allocated to more academic language classes and practices. At the end of each semester, there is an exam in all the Indonesian language skills.
To what extent are these students satisfied by the knowledge they get from this Indonesian language program? Can these students follow classes in their respective majors as their Indonesian classmates helped by the Indonesian language they gained from this bridging course?
3. Problem Identification
The reseacher here is himself a student in this program of Indonesian language. This is the first semester. The impression is that this program cannot completely help students to follow their lectures in Indonesian language. Considering the fact that students are following the same program while they will have to follow different majors.
How can a student of Applied Linguistics may be satisfied the same way with a student of Civil Engeneering program? The problem seeks to mainly know whether the knowledge of the language that is got from this program of one year can academically fully help them as their Indonesian classmates. And the whole problem is about the question about classroom diversity and Student Needs put by “ Based on diversity today, is it possible to have full inclusion where all student needs are met in the general education classroom?”
[2]
4. Motivation
Motivation finds reason in some questions:
How students whose main major is Applied Linguistics, and his/her friend‟s main major is Civil Engineering, have to undergo a same course of Indonesian Language and be satisfied the same way when they actually use the language in their respective majors? How can these students be able to gain the same benefit as their Indonesian classmates?
Besides these questions the researcher himself heard his KNB students friends complaining that the language they have to face while in their respective majors is different and sometimes looks like a different language compared to the language they learnt in this Indonesian language class during one year. Some complain they cannot gain the same knowledge as their indonesian classmates because of the language. While Indonesian classmates focus on the material, these foreign students have to focus on the language first. It is a double task.
5. Objectives
The objectives of this study can be expressed in the following points:
1. Find out to what extent the knowledge of Indonesian language help KNB students to
follow the lectures in their respective majors held in Indonesian language.
2. Find out to what extent these foreign students are equally integrated in classroom with their Indonesian classmates and whether they feel they get the same quality of academic education while using Indonesian language as educational language
6. Necessity for Equal Quality of Education “Belajar merupakan proses manusia untuk mencapai berbagai macam kompetensi, keterampilan ,dan sikap.” The author added that the learning begins with the begining of humanity
“belajar dimulai sejak manusia lahir sampai akhir hayat.” [3] This emphasize that learning never stops.
In their reform of educational system to include all students and insure equal quality of education, American president George W. Bush considered educational motives as economic issue [4]. The same can be realized in Australia as the government is trying to integrate all students for quality of education remarks “The new Labor Government has embarked on an „education revolution‟ as a way of ensuring national productivity growth through a large-scale investment in human capital.”[5]. For others, educational languages is a political issue [6].
This reveals that educational motivations are not far from economic issues. If students are not well integrated in education( whatever reasons may be), they and even countries are loosing economically which show weaknesses of the politics of education.
7. Research Methods
This investigation is directed towards foreign students studying in Indonesia. There are many students in different parts of Indonesia, but this investigation only targeted those studying in UNY.
One of the reasons is to facilitate the data collection. Therefore the investigation is done with KNB students who, actually have finished their course of Indonesian language and who have already entered their main majors after the course of Indonesian language. These are the ones who are experiencing the use of the Indonesian language they spent a year studying.
To callect data, a questionnaire was used. This investigation was done towards the end of the first semester of the academic year 2014-2015. The questionnaire was sent to students to be filled and given back.
8. Sampling and Population.
In this investigation, the population was the KNB students who are actually following their studies in UNY. There are many KNB students in
Indonesia but these students were only selected because of limitation of time and means. To diminish the rate of error all the KNB students in UNY were selected to answer the questionnaire.
The population is therefore the same as the sample as suggsted by [7]Niles R.dalam “Survey Sampel Sizes and Margin of Error saying that the most accurate survey of a group of people is : Just ask everyone to make a decision and tally the balls . It’s 100% accurate, assuming you counted the votes correctly”. This helps the results to be more reliable.
There are 29 KNB students in UNY in total, only 19 students are in the generations mentioned above. One of the 19 students is sick by the time of the investigation, therefore 18 students were respondents.
A questinnaire was sent to these students.
After they finish to fill it, it was sent back to the researcher who proceeded to the analysis of the students answers to give them meaning.
Data were then analysed. This instrument revealed both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data are obtained by making a sum total of the choices made by respondents for each question. These totals were then analysed qualitatively. This means that after the quantitative description, a qualitative analysis of the students different points of view were made.
9. Presentation and Discussion of data.
The following are questions that were put to respondents for data collection.
1. How long will you sudy in UNY?
2. How long did you study bahasa Indonesia?
3. Did you know bahasa Indonesia before you come for this program in Indonesia?
4. What is the reason why you have to study bahasa Indonesia? Explain
5. Are you satisfied with the knowledge you got from your Indonesian language course program?
6. Are you satisfied with the results from the use of your Indonesian language? Make a comment.
7. What does the knowledge of Indonesian language you got help you to achieve?
8. a. what do you think should be added to this program to make it more beneficial to learners.
b. Write here any comment, suggestion, or compalaint about the knowledge you got
The first question intended to know exacly the time the student will spend studying in UNY to insure the student is the one needed to respond to next questions. This question helped to know that the students has been learning bahasa Indonesia.
For this question 61,6% of the respondents mentioned that they will be studying between 2-3
years and the 23% will spend more than 3 years.
These include students who are in their undergraduate program and those in master‟s program. There is also 7% who did not respond the question. Then the second question reaveled the length of time the respondent spent studying Indonesian language. This was useful in the way that some students may come with already good knowledge of Indonesian language, therefore being different from those who come with no knowledge at all in indonesian language. For this question statistics show that 92.7% studied Indonesian for 0- 1 year whereas only 7% of the respondents studied Indonesian language for 1-2 years.
The third question reveals that 84,62% of the students did not know Indoneisan language and some 15.38% did not give any answer to this question. This helps us to realize to what extent the same Indonesian language program is effective for each of the students.
The fourth question intended to give light to whether students knew the reason why they have to learn the language. The reasults are made of different answers from the respondents and the reasons vary. Some of the reasons given by the respondents are the following:
- I have to study and live in Indonesia - If I know Indonesian language life will be
easier. I will be able to shop, to communicate, and to go in different offices,...
- It is a language of use in class - Because I got a scholarship
- To learn the Indonesian language and culture which is very various and rich - To get Indonesian language deep
knowledge especially in Applied Linguistics
- I beleive that Indonesian language will be very important in South Asian in the future - As a unique foreign student in my class, the language will help me to communicate with classmate.
Trying to read the answers, it can be realized that students answers may be classified in three groups. Those who learn Indonesian language for communication while they stay in Indonesia, for its usefulness in the future and those who are learning the language for Academic use. The majority are the ones wanting to learn it for communication and everday use. Some others just learn it because it is among the requirements of the scholarship. It is easily understandable that the motivations are varied and this will affect the rate of the effort to learn the language. Very few of the students are conviced to learn it for its academic use while this is the main usefulness for them. This may also hamper their effort to learn the very language which is actually academically unavoidable in an Indonesian setting.
The answers from the question five show that 69.23% acknowledge they are satisfied with the knowledge they get from the indonesian language classes. The other 23.7% are not satisfied whereas 7.7% say nothing about the question. To interprete well these statistics from the fifth question, it is better to consider it together with the sixth question results.
This sixth question answers show that 76.9%
say that they are satisfied. 23.1% of the respondents are not satisfied.
Each group has mentioned different reasons why they give their point of view. For those who are satisfied, the following are their reasons : - I am satisfied because the Indonesian language
helps me in my everyday needs: expressing myself with friends at home and on campus.
- I am satisfied because the knowledge of the language is from my own effort
- I am satisfied but not really satisfied in my reguar class.
- I am satisfied but I can only follow the lectures at 70%. I can use Indonesian anywhere but my langage level is low. I have to use some other languages like my mother tongue and French.
Those who feel they are not satisfied argue as follow:
- I am not satisfied because when we were learning Indonesian, the language was not really academic
- I am not satisfied because all the Indonesian language teachers showed us that Indonesian language is not difficult but when we begun the courses in the main major, I could not follow the discussions in Indonesian language. - Some teachers and my friends have to explain me in English.
Among the main comments that were given by respondents we can retain this one:
I was really satisfied when I was learning Indonesain language. But my satisfaction is desapearing because the language we learnt and the language that is used in the regular class in the major are very different. I mean the language I learnt in Indonesian language program is very different from the academic language. The language that the learners get during the one year is diferent from the one used in class in the main major.
This comment may summarize the main idea that can be drawn from the answers and comments of the respondents. The reason of respondents who are satisfied can be seen as satisfaction of the language in their everyday life communication.
And those who are not satisfied complain that the language cannot really help them to fullfil the main academic mission, that is.
In many cases of this kind, achieving ones classroom integration, using foreign language is
still not easy as observed by “Understanding what the teacher says or what is written in texts used in class is a key to academic engagement. Yet, for students who are learning the medium of instruction as an additional language, understanding is often elusive”[5]
In few it would be concluded that respondents are not fully satified in the academic use of the Indonesian language they spend a year learning.
The seventh questions‟ results may help to understand well to what extent these learners are satisfied with the academic use of the Indonesian language. Results of this question can be found in the following table (Table1).
Table 1. Result
Answers Frequency Pourcentage
Everyday life Communication 13 100%
Use it when you need
something in an office 6 46.10%
Help when you are moving
around in Indonesia 7 53.80%
Be able to follow classes in
your main major 5 38.40%
No answer 4 30.70%
Actually the items in the table can be classified in two main points: Academic use and everyday life communication.
The statistics show that all the students use the language they got from the one year for everyday communication (100%) while this language is seen to be helpful only to few students(38.40%) for academic use.
The last question gives some students suggestions on what should be added to the Indonesian language program so that it may be beneficial to learners. This question is important in the way that implementers of the program may find here different views from the receivers of the program which may actually help in the adjustment of the program and even previous points of view of these students are helpful in this sense.
The following are the different views from the students investigated:
1. For must be added some abbreviations that teachers use in class. I also cannot understand the system used while discussing in class. I am not ready for presentations in class because all the presentations look like reading hard and I am not a hard reader. There are so many words from Islam that I cannot understand such as
“asallah malecum” that I did not study in the Indonesian language program. When I entered my main major I felt strange and out of context.
The work at home are so many but the moment of the Indonesan language there were not so
many and when I begun my Masters degree I felt left behind.
What also has to be added according to me is that students have to be trained to make presentations in class, not only in front of classmates but also in front of Indonnesians.
Our friends must also be trained on how to make a debate in class. They have also to learn how to make research in Indonesian context because what is taught in the postgraduate program is not enough for us. Students have to also be introduced to SPSS, how to make instruments, how to validate data and its reliability. Yes, those are some of the suggestions from me and I hope they are useful.
2. With illustration, students who are following Indonesian language should be grouped. Those who will study in their main major, Biology, for example, will learn the language used in this science. Those who will study techniques should learn the language used in the techniqes and the like.
These are the only selected because most of the ideas given by respondents turn around what the two have expressed. These are strong contributions in making the language more beneficial for the foreign students. While foreign students complain that they feel “left behind”and “out of context”, their Indonesian students classmates will be advancing, since problems of language and indonesian way of academic activities is are not a problems. The meaning is that foreign students are not sufficiently integrated into the classroom activities mainly becausse of the language they have to face.
For the last question, the respondents gave many points of view. The folowing are their main ideas:
1. What‟s more important is that we can commnicate with Indonesians than learning Indonesian language grammar and the like
2. I think that it would be beneficial If students were taught about their respective majors. That because If you enter the regular class, there are many technical terms that students meet and that they did not see in the Indonesian language classes. Then it would be better If the Indonesian language program was based on what the students will face in their main respective majors.
3. Academic activities are different from the daily communication. It would be better If I could follow academic activities in Indonesian language narmal but I am couregeous and learn Indonesian every day.
4. For me, Indonesian language in UNY is very interesting but the syllabus must be more intensive for KNB students, because when we were learning Indonesian language, we felt Indonesian is easier to understand, but when we begun our majors, we found it was very difficult.
5. I wish firstly to thank Indonesia, Indonesian leaders, the Ministry of Education, as well as UNY and UNY leaders in particular for the KNB program and for their contribution. We hope this program will help us even in our future. Thank you and may God bless and help you.
These comments help us to realize that actually, equal quality of education is not fully guaranteed for foreign students. They always feel there is something lacking in what they should do in their academic activities and as they express, the academic langauage is the main hamper.
The results of the respondents answers and comments discussed above can be recapitulated in the following table:
Q.= Question
Table 2.
Q. Theme Year Results
% Students Comments
1 Duration in UNY Two-Year - 61
2 Learning Indonesian Language One Yes 92,30
3 Learning Indonesian only as KNB students One Yes 84,62
4 Reason for learning the Indonesian language One Got Scholarship, Lectures, For future reasons, Living in Indonesia -
5 Knowing Indonesian language Objectives - Communication, Lecture 69,20
6 Opinions about Indonesian language Two-Three Satisfied with the Knowledge 69,23 7&8 Satisfaction on the use of Indonesian language Two-Three
Satisfaction with daily Communication 100 Satisfaction with the capacity to use the Indonesian language in class as Indonesian students
38,40
10. Conclusion
In a nuttschell, analysing the answers from the students, it is realizable that the knowledge students
get from the Indonesian language only halfly helps them in academic activities. Nevertheless, this language excellently helps them in their everyday
life activities such as shoping and negociating prizes, communicating with friends on campus,...
In their different points of view, it can be realized that students complain that the language they get is different from the language they have to face when they enter their main respective majors.
The main realization here is that students are not equally integrated in the classroom activities.
Therefore it would be difficult to confirm equal quality of education is assured. Foreign students have to struggle much first with the language and then with the material they have to study. It can be realized that foreign students have to make a double effort to try to adapt to the langauge and all the situation in a foreing setting.
The results of this investigation should inspire more implementers of the Indonesian language for this group of students. Respondents have already given different great points of view on how to adjust the program to suit the students in their future respective academic activities.
REFERENCES
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and Practice. Great Britain. The Cromwell Press Ltd , 2005.
[2] Susan L. Gabel and David J. Connor, Disability and Teaching Authors. New York Routledge, 2014.
[3] Baharuddin Drs, H.,M.pd.I.,Esa Nur Wahyuni,M.Pd, Teori Belajar &
Pembelajaran, Jogjakarta: A-Ruzz Media...
2009.
[4] Keith A. Nitta, The Politics of Structural Education Reform. New York. Routledge, 2008.
[5] [5] Jennifer Miller, Alex Kostogriz, Margaret Gearon and the authors of individual chapters, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Classrooms: New Dilemmas for Teachers . Great Britain MPG Books Group, 2009.
[6] [6] Carole Edelsky With Litera cy and Justice for All: Rethinking the Social in Language and Education. New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, 2006.
[7] http://www.robertniles.com/stats/margin.
shtml.