ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education p-ISSN 2301-7554, e-ISSN 2541-3643 Volume 9, Issue 2, June 2021 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/ERJEE 367 CHARACTER BUILDING IMPLANTED IN ENGLISH LESSONS AS PRESCRIBED IN 2013 CURRICULUM Ira Audina Pratiwi English Education Department, Faculty of Teaching Training and Education, Sriwijaya University, Indonesia E-mail: ira96audina@gmail.com Soni Mirizon (Corresponding Author) English Education Study Program, Faculty of Teaching Training and Education, Sriwijaya University, Indonesia E-mail: smirizon@unsri.ac.id Rita Inderawati English Education Study Program, Faculty of Teaching Training and Education, Sriwijaya University, Indonesia E-mail: rita_inderawati@fkip.unsri.ac.id APA Citation: Pratiwi, I. A., Mirizon, S., & Inderawati, R. (2021). Character building implemented in English lessons as prescribed in 2013 curriculum. English Review: Journal of English Education, 9(2), pp.367-376. https://doi.org/10.25134/erjee.v9i2.4371 Received: 28-02-2021 Accepted: 23-04-2021 Published: 15-06-2021 INTRODUCTION The current character education wave has caused some dilemmas over what should be taught and how it should be taught. Since public schools educate all students, in making-decision value- based is a general psychological term used to explain decision-making in situations in which students face a choice between options associated with different rewards (Osman & Wiegmann, 2017). Elkind and Sweet (2004) argue that character education is seen as a deliberate effort to make people understand upon core ethical values. It is clear that to be able to judge, care about, and then do what students believe. Madani (2019) states that students are considered as the core, while to ensure its quality consequently character should be implemented in order to enhance students’ character. Therefore, getting good score is not the major objective of education, but promoting the character education is a significant matter. In line with that, the Ministry of Education of Indonesia claimed that all subjects in the 2013 curriculum were fully integrated with character building. Character building in education is a program that has been socialized by the Indonesian government since 2010. In line with the Abstract: This study aimed at finding out the English teachers’ understanding of character building prescribed in 2013 Curriculum, the integration of character building in English teaching and learning, the reasons teachers apply certain character(s), and the challenges of the integration of character building in English teaching and learning. This is a qualitative study in a case study design. The participants were two English teachers of secondary school in Palembang. The data were collected through questionnaire, interview, observation, and documentation. The data of this study were analyzed qualitatively. The data obtained from the observations and interviews were analyzed through thematic analysis by identifying, classifying, arranging, and clarifying them. Data from documentation were read thoroughly and matched with criteria set. Data from questionnaire were classified based on the frequency of characters taught during classroom teaching. The results revealed that in understanding the character, the teachers were in the level of good and fair. It was found that there were 15 out of 18 characters taught, mostly in implicit manner; only 6 characters were explicitly mentioned in each lesson plan. The reason of applying the characters was due to the characters recommended matched with teaching materials taught. Teachers encountered challenges in determining the recommended character to teach and in managing students’ different characteristics Keywords: English learning; character building; challenges. mailto:ira96audina@gmail.com mailto:smirizon@unsri.ac.id mailto:ritarudysaid@yahoo.com Ira Audina Pratiwi, Soni Mirizon, & Rita Inderawati Integration of character building in teaching English as prescribed in 2013 curriculum 368 government’s regulation, there are 18 character values to develop (Ministry of National Education, 2010). They are religious, honest, tolerant, disciplined, hard-working, creative, independent, democratic, curious, nationalist, patriotic, achievement appreciative, communicative, peace loving, reading loving, environmental caring, social caring, and responsible. Each of character has some descriptions as the teacher’s guideline in choosing the character to integrate. Ernalida, Oktarina, and Turama (2021) said that students have their own poinjt of view about how they feel. Information about what the student wants will be very important in determining whether the students' views and analytical views. Character education leads to the establishment of school culture that underlines the attitudes, traditions, habits, and symbols practiced by all stakeholders of the school and its surrounding communities. Therefore, character education is expected to support the construction of Indonesia’s new generation. Character values are not taught directly, but they are integrated into the teaching and learning process, self-development activity, and school culture (Ministry of National Education, 2010). Teachers and all school citizens should integrate those values into the existing curriculum, syllabus, and lesson plan including teachers of English. The integration of character education is essential for the development of Indonesia, mainly in the field of education in Indonesia which is not only creating smart people but also possessing good character. Previous researched done by Permana, Inderawati, and Vianty (2018) conducted a research of the characters’ value that found in junior high school textbooks. The characters were confidence, courtesy, wisdom, and humility. Before integrating character values in the teaching and learning process, English teacher should design lesson plans with character building included. A study conducted by Faiziyah and Fachrurrazy (2013) at Junior High School 3 Malang showed that only one teacher taught the character values by using direct statements. While, according to Ministry of National Education (2010) the goal of the character building is to make the students realize that there are in the process of integration of character. It means that teachers are asked to integrate the characters by using explicit method. Sugirin (2011) mentions that the implementation of character education should be integrated into relevant content subject instruction. Thus, he introduces two different modes in implementing character education in EFL learning—explicit and implicit modes. Another study done by Rosalina (2011) showed that the teachers in Gugus 4, Bandung Barat have already designed lesson plans with character values included. However, in the implementation of character building in the classroom, the teachers did not develop activities that accommodate the implementation of character building. It has been introduced above that there are a lot of theories and explanation above the values of characters building from some experts. Moreover, the characters in this study are limited to the characters as prescribed in 2013 curriculum based on the education system in Indonesia. In other words, the study used the characters as prescribed in 2013 curriculum as the theoretical framework of the study and the data analysis also referred to 2013 curriculum. The characters as prescribed in 2013 curriculum could be seen in Table 1. Table 1. Values of character education No. Character Values Explanation School Indicators 1. Religious Attitudes and behavior that obey in doing the teachings of their religion, tolerant toward the integration of the practice of other religions, and live in harmony with other faiths. a. Admire the greatness of God through the human ability to synchronize between physical and psychological aspects. b. Admire God's greatness because of her ability to live as a member of society. c. Admire the power of God that has created various universes. d. Admire the greatness of God because of the religion that became the source of the order of life of the people. e. Admire the greatness of God through various ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education p-ISSN 2301-7554, e-ISSN 2541-3643 Volume 9, Issue 2, June 2021 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/ERJEE 369 subjects in various subjects. 2. Honest Behavior based on an attempt to make himself as a person who always trustworthy in word, action, and jobs. a. Not cheating or being a plagiarist in doing every task. b. Speaks unquestionably on a subject. c. Express happy or unhappy about the lesson. d. Express attitude towards a class discussion material. e. Purchase items purchased at the school shop honestly. f. Return items borrowed or found in public places. 3. Tolerant Attitudes and actions that respects differences of religion, race, ethnicity, opinions, attitudes, and actions of others who are different from themselves. a. Does not bother friends of differing opinions. b. Respect a friend with different customs. c. Make friends with friends from other classes. 4. Disciplined Actions show orderly behavior and obey with various rules and regulations. a. Clean school environment orderly. b. Orderly in spoken and written language. c. Obedient in running the provisions of student organizations. d. Obey the rules of speech specified in a class discussion. e. Orderly in applying the rules 5. Hard-working Behaviors indicate a really effort to overcome various barriers in learning and assignments, as well as completing the task as well as possible. a. Finish the assignment on time. b. Do not give up on learning difficulties. c. Always focus on learning. 6. Creative Think and do something to generate new ways or the result of something that has been owned. a. Suggest opinions related to the discussion. b. Asking critically about learning materials. 7. Independent Attitudes and behavior that is not easy to depend on others to complete tasks. a. Do a task by himself. b. Solve learning problem by himself 8. Democratic Ways of thinking, being attitude, and acting which assesses the same rights and obligations of himself and others. a. Choose group leader by discussion. b. Vote in selection. c. Tell opinion about classmates. d. Participate in helping classroom duties 9. Curious Attitudes and actions which seek to know deeper and spread of something learned, seen, and heard. a. Ask teacher about the material. b. Ask someone about natural phenomena. c. Ask about something heard from any sources 10. Nationalist Ways of thinking, act, and having knowledge that puts the importance of the nation and country above self-importance and group. a. Love Indonesia geography and its fertility. b. Appreciate various culture of Indonesia. c. Appreciate the existence of tribes and languages. d. Appreciate various agricultural products, flora and fauna of Indonesia. e. Appreciate industrial and technological products of Indonesia. 11. Patriotic Ways of thinking, being attitude, and acting that show loyalty, caring, and high appreciation toward language, physical environment, social, cultural, economic, and political nation. a. Participate in the ceremony. b. Telling and acting toward the threats from other countries. c. Telling and acting about the relationship between homeland and colonial countries. Ira Audina Pratiwi, Soni Mirizon, & Rita Inderawati Integration of character building in teaching English as prescribed in 2013 curriculum 370 12. Achievement Appreciative Attitudes and actions that encourage him to produce something useful for society, and recognize and respect other people's success a. Finish the assignment as well as possible. b. Working hard for success in sports and arts. c. Respect others‟ work. d. Appreciate parents‟ achievement. e. Appreciate someone’s work. f. Appreciate tradition and society product. 13. Communicati ve Actions show a sense of fun to talk, hang out, and work together with others. a. Work in groups. b. Associate with others. c. Cooperate with classmates. d. Interact with teachers and staffs. 14. Peace Loving Attitudes, words, and actions that cause others to feel happy and safe on the presence of himself. a. Protect friends from any threats. b. Establish friendship. c. Participate in school security. 15. Reading Loving Habits provide time to read a variety of literature that gives virtue for him a. Reading books or any written documents related to science, literature, arts, culture, technology, and humanities. b. Read magazine or newspaper. 16. Environmenta l Caring Attitudes and actions which seek to prevent damage to the surrounding natural environment, and develop efforts to repair the environmental damage that has occurred. a. Participate in any activities related to cleanliness, aesthetic, and environmental maintenance. 17. Social Caring Attitudes and actions have always wanted to help other people and communities in need a. Participate in any social activities. b. Give someone in needs. 18. Responsible Attitudes and behavior of people to do his duties, he should do, to himself, community, environment (natural, social, and cultural), the country and God almighty one. a. Do a task consciously. b. Make report in every activity in form of written and oral communication. c. Show the pleasure to solve problems. d. Avoid cheating. (Source: Ministry of National Education, 2010, pp. 9-10) Character education has been a quite hot issue in 2013 curriculum implementation. Therefore, in 2013 Curriculum, the government would emphasize the character building in society by having character education at school, since it is believed that good characters are reflected by good achievements at school and character becomes the vital core of education (Suherdi, 2013). A study on the factor influencing character education insertion process is conducted by Pane and Patriana (2016) who investigated the environment as one factor in the character education process. It is started by the integration of character building but the impact of this program on the young students or young generation has not determined yet. Fahmy, Bachtiar, Rahim, and Malik (2015) found out that the young generation is chosen to be an agent of change. From those results, it can be concluded that the lower the level of education the more portion of character building must be given. It means that junior high school students have a big portion than senior high school and college students. Meanwhile, in elementary school, English is not the compulsory subject anymore it can be concluded that junior high school students are the best level to start the integration of character building. According to Ministry of Education and Culture (2017), the portion of characters should be given for junior secondary schools is 60 percent. That is why it is important to know which characters that teachers integrate at junior high school. This study was aimed at finding out teacher’s understanding of character building prescribed in 2013 curriculum, the integration of character building in English teaching and learning at one secondary high school in Palembang, the reason of applying certain character(s) in English teaching and learning, and the challenges of the integration of character building in English teaching and learning at the school. ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education p-ISSN 2301-7554, e-ISSN 2541-3643 Volume 9, Issue 2, June 2021 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/ERJEE 371 METHOD This is a qualitative research in a case study design. Case study is one of the frequently used methodologies, defined as a research methodology that helps in exploration of a phenomenon within some particular context through various data sources (Yazan, 2015). It is based on an in-depth investigation of a single individual, group or event to explore the causes of underlying principles. This study employed case study design to seek the character building in English teaching and learning and its challenges. This study was conducted in one junior high school in Palembang. This school was chosen because it implemented character building program since it was firstly launched by the government. Two English teachers took part as the participants of the study. They were certified teachers who had more than ten years teaching experience. In addition they had taken part in seminars dealing with character building. The data were collected through questionnaire, interview, observation, and documentation. The questionnaire, proposed by Nova (2017), consisted of 2 close-ended questions. The question items covered the frequency of inserting character education and types of character values inserted. The interview questions, proposed by Nova (2017), consisted of 4 open-ended questions. The questions covered the reason for not inserting character building, the techniques in integrating character building, and the challenges faced in inserting character building. In documentation, teachers’ lesson plans, four lesson plans of each teacher, were reviewed. Classroom observations were conducted to know the natural condition of the integration of character building in English subject including the problems and which characters that were usually integrated into teaching and learning process. The observations were done during four meeting of each teacher. To make this study valid due to multiple sources, the researchers applied methodological triangulation. The writers checked the results of the observation compared them with the results of documentation, teachers’ responds of the questionnaire, and what they told in the interviews. The data of this study were analyzed qualitatively and reported descriptively. The data obtained from interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994) by identifying, classifying, arranging, and clarifying the data into themes. Data from documentation (lesson plans) were read thoroughly and matched with criteria set. The data from questionnaire were analyzed through the frequency of inserting character education during classroom teaching and learning. The criteria score categorized as poor, fair, and good was ranged from 3 to 12. The data of observation were obtained using the field note form. After analyzing the data, data interpretation was made and discussed by relating them to theories and previous related studies. At last, the results of the analysis were reported descriptively. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS Data from questionnaire Based on the findings from the questionnaire both teachers always integrated the character building in their teaching and learning process. Teacher A chose to integrate nine out of eighteen characters. Meanwhile, teacher B chose to integrate six characters. It could be seen in Table 2. Table 2. Character value inserted Character Value Inserted EFL Teacher’s Responses Teacher A Teacher B Yes No Yes No Religious √ Honest Tolerant √ Disciplined √ Hard-working √ Creative √ Independent √ Democratic Curious √ Patriotic √ Nationalist √ Achievement Appreciative Communicative Peace Loving Reading Loving √ Environmental Caring √ Social Caring √ Responsible √ √ Teacher A chose to integrate nine out of eighteen characters, such as disciplined, hard- working, creative, curious, patriotic, reading loving, environmental caring, social caring, and responsible. Meanwhile, teacher B chose to integrate six out of eighteen characters, such as Ira Audina Pratiwi, Soni Mirizon, & Rita Inderawati Integration of character building in teaching English as prescribed in 2013 curriculum 372 religious, tolerant, hard-working, independent, nationalist, and responsible. In line with the characters found teachers used in this study, Ariesinta (2016) also found that some values of character education such as social caring, honest, peace loving, disciplined, curious, and creative applied by the teachers in her study. Based on the results of documentation data, all teachers designed their lesson plans involving character values such as disciplined, hard-working, environmental caring, creative, responsible, tolerant, and brave. One value, namely brave is not one of the characters that was mentioned by Ministry of National Education. This value was mentioned by teacher B. If we take a look at the eighteen characters mentioned by Ministry of National Education, brave actually is similar with the character named communicative, for instance: work in groups, associate with others, cooperates with classmates, interact with teachers and staffs. This was similar with the values mentioned by Adisusilo (2012). He reported that character education was value education that covers nine principles of value such as; responsible, respect, fairness, courage, honest, citizenship, self-discipline, caring, and perseverance. Some of the values were included in values mentioned by Ministry of National Education (2010) while some others were not. So, it could be assumed that those teachers included the character values that were mentioned by other experts. It indicated that teachers were still lack of knowledge related with the component of each character. According to Lickona (1991), teachers must have good behaviour so that the students can also have good behaviour by modelling on their teachers. To be a role model for students, teachers themselves should know the component of good character. Data from interview Results from interview revealed that the teachers were not fully understood with the character values as prescribed in the curriculum, as indicated by the following responses. “In my opinion it is impossible to force all the characters to integrate at every meeting and then to consider also the material that will be given either it is appropriate when using this character or not, besides that need some preparations on how to properly integrate the characters so I think there are some characters that I don't need to integrate first and put on lesson plan.” (Teacher A) “There are no characters that cannot be included in the teaching and learning process, because all characters are expected to be applied at school during the teaching and learning process.” (Teacher B) In line with that, Sugirin (2011) states that in Explicit Mode, EFL teacher should have a plan of what character values are expected to be inserted in teaching and learning activity. It means that before integrating the characters, teacher should prepare well the activity that could support the integration of characters. If the characters that have been planned in the lesson plan are different with the one integrated in the field, it is worried that the integration of the character will not be successful or the students did not get the values of the character, as reflected in the following quotes. “I think so, for example, sometimes I am still confused to determine which characters I need to integrate either in lesson plan or the learning process. Other obstacles sometimes I also find it difficult to find the right way so the character that I will integrate is conveyed well to students. In fact, sometimes I forget whether the characters that I planned match to what happened in the field.” (Teacher A) “Barriers to the character of students who have been embedded from the family are sometimes difficult to change in everyday life.” (Teacher B) The quotes above reveal that Teachers encountered challenges in determining the recommended character to teach and in managing students’ different characteristics. These challenges were similar with what mentioned by Collins and Henjum (1999) that there were some challenges faced by teachers in the process of integrating character education; one of them was the difficulty of matching the character education values toward the materials available which meant that not all materials contained character values. Therefore, teachers, in this case, must be creative to connect character values in the materials available. Poerwati and Amri (2013) argue that nation character building can be taught by making students accustomed to moral values and make practice the national character. It means that teachers should know how to change the embedded character of students and integrate the characters recommended by Ministry of National Education (2010). Both teacher A and teacher B mentioned two challenges ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education p-ISSN 2301-7554, e-ISSN 2541-3643 Volume 9, Issue 2, June 2021 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/ERJEE 373 including the examples and the solution that they offered in integrating characters so teacher A is categorized in the level of good with the total score of ten and teacher B was in the level of fair with the total score of eight, as can be seen in Table 3. Table 3. Table of teachers’ character building understanding Inter view Ques tions Poor (1) Fair (2) Good (3) Total A B A B A B Teacher A Teacher B No 1 - - √ √ - - 2 2 No 2 - √ √ - - - 2 1 No 3 - - - √ √ 3 2 No 4 - - - - √ √ 3 3 Total 10 8 Good Fair Data from documentation The writers took four samples of lesson plans from each teacher; therefore, the writers got eight lesson plans in total. From the analysis of the lesson plans given by Teacher A, it was found that some characters were planned to be integrated by the teacher. Teacher A mentioned the character values in a special point in the lesson plans in Instructional Objectives section. However, the writers could not find the elaboration of character values in the Learning Activities section. Teacher A designed the Learning Activities in the form of table containing four columns. The first column was number, students’ activities, and teacher’s activities. Teacher A did not provide special column for character values. From the analysis of the lesson plans given by Teacher B, it indicated that Teacher B mentioned the character values in a special section in the lesson plan after Instructional Objectives section. The writers could also find the elaboration of character values in the Learning Activities section. Teacher B also designed the Learning Activities in the form of table. Different from Teacher A, Teacher B provided a special column for character values. The table contained 3 columns, for steps, activities, and character values. From the eighth lesson plans provided by both teachers, the writers found seven character values. The most frequent value was responsible and the less frequent ones were environmental caring, tolerant, creative, hard-working, and disciplined. Table 4 summarized the values contained within the lesson plans. Table 4. The character values appearing in the lesson plans No. Character Values Planned in the Lesson Plan Frequency Teacher A Teacher B 1. Disciplined 2x - 2. Hard-working 2x - 3. Creative 2x - 4. Environmental caring 2x - 5. Responsible 2x 4x 6. Tolerant - 2x 7. Brave - 2x According to Ministry of National Education (2010), before integrating character values in teaching and learning process, teachers have to design lesson plans accommodating character building. In order to implement character building in the teaching and learning process, a teacher should adapt the lesson plan. The adaptation can be done by adding or modifying learning steps, indicator, and assessment so that character values can be implemented in teaching and learning process. The teacher could modify the assessment by integrating the character and so on. However, from the eight lesson plan provided by the two English teachers, modification could not be found in the learning steps, indicator, and assessment technique in the lesson plans. This finding was in line with the finding by Rosalina (2011) where teachers in Gugus 4, Kecamatan Batujajar, Kabupaten Bandung Barat have already designed lesson plans with character values included. However, in the implementation of character building in the classroom, the teachers did not develop activities that accommodated the implementation of character building. A lesson plan is an extremely useful tool that serves as a combination guide, resource, and historical document reflecting our teaching philosophy, and more importantly our goals for the students (Jensen, 2001). If the teacher did not modify the learning steps, indicator and assessment technique, the goal of building the students’ character would be difficult to achieve. In the classroom, teacher A and B explicitly implemented the character building even though not all the characters were integrated explicitly. Based on the data, it was revealed that teacher A got confused in determining which characters she need to integrate either in lesson plan or the learning process. Ira Audina Pratiwi, Soni Mirizon, & Rita Inderawati Integration of character building in teaching English as prescribed in 2013 curriculum 374 Data from observation All observations were conducted in four meetings for each teacher. Each meeting was eighty minutes. Each observation was conducted in same classes handled by the teachers to make the findings more specific and accurate. The writers observed Teacher A’s class four times. The topic was stating capabilities and willingness. The writers also had four observations on Teacher B’s class. The topic for the lesson that day was present continuous tense. From the eighth observations, the writers found some character values taught by Teacher A and Teacher B. Table 5 presented the character values taught by the two teachers in eight meeting. Table 5. Character values taught by two teachers No. Character Values Taught by Three Teachers Frequency Teacher A Teacher B 1. Religious 2x 4x 2. Honest 2x 1x 3. Tolerant 3x 2x 4. Disciplined 3x 2x 5. Hard-working 1x 1x 6. Creative 4x 1x 7. Independent - 3x 8. Democratic 1x 1x 9. Curious 2x 1x 10 Nationalist - 2x 11. Achievement Appreciative 1x 1x 12. Communicative 3x 3x 13. Reading Loving 1x 1x 14. Environmental Caring 3x - 15. Responsible 1x 2x In analyzing the data from the observations, the writers classified the data based on the teacher’s techniques in integrating character values. Some of the values were taught by using direct statements or explicitly. Some other values were implicitly inherent in activities, not directly stated but inherent in asking students to do something and inferred by the students then confirmed by the teacher. This was similar with what was mentioned by Sugirin (2011) that the implementation of character building should be integrated into relevant content subject instruction. As stated by Ministry of National Education (2010) in Panduan Pendidikan Karakter, it is important for the teacher to make the students realize that they are in the process of building good character. One way to make the students realize that they are in the process of character building is by teaching the character values using direct statements or explicitly. From the observation result, both of the teachers explicitly built the students’ character by using direct statement. The values that were explicitly implemented by teacher A were only four values: disciplined, creative, environmental caring, and honest, while, only three values mentioned in teacher A lesson plan. Teacher B also only explicitly integrated four values: hard-working, honest, disciplined, and independent but none of those values was mentioned in teacher B lesson plan. Similar study done by Abdi (2018) in East Kalimantan also found the character values developed by the teachers such as religious, creative, independent and responsible. From the explanation above, it is obvious that the character values in their lesson plans were not the same as those planned to be implemented by the two teachers. There were some factors that could make some differences in character planned and implemented. From those two teachers’ responses in the interview, it was found that the teachers’ lack of knowledge in implementing the character values. From those two teachers, only teacher B had joined workshop about character building. Another teacher had never joined any workshop and seminar dealing with the implementation of character building in English subject. This is in line with study by Kurniadi and Hapsari (2017) which objective was to investigate how character education was implemented in EFL learning development in classroom practice at SMAN 1 Pakem involving five classrooms. They found that teachers had implemented character education in learning classroom process consisting of eighteen values in learning. Moreover, the implementation of character education gave teachers several advantages and challenges in teaching process. The principle of character values integration in all subjects was apparently implemented in the school. Every subject should integrate the character building in teaching and learning process. English is one of the subjects that must integrate the character building in the teaching and learning process. Data from the interview showed that teacher acknowledged that there were eighteen characters while they could only mention some of them. Both of the teachers kept repeating the same characters for several meetings. Concerning the principle of character building, that is, developing the students’ awareness of the character values, the ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education p-ISSN 2301-7554, e-ISSN 2541-3643 Volume 9, Issue 2, June 2021 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/ERJEE 375 findings from observation and interview showed that Teacher A and B used direct statement to teach the character values but not all characters integrated explicitly, so the principle was not fully implemented by the two teachers. Building human being’s character is not a simple task, since long process is needed. Therefore, this study did not discuss the assessment used by the teacher to measure the character building of the students. Besides, various approaches are needed to internalize the character values. Making the students realize that they are in the process of character building is also important so that it is possible for the students to assess themselves in the process of building their character. Therefore, teacher plays an important role to support the success of the implementation of character building in Indonesia. This is in line with study by Wahidah (2017), which objective was to investigate the way English teachers implemented character education in English subject at SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Malang. It was revealed that teachers implemented eighteen characters education in teaching and learning process. Teachers implemented it by integrating the variety of character education into each learning activity by using a scientific approach and discussion method. This could be a consideration for teachers in choosing the characters to teach. CONCLUSION In relation to the objectives of the study, four conclusions can be drawn. First, teachers of English did not fully understand with the description of each character; they were merely in the level of good and fair understanding. Second, it was found that there were 15 out of 18 characters taught, mostly in implicit manner. Teachers tended not to explicitly build students’ character by using direct statement. This is not in line with the goal of character building to make students realize that they are in the process of integrating the characters. Only six character values explicitly mentioned in each lesson plan. Third, the reason of applying the characters was due to the characters recommended matched with teaching materials taught. Fourth, teachers encountered challenges in determining the recommended character to teach and in managing students’ different characteristics. REFERENCES Abdi, M. I. (2018). The implementation of character education in Kalimantan, Indonesia: Multi site studies. Dinamika Ilmu: Journal Pendidikan, 18(2), 305-321. Adisusilo, S. (2012). Pembelajaran Nilai-Karakter: Konstruktivisme dan VCT Sebagai Pendekatan Pembelajaran Afektif. Jakarta: PT Raja Grafindo Persada. Ariesinta, D. (2016). 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