By: Yella Dezas Perdani

BIPA program (Bahasa Indonesia bagi Penutur Asing)

          More than 700 international students from 77 different countries study Indonesian every year. This is because the Indonesian language is in high demand for a variety of reasons, such as for school and work. The foreign speaker is not only in Indonesia, but also in the country where they were born. Students in Asia, Australia, the United States of America, and Europe who want to learn Indonesian have been able to take Indonesian language classes in many different places. Indonesian was ranked fifth by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the language with the most speakers. In 2012, there were as many as 4,463,950 Indonesian speakers. It has made the Indonesian government more and more determined to keep making Indonesian an international language. Through the Ministry of Education and Culture, the BIPA program (Bahasa Indonesia bagi Penutur Asing), or the Indonesian Language for Foreign Speakers program, was started in the 1990s. Its goal is to preserve, develop, and spread the Indonesian language. It has important social, communicative, scientific, academic, political, and other functions. The BIPA program helps people learn how to read, write, listen, and talk in Indonesian. BIPA learning is a possible event that would show people around the world the Indonesian language and culture. Then, it is now taught in formal and informal educational settings. One good thing about the development of the Indonesian state in many areas is that non-Indonesians are becoming more interested in learning Indonesian. BIPA is also in high demand not only in Asia, but also in a wide range of countries in Europe and the United States.

                Based on information from an interview with a BIPA instructor, the lowest level skill that BIPA students need help with is their ability to listen. Even though there are many e-learning tools, the lecturer still has trouble helping students improve their listening skills. So, students need to have access to e-learning tools that can help them practice and get better at listening. All parts of human life, including education, should follow the development of technology. Designing digital learning materials is one way to adapt technology development in education and that e-learning media is one way that technology can be used in education. One form of e-learning that can be used is the audiobook. An audiobook is a book that has been read out loud until it is no longer a book but an audio file. It’s hard to learn how to listen in a second or foreign language if you don’t hear enough Indonesian. The student’s BIPA program must match up with the relevant exposure. When making competency targets or learning outcomes from listening learning, you must think about a lot of things about the student. For example, you must think about the student’s level of skill, his or her goals for learning Indonesian, the length of the BIPA learning program, the student’s cultural background, and the student’s skills.

Students who use e-learning media but don’t have good or enough listening skills will find it hard to figure out what’s in the audio or video. In terms of morphology and phonology, students will also have trouble. Also, the use of intensive listening materials lets students hear how a native speaker uses different tones. The students could see how the language was used because the audiobook was made into a video. In listening activities, there are several steps: figuring out what sounds are, understanding them, figuring out what they mean, and remembering what they mean. Also, there are two kinds of listening: listening one way and listening two ways. The audiobook is a bottom-up activity for listening that can help students understand enough of what they heard. The audiobook is a type of intensive listening because it lets students hear the lecturer or another narrator read the written text in a clear voice.

Listening is one of the language skills taught in BIPA and also one of the most difficult skills for students to master. It is difficult to develop second and foreign language listening skills in the absence of Indonesian language exposure. The relevant exposure must adhere to the BIPA curriculum of the student. The preparation of competency targets or learning outcomes from listening learning must take into account several student-related factors, such as the level of student competence, the student’s objectives for learning Indonesian, the length of the BIPA learning program, the student’s cultural background, and their skills. The use of e-learning media by students with inadequate or inappropriate listening skills will result in difficulty identifying the audio or video content. Additionally, students will have trouble with morphology and phonology. In addition, the use of intensive listening material allowed students to hear various intonations of a native speaker. The audiobook, which was created as a video, allowed students to observe the language in use. A series of processes comprise listening activities: the identification of sounds, the process of understanding, interpretation, and the process of storing sound understanding. In addition, there are two types of listening: one-way and two-way. The audiobook is a bottom-up listening activity that can aid students in understanding sufficient linguistic elements of what they heard. The audiobook is classified as intensive listening because it enables students to hear a clear spoken version of written text read by a lecturer or other narrator.

In conclusion, BIPA’s most difficult language skill is listening as Indonesian language exposure is needed to develop second and foreign language listening skills. Student exposure must match BIPA curriculum, the level of student competence, their objectives for learning Indonesian, the length of the BIPA learning program, their cultural background, and their skills must be considered when setting competency targets or learning outcomes from listening learning. E-learning media will be hard to identify for students with poor listening skills. The video audiobook showed students how language is used. Listening involves sound identification, understanding, interpretation, and storage. One-way and two-way listening exist. Bottom-up listening activities like the audiobook can help students understand enough language. Because a lecturer or other narrator reads the text, the audiobook is intensive listening.