Education Behind Bars: Problems and Strategies for Teaching English to Protégés of Central Lombok Juvenile Detention Center

This research investigates the encountered problems and strategies for teaching English to an inclusive classroom contains of law-conflicted students. This research is based on an educational ethnography study conducted in Tojong-Ojong in Central Lombok District, Indonesia. This research highlights on the issues regarding the problems faced and strategies applied by the English teacher, challenging teachers’ capability to assist the troubled students on the subject, their utilization of teaching approach with limited learning resources while adjusting the needs’ of these students, and managing the impact of internal and external on students’ engagement and disengagement in the learning process. This penitentiary applies to equivalency program of A,B,C packages. However, this study focuses on protégés with C-Package equivalency, involving 12 students in total. There is only 1 certified English teacher assisted with a tutor without significant teaching qualification. Qualitative method was applied in this study by combining teacher interview, students’ questionnaire, observation with video and audio recording, and field notes. The results of the collected data shows several problems occurred during the teaching and learning process and what strategies used by teacher to overcome them. The problems and strategies were categorized into three parts. The problems were concerning (1) teacher-related, (2) student-related and (3) teaching related problems, while the strategies including (1) course materials, (2) teaching approach, and (3) teacher strategies.