Bahasa Indonesia Diajakan di Harvard University

A Touch of Indonesia at Harvard University

Harvard Phd candidate Veronika Kusumaryati teaches Indonesian to fellow university students in an effort to promote the Southeast Asian archipelago. (Photo courtesy of Rachel Thompson)

When she was younger, Veronika Kusumaryati never imagined that one day, she would move to the other side of the world and attend Harvard, the prestigious Ivy League University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Currently a PhD student at the school’s department of anthropology, with a secondary field in film and visual studies, Veronika added more tasks to an already busy schedule when she began teaching Indonesian to other Harvard students a year ago. Her classes take place twice a week, with each session lasting one and a half hours.

The Jakarta Globe spoke to Veronika about the challenges of teaching her native language and the reasons why Indonesian is not a popular choice among students — at least, not yet anyway.

Could you tell us how you ended up in the US and at Harvard?  

I was born and grew up in the countryside, outside of Yogyakarta. I come from a very humble family, but my parents insisted on sending their children to university. But instead of finishing my engineering studies at the prestigious Gadjah Mada University, I quit and went to an art school in Jakarta — the Jakarta Arts Institute — to study cinema . 

I wrote a thesis on Indonesian horror films with Seno Gumira Ajidarma as my advisor. I had never thought of going to Harvard, let alone as a PhD student.

I met my current primary adviser Mary M. Steedly, a professor at Harvard, during a conference in Chicago. I happened to present my work on Indonesian cinema, and she encouraged me to come and apply for a scholarship at Harvard, and here I am, doing a PhD [there].

How does it feel to be a student of Harvard?

As I mentioned before, I had never intended to do a PhD, let alone in Harvard. I knew Harvard from the film “Good Will Hunting” and “The Social Network,” and that was all. I actually really wanted to go to Columbia at the time, simply because I love New York. I did an artist’s residency there once. But then I met my current professor.

I also met some film people working in Harvard and they showed me around campus. I decided to apply in 2011 thanks to my professor’s encouragement. Harvard is a very difficult [school] to get into, but I am lucky to be here.

There were several people who were committed to helping me and [who] gave me very strong recommendation letters. I applied online, just like everybody else, and I got an acceptance letter one and half months after my submission.

Harvard is full of super smart people, both students and faculty [members]. It’s also a very competitive place. It can be very intense and intimidating, but at the same time, it’s very stimulating. Everybody is basically trying to be the best. 

Sometimes I question myself: Why am I here? Everybody in my class came from Ivy League schools or places like Oxford and Cambridge University. 

Most students also come from a very privileged background, so it’s a bit surreal for people like me. Yet I manage and I feel lucky because Harvard is just the best place for what I want to do. They support my research and they provide everything I need so I can produce good work. 

You have been teaching Indonesian to fellow students for two semesters now. How did the Indonesian class come about?

Harvard had never offered any Indonesian language instructions before. So in 2013, the Department of South Asia received some inquiries from students who wished to learn Indonesian. They tried to find a teacher, and I sort of “volunteered” myself and then, voila, we opened the class.

How does Indonesian fit into the Harvard curriculum?

Harvard offers many language classes. In Harvard, almost all students must take a secondary, or even a third or fourth language besides English. Many students learn French or Chinese for instance. It’s part of the Harvard education.

Major languages like [Latin] or Chinese have their own department, for instance the Department of Roman Languages and Civilization, the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and so on. 

But minor languages — meaning, languages in which not many students have enrolled — are administered by certain regional centers. 

Harvard doesn’t have a department of Southeast Asian studies, which usually includes Indonesian. So unlike Yale or Cornell, at Harvard Indonesian language tutorials and classes are administered through the Department of South Asian Studies.

The Indonesian class in Harvard is considered very small. This is due to the low interest in the country and in Indonesia studies.

 Why do you think that is? Why is there little interest in Indonesia?

There is no promotion and marketing work to “sell” Indonesia as an area of studies, particularly from Indonesia itself.  They may not consider the Indonesian culture and language as an important component in promoting the country.

I am not even comparing Indonesia to China or India. But even when comparing it to Thailand, Indonesian is not a popular option for students. Harvard’s Department of South Asia is offering six Thai language classes this semester and Indonesia might only have one or two classes: basic and intermediate. 

The reasons for this are still mysterious to me, but I believe that somehow, the country and its government should put more effort in making Indonesia visible and heard.

What kind of students enroll in the Indonesian classes?

As I said, the class is typically very small. In the first semester, we had five students and for tutorials, we only had one. 

The students are usually undergraduates and [there are] some graduate students. We have one MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) student who is doing research in Borneo. Another one, from the Harvard Kennedy School, is interested in doing some work on governance in Indonesia. One undergraduate student is planning to take a major in anthropology and has visited Indonesia several times. 

The class has mainly male students. Most of them learn Indonesian to do some research in the country.

What do you think is the most challenging part about teaching Indonesian?

It is difficult to find a good and reliable textbooks for Indonesian language. The two I am using now are from the “Keren!” series (Ian J. White, 1996) which is a bit too Australia-oriented, and the online textbook “The Indonesian Way,” by the University of Hawaii, is really excellent and helpful.

Indonesian is very context-dependent so it’s a bit difficult for students to understand its fluidity and flexibility. They find that some grammatical rules are inconsistent, and they are clueless when listening to how Jakartans in particular speak. What they have learned from the textbook could be very different from what they encounter in real life. I haven’t taught Indonesian before, so I also struggled to understand and explain something that I take for granted.

Teaching a language also means teaching culture. Luckily I am [a student of] Anthropology, so I learn a bit about culture. It’s so much easier — and also so much fun — to explain a word or certain sentence [syntax] when we can also explain in what context the [word or sentence] was said. 

Besides teaching formal Indonesian, I sometimes also introduce the students to Indonesian dialects or accents. I also explain the difference between Indonesian and the Malay language.

Where are you planning to take the classes in the future?

The Department plans to continue the classes and tutorials. Hopefully more students will enroll so we can develop a better program for Indonesian language and studies. There are some initiatives in Harvard to develop scholarly interests in Indonesia. The Asia Center at Harvard has always been generous in granting funds for research and researchers who work on Indonesia. In the Department of Anthropology, we are planning to run an Indonesian reading group starting this semester. So, we will see.

What I can say is this: the Indonesian government should really think about its position internationally and invest in branding efforts outside of [the country]. It should also invest more in developing education within Indonesia and producing more educational material that will help foreigners and Indonesians alike to understand [the language], including good informational books on Indonesia, Indonesian language textbooks for non-[native] speakers, and so on.

Of course, the government can start from many programs and different places, but Harvard has a comparative advantage as it is recognized as one of the best universities in the world.

Are you ever homesick?

I go home every summer so I don’t really feel homesick. I miss my Indonesian friends, because they are awesome people, but I am glad to be able to find a new home everywhere I go.

Sumber : http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/features/touch-indonesia-harvard-university/