WHAT CHILDREN LEARN WHEN THEY LEARN FOREIGN CULTURE: THE PERKS OF HAVING CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE

Abstract

As claimed by many linguists, language learning is inseparable from learning the culture. This is due to the fact that we can barely learn a new language without learning the culture attached to the language being learned. There is no harm to learn the cultures of other than ours. For Indonesians, we commonly learn English to enable us in fulfilling our needs and in maintaining our relationships with global world. For foreign citizens, on the contrary, they begin learning Indonesian for a range of motives. Two main backgrounds emphasize these situations. Firstly, Indonesian government has been promoting scholarships which invite young people from countries in the world to have the opportunity to learn the language and cultures of Indonesia, namely “Kemitraan Negara Berkembang” and “Darmasiswa,” held at various universities in Indonesia. Additionally, the growth of Asean Economic Community demands global people from different cultures to communicate in many international scopes. The reasons above inspired the writer to carry out a community service in the form of inviting a foreigner to elementary schools to introduce children to different cultures. A nine-day visit was done by a foreign student of Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta to a Muhammadiyah elementary school in Klaten. The foreign guest was from Uganda, who came to introduce her own culture to the students. A survey was conducted through distributing a questionnaire to the students of class 5 and 6 to find out about their responses after having the foreigner in their classes. It is expected that the results can be a reference for students to raise their awareness and to cultivate an attitude of tolerance by learning about people with different cultures. Moreover, it is also expected that by doing so, we can create mutual and meaningful interactions between cultures. The results show that the majority of students were very enthusiastic to have a foreigner coming to their school so that they could learn new cultures. However, there is a quite surprising response when there were few of them felt displeased because of the color of her skin. It can be concluded that children at the very early stage have got a quite positive response toward people with different cultures; however, they should learn more about diversity among people from different origins.