Some notes on the teaching of standard Indonesian to speakers of Irianese Indonesian

Abstract

Irianese Indonesian (II) is spoken in Irian Jaya. It is a non-standard variety of Bahasa Indonesia (BI). It differs from Standard Indonesian (SI) in four respeots: phonology, morphophonology, lexicon, and syntax. II is the first language of most of the primary school students in Abepura, a small town in Irian Jaya, where observations that form the basis of this report were made. SI, which is taught from the first grade on in these schools, is never used outside the classroom. Those two differences, i,e. different language characteristics and functions, give rise to problems of teaching SI to II speakers in the schools. But other problems also beset the teaching of SI. Different socio-economic backgrounds, the use of culturally different, if not irrelevant, materials, and misunderstanding of the different functions of SI and II and accordingly the goals of teaching SI complicate the problems. The standardization of curriculum and teaching materials, which has its own merits as far as efficiency and economy go, does not alleviate the misunderstanding. Better teaching methods and materials are needed to make the students capable of using both II and SI in their appropriate contexts. So is an evaluation research on the teaching of SI in Irian Jaya.