INTRODUCTION

Acquisition planning is a part of language planning in which a national, state or

local government system aims to influence aspects of language, such as language status,

distribution and literacy through education. Acquisition planning can also be used by

non-governmental organizations, but it is more commonly associated with government

planning. In other words, acquisition planning is integrated into a larger language

planning process in which the statuses of languages are evaluated, corpuses are revised

and the changes are finally introduced to society on a national, state or local level through

education systems, ranging from primary schools to universities. Thus, we can state that

acquisition planning always involves the users of the language and the teaching and

learning of the language.

According to Kaplan and Baldauf there are six main goals of acquisition

planning:

1. To decide what languages should be taught within the curriculum.

2. To determine the amount and quality of teacher training.

3. To involve local communities.

4. To determine what materials will be used and how they will be incorporated into

syllabi.

5. To establish a local and state assessment system to monitor progress.

6. To determine financial cost

English teaching in Indonesia was introduced at schools from Junior High

School as a compulsory subject. Ever since, Indonesia Ministry of Education continued to

face several issues such as updating current textbooks, revising curriculum, and providing

supportive teaching materials and teacher training. However, the effect of this English

teaching could not touch the fundamental of language itself. The stress of the teaching

was just at the grammar of the language and not the usage of it. Even though they have

studied English for six years in school, in reality, they still have difficulties

communicating in English.

As we are now in the midst of globalization, communicative ability in

international language is required in order to become a member in the global society. One

way to meet this need is through language education with special emphasis on

communicative competence. The government then introduced English education to

elementary school students started from the first grade. Some kindergarten schools started

teaching English to their students by using games. By introducing English as early as

possible will enable them recognize and use the language in daily situation.

In order to achieve this goal we need to apply acquisition planning by using

variety modifications, such as an alteration in student textbook formatting, a change in

methods of teaching an official language or the development of a bilingual language

program. This time we will review nine elements of acquisition planning, namely:

curriculum, teachers’ qualification, facilities, materials, budgeting, buildings, methods of

teaching, assessment, and competence.