Indonesian youth smarter and braver

By Rita A. Widiadana and Stevie Emilia

JAKARTA (JP): "Look at that boy, he is kuulll (cool) and oke banget deh (really good)," a high school girl screamed upon seeing a cute boy at a McDonald's restaurant in the upmarket Kebayoran Baru area in South Jakarta.

"Let's having bigmek (BigMac) and ngeceng (find a date)," another girl said. (In her jargon, a bigmek is not a hamburger, it means a cool boy).

They are typical urban teens who feel that speaking (broken) English makes them more trendy.

The red haired and fashionable Tika, 15, has a reason. "If you don't speak slang English, you will be called kampungan (ordinary), men (man)!" she asserted.

Like her classmates, Tika has acquired many "English" terms through MTV, video and computer games, songs, movies, radios, teen magazines and TV ads. Words like "cool", "OK babe", "honey", "yessss", "give me five" are becoming common among local youth.

Donny added that learning English at schools or at English courses was boring and difficult. "We are only bombarded with grammatical structure, tenses which are difficult," said Donny.

He said he could learn English better from teen films like Dawson's Creek, Beverly Hills, local TV movie Lupus and songs by teenage band West Life.

Listiana, editor at leading publishing house Gramedia Pustaka Utama, acknowledges that this new enthusiasm for English among today's youth comes from the entertainment industry.

"We don't have to blame them for watching, listening or reading things that come from the West. We have to see the positive side," said Listiana.

She said her company had published numerous bilingual books under the license of Walt Disney Co. or other foreign publishing companies.

"We are now publishing English children's books and we have quite a promising market," she said.

From preschool to high school, English has become compulsory, she said. Besides, bilingual schools like Pelita Harapan, Bina Nusantara and Tiara Bangsa are mushrooming, and their students may need such books.

Children and teenagers love these books through which they can learn English a simpler way. The books are colorfully illustrated and readers will find them interesting to read and at the same time learn a foreign language.

"Compared to older generations who learned English mostly at school with rigid textbooks, today's kids are fast-learners," Listiana commented.

Youths, she said, acquire English sentence by sentence and easily remember them by heart with proper pronunciation and intonation.

"We have made fatal mistake dubbing movies and TV shows into Indonesian, leaving would-be English speakers or other foreign language speakers with very few opportunities to hear how the original language sounds," she explains.

Movies

Ati, a mother of two teenage girls, concedes that her daughters learn much of their English from movies.

"I was so surprised that they could imitate the dialog of animated movies properly like The Land Before Time, Lion King, Little Mermaids, Toy Story and even Melrose Place with a very clear accent when they were still five and eight years old," she recalled.

But the mother complained that they refused to learn grammar.

"My teacher is old and talkative. I don't like learning English because of her," daughter Tanya noted.

Today's English teachers, many of them in their 30s, are products of the old-style English education system.

Elanda, a teacher at a private elementary school in Menteng area, Center Jakarta, finds her third-grade students have more self-confidence in learning English.

"I come from a Javanese family. My English is accented with Javanese, but my students have very good tongues," she said.

In order to boost her students' interest in English, she titles her English lesson class Happy Hours. Children are free to express their minds and feelings in English.

Many times they ask the meaning of some crude words, but she has to explain their meanings wisely and how to use such words in everyday conversation.

"I was so shocked when one of my students asked the meaning of words like 'making love' or 'f--k you!'. They said they heard the words from their brothers, sisters or friends," she maintained.

But she said the current situation has forced her to improve her English and to be more creative in applying English lessons, especially for young students.

"I have to watch all the new movies, listen to new songs, listen to the radio. I also try to encourage my students to use English in their daily activities," said Elanda.

Academics mostly agree that using English in daily life is useful.

Grace T. Wiradisastra, an English literature lecturer, said she demands "mastery of the rules of English and its practical application" from her students but supports "linguistic flexibility".

This is the "ability to adapt to the social and cultural context of the situation," or the various levels of engagement.

"In some circumstances, in academic meetings English is common. But in a public forum, it would be better to use Indonesian," added Grace.

"Yet people are now having to communicate with other foreigners more than they used to," she said.

Children and teenagers should be encouraged to master English because it is an international language and a language of science which can make them more global.

OK

It is OK to mix Indonesian with English, which is now emerging as common practice among youths. It is a gate to mastering it as a second language, comments Listiana.

"In the past, it was discouraging to see the long roster of government officials who did not speak English," she said.

It was a national joke to see former president Soeharto and other high-ranking government officials often in the international arena with translators in tow.

Although it is hard to quantify the prevalence of English- speaking abilities among Indonesians, it is a widespread perception that they need to catch up.

The Indonesian government realized years ago that the country lagged behind its neighbors, particularly Singapore and Malaysia where foreign languages have been compulsory for a decade in public schools from the third grade up.

More than 85 percent of the nation's high school students now take English but seem unable to master it.

"If we want to create a better generation, we have to equip our children, young people with a good system to learn English, and a good education in general, otherwise we will always be 'second-class' citizens," she said.