INDONESIA’S CULTURAL DIPLOMACY ON THE CONDUCT OF INDONESIAN LANGUAGE FOR FOREIGNERS PROGRAM IN THAILAND (2014-2019)

Abstract

All the ASEAN countries have started the era of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015, where all the people have been encouraged to have a foreign language skills, especially one more of ASEAN languages to benefit them in preparing the AEC. This brings benefit for Indonesia in implementing Law No.24 of 2009 Article 44 relates to Indonesia’s national interest which is for the improvement of Indonesian language role at the international stage. As one of the ways is implementing the law into the conduct of Indonesian language for Foreigners Program (Bahasa Indonesia bagi Penutur Asing (henceforth referred to as BIPA)) in Thailand. Thailand is the gateway of Southeast Asia, where many business and tourists come to Thailand. It encourages Thai people will prepare for the AEC to have a foreign language skills, where the competitiveness will increase in the era of AEC. Thailand is important for Indonesia in implementing the law to achieve the national interest. BIPA is a comprehensive program, where it referenced to the CEFR competency system (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (henceforth referred to as CEFR)) that uses communicative competency model. Indonesia’s government including the public involvement designed the BIPA activities based on communicative competency model to promote Indonesian language and culture in Thailand, which are creating BIPA book and BIPA communicative activities. This research thesis utilizes a qualitative approach, which is utilizing the primary and secondary data to support the research. In this thesis, it uses the concept of soft power, public diplomacy, and cultural diplomacy as the theoretical framework. The author would like to analyze the implementation of BIPA in Thailand including the BIPA activities and its effectiveness measured by the improvement of BIPA students' self-development during the learning process within BIPA student participation as the indicator. This research describes the cultural instrument as soft power in which is considered as cultural diplomacy strategy to promote Indonesian language and culture through the conduct of BIPA by providing the BIPA book and BIPA communicative activities. Those BIPA activities have given a cultural influence and creating Thai people's interest in Indonesian socio-culture, which means it has achieved the cultural diplomacy mission as a result of cultural penetration through BIPA activities in Thailand.