The policy to state HOTS in Basic Competence (KD) of 2013 English curriculum and English teachers’ practice in developing indicator achievement

Abstract

Higher order thinking skills (HOTS) are already a trend in educational sector. The concepts of HOTS are applied in statements of ‘basic competences’ (as known as KD) in the 2013 English Curriculum (syllabus). The purpose of stating HOTS concepts in ‘KD’ to make all of the process of teaching and learning resulted on the students’ ability to be able to think and practice higher order thinking skills in their daily life. As represented in the ‘basic competences’ (KD) of 2013 English curriculum (syllabus revised edition), HOTS can be considered as the significant point in developing indicator (as the objective) of teaching and learning. The development of indicators should be in line with the theory of HOTS, from analyzing, evaluating and creating (based on the revised Bloom taxonomy). However, there are a lot of English teachers who still get difficulties in developing appropriate teaching learning indicators in fulfilling HOTS concepts. In national practice, the policy of implementing HOTS as the basic competences may not be carried out fully by the Indonesian English teachers. There is also a tendency to ignore the discussion of developing appropriate indicator achievement as the learning objectives. HIGHLIGHTS: • Curriculum developers should comprehend the concepts of the curriculum and the language theories applied to the curriculum. • Basic competence should be developed following the level of Bloom's cognitive skills, particularly to generate students' higher-order thinking.

Keywords

• hots, basic competence (kd), curriculum, theory, policy, practice