ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the results of research and literature on English language education at secondary level of education in Indonesia. The chapter begins with an introduction that shows the importance of English and the government’s attention to the development of English teaching in secondary education in Indonesia. It then presents the policy of English education in Indonesia at secondary schools, including junior, senior, and vocational schools. It will be shown that English has been taught since the colonization of the Dutch, and the English curriculum for secondary school has experienced a lot of changes since it was first formally learned at school in 1945. This will be followed by the discussion of key themes on English language education in secondary schools in Indonesia based on a review of research conducted over the last two decades by university students and English teacher educators, especially since 2004 when the teaching of English at secondary school shifted from structural to functional ─ text-based. These themes are among others to do with the curriculum-related research, including the implementation of approaches to teaching English and students’ achievement, technology-, critical thinking-, and literacy-related issues, and pre-service and in-service teacher education programs. The chapter finally presents conclusions and future directions.
