| TEFLIN |
|
As a professional organization, TEFLIN has a long history. The concern for the quality of TEFL in Indonesia led the faculty members of the English Department of the Institute of Teacher Education (IKIP) Yogyakarta, which has been renamed Yogyakarta State University, to take the initiative to establish it. The first meeting was held in the Sayidan Campus of IKIP Yogyakarta in 1970 attended by representatives from the English Departments of IKIPs and universities in Yogyakarta and Central Java. This forum did not have a name until 1976 when its chairman, Mr. Haroen Wijono, a faculty member from IKIP Yogyakarta coined TEFLIN. Aside from a difficult political and economic situation, TEFLIN was also confronted with teething problems. There were no seminars between 1976 and 1978 and in 1983, as it was accused of undermining the Indonesian Teachers’ Union. The strong commitment among its members to improving the quality of TEFL in Indonesia, however, has given it strength to survive and grow. The long struggle was ultimately fruitful when in 1996 the Director General for Higher Education, Dr. Satryo Soemantri Brodjonegoro, recognized it as a professional organization, and agreed to be its patron.
TEFLIN, since then has grown in terms of memberships and location spread. It has expanded its membership from state higher learning institutions in two provinces (Yogyakarta and Central Java) to all provinces in Central Java in the 1980s, and later to all provinces in Indonesia covering both state and private higher learning institutions in the 1990s during which the frequency of the meeting was reduced from twice a year to once a year. In 1998 an initiative was taken by AKABA 17 Semarang to invite participation from other countries and thus making TEFLIN international. With this change, the TEFLIN International Conference replaces the annual meeting of the TEFLIN National Seminar.
Now TEFLIN has come of age and it celebrated its Silver Anniversary in August 1995. As an organization, it is a resounding success as it has held international conferences sponsored by a state or a private university in big cities in Indonesia. Its success is mainly due to the fact that it is basically a grass-root organization, developing from below, not created by the government, so it can grow naturally. Two developments are worth mentioning. First, its membership now is of two types: institutional and individual. Second, TEFLIN has a (school) teacher development division and an IT Division.
TEFLIN’s activities are held by the National Board and the chapter coordinators. The former is mainly the yearly international conference, which is held yearly in turns by its member institutions, and the former can be in the form of a seminar or workshops, dealing with down-to-earth matters of TEFL, aimed at providing assistance to EFL practitioners. The international conference is aimed at providing all English language teaching professionals and policy makers with a forum for exchanging ideas, opinions, experiences and expectations as well as concerns related to their professions and functions, and establishing networking, which is a requirement for any successful development efforts in this global era. Such a forum is significant at least in three ways. First, knowledge of English language teaching grows very fast in conjunction with the rising demand for the mastery of English by global citizens and the ELT experts’ need for intellectual exercise. Various research studies on ELT conducted in different countries have contributed to the growth of ELT knowledge. This forum can be an effective means of disseminating such a knowledge. Second, teachers of English as a foreign language need to be provided with opportunities to practise English in all of the four modes. This is particularly important since in any foreign language setting, they rarely have the opportunity to practise English functionally. It is my strong believe that meaningful practice makes perfect. Third, exchange of innovative ideas on how to rachieve the standards of English language teaching as mandated by Indonesia’s Education Act Number 20/2003 on National Education System and already formulated further in Government Regulation Number 19/2005 on National Standards of Education, is contextually significant for Indonesian participants. |
