Australian military cadets join Indonesian speech contest
thejakartapost.com, Jakarta | World | Fri, October 16 2015, 7:03 PM
One of the cadets demonstrates her Indonesian skills at the Australian Defense Force Academy (ADFA) on Thursday. (ABC via kompas.com)
Australian military cadets joined an annual Indonesian speech contest held at the Australian Defense Force Academy (ADFA) in Canberra on Thursday as part of the academy's Indonesia Day event.
Despite having been only learning Indonesian for two to three years, the cadets revealed amazing abilities, including two participants who are from Cambodia and Vietnam.
The variety of topics chosen by the participants were also interesting: Pancasila, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, former president Soekarno, Megawati Soekarnoputri, bilateral relations, cuisine, tourism and soap operas.
On the panel of judges was Indonesian Ambassador to Australia Nadjib Riphat Kesoema, Amrih Widodo from the Australian National University and representatives from ADFA, Minako Sakai and Paul Tickell.
According to Nadjib, the ability to master Indonesian was needed to strengthen friendship between the two countries as well as increase understanding of Indonesia's politics, economy, development and culture.
Nadjib added that the contest was also effective to promote the language to the people of Australia.
According to a report by kompas.com on Friday, the cadets studied Indonesian for three hours per week from four lecturers available at the academy. In the six semester program, they also learned about Indonesian culture, including Islam and its social and political roles, development policies and their impact, and relations between class, gender, culture and history.
According to one of the lecturers, Nicolaas Warouw, around 120 cadets were involved in the language program.
"
Australian cadets are required to master Indonesian, which will be very important in their careers. This is why ADFA gives attention to the development of the language," said Warouw.
The Indonesian language program available in ADFA is held in cooperation with the University of New South Wales.
Each year, around 10 cadets who participated in the program are sent to all over the archipelago to allow them to gain new experiences and practice their language skills.
Six participants in the contest have actually just came back from Yogyakarta in Central Java and later presented an overview about the country's tourism during the contest. (kes)(++++)
Australian military cadets join Indonesian speech contest | The Jakarta Post
