Mother Tongue-based Literacy Programmes: Case Studies of Good ...

The learners in KFBI try to take the knowledge, skills and experiences learned in solving the problems astheir own and apply them to other situations.The limited available human resources have adversely affected the KFBI programme. Also, tutors haveneeded more training in facilitating adult learners, developing curriculum, and arranging classes.Supervision from the district leadership is weak. Although the leadership has supported KFBI withwords, the understanding of what needs to happen to maintain the programme is still inadequate.Recommendations1. Find ways to fund the spread of this programme throughout Indonesia so that other ethnic groupscan enjoy the fruits of the KFBI programme.2. For all ethnic groups in Indonesia to have the feeling of language equality, programmes like KFBIneed to be conducted in all locations.3. This dual-focus programme needs to be tried out in several environments, such as in mixed languagecommunities and in more economically developed areas.ConclusionThe KFBI programme has benefitted the people of Cibago in many ways, especially in improving reading,writing, arithmetic, communication and functional skills. The learning process was always based onthe expressed interests and needs of the learners, so they enjoy learning and want to understand thematerial. Materials used in the learning activities incorporated interesting media for learners becauseexplanations complemented with pictures are more easily understood.In the KFBI programme, learning activities in Phase I exclusively used the mother tongue, that is,Sundanese. All learning activities, media and evaluations used Sundanese. Learners understoodreading, writing and arithmetic material more easily because it was presented in the language familiarto them. In Phase II, learners were introduced to Indonesian and it was even more prominently used inPhase III. Finally, learners are now able to communicate in Indonesian more fluently. They also have selfconfidenceand understand the meaning of the television programmes they watch.In addition, the KFBI programme improved community awareness about the importance of familyeducation, family and environmental health, nutrition and so on. Learners, tutors and organizers ofKandaga Mas/CLC as well as Cibago residents gave meaningful contributions to the programme, sochallenges could be addressed as they occurred. The survey results, using an Informal Reading Inventory(IRI) in both Sundanese and Indonesian, demonstrated clearly that the KFBI programme improved thereading ability of the participants. Out of four possible levels from beginning literates to proficientlifelong learners, the residents of Cibago are at level 2 for Sundanese and level 1 for Indonesian. This IRIinstrument demonstrated that the majority of the learners are at least semi-literate after the interventionof the KFBI programme.The success of the KFBI programme in Cibago should be replicated in other locations in Indonesiabecause of the variety of cultures and many local languages.[ 127 ]