BIPA Strategies: Teaching Indonesian to the World

The primary focus of this research is to determine the effectiveness of Bahasa Indonesia for Foreign Speakers (BIPA) and to investigate the BIPA learners’ and teachers’ perspectives in identifying the issues arising during learning-teaching processes by seeking its concept, problematization, and urgency. A qualitative descriptive analysis was used as the design of this research. Data were collected through interviews, document studies, and observation. A semi-structured interview strategy was conducted to interview 35 BIPA learners and teacher informants from Yogyakarta, Bali, and Makassar. Various important materials, such as BIPA learning-teaching guidelines, syllabi, and other instruments, as well as the manual and official documents of APPBIPA, were gathered. Observations were made in a BIPA learning-teaching environment to examine teacher-learner interactions and continuing learning results. Data were analyzed using the Seiddel model. The results of this study indicate that the key problems in teaching Bahasa Indonesian to Foreign Speakers are disparities in participants’ linguistic backgrounds, the complexity of Indonesian grammatical structures, and the understanding of Indonesian culture. Thus, it is conceivable to infer that BIPA utilization in learning-teaching processes is an attempt to make BIPA learning more relevant, practical, and in line with the demands of foreign speakers interacting with local communities.