Abstract :
In Indonesia English becomes first focus in education system. It is taught at
school subject at elementary school, junior high school, senior high school, and
university. The new phenomena that emerge in the last two years were Bilingual
kindergartens. Bilingual kindergarten is first formal school that uses two
languages in teaching and learning process, mothers? language and other primary
language (English). As we had known that kindergarten was the first formal
school that the decision was in the hand of parent.
In this thesis, the writer focused on analyzing Parental Perception toward
English Learning, parental perception was related to person perception about their
environment in this case was the emergence of bilingual kindergarten. In Macrae
and Bodenhausen research study in social cognition: categorical person perception
(2001) person perception is the people outputs (evaluations, impressions,
memories) that are shaped and guided by their knowledge and pre-existing beliefs
about the social world. This research was descriptive qualitative. Interview and questionnaire
were used to collect the data. From the data, the writer made description and
analysis to answer the writers? questions. Based on the finding about parental
perception, there are three results in terms of parents? evaluation. The first is
children are able to understand two languages. The second is children could learn
English from their early age. The last is children were introduced English
language with good method. While, in term of parents? memories, it showed that
bilingual kindergarten applied a joyful learning method in teaching learning
process. Besides, parents? impression showed that bilingual kindergarten are good
institution because the teaching learning process in bilingual kindergarten is very
active and interactive.
The researcher gave some suggestions in order to be useful for the parents.
Parents should try to increase their involvement in their children?s English
learning and enhance their communication with their children.