Asia Literacy in Australia

PhD work in progress

Andi Irawan, PhD candidate: “Examining potentially Discriminatory Discourse Practices: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Governments’ and their Council of Clerics’ Policy Texts on the Ahmadiyya Religious Minority Groups in Indonesia”

Alleged discriminatory practices against the Ahmadiyya Religious Minority Groups (self-defined sects of Islam) in Indonesia have been an important issue for many parties, both domestically and internationally, including human right activists, researchers, NGOs, and the Ahmadiyya groups themselves. This paper discusses the preliminary findings of my research regarding discriminatory practices in discursive presentations of Ahmadiyya in three decrees issued by the governments (Joint Ministerial Decree 2008) and the Council of Clerics (Religious Decrees 1980 and 2005). One major finding is that some elements of these decrees do tend to discriminate against these groups e.g. by categorising them as ‘heretical sects’ and by labeling their followers as ‘non-believers’ of Islam, while these groups consistently consider themselves as part of Islam and their members as Muslims. The question is: how could this happen in the newly democratic Indonesia?

Novi Prihananto, PhD candidate: “An Examination of the Implementation of the Indonesian 2004 and 2006 National English Language Curricula at Secondary Schools in East Java (A Case Study Proposal)”

In 2004 Indonesia changed its curriculum significantly by introducing competence-based education. For teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at secondary schools, it adopted a complex multi-pronged communicative competence model with 5 sub-competencies, i.e. grammar competence, sociolinguistic competence, actional competence, strategic competence, and discourse competence. At the same time a new approach to teaching the language, called ‘genre approach’, was adopted to replace the older linguistically based communicative language teaching (CLT) approach. Despite these changes, after 8 years of implementation the outcomes of English language teaching are still poor. Researchers have looked at this problem from different perspectives such as teaching methods, teacher competencies, and resources. This study is an attempt to assess the nature of the curriculum itself and the new approach from the perspective of teachers.

Thursday 9 October 4.10pm

Arts Lecture Theatre 3, Arts Building E11

Refreshments to follow until 6pm, LG1

Everyone welcome