Abstract
This study was a qualitative case study conducted to investigate the oraland written language proficiency of an Indonesian bilingual child living inThe Ohio State, USA. There were three research questions guiding thisstudy as follows: (1) how the bilingual Indonesian child used thelanguages she spoke in oral and written forms?, (2) how was the child�soral proficiency for each language she spoke?, and (3) how was the child�swritten language proficiency for each language she spoke? The data in thisstudy were gathered through analytical observation sheets, semistructured interviews, audio and video recording and transcriptions, andreading aloud and writing scoring. Then, the data were analyzed usinginductive analysis such as doing field work to observe and recording thedata, developing topics and categorizing the data into categories, refiningand coding the data into more specific patterns to see the themes of thedata, and seeking for narrative structures and visual representations.Based on the results of the study, there were three points concluded. First,my focal student and her community chose different languages tocommunicate based on the listeners� cultural background, age, and gender.Second, the Indonesian parents living there had an awareness of theimportance of heritage language in spoken and written forms. Third, thestudent� oral and written language proficiency in English were higher thanin Indonesian and Javanese. In conclusion, the student needed more spacefor developing her abilities in Indonesian and Javanese.Keywords: bilingual, bilingualism, biliteracy, language proficiency
Highlights
Indonesia is a big country consisting of a lot of bilingual and multilingual people as most of its people speak two or more languages in their daily lives
The Indonesian government placed a lot of importance on teaching these languages as indicated in the curriculum which the government demands schools to teach the vernacular languages as the local content subject, the Indonesian language and English as compulsory subjects
This study investigated the oral and written language proficiency of an Indonesian bilingual child living in the US
Summary
Indonesia is a big country consisting of a lot of bilingual and multilingual people as most of its people speak two or more languages in their daily lives. Most of Indonesian children acquire their ethnic language first and study the Indonesian language as the official language at elementary schools. The Indonesian language functions to communicate with other people from across Indonesia because they speak different ethnic languages. There are three classifications of language among the Indonesian people as follows: (1) the national language (bahasa Indonesia/ Indonesian language), (2) the vernacular languages or ethnic languages, and (3) foreign languages (Nababan, 1982, cited in Nur, 2003). The Indonesian government placed a lot of importance on teaching these languages as indicated in the curriculum which the government demands schools to teach the vernacular languages as the local content subject, the Indonesian language and English as compulsory subjects.
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