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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