English Language Teaching Educational Journal (ELTEJ)

Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018, pp. 65-75

E-ISSN: 2621-6485

The Implementation of 2013 Curriculum in English

Teaching: Stories from Rural Areas
1
Heri Gunawan, 2Afrianto Daud
1,2Faculty of Teachers Training and Education, Universitas Riau
1heri.gunawan4688@student.unri.ac.id
2afrianto.a@lecturer.unri.ac.id

Principal Contact: 0822 6828 4347

Abstract
This study aims to document how 2103 curriculum has been implemented by English
teachers in a high school located in a rural area in Riau province. This research in particular
investigates the implementation of Scientific Approach by English teachers in Bunga Raya
Siak regency. The study is specifically aimed at investigating two research questions: (1)
how the scientific approach has been implemented in the classroom, and (2) what problems
the teachers face during the implementation. Three English teachers participated in this
small scale qualitatitive study. The data were obtained through semi-structured interviews.
The findings revealed that the teachers have implemented the scientific approach relatively
well. However, the data show that all teachers experienced some problems in implementing
the curriculum. In general, the problems can be classified into: (a) insufficient English
teaching hour; (b) the students’ high diversity in terms of ability; (c) discrepancy between
curriculum and national examination contents; and (d) lack of facilities.
Keywords: English teaching, implementation, Scientific Approach, Siak Regency

How to Cite: Gunawan, H. and Daud, A. (2018). The implementation of 2013 curriculum in
English teaching: Stories from Rural Areas. English Language Teaching Educational
Journal, 1(2), 65-75.

INTRODUCTION
The Indonesian government has been formulating some significant
changes and adjustments on the national education system to improve the
quality of education. Indonesia has undergone at least ten times curriculum
revisions since the Day of Independence. In 2013, the Ministry of Education
and Culture or Kemendikbud started to endorse the latest curriculum known as
2013 Curriculum. Having undergone some revisions, 2013 Curriculum is the
currently used curriculum ever since. Former Minister of National Education,
Muhammad Nuh stated that the main points of 2013 Curriculum development
are in refining mindset, strengthening curriculum management, deepening and
broadening the materials, reinforcing the learning process, and adjusting the
study needs to balance the outcome of the learning process (Kemendikbud,
2013). In spite of the similarities with the previous curricula, 2013 Curriculum
has some relatively new features. Among other things, 2013 Curriculum differs
in terms of the learning approach recommended to use by teachers known as
“Scientific Approach”.
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When 2013 Curriculum was firstly introduced, there were some “push
and pull” situations regarding its implementation in schools. Many teachers
from multiple schools admitted that they were not ready to adopt the new
curriculum (Afrianto, 2017). However, as stated in the Regulation of Ministry
of Education and Culture (Permendikbud) No. 81A year 2013 about the
implementation of 2013 Curriculum, since January 2017, 2013 Curriculum is
no longer optional. Consequently, every teacher of any subject including
English is mandated to use 2013 curriculum.
One of the learning approaches recommended to use in the 2013
Curriculum is “Scientific Approach”. The fundamental idea of the scientific
approach is that teachers are suggested to apply the principles or activities that
are commonly used in natural science classes. To be more specific,
Kemendikbud (2013) explains that the Scientific Approach is an approach that
refers to investigating techniques towards some phenomena, acquiring new
knowledge, and correcting and combining the background knowledge. The
steps of the 2013 Curriculum’s Scientific Approach are: observing, questioning,
associating, experimenting, and networking.
According to Permendikbud No. 22 year 2016, the learning process
using 2013 Curriculum should touch the three domains of education; affection,
cognition, and psychomotor. The affective domain is developed with a focus on
the substantial transformation of the teaching materials so that the students
know about “why”. The psychomotoric domain focuses on the substantial
transformation of the teaching materials so that the students know about “how”.
Whereas, the cognitive domain emphasizes the substantial transformation of the
teaching materials so that the students know about “what”. The expected
outcome is the improvement and balance between the ability to be a good
person (soft skills) and the ability to be a capable and competent person to have
a good life (hard skills) which cover the three competency aspects. With such
learning processes, it can be expected that the learning result will yield learners
who are productive, creative, and affective, through an integrated reinforcement
on affective, cognitive, and psychometric aspects.
As one of the official approaches in the curriculum, every teacher is
then expected to be able to implement the Scientific Approach in the learning
process, including English teachers in Siak Regency. However, since the
approach is considered relatively new to some of the teachers, it is possible that
some problems or issues in the implementation will occur. Some studies have
investigated how this 2013 Curriculum has been implemented by teachers in
the classroom. Yet, most of these studies still focused on schools located in
urban areas. A study conducted by Ratnaningsih (2017), for example, found the
teachers of a senior high school in Bandung has followed all the five steps in
the respective order. Moreover, the teachers can demonstrate the learner-
centered learning strengthened by collaborative, cooperative, active and
meaningful learning. This seconds the idea that the use of Scientific Approach
in learning is able to facilitate the students to achieve the goals of learning.
In addition, a research in Pekanbaru city conducted by Afrianto (2017)
found three major problems faced by English teachers when implementing the
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Scientific Approach in class. The three major problems are: (a) challenges to
make the students active in learning; (b) intricate procedures of assessment; and
(c) lack of supervision on the curriculum implementation. Meanwhile,
Hariyanto (2015) in his research found that lack of time and students’ active
participations were major problems in the implementation. Such problems in
the scientific approach implementation are likely to compromise the
effectiveness of English teaching and learning process in schools.
Considering all the reasons above, it is necessary to study how English
teachers of senior high schools in rural area implement the scientific approach
in their classrooms. The school selected as a research site in this study is
located in Siak Regency, Riau. It is about 150 kilo meters away from the central
city of Pekanbaru. This study is aimed at answering two research questions: (1)
how the scientific approach has been implemented in the classroom?; and (2)
what problems have the teachers encountered during the implementation? The
findings of this research are expected to provide empirical data of the real
picture of how teachers implement 2013 Curriculum in district school and what
problems that the teachers face in the practice. Therefore, the research findings
can be one of the decision making bases to formulate a new policy towards the
implementation of 2013 Curriculum.

RESEARCH METHOD
This research was a qualitative study conducted under interpretive
research paradigm. The data processing was dealing with non-numerical data
such as sentences, statements, or documents. In other words, the nature object
of the research is basically in the forms of qualitative entities such as social
phenomena, perceptions, and problems in the process of the Scientific
Approach implementation. The qualitative data were gathered through semi-
structured interviews, followed by its analysis. All three English teachers at a
high school in Siak Regency who were actively on duty were chosen to be the
participants of the research. Respecting the confidentiality of the research
participants, on the paper, the teachers are addressed with their initials instead
of their names.
As mentioned above, the data were gathered through in-depth semi-
structured interviews, which means the interviewee (the participants) were
asked a series of questions regarding the scientific approach implementation.
In-depth interviews are useful in getting detailed information about a person’s
thoughts and behaviors or exploring new issues in depth. They are often used to
provide context to other data (such as outcome data), offering a more complete
picture of what happened in the program and why (Boyce & Neale, 2006). To
do a semi-structured interview, an interview protocol as the basis of initial
question was prepared before. It was used as a guide to make sure that the
interview does not deviate from the main focus. The interview took about an
hour for each participant and it was recorded with a notification and allowance
request to the participant before beginning the interview. The recordings of the
interview were transcribed and then the transcripts were analyzed.

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In general, the data analysis was done by transcribing, editing,

classifying, reducing, and presenting the data. Firstly the recordings of the
interviews were transcribed. The transcriptions were checked and edited on the
second or third listening. Next, the researcher highlighted some information on
the transcripts that is related to the research questions. The highlighted items
were then classified based on their group or category. Later, not all information
or categories were going to be included or reported on the findings. The data
were reduced and then presented in the discussion.
The above-mentioned process of working with the transcripts was done
by referring to the three procedures introduced by Flick (2002): open coding (a
phase where all themes are found and categorized), axial coding (a stage where
the researcher is looking for relationships among themes), and selective coding
(a phase where the researcher is choosing the more relevant themes to be
further explored in the discussion).

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The Implementation
During the interview, one of the question asked was “How do you
implement the Scientific Approach in teaching English in the classroom?” This
question was intentionally asked to know the teachers’ basic understanding
about how to carry out teaching using the scientific approach. It is believed that
the teachers clear understanding and their positive perception on how to
implement the approach will significantly determine the success and the
effectiveness of the teaching. Their understanding will guide them in
implementing the approach.
When asked about the question, the teachers gave relatively similar
answers. They basically described or mentioned some steps in the Scientific
Approach. Mr. D, one of the participants, could clearly name all the five steps
in the scientific approach. Meanwhile, the other participant, Mr. E did not get to
mention the five steps in the scientific approach. He only mentioned two steps;
‘observing’ and ‘questioning’. He, however, confidently stated that by using the
scientific approach in the class, his teaching is more directed. He added that the
step-by-step activities in the scientific approach is clear and flexible.

“I show a video of, for example, a, uh, speaker, an English

native speaker, doing, uh, expressing something. We’ll analyze
it together, then we, uh, I explain, and we observe. We observe
the video, ask, discuss, and analyze uh, the text. Then we try to
make the text together, do production, and then performance.”
(Mr. D)

“Usually when I teach narrative text, we watch a video, right?

After watching the video, uh, I ask the students to give some
questions, indirectly.”
(Mr. E)
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In addition to Mr. E’s ‘incomplete’ answer, he stated that the approach

was implemented differently during different periods of time. For instance,
before 2013 curriculum revisions, teachers were expected to carry out all the
steps in the scientific approach in one meeting. However, this was later revised.
The steps do not have to be included at one teaching session and the sequence
can be altered according to the needs.
The teachers’ description of some steps and how they are carried out
indicate teachers’ full attempt in implementing the approach. The positive
results of teachers implementing the scientific approach steps are also shown in
some other schools in Indonesia through some studies by Sofyan (2016) and
Ratnaningsih (2017). From their studies, it is reported that the teachers shared
similar perception in which the scientific approach is regarded as an approach
that integrates students’ attitude, skill, and knowledge by implementing the
steps in the teaching and learning process.

The Problems in the Implementation

Besides implementation, the results of the semi-structured interviews
also revealed some problems in the scientific approach reported by all the
participants. The dimension of the problems can be said as something complex.
However, in general these problems can be classified into four main issues:

No. Problems of the Implementation

1. insufficient teaching hours
2. students’ high diversity
3. discrepant curriculum content
4. lack of facilities

In the most recent revision of 2013 Curriculum it is stated that the

teaching hour for English subject in high schools is reduced from four hours a
week to be two hours a week (2 x 45 minutes). This reduction, among some
other problems, was the problem that most participants complained about. Two
of the participants, Mr. D and Ms. B agreed that the time reduction being a
problematic issue in the scientific approach implementation. In his interview,
Mr. D regretted the reduction of the teaching hour for English subject and
stated that the reduced time does not seem to support the students to achieve the
standard learning outcomes which he thinks are pretty high. He argued that the
time allocation is insufficient for a teacher to carry out all the steps in the
approach and therefore cannot meet with the expected goal that the student
must achieve. He also added that even with the previous time allocation, it was
quite challenging to raise students’ achievement in English, let alone with the
current situation where the time allocation has been cut.

“The problem of this curriculum is I think in terms of the time

reduction, sir. Two hours. Meanwhile, the challenge is high.”

(Mr. D)

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“First, the problem is about the time sir, [speaking of] this 2013
Curriculum. Only two hours, from four hours. Consequently,
our chance [as a teacher] to give broader knowledge to the
student is, uh, limited.”

(Ms. B)

The issue on the time reduction is even more challenging when it meets
with the condition of the students. Mr. D and Ms. B stated that the time
reduction makes them work really hard to adjust their teaching considering the
ability of the students in that area. According to Mr. D, the level of students’
ability in this school varies, even most of them are categorized in medium to
low level.

“Here [in this school], the ability of the students happens to be

very drastic. Some are good, some are not. And some are
quiet.”

(Mr. D)

“The students’ ability is just like what I said before; some are
very smart, some others are extremely low.”

(Ms. B)

The spirit of 2013 Curriculum is to promote students-centered learning.

This is evidenced by the emphasis in the scientific approach whose steps were
designed to arouse students’ activeness in the class. In questioning step, for
instance, the students are expected to be giving some questions about the topic
given, not being “informed” by the teacher. Students’ low participation clearly
becomes a problem that can impede the success of the scientific approach
implementation since it can lead to students’ passiveness in the class.
When asked about what strategy the teacher use to cope with the
limited time and students’ diverse ability, both Mr. D and Ms. B gave relatively
similar answers. Mr. D said he usually would divide the students into several
groups where some of the “top students” were in each group. These top
students are the ones who should help their friends in the group to become the
teacher’s “second mouth”. This resembles the finding reported by Hariyanto
(2015) saying that lack of time became one of the major problems in the
Scientific Approach implementation in one school in Malang. Furthermore,
there was a schedule that 2 hours is divided into two, before and after the break
time. It made the students did not focus in the material. Thus, the teacher
mostly made the discussion in the group rather than individually. Further, the
teacher asked the coordinator of each group to manage their members.
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Furthermore, albeit suitable for enjoyable learnings, there seems to be a

discrepancy between the contents of 2013 curriculum and the National Exam
according to Mr. E. The curriculum, especially the scientific approach, was
designed in order to make the learning activity enjoyable. This is true, referring
to the Process Standards by Kemendikbud (2013) saying that the teaching and
learning process in school should be established in an interactive, inspiring, and
fun way in order for students to be active. However, it does not seem to concur
with the national examination content in which it requires the students to think
analytically.

“In the National Exam, even though [the learning] has been
done using 2013 Curriculum, still, the form [of the questions] is
about understanding about the text, right? ... Meanwhile in 2013
Curriculum, those are no longer encouraged. …with the five
steps (5M) done, it oddly seems to only result enjoyment, not
preparing [the students] for the National Exam.”

(Mr. E)

Apparently, this phenomenon occurred not only in Siak. A research by

Ratnaningsih (2017) reported a similar case where the teachers conducted
active and meaningful learning but the students still lack of critical thinking
(HOTS). In addition, although having carried out the learning and teaching
activity with various media and creative delivery, the student seemed not to
have initiative to learn without stimulation and encouragement from the
teacher.
This inconsistency of curriculum contents and National Exam is like
leading two things that are supposed to meet to different directions. Even
though National Examination is not the ultimate goal of learning, still, the
results of the exam contribute certain percent to the students’ passing. Many
students and parents still view National Exam as the final “battle” that
determines the student’s future. Therefore, it is no wonder that eventually the
National Exam will be taken very seriously by the students. Moreover, the view
of students must excel in National Exam will affect the teachers’ teaching in
some ways, including the using of some methods and strategies. To some of
them, the scientific approach has not yet been optimally able to train students to
deal with the standardized national exam.
Another problem found in the implementation was in terms of the
facilities. This includes both school and students’ facilities. The problem
regarding the students’ facility was in terms of the learning sources or
textbooks. One of the major differences between 2013 Curriculum and the
previous ones is in terms of the students’ independent learning. That is, the
principle of learning has shifted from “students are given information from the
teacher” to become “students find out the information by themselves”
(Permendikbud, 2016). This can be effectively done if the school provides
various learning sources to the students. However, according to one of the

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participants, the school did provide textbooks to the students, but not to all. In
addition, the students were not supported with modules and/or references
books. This condition affected on the effectiveness of the teaching since
learning sources play an important role in the teaching and learning using the
scientific approach.
In terms of the school facilities, one respondent reported that his school
used to operate with no electricity. It was until early 2018 the school finally
was facilitated with electricity source. When the research was conducted, the
school had just been using the power for six months or so. The creativity of the
teacher in teaching using different media was challenged there. The media used
to be limited to non-digital ones. The goal to liven up a ‘fun and active’
learning in the class was rather difficult to actualize.

“The challenge in the implementation of the five steps (5M)

that is very problematic is in [the condition of] village area
like here, sir. Like what we’d been through, you know, we’ve
just got the electricity source since the last couple months
ago. It was difficult to realize a teacher who is creative, a
more creative teacher, a more innovative teacher, like that.”

(Mr. E)

Lack of facilities, in terms of both students’ and school facilities, has

been a huge problem in many schools in Indonesia, especially schools in small
towns or rural areas like Siak. Mirroring the problem regarding the lack of
facilities in Siak, a research by Amalia (2018) reported that one of the
difficulties faced by the teachers in one school in Surakarta was in terms of the
classroom facilities. The classrooms were not equipped with functioning pieces
of technology that can support teaching and learning activities such as LCD
(Liquid Crystal Display) or projectors. That clearly neglected one point in
Permendikbud No. 103 year 2013 that explains the use of technology and
information is supposed to support and improve the learning efficiently and
effectively.
Mulyasa (2009 and 2013) states that the main factor to determine the
successful curriculum implementation is teachers’ creativity. The teachers are
demanded to create students to be productive, creative, and innovative in
realizing the aims of learning. One way to realize a creative and innovative
learning is with the support of piece of technology in the classroom. If teachers
faced problems in implementing the planned program, he/she had to adjust the
activities so that learning aims can be achieved. In SMAN 1 Bunga Raya case,
let alone having LCDs or projectors, the power source in this school was absent
for years. The teachers had to come up with alternative methods in teaching that
usually minimize the opportunity to bring a creative and efficient learning.
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CONCLUSION
Based on the results of the semi-structured interviews, it can be said
that the scientific approach has been relatively well implemented by English
teachers at this rural area school. This can be seen from the reports which the
participants uttered in the interviews. Most respondents could clearly mention
the steps in the scientific approach and provide some descriptions about them.
This means that the teachers have shown a very positive reception and
understanding about the principles of the scientific approach.
However, there is an indication that those steps might not have been
implemented in a proper and optimal way. The evidence saying that the
teachers sometimes do not include some steps in their classroom can be seen
from their interviews when they described what the scientific approach is. One
respondent, Mr. D indeed mentioned all the steps in his elaborative answer.
Another respondent, Mr. E, by comparison only mentioned two steps
(observing and questioning) in his answer to the same question. This could
mean either the interviewer did not get to go further to explore Mr. E’s answer,
or it is fair to say that the teacher did not implement all the steps properly.
There is an indication that it occurs due to the lack or trainings
experienced by the teachers. From the interviews, it was discovered that two
teachers got once to none training experiences and the other one had
experienced trainings several times. This could back up the factor why the
implementation has not been done optimally.
Furthermore, an occurrence of some problems during the
implementation was inevitable. Among some other problems, insufficient
teaching hours and students’ extreme diversity were the main issues the
teachers expressed during the interviews. In addition to the problem, the
mismatch between the contents of the 2013 Curriculum and of the National
Exam seems to be another major issue in the implementation. In regard of the
time allocation that seems to be one of difficulties that can impede the success
of the scientific approach implementation, it is suggested to the government or
the policy makers to reconsider the time allocation especially for English
subject.
Moreover, up to this point, the training has not reached all the teachers
especially those who are in the small cities or rural areas. Due to lack of
trainings experienced by teachers in many schools and in order for the teachers
to understand on how to implement the scientific approach properly, it is
advisable for the government to provide more trainings for all the teachers in
near future.
At last, according to the recent revision of 2013 Curriculum,
Permendikbud 22/2016, creating is another step in the Scientific Approach.
However, since the teachers in SMAN 1 Bunga Raya Siak have not been
familiar with this step, this research did not get to investigate the creating step.
Therefore, a further research investigating this matter is recommended to add
and study the creating step in the implementation. In addition, the data from the
semi-structured interviews might have not been able to vividly report what
actually happened in the class due to some limitations of the methodology

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aspect of the study. Therefore, the other researchers are hoped to do better
researches by employing the technique which had not been implemented by the
researcher in this present study such as observation or field study.

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