Developing Learner Oral
Communication in Indonesian Multicultural Context
Luciana
As English is getting more widely
used among non-native speakers throughout the globe, its spread sheds lights new
dimensions on its sociolinguistic and sociocultural aspects. This in turn affects
the English teaching paradigm in schools. In particular, the influence becomes
a critical issue in Indonesian multicultural classrooms. A model of speaking
positing native speakers of English as a sole reference in teaching English in
Indonesian multicultural context cannot be fully justified. The model
inevitably should take into account the multicultural dynamics that students
bring to the classroom. Embodying cultural insights in students’ development of
oral communication is a truism worth discussing. Yet, given the subtlety and the delicacy of
culture, the teaching of oral communication in Indonesian multicultural
classroom poses a great challenge for the teacher of English. The teacher should
adequately lay the foundations by establishing the learners’ attitudes of
curiosity and openness-two determining factors to create an equal and shared
communication. Within this framework, this study argues that the teaching of
oral communication cannot be merely confined to a linguistic straitjacket
mechanism laden with frozen expressions.
While the expressions are of great importance to develop, the teaching
should go beyond this scope by aiming at the development of culturally
interactional skills. It means learners are to be equipped with a model of
analysis sensitizing their awareness of contextual and sociocultural facets of
a communication by cultivating the knowledge of themselves and others. Serving
as the content schemata, the knowledge would enable them to develop their oral
communication rooted in their understanding of their own culture and others’.
Based on the sociocultural grounds, the teaching should facilitate students
with skills of interaction consisting of negotiation of meaning and management
of interaction. Within this interwoven top down and bottom up processing, at
the level of pedagogical and practical level, the teaching of oral
communication would be realized by the adoption of ‘Three Is’
(Illustration-Interaction-Induction) that enables learners to work with real
data of the spoken language, develop culturally sensitive ‘talk’ about
language, draw conclusions, and apply the knowledge to their communication.
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Luciaana. (2005,
December). Developing learner oral communication in Indonesian
multicultural context. Paper presented
at the 53rd TEFLIN International conference,
Website: www.geocities.com/eltindonesia
Email: eltindonesia@yahoo.com