Teaching Bahasa Indonesia to Foreigners
through Having Meals in Depot1
by
Luita Ariwibowo and Ike Revita
1 Introduction
There are two prominent approaches in teaching language, namely
traditional and functional approach. The traditional approach is focused
on the form or the structure of the language. This approach has been
longly used until the birth of the functional approach. The functional
approach
is rooted in sociolinguistics which views language as the
system of its speech community. This approach is well-developed as the
answer of the structuralists’ failure--the propponents of the traditional
approach-- explain the aspect of communiation in teaching language.
Consider the following examples:
(1) Dimana kamu tinggal ‘Where do you live?’
(2) Dimana Bapak tinggal? ‘Where do you live?’
Sentence (1) and (2) are interogative filled by question word
Dimana ‘where’, subject kamu ‘you’ predicated by tinggal ‘live’. This is the
way the structuralists analyze sentences. One thing forgot is the use of
the sentence. Is it proper or not? Formally, an interogative is used to ask
question in which the hearer is supposed to give response by answering
1
Presented in International Seminar Teaching Indonesian Overseas FIB UGM Yogyakarta,
9-10 Mei 2007

Indonesian Department, Airlangga University Surabaya

English Department, Andalas University Padang
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that question. This sentence, however, is not interchangeble. In the
sense that sentence (1) can not be adressed to the hearer of sentence
(2) and vice versa. That pronoun kamu, in Bahasa Indonesia, may only
be adressed to those who are of the same age with the speaker but not
to the old is underestimated by the structuralists.
This phenomena is commonly found within interaction between
Indonesian leraners and Indonesian native speakers. Once,the writers
got story from a professor addressed by kamu by an Indonesian learner
he taught. This is a ‘silly’ problem to be considered. To avoid such
missuse in communication, an Indonesian learner is of importance to be
provided with the real context. In the sense that, the Indonesian learners
are introduced with the familiarly natural setting of communication. One
of those settings is having meals in depot.
This paper is aimed at describing teaching Indonesian to foreigners
through having meals in depot. Since having meals is an activity
routinously done by everybody, it assumed that the instict to keep survive
abroad (through having meals) may profoundly motivate the learners to
learn Indonesia. Secondly, the various activities done in depot like
ordering food, asking information about the food, and paying the food can
stimulate the learners to have practice. Hence, teaching Indonesian to
the foreigners is integratively conducted. This paper also describe the
benefits and weaknesses of this method as well as the parameter of the
learners’ success in learning Indonesian.
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2. Having Meals in Depot: Is it Important?
As the ‘Student City’, Yogyakarta is visited by many people from
various ethnics and countries. Some of them are as the tourists and
some others are as the students who want to continue their study. Those
who are staying for quiet long time (more than 6 months) in Yogya is
categorized as penduduk musiman seasonal citizen. This brings about
Yogyakarta becoming heterogenous followed by the mushroom of depot.
Depot is defined as a smallhome selling food (Moeliono, 1990). This
depot is run traditionally and non-traditionally. The traditional depot is
usually run by household with selfservice sytems-- each customer may
take the meal as the like and must be paid before thay have it.
Meanwhile, the non-traditional depot is usually non self-service in which
each customer is served by waiter/waitress. The traditonal depot is
commonly visited by students ‘anak kos ‘ since the taste and the price of
the food is suitable with them. Those who firstly visit
the depot is of
possibility to get confused with the system and the food provided. This
willfirce the toask and dig the information, specially about the food, to the
owner or the waiter of the depot. The question can be ini apa ‘what is
this’, namanya apa ‘what is the name?’, apa rasanya ‘how does it taste?’,
terbuat dari apa ‘what is it made from?’, etc. These questions are some
of the questions might be questioned by the Indonesian learners and are
spontaniously uttered. In the sense that, the communication takes place
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naturally involving the real participants.
This is of great cruciality in
learning process (Cahyono, 1995).
Furhermore, having meals is a kind of activity daily done. At least,
everybody has two meals a day. For Indonesian learners staying in
Indonesia, having mealsin depot is another test to challenge them
whetjhr they can survive or not living in the country where they learn the
language. The learners, therefore, are not recommended to have meals
in the reastaurant or fast food restaurant because the waiter/waitress are
able to spaek, at least, English. If this is so, the aspect of practical and
cultural learning process can not be applied that is contradictive with
traditional depot. Traditional depot is traditionally managed
in which
everything is having to dowith family. This is also reflected by the use of
Indonesian or Javanese language to interact. In this depot, the learners
will find the nuance, in terms of
the visitors dan the waiter/waitress,
indicating the real Indonesian culture such as the culture of queue to take
the food, the culture of thoughtfullness to take the food as much as
needed and consider that those who are in line behind also need the
food, and the culture of honesty when the food had must be paid.
3 Having Meals in Depot: Integrated Skills in Teaching Indonesian
Teaching Indonesian to foreigners through having meals in depot
has fulfilled the four aspects of
language teaching--reading, writing,
speaking/listening, and structure. Consider the following dialogs:
4
(3) V
: Ini apa namanya, Mbak? ‘What is this?’
W
: Ini gudeg. ‘This is gudeg’.
V
: Gudeg terbuat dari apa? What is gudeg made from?’
W
: Dari gori. ‘From gori’
V
: Apa itu gori? ‘What is gori?’
W
: Gori itu nangka muda. ‘Gori is the unri pejackfruit.
V
: Rasanya pedas ya, Mbak? ‘Is it hot?’
W
: Tidak, manis. ‘ No, sweet’
(4) V
: Berapa, Mbak? ‘How much is it?’
W
: Lima ribu lima ratus. ‘Rp.5.500.-‘
V
: (Give the money in 50.000)
W
: Ada uang pas? ‘Do you have any exact change?’
V
: Uang pas? ‘Exact change?’
W
: Uang yang sesuai dengan harga makanan yang mas
makan. Saya tidak punya uang kecil untuk kembaliannya.
‘The number is as much as the price of your meals.I don’t
have any change’.
V
: Uang kecil? ‘The change?’
W
: Kembalian uang mas. ‘The change of your money’
V
: Saya punya uang pas. ‘I have the exact change’.
These two discourses reflect how the Indonesian learners dig the
information about the food and how to pay the food. From these two
activities, three skills in learning process had already done, namely
speaking, reading through the mastery of some vocabularies, and
structure. Other skills can be applied in the non-selfservice depot which
prepares the menu table. So, the learners may read some menus
provided and writes the menu choosed. Eventhough only reading and
5
writing simple information, but this can be the starting point to come to
the more complicated one.
4 The Implementation and The Evaluation
Teaching language is commonly conducted in class. The class is
the replication of the reality exclusively fulfilling the demands of
authenticity and naturalness of use (Johnson and Johnson, 1999).The
classroom can be designed to create the natural speech event.
Unfortunately, the naturalness of the native speakers’ culture can not be
fully presented in the class.The language is dynamical in line with the
dinamicality of the users (Revita, 2006). So, the distinctive feature of
language context is of impossibility to be found/created in class.
This consideration creates another implementation of Indonesian
teaching, namely teaching in class and out of the class with the following
steps:
A. In Class
1. Giving the basic information in relation to the need of the visitors
of depot, starting form taking the food until paying the food (form
the time entering until leaving the depot). This is related to the
concept of universal grammar
(Flynn,1986).Chomsky (1980)
said that universal grammar is a unit of properties, conditions,
and the like which reflects the initial condition of language
learned as the universal grammar becomes the basic to develop
the next language learning.
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2. Giving the basic information about the culture or habit related to
the activities of having meals in depot, such as the culture of in
line, the culture not to mix the food taken, or the culture to use
right hand.
B. Out of the Class
3. Giving the explanation about things that are not understood by
the learners within the activities in depot, like dialog in (4) in
which the learners do not understand the meaning of uang pas or
uang kecil. If the explanation is not needed, let the learners learn
by themselves.
4. Directly or indirectly helping the learners within interaction by
doing the interference.
Such 1 - 2 of teaching/learning process will be applied in depot and
3 –4 teaching/learning process will be applied in class. In the sense that
the theory is given before the learners come to the real ‘world’and the
experience after being in depot will be discussed in class.
This is the first step to come to the next step. This first stepis still
done in group accompanied by a supervisor. Each group may comprise
3-4 students with one supervisor. The supervisor may introduce some
vocabularies related to the food or things related to depot/depot activities.
For instance, gudeg is composed by unripe jackfruit, coconut milk, and
palm sugar as well as the process of making gudeg.
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The next step is individual activity in which the learners are allowed
to have meals alone in depot. In this activity, the learners have to do
things alone and find the way out by themselves. One thing to be
consider is the teacher must inform the recommended depot in order the
learners are safe consuming the food. By learning by doing, the learners
may easily memorize and learn some new informations.
If it is possible,the learners are asked to interact in a meal place
where the level of difficulty getting higher—angkringan. Angkringan is the
place to have meals
where everything is run very traditionally. An
angkringan is not a small house but wagon-like which can be moved. The
keeper of angkringan is usually not able to speak English. So, interaction
in angkringan is very challenged. If it is not possible, the learning can be
conducted by role play in class.
The parameter of the learners’ success in mastering Indonesian
can be measured by the number of vocabularies mastered reflected from
the variations of the lexical choice, the proper use of
the lexicon in
sentence and the proper if sentence use in interaction, this related to the
mastering of Indonesian culture, and the periodical writing report written
by
students
(per
month
or
per
two
weeks).
The
parameter
also,furthermore, can be seen from the standard evaluation designed by
the institution.
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5 The Benefits and the Weaknesses of Learning Indonesian through
Having Meals in Depot
As being explained previously, there are some benefits of applying
this activity as another implication of teaching Indonesian to foreigners,
namely:
1. This media can be applied anytime because depot (whatever
the name) can be found in almost everypart in Indonesia.
2. The learning is conducted integratedly since the four skills of
mastering language are included.This integrated learning is one
way to avoid the boredom of the learners. Sometimes, keeping
learning
one skill is boring. By learning within authentic
language, the learners are challenged to interact naturally
(Rebecca, 2001). In line with this, the research demonstrates
that almost 90% of second/foreign language learners said that
structure is the most boring lesson (Pollard, 2001).
3. This acitvity indicates that learning Indonesian is not only for
academic purpose, but also a means to interact and share with
others.
4. Learning through the activity of having meals in depot may
stimulate the learners themselves
to dig
and to find the
formulas of language as well as the Indonesian culture based on
their own experience (students-based learning). This may ease
the learners to master Indonesian because they learn from their
own mistake. Yule (1996) said that the mistakes the learners
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made are not things to forbid the progress of the second/the
foreign language learners, but the key to actively study applied
by the learners by communicating using the very language.
5. Learning by doing gives good impact to the learners. In class
discussion, the learners may have impressive conclusion. For
example,when they have no exact change to pay and the owner
of the depot does not have the change either, this owner of the
depot will say, ‘You may pay sometimes’. This indicate that the
owner berleives in them and no worry that the customers will run
away. The culture of positive thinking of Indonesian people is
their conclusion.
6. The writing report made by the students is of quite satisfaction
because the report is based on their own experience.
The weaknesses of this implementation are:
1. It is not applicable to those who are blank in Indonesian
because this will be the handicap for the learners.Moreover,the
waiter/waitress cannot speak Indonesian fluently. This problem
can be solved by learners assistance.
2. Since this is related to the food consumed, the problem of
inappropriateness may arise. The learners are of likeliness to
get stomachache. This problem may be minimalized by
recommending certain depots to be visited which guarantee that
the foods are higienis and adaptable to any stomache. The
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teacher/institution may also cooperate with those recommended
depots.
3. This acitvity needs many instructors/supervisors, especially
group activites, unlike in class that only needs a teacher. The
solution is the involvement of the selected college students to
assist the learners.
5 Conclusion
Learning Indonesian to foreigners through having mealsin depot is
named learning from the nature. This learning is regarded effective and
eficient because the learners directly interact with the native speakers by
Indonesian with Indonesian native speakers. Learning by doing and from
their own expreience is much more interesting than just learning in class
or replicative situation. As one of daily activities, having meals in depot is
likeliness to be done by everybody. Furthermore, depot can also be
found
in almost every part in Indonesia. Consequently, this is of
applicability in Indonesia. Teaching Indonesian by having meals in depot
has
fulfilled
the
four
skills
needed--listening/speaking,
structure,
reading/vocabulary, and writing.
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