Languages

My blog post about The British Council and the Tools for Intercultural Dialogue gained a comment from a reader that I was exaggerating the importance of English language. My article for wikimu.com that I also posted here in my blog gained another kind of comment, different...but a bit similar in essence. The commentator hoped that there will be no "forcing" of one's culture dominating others' cultures. He preferred to use the translators help in international discussion to show the equality of valuing others' cultures (meaning languages).

I wrote down the outcomes of intercultural dialogue programme in that article:
1. Strengthen understanding and level of trust between people in the UK and other societies.
2. Strengthen the consensus for rejecting extremism in all its forms.
3. Increase the ability of individuals and organisations to contribute to positive social change and the strengthening of civil society.
4. Increase the use of English as a tool for international communication and intercultural understanding.

The reader from wikimu pointed out the outcome no. 4 as the possibility of forcing a culture from a stronger nation to dominate the culture of the weaker nations.

Jean-Jacques Subrenat had posted in his blog Serenidee (in the year 2006) the highlight on the media and linguistic diversity and on the linguistic diversity in regional integration. He was also mentioning about the cost efficiency of linguistic diversity, in this case for European Union. I did not know before that translation is also considered as unworthy cost.

When I wrote my blog posts I did not have any prejudice feeling about forcing one's culture on others. I was thinking about exchanging cultures, enriching our knowledge with others' cultures while at the same time increasing our pride in our own culture.

Another Indonesian contributor for Ohmynews International, Lily Yulianti, was once upload in her local citizen journalism website Panyingkul, some pictures she had taken in Seoul in her article about how English language spread with louder voice. Look at those photos in the article, without even understand our bahasa Indonesia, you'll grab the essence of why David Graddol in his book "English Next" has said that "the enemy of the English language is the language itself".

I think it is important that the ESL speakers are trained to be equally capable to use the language correctly. By training local teachers to use the language correctly it would do a great deal for the education development in the country.

A contributor for the Jakarta Post has mentioned the importance of checking on the teachers from international schools. It is so true that in some cases "These teachers need training and that training may not just be in language skills. They may also need pedagogical training to allow them to adapt to international styles and methods of educating." Bringing more native speakers might not be the good solution for us, but enriching the local teachers might be a valuable asset for the future of our education. While taking the international styles and method of educating to enrich our own education style we are also enriching our human resources.

I remember how pak Harto (Soeharto), our former president used only Bahasa Indonesia in international meetings. We used to compare him with our first president who delivered his international speeches in English. Reading some books about Soeharto, I found out that it could also be his nationalism way of showing out our national language. He claimed it that way (but we, as students, used to doubt his ability in speaking English). Now, I realized that for some people it is really important to have their national language taken as equal as other international languages.

Ohmynews International Citizen Reporters' Forum was my first experience in an international meeting using a translation headphone. It was nice hearing the direct translation through the headphones. I did even try to hear the Korean translation of an English presentation just to fulfill my curiousity.

I am still thinking that English language can be a bridge to the global world. And it would not stop me from admiring the richness of other languages. Indonesia has more than 550 dialects (and/or traditional languages), we do need to help keeping it from extinction (which might be a very hard task to fulfill). Bahasa Indonesia is the bridge in the archipelago, and English (for me) is another bridge to the global world. So I do hope this "bridge" would not ruin the "two lands" connected through its presence.

Ayo Bicara Tentang Dialog Antar Budaya!

Kamis, 08-05-2008 13:51:08 oleh: Retty N. Hakim
Kanal: Peristiwa



Kompetisi blog dari British Council sudah dimulai sejak bulan April kemarin, topik dalam bulan pertama adalah Dialog Antar Budaya (Intercultural Dialogue). Seharusnya batas waktu penulisan topik ini di blog hanya sampai tanggal 6 Mei 2008. Rupanya banyak juga blogger yang masih bingung bagaimana caranya mengikuti kompetisi ini sehingga tenggat waktu kompetisi topik pertama diperpanjang sampai tanggal 11 Mei 2008. Berhubung masih ada waktu, yuk cepat ikutan juga...

Sebenarnya menarik sekali untuk berbicara tentang "Dialog Antar Budaya", terutama karena dunia yang semakin global, terutama dengan kehadiran internet ini, membuat percakapan yang tidak terbatas lagi. Dalam portal pewarta warga sangat jelas terlihat betapa banyak pemikiran berbeda yang bisa timbul, betapa banyak kesalahan persepsi yang mungkin muncul. Terkadang hal itu muncul dari pilihan kata, atau kebiasaan berpikir, atau mungkin bahkan dari ketidaktahuan.

Ada empat tujuan yang ingin dicapai British Council dalam program-program yang bersinggungan dengan Dialog Antar Budaya:

1. Memperkuat pemahaman dan tingkat kepercayaan antara masyarakat dari UK dengan masyarakat lainnya.

2. Memperkuat konsensus untuk menolak semua bentuk ekstrimisme.

3. Meningkatkan kemampuan individu-individu dan organisasi dalam menyumbangkan perubahan sosial yang positif dan memperkuat masyarakat sipil.

4. Meningkatkan penggunaan bahasa Inggris sebagai alat untuk komunikasi internasional dan pemahaman antar budaya.

Ayo wikimuers yang punya blog, jangan lupa ikutan bagi-bagi suara...(ingat daftar dulu di http://bcnow60.org/blogging-competition/). Bisa dalam bahasa Indonesia, bisa dalam bahasa Inggris, selain topik ini masih ada dua topik menarik lainnya yang akan dibicarakan dalam dua bulan mendatang. Ayo gaungkan suara!

Building a Bridge...

Bridges between cultures are very important these days. English books like Global Links from Longman are introducing the variety of cultures to smooth business communication in the global world of business. In the first book of English for International Business, it reveals how shaking hands could be performed in different ways. This small example is very important because we could feel offended if somebody would not want to shake hand with us, while the other party's religious culture forbid him to shake hands with a woman (who is not his wife).

There are various ways to build a bridge between cultures. There are arts, musics, and sports as tools that can bridge cultures without even understand the language.

Football is one of the sport that can unify the world. Indonesians are also very fond of football. The final game of the World Cup will certainly make Indonesian streets emptier than the big city street during the Idul Fitri's holidays, people are all gathering in the front of the television set...either at home, at neighbour's house (for those who don't have television set), or other public places with big screen airing the game. No wonder the delegation from Pompey Double Club Portsmouth was really welcome in Indonesia. Now we also have Pompey Double Club Indonesia.

Combining English lesson with sports fun is a good way to help the brain accept the material that people learned. Study said that being in the state of happiness can help increase the ability to absorb the knowledge. Here is a comment from the participant that I quoted from the daily Jakarta Post:

Bertres Risdiansyah of SMP Muhammadiyah 3 Yogyakarta agreed, saying the program had made him more confident in speaking English, even in front of an audience, and provided him with good futsal skills.
"This is a very good program. It should involve more students, not just Muhammadiyah school students," Bertres said.

Yes, we do need to have more bridges, especially to those without the luck of gaining good education to improve their way of seeing things, to help them overcome the prejudice which in turn can also help to reduce prejudice from others towards themselves.

Global Xchange and Intercultural Dialogue

Indonesia is now taking part of the Global Xchange programme, we are sending school students from Padang (West Sumatera) to work together with their counterparts from Stansted (UK). Reasons to take part of this programmes varied for those young volunteers (aged 18-25). Hendriets Mayos (23) according to the Global Xchange website was putting the chance to improve her fluency in English language as her first priority, but then she gained more than that. She is also trained to conduct research and how to write press articles. Those are all invaluable experiences for her young age.

I have also browsed to the international volunteers' stories. It is just the kind of blog that would interest people to know more about others' cultures. Ferdousi Begum, a British Muslim can help people to peek into the new globalized world. She said: "My identity of being a British and Bengali Muslim was a big challenge to their perception of what being British means." On the other hand another British who was not familiar with Islamic world gained a new experience in his relation to the Filipino Muslim volunteer.Adam Christopher Tibe said in his story "New Perspective": "Through experiences like these, I have gained more confidence in dealing with different people. Before, Muslim-sounding names frightened me. Seeing Kim (my fellow Filipino Muslim volunteer) then for the first time gave me an eerie feeling. But not anymore. I know better now. I have realised that he is no different from me apart from his religious beliefs."

Those are facts that I've been blessed to know by experiencing a wonderful friendship within the national and international community that I have entered. I once said that I envy the chance opened for youngsters these days, but I do hope that those chances are really open to all youngsters. I hope that these opportunities will be open not only for those who can afford it, or only to those who are very bright and smart, but also for those who are willing to commit on building a better future.

Katherine Orr in her story revealed how she became more mature through her experience in Global Xchange. She said: "I am now assertive, confident, and (more) mature. I am beginning to actually believe in myself and my abilities. And because of this, I was able to write seven English language teaching modules, translate tribal stories and cultural documentation, help put together a project proposal and make toilet bowls. But more importantly, I discovered that I already had the skills to accomplish all these. I just did not realise it until I faced my own demons!" If she, who came from the UK could gain an increase of self confident...then an Indonesian youngster will gain even more. I have just read in Koran Tempo that Anies Baswedan, the sole Indonesian candidate in the Top 100 Public Intellectuals from the Foreign Policy had experienced the AFS' exchange programme. I believe that there will be more and more intercultural dialogues through exchange programmes. The Global Xchange is another way of enhancing the communication between the UK and the world. Hopefully through the Global Xchange programme would also rise the new young leaders just like Anies Baswedan!

Intercultural Dialogue

Intercultural dialogue for me is actually related to communication tools. When I was very young I used to have a lot of pen pals. I had friends from Indonesia, Brazil, France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Denmark, Poland, and the USA. We used to exchange letters telling each other our way of saying things, our cultures, and our own interests. I got those pen friends mostly from the International Youth Service (IYS). The language that made us able to have dialogue through letters is English. Along with it we taught each other a bit of our own languages. My very intensive communication was with the French girl named Mireille Faїn. Then, I was attracted to learn French language; that was how I came to know Centre Culturel Français (CCF). The way I studied the French language in CCF was also an intercultural dialogue. We were exposed to the French culture through readings and dialogues, and there were some native speakers with whom we also share our culture.

Another way to do the intercultural dialogue is by student exchange program. I happened to have some friends from Australia and New Zealand through the AFS exchange program. They came to my school as a student for several months while they lived in my schoolmates’ houses. We learned from each other. It was the first time I knew for real that foreign people are not always richer than Indonesian. One student who was living with my friend’s family told us her happiness because her host parents bought a lot of things for her, things that she had dreamt to have for a long time. There were also different way of living between the girl from the countryside and the girl from the city. I was told how one of our new friends used to milked cows in her family farm. Then there was also the story how to get the wool from the Romney. They also shared news from other friends who had other schools to attend.

My cousin who was younger than me had a better experience as she was able to join the program and was sent to Australia. She was really happy to have that kind of lifetime experience. In fact it made her pursued her further study abroad. Her host parents did visit Indonesia and we were sharing stories about our different cultures and our different lifestyles.

I studied English from school, and from the English course offered by PPIA-LIA, an Indonesian American Friendship Association (now they split into PPIA and LBPP LIA). Then I continued to IPPM, a business school, to continue advancing my English for business (now their language program is closed). Yet, practice is needed to keep the fluency of using a language.

A reader was accusing me of exaggerating the British Council after reading my post on The British Council and The Tools for Intercultural Dialogue. It might seem that way if it was the only blog post he read. I was trying to gather information on the British Council as a citizen reporter. I was focusing in the British Council activities. Personally, my own attachment to the British Council was its library. I think they were focusing on civil servants and public IELT’s examination before. I’ve been closer to the CCF than to the British Council.

These days the British Council is also reaching out to the public. I was invited to the British Council Blogger Day. They were encouraging blogger to blog to enhance the intercultural dialogue. I think that would be more global than my pen friends’ era. Anybody could peek in our posts and gave comment. At least I am now attracted to know more about the Esperanto.

I’m keen to write about the British Council not only for the Blogging Competition, but because they are now opening their services to the public. I’ve put the banner here to attract bloggers’ attention to this event. This blogging competition is open for those who blog in English and for those who blog in Bahasa Indonesia, there is no limitation of language. I think it is good as most Indonesian bloggers are still hesitant to be a bridge blogger, they prefer to blog in Bahasa Indonesia. I’m deliberately become a bridge blogger to gain communicative exchange of information with the global world. The important issue here is not the competition, but the topic of this blog competition. The Indonesian market can gain the prospective information through the blog posts in Bahasa Indonesia, while the bridge bloggers can help spreading the information to the global world.

I've said that the British Council is now opening their services to the public (more than before) as they were conducting events for non civil servants as well. The British Council Blogger Day is one small example. A better representation of the intercultural dialogue is the yearly award for creative person. Indonesian candidate who came to this event can continue to exchange creative ideas with other participants from other countries. In 2006 the Indonesian participant gained a special prize together with another friend from India. The award given are varied each year, but the British Council are now reaching out to the young talents of Indonesia to start building the intercultural dialogue in creative industry.

I’m trying to focus myself on the British Council as there were a lot of events that might not be seen by others. I was informed by the director of business services and relations for the British Council Indonesia, Dina Lucky, in the recent BC Blogger Day, that they are arranging an Indonesian student and a student from the UK to live six months in the UK and six months in Indonesia. There will be some couples each sharing the same roof for a whole year, six months in their partner's country and six months in their own country. If they are to keep an online journal or just share their stories through citizen journalism websites, it would also be a great intercultural dialogue!

The British Council is not only targeting the youngsters, they are also helping to accommodate high level dialogue. I’ve read in the printed daily Kompas that the British Council together with the Department of International Development, also supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London were conducting a conference in the theme of “Indonesia: Political and Economic Prospects”. Although most of the content of the discussion were to keep off the record, the journalist Julius Pour made us readers aware that there was a high level dialogue conducted there. Perhaps the cold weather in Wiston House, Sussex, could help cooling down the hot debate, than if it was conducted here in the hot Jakarta. There were also foreign speakers who contributed their views in the intercultural dialogue in talking about the internal topics in Indonesia. Pour said that by watching and being involved in this discussion in Wilton Park, things can be seen through clearer lens.

There are a lot of ways to do the intercultural dialogue, and there are a lot of parties who are encouraging these intercultural dialogues, not only the British Council. The Indonesian Heritage Society is also another group that enhancing the intercultural dialogue, I like joining this group for that reason. Bloggers are also a part of doing this intercultural dialogue. The global world sometimes seen flatter than ever, yet dialogues are always important aspects to gain peace!

The British Council and the Tools for Intercultural Dialogue

The main important thing to have a dialog is to have the tools to do the dialogue: the language! We can communicate through sign language, or through body language as long as both party understand the symbol of the intended meaning. So, the most important aspect before one can start intercultural dialogue is to understand the other party’s language. English is now widely known as the international language to bridge the communication of people all around the world.

Since the independence of the Republic of Indonesia, the British Council has been always involved in assisting the Indonesian government to train Indonesian teachers of English. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the British Council using the financial fund from Overseas Development Agency started the development of distance learning material. It was developed after they realized that 60% of scholarship offered to civil servants could not be taken up. In their quarterly newsletter published in April –June 2007, there was an article titled “British Council and English Language Teaching (ELT) in Indonesia: a Never Ending Story”. It described the ELT Project Units that involved Lembaga Administrasi Negara (LAN), the civil service’s man training organization that was run from 1987 to 1994. It was then continued by ECSCS (English Communication Skills Civil Service) Project. In these projects the British Council assisted as many as 21 Universities and 20 government institutions.

That would be a long record to note down the support given by the British Council to the variety of ELT activities in Indonesia. The British Council had put their concern to educate people to be able to communicate with other cultures. After gaining the fruit of its effort, they are now focusing in training more trainers and teachers of English.

The interest to learn English language has been growing high and the age to start learning this language is becoming younger and younger…The economic problem is one obstacle in providing the English course for children; there are a lot of families who can’t really support their children’s need to take extra course outside their school’s fee. Ika Damayanti, an English teacher shared her story on how she founded Rumah Belajar Pelangi (the Rainbow Learning House), a learning community basically started from volunteer’s spirits.

Other story was from Toto Purwanto, the Project Manager for Basic Education Program in Bintuni Bay, West Papua. He came to the forest to seek for students! Yes…students! The project was run technically by the British Council using the fund from BP Berau Ltd. They were working on the scheme of Corporate Social Responsibility. A contributor in Wikimu.com had also uploading concerns about education in Papua. It is a reality that there is a high need of teachers in the rural area far away from the big city. Even in the metropolitan city like Jakarta, the quality of teachers is not really convincing. Education becomes more and more expensive for the middle to low class of the society.

So the new strategy to work with national and international companies in Indonesia through the Corporate Social Responsibility activities can also be a good foundation to develop the ability to have the intercultural dialogue!

British Council Blogger Day

Celebrating 60 years in Indonesia

Special attention to blogging is not something new for the British Council, take a look at this article in the online Guardian. In 2003 they had already create an event using blogs to enrich and inspire dialog across different countries and cultures. They created the event "Big Blogger" where the combination of Western and Middle Eastern journalists joined forces to report from the ground at the first World Summit on the Information Society. The result can be seen on the Web. They were all journalists, so we can expect them to be trained to deliver news on the spot. Journalists can do their live reporting, how about bloggers? Can they do their live reporting?

The rising uproar of citizen journalism and the high increase of online users are perhaps the reason why British Council would like to give its special attention to the Indonesian bloggers in the celebration of its 60th anniversary of service in Indonesia, one of 109 countries in which the British Council has offices. On April 6 British Council Indonesia invited at least 100 bloggers to its British Council Blogger Day, not only to come to meet other bloggers but also to try live blogging which they claimed to be the first live blogging competition in Indonesia.

Despite the one-stop service in Jakarta that was provided by the British Council during its early period in Indonesia, it is now expanding its services other cities. Dina Lucky, director of business services and relations for the British Council Indonesia, said that instead of waiting for costumers to come to the office, it now prefers to come directly to its customers.

I do miss the British Council library that was handed over to the Indonesian government in 2004, yet I can't deny that I was not a regular visitor at closing time. Long distance transportation to the center of the city perhaps was the main reason for my rare visits. I have visited the new location for the library's books, and I found the new place to be quite nice too. I just hope its collection of books and multimedia materials will grow as it did under British Council management.

As stated in its Web site, the main tasks of the British Council in Indonesia are providing the latest information about studying in the U.K.; promoting British education and training; and demonstrating the innovation, creativity and excellence of British arts, music and design. Its main purpose is to build mutually beneficial relationships between people in the U.K. and Indonesia and to increase Indonesians' appreciation of the U.K.'s creative ideas and achievements.

Its work is driven by its strong belief in internationalism, a commitment to professionalism and an enthusiasm for creativity. In that belief they hold themselves to the highest possible standard of integrity. They believe that cultural relations can help individuals and the world community to thrive.

A new blog such as The Exeter blog is surely a great help for English language teachers around the world, as it provides the chance to take the benefit of the world's biggest ELT conferences. The British Council Hub blog that provides online discussions for adult learners at British Council Centers can also be useful for those who do not have the chance to take formal courses due to financial problems or to their residential location far from the city.

The English language has become more and more important as a tool to communicate in these recent days. The number of people who use English as their second language or even just as one of their foreign languages is increasing day by day. Youngsters in Indonesia are now preparing to use the language since their early age. International schools are mushrooming throughout the country. But this blogger day was not exclusively for bloggers who blog in English, it was open for those who came and asked for the invitation through the special Web site for British Council 60th Anniversary. In fact all bloggers who came to this event are Indonesians; there were more international bloggers in the National Blogger Party last year.

Last year, the Indonesian minister of communication and information had inaugurated a special day for Indonesian bloggers, a national blogger day on Oct. 27 in the National Blogger Party. Yet, the "party" might be over if the implementations of the new Indonesian Cyber Law of Information and Electronic Transaction (UU Informasi dan Transaksi Elektronik; UU ITE) are more into blocking the freedom of speaking and the freedom of gaining information on the Internet.

Leo Batubara, vice chairman of the Indonesian Press Council, in his article in the printed national daily Kompas (April 7) explained the paradox of this cyber law. On one hand it was intended to fight pornography, online gambling, blackmail or even threats, but on the other hand it could be a chain to restrict freedom of the press.

Recently the short film "Fitna" uploaded to YouTube by a Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, has sparked reactions from Indonesians. Some articles from wikimu.com's contributors were discussing the controversial issue. Readers were also giving their opinions; some used their objective and balancing views to calm those who found the film to be an insult to their belief. I posted a link to an article by Claire George to show the need of good communication in fighting prejudices. The reaction to this film made the minister ask local ISP providers to block this film; some providers were trying to block this film and caused the blocking of access to the whole of YouTube.

This fact was also raised in the bloggers' discussion during the British Council Blogger Day. Most speakers in that forum agreed that government is needed more for helping to protect the intellectual copyrights of bloggers than for controlling Internet access to information. As an example, there is a case when a blogger saw a printed book using his blog materials, the case went into trial and hopefully the original writer will get back his intellectual property.

While the Law of Information and Electronic Transaction is also helping Indonesia in gaining back trust in cyber transactions, there is also the possibility of using part of this law to perform criminal defamation of press as the mainstream media are also going online these days. Journalists were also browsing the cyber world to help them gain more information quicker. The network gained through the cyber world is another important aspect to help ease the journalistic work. Closing some part of this cyber world would not help the media gain objective views from the global world.

Three years ago a blogger was arrested because his blog post was considered an insult to the president, bloggers were then questioning the freedom of speech. The controversial blog was deleted, but the writer keep blogging, he also came to the British Council Blogger Day. Most bloggers agreed that there are social and ethical guidelines in the presentation of blogs, and each writer does have their own preferences. Cyber bullying was sometimes conducted by anonymous people who pressed their own way of thinking in the comments section. That's why a lot of bloggers prefer to have the comments moderated. There was also some evidence that blogger's names were used in making comments in other blogger's blogs, while it was actually not his or her comment.

The other topics of conversation were mainly about blogging -- how the famous bloggers started their blogs, and how some of them published their books based on their famous blogs. Microsoft was also presenting its Windows Live Writer and Popfly to enhance the bloggers' knowledge in improving the performance of their blogs.

British Council Blogger Day postponed announcing the winner of its live blogging competition that day as there were more bloggers who came with their laptop and the Wi-Fi connection was not reliable enough, they did prolonged the competition for three hours after the meeting and will announce the winner online. Also, there will be three months competition with one particular topic each month, and according to Dina Lucky the competition is open for bloggers either in Bahasa Indonesia or in English.

The British Council is now focusing more into its out of office activities such as the student exchange program between Indonesia and the U.K., where five couples of Indonesian student and a U.K. student will live three months in Indonesia and three months in the U.K. together, experiencing the exchange of cultures. Blogs will be a very unique way to express their cultural shocks, and their interaction with their new community. One couple will stay together like brothers or sisters, so helping each other in coping with the new environment will be challenging and it would really be an interesting content for a blog!

OMNI Published 2008-04-09 09:27 (KST)