EFL education in Indonesia: Advantages and disadvantages of performance and competence models of assessment

This paper examines various enactments of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education in schools in Java, Indonesia. Interview data is collected from four EFL teachers from Australia who are undertaking a one year guest teaching program in a number of elite government secondary schools. Recounts of their experiences and perspectives of delivering a national English curriculum, pedagogy and assessment are considered through their viewpoint and an analytical lens adapted from the sociology of Basil Bernstein (1996, 2000). The focus is on the multiple interpretations of policy at the level of government, schools and in individual classrooms. Some of the interpretations orientate to performance models of assessment, whilst others orientate to competence models of assessment. The paper’s conclusion outlines the guest teachers’ accounts and perspectives of the advantages and disadvantages of each model of assessment