The National Education Regulation No. 78 Year 2009 that allows the establishment of international schools in Indonesia has given opportunity for Indonesian parents who wish to enter their children into schools with English as the medium language. Studying in English medium schools, however, poses certain challenges for the students and one of them is their academic achievement since they have to learn the school subjects in a language that they have not mastered. Nevertheless, King and Fogle (2006) and Colorado (2008) mentioned various ways parents can support their children who study in schools with the second language as the medium of instruction. The aim of this paper is to examine whether the supports from family mentioned by King and Fogle (2006) and Colorado (2008) are able to help the students perform academically in the schools with English as the medium of instruction. This study used questionnaires as the source of data with Grade 11 and 12 students of an international school as the subjects to find out whether their academic achievement in school correlates with the supports given to them. This paper will benefit those in bilingual education sectors and parents who wish to promote the use of English in their schools. This may inform them more on what it takes to make the students successful and what are required to help the students perform academically.

 

Keywords: international schools, academic performance, supports from family

Arnberg, L. (1987). Raising Children Bilingually: The preschool years. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Colorado, C (2008). 20 ways you can help your children succeed in school. Retrieved from http://www.colorincolorado.org/families/school/helpyourkids/ on 19 November 2014

Fafalois, I (2007). Supporting bilingual children. Montessory society AMI UK. Retrieved from http://www.montessorisociety.org.uk/article/supporting-bilingual-children on 07 November 2014

Ford, S (2000). Language mixing among bilingual children. Retrieved from http://www2.hawaii.edu/~sford/research/mixing.htm on 20 November 2014

Harper, J (2014, Mar 25). Local students dominating British international school. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/expateducation/10720923/Local-students-dominating-British-international-schools.html on 20 November 2014.

ICS Market Intelligent Reports (2014). Retrieved from http://www.iscresearch.com/services/isc-marketintelligencereports/reports/asia/indonesia.aspx

Munoz, C (2006). Age and the rate of language learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.

King, K & Fogle, L (2006), Raising bilingual children: Common parental concern and current research. CAL Digest, April 2006

Scott, C (2010). The Challenges of teaching ESL students in international schools. Retrieved from http://www.teacherhorizons.com/the-challenges-of-teaching-ESL-students-in-international-schools

Techavijit, V (2007). The international school phenomenon in Thailand and the implementation of the international baccalaureate. Retrieved from http://www.regents.ac.th/regentengine/filesmgr/File/download/oxfordtalkFINAL(2).pdf on 20 November 2014

Yip, V & Matthews, S (2006). Assessing language dominance in bilingual acquisition: A case for mean length utterance differentials. Language Assessment Quarterly, 3(2), 97-116. Retrieved from http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/lin/Faculty_vyip_files/Y&M%20Lg%20Ass%20Quarterley%202006.pdf on 20 November 2014.

Pengembangan dan pendayagunaan sekolah internasional di Indonesia. Retrieved from http://bppndik.tripod.com/sekinter.htm on 08 December 2014.