Review of Dwi Poedjiastuti’s “Cultural Shock Experienced By Foreign Students Studying At Indonesian Universities”
This article
is taken from TEFLIN Journal Volume 20, Number 1 February 2009. It discusses
the culture shock that experienced by foreign students during Dharmasiswa (a program that established
by Indonesian government to give opportunity to learn Bahasa Indonesia) that
they followed. The study focuses on culture shock both in academic and social
life. The result of this study is not too surprisingly for me as Indonesian
student. It shows the weakness of higher education system in our country. I
feel quite same with the foreign student, especially for lack of academic
atmosphere in Indonesian universities.
By spreading
open-ended questionnaire, the writer tries to discover the kinds of culture
shock that foreign students found. In academic life, they feel shock with three
things: teacher’s role and attitude, poorly organized program and local student’s
attitude. They get stressful and difficulties to overcome with these conditions
since they never find these in their home country. In the social life, they
find women-men relationship, community bonding and habits in social gathering
is quite different from what they have.
The writer
has clear discussion toward data that she gathered. She also relates her finding
to some literature that explains why the differences (especially academic life)
occur. The use of qualitative data is very appropriate to describe the culture
shock experiences.
Overall,
this article is easy to understand. It is also useful to read for the
government to revise Dharmasiswa program
to be well-organized as the way to promote Bahasa Indonesia in international
level. For student, it will build their cultural awareness to maintain the
relationship and cooperative learning with foreign students.
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