ASEAN Countries’ Policies on Language of Instruction

De La Salle University-Dasmariñas

Eunice Jane H. Resurreccion

GRES 201a
Foundations of English as a Second Language

College of Liberal Arts and Communication - Graduate Studies

November 2015

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ASEAN Countries’ Policies on Language of Instruction

I. Summarized Consolidation of Articles and Journals

Introduction
With only five countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and
Thailand, ASEAN or Association of Southeast Asian Nations was formed in 1967 in Bangkok,
Thailand. The group of countries continued to expand and has included Brunei, Vietnam, Laos,
Myanmar and Cambodia in the later years. In 2009, English became the de facto lingua franca of
ASEAN. Being colonies of Britain and the United States of America, most countries in the ASEAN
has retained English in a good standing. Scholars have criticized the use of English as medium
of education during the early years in school. A study by Kirkpatrick in 2012 discussed the
different instruction Policies among ASEAN Countries. In both the Philippines and Brunei, the
English language is presently used as the medium of instruction for subjects such as Science and
Mathematics. This setup begins from the first year of primary school. Likewise, Malaysia has the
same policy since 2002. On the other hand, Singapore mandated English to be the medium of
instruction for all subjects. In Myanmar however, English is taught as a subject in primary
schools. Let have a more in-depth look onto the English language policies of the ASEAN group
of countries.

Indonesia
It is mandated by the Indonesian government law that children should attend formal
education from the ages seven to 15. As young as two years old, children attend school as
kindergartens and nurseries. These schools are run mostly by private sectors. Indonesia has two
main system in education. These are the School education and informal education. The
Department of Education has recognized challenges in the education system of the country. Over
the years, the number of educated people is still low. Moreover, the quality of education itself is
on bottom rocks. This gaps are identified among the east and west part of Indonesia. Researchers
believed that the gap is in the quality and quantity of education. It was also noted that there were
gaps between rural and urban schools as well. In a blog article by Kamal (2009), he elaborated
that students attend primary school, Sekolah Darar for 6 years, 3 years in Junior Secondary
School and another 3 years for the Senior secondary school. Based on the 1994 curriculum,
seven subjects are offered for the first up to the second year in school of students. However,
students will have to study nine subjects on the remaining years from their third to sixth year.

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The subjects are as follows: Arts, Pancasila and Citizenship, Indonesian, Mathematics, Physics,
Religion, Social Sciences, Sports and Local Component. Local component includes Local
Language, Dance, Arts and English. At the end of the school year, students have to take the
national exam in order to continue to the higher education level. English becomes compulsory
and more reinforced by the time students enter Junior Secondary School (ages 12 – 14/15). In
Senior Secondary School, students are expected to expand all the knowledge that they have
acquired from the previous years of studying. They are also expected to take the national exam to
get to the next level. The last phase is the Tertiary Education. In here, students are being
prepared to achieve good academic and professional skills. After the country gained
independence, the government declared English language teaching as one of the compulsory
subjects in the schools. The first two curriculum used were the grammar-translation and audio-
lingual based curriculum. Most teachers preferred grammar-translation according to them, it is
more effective for classes with bigger population. In addition this curriculum is cheap and only
grammatical mastery of the target language is a requirement to pass. It was during the 1950s that
English became the main language used by the students when they were inside the campus. The
curriculum received commendations and English was part of it. The audio-lingual curriculum
obligatorily used new series of textbooks for both Junior and Senior High School. Jazadi (2004)
argued that the audio-lingual curriculum of 1975 has not been a success because the curriculum
did not support the achievement of the learning objectives. Because of this, a new curriculum
that encouraged communication for both receptive and productive was subjected to be introduced
in the system. Among the ASEAN countries, it is only Indonesia that has not made English a
mandatory part of the primary curriculum, even if primary schools that did not offer English
wouldn’t be able to attract more students.

Malaysia
Urban Schools during colonial times were taught in English. Schools which offer use
English as medium of instruction were perceived to offer students more and greater opportunities
for further education, better employment in the civil service and more scholarship grants.
Majority of the student population in urban schools were Chinese. The educational system of
Malay aimed to make all learners intelligent. However, it did not succeed in making their
learners cope with the fast changing phase of the environment and all its aspects. Puteh
elaborated that The British education for Malays in English medium was only for sons of loyalty
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and chiefs. The legislatures of Malay, Chinese and Indian communities took a big part in making
the educational policy after World War II. The English-educated Malays realized that the
emphasis on English education would favor the urban non- Malays. The Education Act of 1996
and the Private Higher education Institution Act was introduced by the government in 1996. The
language medium policy in Malaysia includes English as the medium of instruction across levels
both in national and private school. The Barnes Report 1951 proposed a single inter – racial type
of school, the national school. It was recommended that English language should be used as a
medium of instruction in the classrooms because they believe that it will help improve the skills
and make the human resources knowledgeable. Thus making the nation progress and prosper.
Despite all these perspective, the Malays stipulated that the Bahasa Malaysia, their national
language be a mandatory subject in the private schools for it not to be overpowered by the
foreign language.

Brunei
As opposed to Malaysia, Brunei has improved in terms of the quantity of English as a
medium of instruction in primary schools. And in 2009, The National Education System for the
21st Century (SPN 21) was espoused by the Brunei government. With this new system, English
will be used as the medium of instruction for Science and Math during primary years. This new
policy would then make a big leap from the long-established bilingual. It was for the first three
years of primary that the Malay language is used as the medium of instruction. Moreover, this
policy can be perceived with a great success for many of the younger generation use Malay as
their first language. Thus for Jones (2009) Bruneian can be defined as a Malay-English bilingual.

Thailand
Unlike the rest of the countries in ASEAN, Thailand has not been colonized by any
country. Because of this, the country’s educational system remained monolingual. But in the
early 1820’s, the English language was only taught to royalties and diplomats. But in the year
1891, schools realized that learning the language is vital since books are also written in English.
In the following years, the first compulsory policy made its way and the English subject was then
mandated to be taught in Grade 5. In mainstream schools, English is restricted to specific English
language lessons taught for one hour a week in grades 1 to 3, 2 hours a week in grades 4 to 6,
and 3 hours a week on average in secondary schools. For nearly 50 years, English has been the
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longest running foreign language taught in Thailand. Despite this, the level of English
Proficiency of the general population is relatively low, including both teachers and students.
Next comes the, National Education Act of 1999. This act was to set foot and reform the Thai
education. Their key objective is to promote knowledge and skills in Science and Mathematics
while giving emphasis on how to use Thai language. Because of the demands from the
community, more international schools open and offered curriculum emphasizing English. To
wrap it up, English language in Thailand was mostly introduced in urban areas while those in
rural are limited. Thai people do not use this foreign language in daily basis, but is considered as
a necessity for career and opportunity seekers, educational purposes and communication outside
the country. A high emphasis is also given to teaching foreign languages particularly English to
develop efficient communication among Thai students by integrating the English language at
every educational level (Ministry of Education, 2010). In the new curriculum, English will be a
compulsory foreign language subject starting from level 1 in primary education (6 years of age).
It is one of the eight compulsory strands that students will have to take in the core and elective
courses. It is to be divided into four levels. Level 1 (Preparatory Level) and 2 (Beginning Level)
are in primary education; level 3 (Expanding Level) is in lower secondary education and level 4
(Expanding Level) is in upper – secondary education . (Wiriyachitra, 2002). In spite of exerting
much efforts, developing the English language has still been unsuccessful.

Singapore
The bilingual policy of Singapore aims to ensure that Singaporean citizens learn English
in addition to their mother tongue. As for the mother tongue of some Chinese and Indians,
citizens are responsible locally to teach their young ones. Figures spanning the years 2000-2005
show that the percentage of respondents indicating that English is their home language has
increased across the board, while the percentage of those indicating that Tamil, Malay or a
Chinese dialect is their home language has decreased. The percentage of ethnic Chinese
indicating that Mandarin is their home language increased slightly over this period from 45.1%
to 47.2% (Tupas 2011:60). Singaporeans are exposed early to the English language as they
believe that this will give them more advantage. After 6 years of studying the language, students
take the Primary School Leaving Exam as eligibility test to Secondary level.

Myanmar
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English has long since ceased to have any institutional role in Myanmar. Burmese is the
country’s lingua franca. The Myanmar government has therefore promoted the use of minority
languages, but more in an attempt to divide the opposition than in any attempt to revivify
indigenous languages (Callahan 2003:166). The issue on education policy in Myanmar has long
been a controversy. The country is currently using Burmese as its primary medium of instruction.
Students who are interested in learning more about their mother tongue need to go elsewhere
because public national schools only offers curriculum in Burmese and English only in that
subject. The country cannot adopt yet the MTB-MLE for they are challenged when it comes to
teachers and textbooks. In order to successfully promote MTB-MLE, the government must hire
more teachers from minorities who can teach the target language. In addition, textbooks in
mother tongue will be another expenditure. With the ASEAN integration, Myanmar’s
preparation is still insufficient.

Laos
Laos remains to be one of the poorest countries with limited roads and infrastructure,
sources of electricity and educational system. Students’ access in primary school are recorded to
be higher compared with the lower and upper secondary school. Among the population, boys
have a higher rate of getting an education, but they have a higher rate of repetition during grades
1 and 2. The “general education” system in Lao PDR is organized in three levels: primary
(grades 1-5), lower secondary (grades 6-8), and upper secondary (grades 9-11) (Benviste,
Marshall & Santibañez, 20. Laos is also considered as monolingual wherein all subjects across
level are taught in Lao language.

Cambodia
Cambodia’s formal education was only offered by Buddhist monks to young boys.
Subjects taught include reading, writing, basic arithmetic, woodwork, masonry, blacksmithing
and basketry (Thong, 1985). It was only during the second half of the nineteenth century, a
system of their own model was implemented by the French leader with primary, secondary, and
higher levels. These levels were all overseen by the Ministry of Education. Although Cambodia
maintained this system for several decades, it was not until the Southeast Asian nation achieved
independence from France in 1953 that educational efforts there became widespread. Today
English has a special status in Cambodia. English is not only the most preferred foreign
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language, but people view English as a passport to a better job or to a scholarship from abroad
(Igawa, 2010). Igawa’s study furthermore explained that English education starts at the 7th grade
(lower secondary school) in Cambodia and elementary school children do not study English as a
school subject. Only 25 % of Cambodian elementary school graduates go on to lower secondary
schools.

Vietnam

English language was introduced in Vietnam in the 1990s in primary schools. English is
considered as a foreign language despite the response of students that English should be an
important language taught in Vietnam. English is a one of the many subjects that has national
examinations and students need to pass this in order to enter Secondary School Education. It is
also a compulsory subject for tertiary and postgraduate levels. The education sector of the
country instructed in 1996 that English will be compulsory at Grade 3 throughout the country.
However, there is a big challenge in the implementation because there are no guidelines and they
lack of permanent English teachers. Teacher retention is affected by the low salary and for the
reason that they lack the required level of expertise and there are far better opportunities in other
sectors of the economy.

Philippines

The English policy in the Philippines can be perceived to be successful as far as I can
remember with the second language literacy rate of 93% among the population (Embassy of the
Republic of the Philippines, 2006). The language is considered as second language of the
country. According to REPUBLIC ACT NO. 10533 which is “AN ACT ENHANCING THE
PHILIPPINE BASIC EDUCATION SYSTEM BY STRENGTHENING ITS CURRICULUM
AND INCREASING THE NUMBER OF YEARS FOR BASIC EDUCATION,
APPROPRIATING FUNDS THEREFOR AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES”, learners should
undergo a year in kindergarten, six years in primary, four years in junior high school and two
years in senior high school. Mother Tongue – Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) is the
government’s banner program for education as a salient part of the implementation of the K to 12
Basic Education Program (DepEd, 2013). With this policy, learners will be taught using their
mother tongue and additional languages (Filipino or English) for the first three years in primary
school.
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ASEAN Countries’ Policies on Language of Instruction

II. Questions answered

Questions Philippines Lao PDR Vietnam Cambodia Indonesia

A. Based on the Public
language of Schools
instruction policy English is the
of each of the medium of
ASEAN member instruction for
states, what all subjects English is All
except Filipino used as subjects
language/s can be English can
and Sibika at medium for are taught
used in ESL classes Kultura for be used for
in the elementary, ESL use their
Grades 4 and ESL class in
secondary and above classes but national
All subjects primary.
tertiary levels? Mother tongue considered language
are taught in English is
is used as as Foreign (Khmer)
Lao then became
medium of Language and
language compulsory
instruction for and is English is
during
Grades 1-3 compulsor only
Private Schools secondary and
y up to introduced
All subjects tertiary school
tertiary during the
across levels level 7th year
are mostly
taught in
English except
Filipino
subject
B. At what age should There is no A debate has
the learners be existing been going on
exposed to Private: 3-5 policy on among
English? years old English 13-14 educators
8 years old
Public: 9 years language as years old about the
old medium of appropriate
instruction age to start
teaching. (
C. At what grade level Primary Primary 7th grade English is to
should English be School School (lower be taught
introduced to the As early as (Grade 3) secondary from the first
learners? nursery/ school) year of Junior
kindergarten High School
in private but may be
schools and taught as early
Grade 4 in as Primary

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ASEAN Countries’ Policies on Language of Instruction

Four at the
public schools school’s
discretion.
D. Based on the data Yes Not yet Not until Not until
gathered, is MTB- From grades Solely relies 7th grade Junior
MLE a sound 1-3 on mother Yes Secondary
language of tongue School (6th
instruction policy? year)
E. Is the language of Yes for most of the ASEAN countries except Lao PDR, Indonesia
instruction policy because according to Kirkpatrick (2012), governments and parents hold
of each of the to three tenets of language learning, namely:
ASEAN member (i) The best way to learn a language is to use it a as medium of
states in conformity instruction;
with the theories of (ii) To learn a second language you must start as early as possible;
SLA (iii) the home language gets in the way of learning a second language
(Benson 2008)

Questions Malaysia Singapore Thailand Brunei Myanmar

A. Based on the English for all Thai is the
language of English for subjects medium for English
instruction policy Math and across all all subjects subject is
English
of each of the Science levels from English is taught in
for Math
ASEAN member starting elementary, taught as primary
and
states, what primary school secondary and foreign school, but
Science
language/s can be English for tertiary. language all subjects
starting
used in ESL ESL classes. English is and across
primary
classes in the English is used considered as therefore levels are
school
elementary, as a second the first English taught in
secondary and language language in language is Burmese
tertiary levels? this country. used
B. At what age should
5-6 years old
the learners be 5-6 years 5-6 years 5-6 years
5-6 years old or as early as
exposed to old old old
preschool
English?
C. At what grade
level should
Primary Primary Level 1 Primary Primary
English be
School School Primary School School
introduced to the
learners?
D. Based on the data Yes No, Mother Yes Yes No, the
gathered, is MTB- Tongue National
MLE a sound remains a language is
language of single subject. used as
instruction policy? primary

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medium of
instruction
E. Is the language of Yes,
instruction policy although
of each of the English
ASEAN member instruction
states in is
Yes, learners
conformity with insufficient,
are exposed
the theories of and
Yes early with the
SLA proficiency
Since English language in Yes, but
is low
is used as conformity to not with No
second the theories of all aspects
The current
language behaviorists
curriculum
on habit
is
formation
developing
a learner-
centered
approach

Conclusion
Majority of the countries are using English as their medium of instructions during the primary
grades, but only differs in the level. Some start as early as grade 1 while some start at grade 3 or
even grade 7. Not everyone has adopted the mother tongue based Multilingual Education like
Singapore which rely solely in the English language and used it as their first language. In some
countries like the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei though English is not introduced that early,
other subjects like Math and Science are taught in English. Finally, with the upcoming
integration, the ASEAN members are taking steps in improving their country’s language policy,
but not all countries are ready yet. Several factors are somewhat keeping these countries from
moving further.

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References

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Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education in Lao PDR. (n.d.) Retrieved November 1, 2015,
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Darasawang, P. and Watson Todd, R. (2012). The effect of policy on English language teaching
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Kirkpatrick, A. (2012). English in ASEAN: Implications for regional multilingualism, Vol.

33(4), 331-344. doi:10.1080/01434632.2012.661433
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Puteh, A. (2010). Medium of instruction policy in Malaysia: The fishman’s model. Malaysia:
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