Immersion vs construction: The portrayals of culture in Indonesian EFL learning paradigm

Year 2018, Volume: 14 Issue: 2, 283 - 304, 15.06.2018

Ruly Morganna Sumardi Sumardi Sri Samiati Tarjana

Abstract

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Immersion vs construction: The portrayals of culture in Indonesian EFL learning paradigm
The status quo of English as the world lingua franca (Choi, 2016; Fang, 2017; Kusumaningputri & Widodo, 2018; Liu & Fang, 2017), the increasing role of English as an additional language for nowadays Indonesian generation (Lauder, 2008), and the nature of Indonesian EFL students as multicultural people (Hamied, 2012; Sukyadi, 2015) became the bases sensitizing the role of culture in Indonesian EFL learning. As regards, this study focused on two objectives pertinent to how Indonesian EFL teachers defined culture and conceptualized language-culture relationship, and how the portrayals of culture were nuanced in their paradigm of EFL learning. 15 EFL teachers were engaged and interviewed. As revealed, five varieties of culture-related definitions were shared. They referred to culture as social products, social knowledge, ways of living, communicative behaviors and a communicative discourse construct. Four indicators of language-culture relationship were subsequently conceptualized into language to express culture, language as the cultural symbol, language framed by culture, and language as a cultural mediator. In turn, 10 teachers holding modernist perspective and 5 teachers holding postmodernist perspective provided diverse portrayals of culture in Indonesian EFL learning. The last, the given critical implication supported the latter instead of the former perspective for Indonesian EFL learning.
Information about Author(s)*
Author 1
Author (Last name, First name)	Morganna, Ruly
Affiliated institution (University)	Universitas Sebelas Maret
Country	Indonesia
Email address	[e-mail]
Department & Rank	Graduate School of English Education Department, The Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia
Corresponding author (Yes/No) Write only one corresponding author.	Yes
Author 2
Author (Last name, First name)	Sumardi
Affiliated institution (University)	Universitas Sebelas Maret
Country	Indonesia
Email address	[e-mail]
Department & Rank	Graduate School of English Education Department, The Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia
Corresponding author (Yes/No)	No
Author 3
Author (Last name, First name)	Tarjana, Sri Samiati
Affiliated institution (University)	Universitas Sebelas Maret
Country	Indonesia
Email address	[e-mail]
Department & Rank	Graduate School of English Education Department, The Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia
Corresponding author (Yes/No)	No
Author 4
Author (Last name, First name)
Affiliated institution (University)
Country
Email address
Department & Rank
Corresponding author (Yes/No)

Keywords

Culture; English as a lingua franca; English as an additional language; Multiculturality; Indonesian EFL learning

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