SCHOOL LANGUAGE POLICY OF SMA AL-ABIDIN BILINGUAL

BOARDING SCHOOL
 School Language Policy

A. Language philosophy
The language policy of Al-Abidin Bilingual Boarding School (ABBS) Surakarta Senior High School
is inspired by the school’s Missions and the belief that language is the essential means of communication,
expressing ideas, exchanging meaning, and knowledge. All teaching and learning take place through the
use of language; therefore, language is a pivotal aspect for students’ academic, social, and emotional
development. Language is also needed in the students’ development of the four C’s of 21 st Century skills:
critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication.
As an international language, English is getting more important to learn nowadays. ABBS encourages
its students to improve their English language proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing so
that they can broaden their horizons. It will be helpful for their future higher education and career as well.
We believe that English language acquisition needs habit formation and a supporting environment.
Moreover, fields of study or subject related English terms are unique and exclusive. Students may not be
able to have the access and understanding from any English courses. However, we take students’ welfare
and content understanding in the learning process into consideration by helping them with gestures,
illustrations, pictures, videos, and Bahasa Indonesia or their mother tongue.
Our language policy is aimed at helping and providing the supporting environment for our students to
improve their English language proficiency through our curriculum and programmes. Homeroom
teachers and subject teachers also play the role of a language teacher. This policy is for all students,
teachers, and staff including Cambridge and non-Cambridge classes.

B. Language of instruction and learning materials

Bilingual system, English-Indonesian, has been implemented in ABBS since its first establishment.
We use English in the instruction and learning materials of most subjects (except Bahasa Indonesia,
Javanese, and Islamic Religion) including the writings on the books, slideshows, whiteboard, videos, and
worksheets. The students are encouraged and guided to ask questions, answer questions, share their ideas,
show results of group discussions or individual works, ask permission and speak the other classroom
languages in English. We also encourage the use of English for daily conversations among students,
teachers and staff.
Some subjects such as Bahasa Indonesia and Islamic Religion are delivered in Indonesian only. Basa
Jawa or Javanese subject is delivered in Javanese. However, all teachers and staff are expected to work
towards the development of English fluency as a key part of their professional and personal development.
Bilingual teaching strategies are used to support English instruction, such as the use of Indonesian as
students’ mother tongue for clarification and consolidation of information, teacher-to-student and student-
to-student. In the learning process, the language of instructions, materials, and classroom should be in
English as the main and first endeavours. However, the English proficiency and content understanding of
students who have various backgrounds and skills need to be taken into account to maintain their welfare
in their learning process and development. Teachers can help students who encounter difficulties in
understanding the terms and concepts by various strategies such as using gestures, pictures, illustrations,
videos, drawings, simplified terms, and Indonesian as the last resort.
At times it may be appropriate for students to complete class work and research for tasks or
assessments in their mother tongue, and they are encouraged to share their learning and progress with
their parents and other members of the community using their mother tongue. The inspectors of
ceremonies may speak bilingually in their speech but the instructions or commands, prayers, recitation of
Pancasila, and recitation of UUD 1945 (Indonesian Constitution) in ceremonies and Pramuka (scouts)
activities is mostly in Bahasa Indonesia as the first language of Indonesia.
A. Language learning support
In order to achieve the success of improving English proficiency, students are provided with some
language learning support. Since the students study the national curriculum, the students study English for
the Compulsory Programme and English for Specialized Programme. Moreover, students are required to
join our unique and exclusive English Conversation Class as an additional supporting subject in making
the students used to speaking and communicating in daily English, providing them with the appropriate
environment to develop themselves in English. Besides, there are several subjects the students need to
take, especially for Cambridge class students. They are required to study some subjects of Cambridge
Syllabus, such as English as a Second Language of IGCSE and English Language of AS & A Level.
Provided with those subjects as language learning support, it is expected that the students are able to
develop their English proficiency.
ABBS also provides programmes to support students’ English proficiency such as English Camp
(usually 10 days and 9 nights), English Camp Competitions and Talent Shows, Freshmen English
Competitions, English Mabit, English Mabit Competitions, English Days, English Zones (Management
Room, Teachers’ Rooms, Library, Laboratories), English Wall Magazine, Ecofest (English Conversation
Festival), English Project, English Literacy, English Letters and Proposals for Student Organizations,
Weekly Assembly, English Agents, etc. Students who have good skills in English and strong motivation
in learning and teaching English can participate in a student community named Al-Abidin Learning
English (ALE). Students can also choose English Club as their optional extracurricular activities.
For the teacher support, Al Abidin foundation through Al- Abidin Learning Centre (ALC), school
management, and English Teachers Team provide weekly English language learning and practices for
the teachers in a programme named English Forum. ALC conducts various English Proficiency tests
as well as the other teachers’ professional skills such as ICT (Information and Communication
Technology) and Tahfidzul Qur’an for all teachers. The result of the tests is reviewed and followed by
training and workshops. The teachers also have English Camp for teachers as one of the programmes to
support their English proficiency.
 Students study Bahasa Indonesia as one of the important subjects of the Indonesian National
Curriculum. Javanese is included in our curriculum to allow our multicultural students who come from
various provinces and countries to learn local cultural awareness since the school is located in Surakarta,
Central Java. Arabic language class is also provided in order to make students be more familiar with the
language they use for memorizing the Quran, understanding it and properly implementing it.

B. Assessment
The assessments such as daily tests, tasks, assignments, projects, midterm tests, final term tests for all
subjects except Indonesian, Javanese, and Islamic Religion are in English which includes the instructions,
questions, and answers. The assessments for the Cambridge subjects are aligned with the Cambridge
Assessment International Education requirements.
C. Language Policy Sharing and Review
The language policy is introduced to the school stakeholders such as students, parents, teachers, and
staff in a welcoming ceremony. Furthermore, we provide a student handbook for the freshmen in the
beginning. We also have parent gatherings in every term (twice a year). For daily and intensive
communication including new announcement, policy, and reminder is maintained through homeroom
teachers via Whatsapp and/or phone. We also use other media such as our webpage, Youtube, Instagram,
and Facebook to share our language policy in general to the public.
The policy will be reviewed by a key group of internal stakeholders on a yearly basis by the
administration. A small team of key stakeholders will review the implementation and effectiveness of the
policy every year. This team will be made up of teachers, representative of the board of management.