Why Getting
Familiar with English and Indonesian Distinctive Features is Vital
Odo Fadloeli
Indonesia is a developing country
with a very strategic geographical location between the Asian Mainland and
Australian continents or between the indian
and the Pacific oceans. This country is rich not only in natural and tropical
agricultural products but also in its heterogeneous ethnics and cultures. Each
ethnic has its own regional language and dialects used for intrapurposes
(communication with people of the same ethnic); but the members of this ethnic
also have to employ another language, the Indonesian language, for interpurposes (communication with people from other ethnic
groups). Contacts with people from the rest of the world and the need for
technical literacy, however, make it absolutely necessary for them to acquire
another more widely accepted language, that is, English. From the linguistic
standpoint, it is hard work for an Indonesian to acquire three languages almost
simultaneously, but there is no way to escape from doing so, or they fall
behind in science and technology. It is the task of linguists and language
teachers to overcome this problem; consequently, the language teachers have
more of a burden than the students as they have to involve themselves directly
in the language-teaching problem. The greatest barrier to break is how to embed
one or two other language systems while there is already a permanent system
within the students.
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Fadloeli, O. (2003, October). Why getting familiar with English and Indonesian
distinctive features is vital. Paper presented at
the 51st TEFLIN International Conference, Bandung, Indonesia.
Website: www.geocities.com/eltindonesia
Email: eltindonesia@yahoo.com