Bringing Indonesian culture to schools in New South Wales

During most of 2004 Adi Witono Waluyo from IALF Bali was working with Indonesian language teachers at several schools on the north coast and northern tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. His visit was made possible through a cooperative agreement between the schools in these areas and the Australia Indonesia Institute. Adi is the first Indonesian teacher to spend an extended period of time as a teaching assistant in NSW schools under this agreement.

The main focus of Adi’s visit was to work with teachers and students on cultural activities. These included:

• Music – teaching students angklung and Javanese gamelan. Adi assisted in a workshop on Javanese gamelan at Byron
  Bay. He also introduced Indonesian pop songs and children’s songs to students.

• Dance – teaching Javanese dances such as robyong, Balinese dances such as panji semirang, Acehnese dance such as saman and the Sulawesi dance poco-poco.
• Handicrafts – teaching weaving such as anyaman, puppet making such as wayang kulit, mask making (Balinese and Javanese), paku lipit (Balinese decoration) as well as batik.

Adi also taught typical Indonesian sports and games, such as sepak takraw, bola kasti, congklak, gobak sodor and dam-daman.

With more senior students Adi held discussions about the role of Islam in modern-day Indonesia.

Adi not only taught in NSW but gave two dance performances - at the Indonesian Cultural Night at Coffs Harbour and at the Bali Festival at Byron Bay, sponsored by Australia Indonesia Arts Alliance. He also performed at the multi-cultural concert at the University of New England, Armidale.

As well as learning a few new dances - Irish, Scottish and Nutbush - from friends in Australia, Adi also played 'footy', netball and tennis as well as trying his hand at playing the didgeridoo.

Adi’s contributions to the cultural aspects of teaching Bahasa Indonesia were very well received and many local newspapers wrote articles about the activities he conducted in the local public, private and Catholic schools. Articles appeared in newspapers such as The Glen Innes Examiner, Uralla Times and the Coff’s Harbour Advocate.

Indonesia Australia Language Foundation

IALF Language Centres in Indonesia: