yang dulu hanya terkungkung dalam ruang keluarga dan masyarakat nasional mendapat hembusan angin segar globalisasi. Sehingga, pendidikan di era globalisasi membuka jendela serta cakrawala umat manusia untuk belajar dari perkembangan dunia dan membentuk warga negara berwawasan global. Sejalan dengan proses globalisasi tersebut, lahirlah gerakan-gerakan yang menuntut hak asasi manusia yang digambarkan didalam semakin gencarnya proses demokratisasi. Semua orang ingin diakui keberadaannya, ingin diakui harkat serta hak-hak dan kewajibannya. Semua hal tersebut memberikan pengaruh terhadap pendidikan yang tidak terbatas pada perkembangan individu, tetapi individu yang hidup dengan individu yang lain dalam lingkungan lokal, nasional dan global. Proses demokratisasi ini lebih ditunjang oleh perkembangan lalu lintas informasi dan ilmu pengetahuan karena ditunjang oleh kemajuan teknologi informasi.

Perubahan kehidupan manusia di era globalisasi menuntut manajemen yang sesuai. Praktik manajemen pendidikan melalui pendekatan sentralistik harus membuka diri terhadap perubahan-perubahan di dalam kehidupan manusia yang berorientasi global. Apabila di masa lalu, keinginan lembaga-lembaga pendidikan melakukan inovasi seolah-olah terpasung karena manajemen pendidikan merupakan bagian dari birokrasi pemerintah, maka kini manajemen pendidikan perlu membuka pintu bagi lembaga-lembaga pendidikan untuk melakukan berbagai inovasi.

Salah satu perubahan mendasar dari reformasi pendidikan dalam era reformasi ini adalah lahirnya UU. No. 22 tahun 1999 serta Undang-undang no 20 tahun 2003 tentang Sistem Pendidikan Nasional (Sisdiknas). Kedua Undang-undang tersebut membawa perspektif baru yang amat revolusioner dalam konteks perbaikan sektor pendidikan, yang mendorong pendidikan sebagai urusan publik dan urusan masyarakat secara umum dengan mengurangi otoritas pemerintah baik dalam kebijakan kurikulum, manajemen maupun berbagai kebijakan pengembangan institusi pendidikan itu sendiri. Arah reformasi pendidikan ini adalah demokratisasi dalam pengembangan dan pengelolaan pendidikan, didukung oleh komunitasnya sebagai kontributor dalam penyelenggara pendidikan tersebut.

Hal tersebut diatas secara tidak langsung disinggung oleh Ackerman and Alscott dalam bukunya The Stakeholder Society bahwa orang tua, masyarakat, pemerintah daerah dan pemerintah nasional merupakan para stakeholders dari pendidikan yang berhak mengetahui dan mengontrol apa yang dilaksanakan dalam lembaga-lembaga pendidikannya.

Pada masa orde baru, pendidikan telah terhempas dari masyarakat dan telah menjadi milik penguasa. Masyarakat menerima saja apa yang direkayasa oleh pemerintah dengan birokrasinya mengenai pendidikannya. Sesuai dengan perkembangan masyarakat demokrasi, maka sikap masyarakat yang pasif serta kekuasaan pemerintah yang tidak terbatas terhadap pendidikan sudah harus dihilangkan. Tilaar (2002) menyatakan bahwa masyarakat adalah salah satu stakeholders terpenting pendidikan. Pendidikan adalah milik masyarakat. Apabila kita lihat pendidikan pada masa orde baru, maka masyarakat tidak mempunyai hak suara terhadap pendidikannya. Sementara dalam pendidikan demokratis, karena masyarakat telah berpartisipasi dalam bentuk pajak, maka masyarakat mempunyai hak untuk mengetahui dan mengontrol apa yang dilaksanakan didalam pendidikannya. Hal ini berarti visi, misi serta program yang dilaksanakan didalam lembaga pendidikan perlu diketahui oleh masyarakat. Masyarakat berhak ikut serta didalam setiap proses pelaksanaan pendidikan sejak pada tahap perencanaan, pelaksanaan, evaluasi, dari lembaga-lembaga pendidikan. Pada masa lampau seakan-akan pendidikan itu hanya dimiliki oleh pemerintah dan birokrasinya. Apa yang diinginkan pemerintah dan apa yang dilaksanakan oleh birokrasi termasuk para pendidiknya, tidak dapat dan tidak boleh dinilai oleh masyarakat, padahal sebenarnya masyarakatlah pemilik pendidikan itu.

REFORMASI MANAJEMEN PENDIDIKAN

Apa yang terjadi pada manajemen pendidikan sentralistik sungguh perlu direkonstrukturisasi dengan manajemen pendidikan yang baru. Indonesia terdiri dari berbagai pulau, yang masyarakatnya berada pada rentangan sangat modern (dengan teknologi mutakhir) dan warga yang masih buta huruf dan hidup primitif. Hal ini menyebabkan tidak mungkin segala pengelolaan pendidikan selalu diputuskan di Jakarta. Begitu pula kurikulum yang berlaku untuk seluruh Indonesia sangatlah tidak mungkin. Karena itu diperlukan diversifikasi kurikulum sesuai dengan ciri khas daerah dan sekolah. Jika desentralisasi pendidikan itu betul-betul secara konsekuen dilaksanakan maka sekolah harus diberi keleluasaan menyesuaikan kurikulum nasional dengan kondisi dan ciri khas sekolah itu sendiri.

Dengan demikian reformasi pendidikan diharapkan menjangkau semua orang, kelompok dan unsur-unsur yang terkait dengan pelaksana pendidikan, yakni siswa-siswa sekolah itu sendiri, para guru, orang tua siswa, pimpinan sekolah, kantor pemerintah, buku teks dan penerbit buku teks serta unsur-unsur lainnya (Walker, 1997:80 dalam Rosyada, 2004:13). Dengan demikian, reformasi pendidikan mencakup perbaikan dan perubahan dalam sektor kurikulum, baik struktur maupun prosedur perumusannya, serta pengelolaan sekolah yang berbasis pada masyarakat.

Sehubungan dengan hal tersebut Tilaar (2002) menegaskan bahwa masyarakat merupakan salah satu pemegang hak dalam pendidikan, maka tujuan lembaga-lembaga pendidikan harus pula menampung apa yang diinginkan masyarakat, dan bukan hanya menampung apa yang diinginkan birokrasi. Di dalam kaitan ini, perlu ada lembaga atau struktur organisasi di dalam lembaga-lembaga pendidikan di mana masyarakat ikut berpartisipasi. Sayangnya, pada pendidikan Indonesia, partisipasi masyarakat baru mencakup penanaman investasi dalam pendidikan berupa SPP, pajak dan sebagainya. Sesungguhnya, masyarakat perlu diikutsertakan dalam merencanakan kurikulum pendidikan, evaluasi pendidikan serta hal-hal yang menyangkut proses belajar. Dengan demikian, tujuan manajemen pendidikan yang menampung semua unsur pemilik pendidikan itu harus dapat dirumuskan dengan baik agar tujuan pendidikan, yakni kualitas pendidikan yang tinggi dapat dicapai. Manajemen pendidikan tidak lain diarahkan kepada meningkatkan kualitas pendidikan, yaitu pendidikan yang mempunyai relevansi dan akuntabilitas. Relevansi pendidikan hanya dapat dicapai apabila masyarakat sendiri ikut serta di dalam proses pelaksanaan visi, misi, kebutuhan dari masyarakat pemiliknya. Demikian pula, suatu lembaga pendidikan memiliki kualitas yang tinggi apabila memiliki akuntabilitas terhadap masyarakatnya. Hal ini berarti, semua program yang ada di dalam lembaga pendidikan accountable terhadap pemiliknya. Semua ini dapat dilaksanakan melalui apa yang disebut manajemen pendidikan berbasis sekolah dan pendidikan berbasis masyarakat (Community based Education). Manajemen pendidikan berbasis sekolah, harus mengikutsertakan semua stakeholders di dalam sekolah tersebut. Dan selanjutnya, di dalam pendidikan berbasis masyarakat, semua stakeholders di dalam masyarakat harus ikut serta di dalam penyelenggaraan dalam semua aspek manajemennya. Paradigma berpikir yang menunggu petunjuk pelaksana pemerintah pusat haru diubah menjadi inisiasi yang dinamis, konstruktif, sehingga dapat melahirkan sekolah yang kompetitif, unggul, dengan mengoptimalkan potensi-potensi sumber daya yang dimiliki sekolah-sekolah tersebut.

Berbagai konsekuensi dari upaya-upaya reformasi ini adalah perubahan-perubahan yang tidak dapat dielakkan, seperti menurunnya peran birokrasi dalam kebijakan kurikulum operasional karena lebih banyak ditentukan oleh sekolah bersama komite sekolahnya sendiri. Setiap perubahan membawa konsekuensi, dan konsekuensi itu harus dihadapi bukan ditakuti, karena pasti terjadi.

SEKOLAH DENGAN MANAJEMEN PENDIDIKAN BERBASIS MASYARAKAT

Pelibatan masyarakat dalam pendidikan diharapkan membawa perubahan mendasar pada karakteristik sekolah. Perencanaan, pengelolaan dan evaluasi penyelenggaraan pendidikan disekolah akan menjadi lebih demokratis sebagai akibat dari masuknya partisipasi masyarakat sebagai stakeholders sekolah. Mekanisme demokratis yang terjadi pada seluruh perencanaan, pengelolaan dan evaluasi penyelenggaraan pendidikan di sekolah menyebabkan sekolah bertransformasi menjadi sekolah demokratis.

Didalam sekolah demokratis, semua informasi penting dapat dijangkau oleh semua stakeholders sekolah, sehingga semua unsur tersebut memahami arah pengembangan sekolah, berbagai problema yang dihadapinya, serta langkah-langkah yang sedang ditempuh. Dengan demikian, mereka akan bisa menganalisis relevansi kebijakan-kebijakan tersebut, memahami, mengkritisi dan memberi masukan, serta menentukan kontribusi serta partisipasi yang akan diberikannya untuk kesuksesan pelaksanaan program-program sekolah tersebut. Kemudian tidak hanya itu, didalam sekolah demokratis secara berangsur angsur terdapat sikap trust atau kepercayaan, yakni orang tua percaya pada kepala sekolah untuk mengembangkan program-program sekolah menuju idealitas yang diinginkan, kemudian, kepala sekolah juga percaya pada guru untuk mengembangkan program-program kurikulernya serta mengorganisir pelaksanaan programnya itu.

Karakteristik lain dari sekolah demokratis adalah adanya perhatian yang kuat terhadap hak-hak asasi manusia. Persoalan kesejahteraan para guru, serta semua yang terkait dengan pengelolaan sekolah harus menjadi perhatian serius, dan manajemen harus dilakukan secara terbuka, khususnya dalam aspek-aspek yang bersifat publik harus dikelola secara transparan, sehingga semua ikut terlibat dalam menentukan dan memutuskannya. Dan bagian yang amat sensitif serta selalu menjadi persoalan universal, adalah hak-hak minoritas dalam komunitas sekolah yang harus diperhatikan sama, tidak boleh ada diskriminasi atas dasar perbedaan ras, agama atau warna kulit.

Disamping hal tersebut diatas pengimplementasian pola-pola demokratis di sekolah mengantarkan para siswa pada praktik-praktik demokratis. Pelibatan masyarakat dalam menentukan program, mengambil keputusan, mengevaluasi program atau bahkan mengkritisi dan memberikan saran kepada sekolah memberikan rasa aman bagi para siswa. Salah satu contoh dalam pembinaan siswa, guru harus mampu memberikan perhatian yang sama pada semua siswa karena pendidikan itu untuk semuanya. Jadi, guru membina siswa tanpa membedakan antara yang pintar dan yang kurang pintar, semua diberikan perlakukan walaupun bentuknya berbeda. Mereka yang kurang pintar diberi waktu untuk memperbaiki dan meningkatkan kemampuannya. Guru tidak akan mau melakukan hal-hal yang tidak demokratis karena stakeholders sekolah selalu mengontrol dan mengevaluasi pembinaan siswa di sekolah. Pola-pola pembinaan seperti ini, telah memberi pengalaman-pengalaman praktik demokrasi bagi anak-anak yakni perhatian yang seimbang terhadap semua siswa, tanpa membedakan mayoritas dan minoritas dalam sekolahnya.

Pengembangan sekolah menjadi sekolah demokratis sangatlah relevan karena sesuai dengan tipologi sekolah abad ke-21. Menurut Lyn Haas (Haas, 1994 dalam Rosyada, 2004) sekolah-sekolah sekarang harus dapat memenuhi beberapa kualifikasi ideal:

1. Pendidikan untuk semua; yakni semua siswa harus mendapat perlakuan yang sama, memperoleh pelajaran sehingga memperoleh peluang untuk mencapai kompetensi keilmuan sesuai batas-batas kurikuler, serta memiliki basis skills dan ketrampilan yang sesuai dengan minat mereka, serta sesuai pula dengan dengan kebutuhan pasar tenaga kerja.

2. Memberikan skill dan ketrampilan yang sesuai dengan kemajuan teknologi terkini, karena pasar menuntut setiap tenaga kerjanya memiliki ketrampilan penggunaan alat-alat teknologi termodern, kemampuan komunikasi global, matematika, serta kemampuan akses pada pengetahuan.

3. Penekanan pada kerjasama, yakni menekankan pada pengalaman para siswa dalam melakukan kerjasama dengan yang lainnya, melalui penugasan-penugasan kelompok dalam proses pembelajaran. Hal ini sangat penting karena trend pasar kedepan adalah pengembangan kerjasama baik antar perusahaan ataupun perusahaan dan masyarakat; sehingga, pengalaman mereka belajar akan sangat bermanfaat dalam artikulasi diri di lapangan profesi mereka.

4. Pengembangan kecerdasan ganda; yakni bahwa para siswa harus diberi kesempatan untuk mengembangkan multiple intelligent mereka, dengan memberi peluang untuk mengembangkan skill dan ketrampilan yang beragam, sehingga mudah melakukan penyesuaian di pasar tenaga kerja.

5. Integrasi program pendidikan dengan kegiatan pengabdian pada masyarakat, agar mereka memiliki kepekaan sosial.

Kelima point diatas memperlihatkan adanya tuntutan kurikulum yang dinamis, progresif dan peka terhadap berbagai kemajuan dan perkembangan teknologi di luar sekolah, sehingga jika kurikulum dan perencanaan sekolah itu sangat ditentukan oleh struktur birokrasi yang kaku, sekolah bisa tertinggal oleh kemajuan dan sekolah akan kehilangan relevansinya dengan berbagai perubahan, yang pada akhirnya akan ditinggalkan oleh para stakeholders-nya sendiri. Oleh sebab itu model sekolah demokratis sangat relevan untuk dikembangkan.

INDONESIA DALAM REFORMASI MANAJEMEN PENDIDIKAN

Sejak lahirnya UU no 22 tahun 1999 tentang otonomi daerah yang meletakkan sektor pendidikan sebagai salah satu yang diotonomisasikan, pendidikan memasuki era baru dengan semangat demokratis. Daerah menyambut undang-undang tersebut karena memberi peluang pada sekolahnya untuk mengembangkan perencanaan sekolah, pengembangan kurikulum, maupun penetapan berbagai kebijakan mendasar dari sekolah tidak terkecuali sekolah negeri.

Persoalan besar dalam UU no 22 tahun 1999 adalah perubahan radikal dalam otoritas pengembangan pendidikan yang semula berada dalam kekuasaan pemerintah pusat melalui Depdiknasnya, kini terdelegasikan pada pemerintah daerah. Dan kini perubahan radikal tersebut memperoleh penguatan dengan diundangkannya UU no 20 tahun 2003 tentang Sistem Pendidikan nasional (Sisdiknas), yang menegaskan dalam pasal 4 ayat 1 bahwa pendidikan diselenggarakan secara demokratis dan berkeadilan serta tidak diskriminatif dengan menjunjung tinggi hak asasi manusia, nilai keagamaan, nilai kultular dan kemajemukan bangsa. Poin penting dalam ayat ini adalah menegaskan bahwa pendidikan diselenggarakan secara demokratis, artinya, keterlibatan masyarakat dan otoritas pengelola serta institusi-institusi pendukungnya akan lebih besar daripada pemerintah pusat.

Bersamaan dengan itu pada pasal 9 dinyatakan bahwa masyarakat berhak berperan serta dalam perencanaan, pelaksanaan, pengawasan, dan evaluasi program pendidikan. Akan tetapi rupanya pergeseran yang radikal dari sistem pendidikan sentralisasi ke sistem otonomi daerah belum bisa sepenuhnya diimplementasikan sesuai dengan teorinya.

Menurut Sumarsono (2004:7) desentaralisasi politik dan desentralisasi administrasi itu berbeda. Desentralisasi politik atau demokrasi menyangkut pada penyerahan kekuasaan untuk keputusan tentang pendidikan si tingkat pemerintahan yang lebih rendah. Desentralisasi administrasi atau birokrasi hakikatnya adalah suatu strategi manajemen. Kekuasaan politik tetap ditangan orang-orang di pusat organisasi, tetapi tanggung jawab dan wewenang untuk perencanaan, manajemen, keuangan, dan sebagainya diserahkan ke bawah.

Lalu apa yang terjadi di Indonesia? Dalam harian Kompas tertanggal 6 Desember 2007, Maria FK Namang menyoroti tentang pelaksanaan pendidikan Indonesia sebagai neokolonisasi pendidikan. Namang memberikan contoh paling pelaksanaan kurikulum dan Ujian Nasional (UN) dewasa ini.

Guru yang telah disertifikasi diharapkan menjadi desainer pendidikan disekolahnya. Ia perlu inovatif dan kreatif (atau setidaknya imitatif) dalam merancang model pembelajaran yang lebih tepat. Kenyataan justru lain. Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) tidak lebih dari bundelan kertas yang disiapkan begitu rapi menyambut akreditas. Bas-basi proses belajar mengajar lalu diarahkan kepada pemantapan ujian negara...

Kutipan diatas menunjukkan bahwa perencanaan, pelaksanaan dan evaluasi pendidikan yang menurut teori akan diserahkan kepada otoritas pengelola serta institusi-institusi pendukungnya; kenyataanya masih pula dipegang oleh pemerintah pusat. Hal inilah yang menyebabkan para pendidik mengalami kesulitan untuk melakukan inovasi pendidikan terkait dengan materi pelajaran yang diberikan. Dengan adanya campur tangan pemerintah menentukan UN, pendidikan sekolah di daerah kembali pada pelaksanaan pendidikan lampau yaitu mengikuti kebijakan strategi pendidikan pusat. Guru yang semula merasa bebas dari belenggu keterikatan pemerintah pusat untuk menentukan arah pembelajarannya kini malah kebingungan. KTSP yang semula tersengar begitu menjanjikan kebebasan dan kesempatan berinovasi kini malah terpenggal dengan pelaksanaan Ujian nasional. Bahkan Namang menyatakan bahwa kebijakan strategis pemerintah tersebut telah hadir sebagai model penjajahan baru. Kurikulum yang tidak diaplikasikan secara konsisten dan masuknya UN ditengah otonomi pendidikan merupakan dikte yang lebih tragis dari kebijakan penjajahan mengontrol pendidikan.

Sepanjang pendidikan dikelola dalam iklim yang tidak kreatif dan dinaungi oleh pelbagai jenis neokolonialisasi, hal-hal seperti spirit demokrasi, pembinaan, kemanusiaan, kesederajatan, tidak akan dapat terbentuk. Dengan demikian, memberikan kesempatan bagi iklim kreatif memasuki gedung-gedung sekolah kita rupanya salah satu hal yang bisa menjanjikan terjadinya kebebasan, inovasi, kreativitas dan transformasi sosial untuk pencerdaskan kehidupan bangsa.

PENUTUP

Sesunguhnya, pendidikan Indonesia memang masih dalam proses reformasi, yang berarti belum mencapai titik sempurna sebagai hasil reformasi itu sendiri. Tentu masih banyak perubahan yang mungkin terjadi setelah adanya berbagai evaluasi terhadap wajah pendidikan kita sekarang. Semoga apa yang menjadi harapan kita, yaitu meningkatnya sumber daya manusia melalui sektor pendidikan untuk membangkitkan negara kita dari keterpurukan akan bisa tercapai.

Daftar Pustaka

Namang, Maria FK. 2007. Neokolonialisasi Pendidikan Artikel harian kompas edisi 6 Desember 2007.

Rosyada, Dede. 2004. Paradigma Pendidikan Demokratis. Jakarta: Prenada Media

Sumarsono. 2004. Otonomi Pendidikan. .....

Tilaar, H.A.R. 2002. Perubahan Sosial dan Pendidikan. Jakarta: PT Grasindo

INDONESIA DALAM REFORMASI MANAJEMEN PENDIDIKAN

(Tugas Mata Kuliah Landasan Pendidikan)

Oleh:

I.G.A. Lokita Purnamika Utami

PROGRAM PASCASARJANA

UNIVERSITAS PENDIDIKAN GANESHA

2008