Indonesian youth smarter and braver

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.