Experience in Collecting the Data

Delivering the permission letter was not a simple matter. The researcher handed to the twelve principals the permission letter from the heads of the particular district with the research proposal. It sometimes was difficult to meet the twelve principals as most of the time they had external activities. The researcher first phoned the twelve schools to gain an appointment with the principal. The staff sometimes suggested the researcher come early in the morning to see the principals before they had external activities. As previously mentioned, two principals (CS 5 and 11) had gone on the Hajj and delegated their duties to their vice principals.

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In CS 1 and CS 2, the two female principals, both English teachers, were cooperative in terms of permission though they objected to being observed as English teachers. They appointed senior and junior teachers for classroom observation. In CS 3, the principal directly appointed a senior female English teacher who was the best in the school according to the principal. In CS 4, though it was difficult to gain an appointment with the principal, eventually the researcher met this very busy principal in his office. Discussing the purpose of the research which emphasized the curriculum, the principal seemed not interested in engaging with the research and asked one of the staff to organize a meeting time with the best senior English teacher as well as the coordinator of the district panel subject teacher (MGMP) the week after. This teacher then introduced the researcher to the vice principal (wakasek 1) and asked his willingness to be interviewed. This might have been due to many researchers and teachers from other provinces observing this popular international school in the city. When the researcher came the second time to observe the senior English teacher, there was a group of teachers from West Sumatra visiting this school. The vice principal remarked, “lots of principals and teachers visit and they sometimes ask for a copy of the curriculum.”

At CS 5, CS 6, CS 7, CS 9, CS 10 and CS 12 , school access was difficult. It took sometimes more than two hours to reach the school due to busy traffic in the morning and poor road conditions often full of sharp turns leading up to the mountains. So, the researcher always journeyed early in the morning. Though she arrived at school early in the morning, she still found it difficult to meet the principal or the vice principal. Sometimes it was due to the fact that they were new to the position. The vice principal of CS 9 tried to avoid the interview as he was new to his position which may have hindered his understanding or capacity regarding the curriculum.

In CS 10, the principal lived very far from this school and rarely came to the school for his activities as principal. “He will be participating in a national workshop in Bandung for a week”, said the English teacher. When the researcher came, the principal said, “Do you think this school is appropriate to observe? No researcher ever came here, not even the student teachers to practice their teaching. We actually need them because there is only one English teacher here”. It seemed to indicate that because of being in an ‘isolated’ area, nobody had made a visit to this school.

At CS 12, this principal courteously welcomed the researcher; however, it was clear from the first meeting, this principal thought that the researcher would give the school ‘some funding’ due to its very minimum facilities. As well, he had no idea about research in schools. After being interviewed, he asked the researcher to give the school a set of computers, including a printer because the only computer purchased for administration had broken down.

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After meeting the principals and vice principals, the researcher submitted the survey schedule that would then be distributed to teachers who taught subjects other than English. As a small token of appreciation, the researcher provided them with snacks or souvenirs according to Indonesian custom.

Regarding the English teachers’ interviews, the researcher found difficulty selecting the teachers she wanted because principals directly appointed two teachers, one senior and one junior in terms of teaching duration at the school. To set the time for interview and classroom observation was not simple. All teachers needed to fulfill their required 24 teaching hours in class which sometimes are in different districts. In CS 2, the junior teacher taught in two schools (junior high and vocational) in one district. The senior teacher of CS 6 taught in two different districts managed by two ministries (MONE and MORA) and a senior teacher in CS 8 was in two junior high schools managed by MONE and MORA. This senior teacher was not yet certified due to his educational background. The senior teacher in CS 7 taught in two junior high schools, and the senior teacher in CS 12 taught in two schools managed by MONE and MORA. For these teachers, it was difficult to set a time for interview as well as for classroom observation. The syllabus and lesson plans that they gave to the researcher were ‘old versions’. They claimed that they had no time to have a new lesson plan suited to the teaching material on that day. This lack of time was mostly the reason why teachers did not create any new lesson plans.

However, managing the time for interviewing the teachers in one school was not easy. In CS 3 and 4, both international program schools, the teachers were very busy teaching in class during school hours. After school hours, they taught extra classes to prepare students for the national examination. The interview then was conducted in their fifteen minute break time and sometimes needed to be continued after school hours. In CS 5, a male senior teacher made it very clear that he did not wish to be observed and said that the privilege should be best reserved for the female teachers who were willing to be interviewed together – junior and senior teachers. In CS 1, both teachers were very busy teaching in class and the interview was conducted after school hours though they sometimes felt uncomfortable by saying, “are the questions all answered? How many questions left?”. In CS 7, the junior teacher cried when she was interviewed. She said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say, I sometimes cry if it’s difficult to say”. It took several minutes for her to regain composure. Her weeping might be because of the researcher’s question regarding her final comments about English language teaching. This teacher perhaps was ashamed of her answers and comments as well as her status as a twelfth semester student. In CS 12, the senior teacher came to the school unscheduled. One of the teachers acknowledged, “Teachers here rarely come even on days, for example, of their teaching schedule. They come only when they have spare time, not

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according to their schedule. That’s why we have a schedule here but it is very ‘negotiable’. And when they have finished teaching, they directly go home or do other things, not for the school”.

The time to interview and to conduct classroom observation of English teachers was not easily planned though the schedule had been set up before. They sometimes cancelled the meeting without notice to the researcher due to their un-prepared lesson or other things such as their health or family health issues. Additionally, the time to do the research was close to the final semester tests and the distance from one school to another within one district or across districts was far and sometimes with bad access.

The survey schedule and focus group discussion for students were complicated as well. Some were not willing to do it in their recess time or in after school hours. Thus, the researcher sometimes distributed the questionnaire in English time and had focus group discussion in class straight away. The students were selected as well by the English teachers or the principals. In CS 1 and CS 5, the principal chose the students and asked them to come to one of the laboratories to have focus group discussion and fill out the questionnaire. In CS 2, the senior English teacher asked the researcher to come to the class in which no teacher did teaching. In CS 4, the senior English teacher asked ten students not to join the class but they had the questionnaire to fill out. Most of the students were eager to participate in this research because they sometimes got bored learning English. The same thing happened as well for other teachers who indicated they preferred their teaching time to being interviewed by the researcher. In CS 6, the researcher and the senior English teacher approached students in their recess time in front of the school where food sellers with bicycles sold snacks and drink, and it was done three times with different students. In brief, to have focus group discussion with students, most English teachers gave up their teaching time for the research. Some students positively responded and some just kept silent.