The linguistic landscape of Indonesia is rich and dynamic. The conference will take place on the 15th floor of the Yustinius Building. Indonesian Languages and Linguistics: State of the Field.
While Bahasa Indonesia is spoken as a mother tongue by only 7 of the total population, it is the. Over 300 different native languages are spoken in Indonesia. The many other regional and most popularly used languages include.Bahasa Indonesia is the official language of Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,508 islands that is the worlds largest Muslim-majority nation, with a total population of nearly 242 million. The Menzies-era initiative to study the language of our new neighbour is threatening to peter out.The official language of Indonesia, constitutionally acclaimed is the Indonesian language. Just recently Tim Lindsey pointed out we had less kids studying Indonesian in Year 12 than we did 40 years ago, and that on recent trends it would disappear altogether from universities in 10 or 15 years. There are gloomy statistics about Indonesian language studies in Australia’s schools and universities.
the perceived negative impact of language study on tertiary entrance scores andThere was also a decline in student, school, parental and community value for language learning. fear of competing against native speakers insufficient time allocated to languages in schools The residential colleges represent the Office of the Dean of the College and the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students.An OECD study conducted in 2010, Education at a Glance, found on average 8 per cent of the compulsory curriculum for children aged 9 to 11 in OECD countries is devoted to modern foreign languages, rising to 13 per cent for children aged 12 to 14.In NSW it has been zero and about 2 per cent, respectively.With Australia, the OECD identified the impediments to language learning as:
He said senior Indonesians think of Australia as a very important part of the world. This is one big way of saying so.I recall talking with Professor Ross Garnaut some years back. Our recent defence white papers say we are no longer looking for security from out region, but security within it. Learning the language of our biggest neighbour says something about our nation’s place in the world and its region. But opinion polls show Australians are getting over their old phobias about invasion from Indonesia, so national interest is a more appropriate way of selling a Learn Bahasa policy.As well as the mercantile possibilities, we should be stressing the intangibles.
If West Papua does one day change its status, its language will be Indonesian.What I’m proposing is a big investment. As David Hill at Murdoch University points out, enrolments at university were strong in the Suharto years when many academic staff were critical of the government and its ideology. Its own culture, high or popular, is rapidly evolving with a more educated, worldly and interconnected population, and will make Indonesia itself a subject of continuing fascination and provide plenty of bahan (material) for future echelons of students.Nor does a study of Indonesia and its language mean an identification or endorsement of everything about it, just as the reverse is true. Indonesian society is also comparatively accessible, with Indonesians happy to mingle with foreigners and invite them home.So if we are truly going to make inroads on our mono-lingualism, introducing Indonesian at the primary school level is surely the best way to start.For those who say an Indonesian focus would divert from other strategic languages like Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, or Arabic, there is ample research to show immersion in one foreign language tends to increase the interest and mental receptivity to try others.And as we all know, Indonesian also has its pathways into the Sanskrit languages, Arabic and Persian as well as smatterings of Chinese, Dutch. Indonesians are receptive to novice attempts, so the language is usable from very basic levels upwards.
The important thing would be to select teachers carefully. So different styles of teaching may not be such an obstacle. I am told there are now about 700 teachers qualified to teach Indonesian.It will take some years to rebuild the cadre of secondary teachers who typically have a three-year major in Indonesian, but a boost could come faster for primary schools where a year’s training is enough for a start.There is the idea of a teacher exchange—their English teachers coming here and our Indonesian teachers going there in a kind of role reversal while they brush up on their own fluency—but academic friends point out numerous practical difficulties and differences of pedagogical style.I guess this is true in many cases, but looking back through my notes on the last Leongatha visit I recorded one young Indonesian teacher as saying the Australian kids were much more polite and willing to listen, and that she had to shout a bit back home.
He is a fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution. Yet when hundreds of millions of dollars are quickly and easily found for national security programs, and hundreds of billions pledged for defence, surely such an investment in our long-term national interest and identity can’t be ruled out.I go back to what Ross Garnaut said to me:“If we have a close and productive relationship with Indonesia, we’re never going to be isolated in Asia.”Hamish McDonald FAIIA is world editor with The Saturday Paper and has previously been a correspondent in Jakarta, Tokyo, Hong Kong, New Delhi and Beijing. This is a long-term program going beyond the life of most governments.
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