Association of Systemic Functional Linguistics of Indonesia

Chairperson: Siti Wachidah
Secretary: Ivan
Treasurer: Sri Sumarni
Communication: Pangesti

On 10 November, the SFL activists in Indonesia officially established the Association of Systemic Functional Linguistics of Indonesia.

The event was marked by:

  1. The first national SFL seminar attended by more than 100 participants from different cities in Indonesia. There were around 30 parallel sessions and two plenary sessions. One plenary session was by Jim Martin.
  2. The declaration of ASFLI by Jim Martin
  3. Prior to the seminar, there were other seminars by Jim at Atmajaya University and Jakarta State University, all of which were greatly appreciated.
  4. The event took place at Jakarta State University which is now our headquarter at least for 3 years. The headquarter will move to different a different university every 3 years. For practical reasons, the "Jakarta group" is now in charge of ASFLI (see above).

From the presentations and the panel sessions we learn that:

  1. SFL has been widely spread in Indonesia since some universities have been introducing SFL and other SFL related subjects in their universities.
  2. Since SFL has become a major issue in some graduate schools, our graduates spread SFL further to the neighbouring universities. In Central Java, for example, private universities have incorporated SFL in their curricula.
  3. SFL is now the basis of our national English (communicative)competence standards.Schools are supposed to develop their own curricula based on these standards.
  4. Genres and genre-based approach is now a widespread issue and many teachers are very enthusiastic about it.
Among the audience were graduate and doctorate students who are currently doing their research on SFL. This is the tip of an iceberg. There are alot more doing SFL studies in different cities. It looks like SFL has developed strong roots in the country and we have every reason to hope for further development.