Why do we use Keren?

 

Keren! has not been designed as a textbook for the tertiary level, but for high schools. The topics are, therefore, often quite juvenile in nature. So, why are we using the book then? Is it appropriate for university students?

Despite its shortcomings we think that Keren! is suitable for the tertiary level. Other universities in the US and in Australia are also using Keren! as their textbook.

Indonesian is classified in the US as a "less commonly taught language" (LCTL). Publishing textbooks for LCTLs is not a profitable endeavour. For this very reason there are only four textbooks for beginning Indonesian. One of the four is Keren! – previously published under the title "Bahasa Tetanggaku". The three alternatives to Keren all have their merits, but they have one major shortcoming: They are all based on an approach to language learning known as the audio-lingual, audio-visual method, which became popular in the late 1960ies, and remained the predominant method of language teaching for almost two decades.

New research has shown that the audio-lingual, audio-visual method, which is based on sentence repetition drills, produces speakers who like parrots can reproduce many things, but are often unable to create anything new or spontaneous. They are typically also not able to use the learned patterns fluently in natural speech.

Here is an example of a typical drill exercise:

Ini seterop namanya. (hotel) -- This is called syrup.
Ini hotel namanya. (rumah)
Ini rumah namanya. (restoran)
Ini restoran namanya. (yang itu)
Yang itu restoran namanya. (lemper)
Yang itu lemper namanya. (teh)
Yang itu teh namanya. (seterop)
Yang itu seterop namanya.

One of the reasons why we don't want to adopt a textbook based on the audio-lingual method is that the approach is not very stimulating.

Compared to this kind of pattern drill, the approach taken in Keren! is much more communicative. The communicative approach is helpful in promoting learning by providing:

  • activities that involve real communication
  • activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks
  • language that is meaningful to the learner

The objectives of Communicative Language Teaching are:

  1. students will learn to use language as a means of expression
  2. students will use language as a means of expressing values and judgments
  3. students will learn to express the functions that best meet their own communication needs.

Keren! is the only available textbook using the communicative approach. Currently there are two new textbooks in production that may be available within the next few years. Once available we will review them and decide whether they are better suited to the needs of our learners.

In case you are not too happy about the rather juvenile language of Keren, please keep in mind that we only use the text book in the first semesters. Beginning with IND 202 you will be gradually exposed to authentic texts, and in the third year you will learn to read more complex texts on a variety of relevant topics.

 

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