Revitalizing Indonesian Language Teaching to Develop Literacy Competitiveness

Revitalizing Indonesian Language Teaching to Develop Literacy Competitiveness

By: Denny Nugraha

TBI-B-4

IAIN Syekh Nurjati Cirebon

The practice of Indonesian language teaching at this time is far from satisfactory. The low of academic writing skills of university graduates is the failure of Indonesian language teaching from elementary up to university level. Fixing the current system of our language teaching is really a huge task and it is often difficult to be solved. However, this problem must be settled in considering the reality that our literacy rate is less competitive among Asian counterparts. In addition, building literacy competitiveness can not be easy and instantaneous. Competitiveness in literacy can only be established through the long recurrent process of language practice which influenced by certain factors. In Indonesian context, literacy competitiveness must refer to the revitalization of three important factors in Indonesian language teaching: teachers, curriculum, and language policy.

First, teachers have important roles in Indonesian language teaching. Unfortunately, most of teachers tend to emulate their former teachers in the classroom. The tendency to emphasize theory rather than practice of language has been a common phenomenon in language teaching class. To solve such problem, teachers have to acquire the acquisition about literacy and professional pedagogy of Indonesian language teaching. In other words, building competitiveness of our literacy means to establish professional Indonesian language teachers that emphasize the necessity of balancing both theory and practice.

Second, the national curriculum of language education is crucial to our language teaching success. The newest curriculum is formulated in three different competencies. Those are namely attitude, knowledge, and skill competency. Unfortunately, the system of curriculum recently tends to concentrate students on the knowledge competency only. For instance, the final curriculum evaluation consists of a multiple choice type of test. As the result, students are lack of creativity and critical thinking. Thus, curriculum of our language education should be redesigned in order to encompass the three competencies. Finally, it is able to support the competitiveness of our literacy.

Third, language policy is the most important aspect in our language teaching. Moreover, language policy is a mechanism by which the government seeks to influence language behavior. So that, Indonesian language should be promoted as the national development and language education should create a mechanism of empowerment. But, the current language policy has failed to empower students’ literacy through Indonesian language. At university level, the reason why intellectuals are lack of writing skills is wrong belief that Indonesian language does not potential in science and technology in comparing with other foreign language. Therefore, it is high time to revitalize language policy by promoting Indonesian language as equally competitive with other foreign language in science and technology.

In conclusion, revitalizing our language education is preferable Indonesian language teaching that makes students to be creative and imaginative. It is not only dealing with the knowledge or theories of language. Then, students’ creativity in literacy needs high quality language education which encompasses creative and critical Indonesian language teachers, an intact curriculum of language education, and the language policies that promote Indonesian language in science and technology. Thus, revitalization in our language teaching is needed to create a better competitiveness of literacy.

References:

Alwasilah, Chaedar. 2012. Pokoknya Rekayasa Literasi. Bandung: PT Kiblat Buku Utama

            2014. Islam, Culture, and Education. Bandung: PT Remaja Rosdakarya

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