The Role of Home and Classroom Environments in Promoting the Students’ EFL Literacy at an Elementary School in Bandung, Indonesia

Abstract

This article reports on a case study of the role of home and classroom environments in promoting the Indonesian students’ EFL literacy at an elementary school in Bandung, Indonesia. This study was an attempt to fill the gap of a controversy among decision makers about the idea of offering English at elementary schools and the reality that at the school where the research was conducted, English was fully used as a means of instruction for three subject matters in the fourth grade: Mathematics, Science, and English. Considering that literacy is shaped in socio-cultural contexts, the researcher assumed that the students acquired and developed their English literacy at school and outside of school. Both home and classroom environments might contribute to the students’ English literacy development. The purpose of the research was to describe the level of the students’ English literacy and to identify the factors in both the home and classroom environments that played a role in promoting the students’ English literacy.