ASILE CONFERENCE 2016

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Presenter

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Michael C Ewing

ASILE conference presentation:
Colloquium 2
The future of research in Indonesian language and culture education

Overview:
In this panel discussion, we present recent research on various aspect of Indonesian language, Indonesian language teaching and Indonesian society, and explore the contributions such research can make to our understanding of how best to teach Indonesian to non-native speakers. We also ask what future directions research can take, that will continue to contribute to the field of Indonesian language teaching. Our four presentations aim to be a jumping off point for extended discussion, which will give conference participants a chance to respond to the ideas presented and to contribute their perspectives, input and suggestions for the future of research and the teaching of Indonesian. The four presentation are:

Abstract:
Colloquial Indonesian: its relationship with Standard Indonesian and its role in language teaching
Michael C Ewing
The University of Melbourne

In recent years the use of colloquial Indonesian has become increasingly prominent  throughout Indonesian society. While in the past standard Indonesian was often conceptualised as a separate and independent variety, recent research has shown that the relationship between standard and colloquial varieties has shifted dramatically in base fifteen to twenty years. For many speakers it now seems more appropriate to consider standard and colloquial Indonesian as registers of one language, with speakers frequently and fluidly between them in many different contexts of use.
 
Whether to introduced colloquial language to students of Indonesian – and if so how – has long been a vexing question for language educators. As the social context of the Indonesian language changes, the ways we approach and answer these questions also need to change. Two models can help inform decisions we make in regard to these issues: the teaching of Arabic with its well know diglossic context, and the teaching of Javanese, with its famous speech levels. The standard-colloquial distinction in Indonesian is different for both diglossia and speech levels, nonetheless both Arabic and Javanese are languages in which students must master multiple highly differentiated varieties in order to be competent speakers of the one language – and it is this that makes them useful for understand how we might better teach Indonesian in the twenty-first century.

Presented as part of Colloquium 2 with:

Do we still need to teach literature?
Dwi Noverini Djenar
The University of Sydney

Re-thinking Language Learning and Teaching Strategy: Producing Learner and Teacher
Yacinta Kurniasih
Monash University

Text analysis, culture & crisis management: Training students to use research tools
Howard Manns
Monash University

​Biodata 
Michael Ewing is Senior Lecture in Indonesian Studies at the University of Melbourne. He is author of Grammar and Inference in Conversation: Identifying Clause Structure in Spoken Javanese, co-author of Indonesian Reference Grammar (2nd edition) and co-editor of East Nusantara: Typological and Areal Analyses. He current research involves the language of Indonesian youth, and the nexus between standard and colloquial modes of grammatical organisation in everyday conversation. Prior to coming to Melbourne, Michael taught English in Indonesia at Syiah Kuala University and Lampung University.


​Contact Details
Michael Ewing
​Melbourne University

E: m.ewing@unimelb.edu.au