BIPA Teacher Education: Meeting the Challenge and Opportunities to Create Qualified Teachers

The internationalisation of the Indonesian language has sparked off the new trend in the conduct of Indonesian as a foreign language (commonly known as BIPA) programs in the country and across nations. Vast number of Indonesian language education as well as the increasing interest among non-native speakers to learn Indonesian mark the rising of the importance of the Indonesian language mastery. Unfortunately, this positive situation is not coupled with the sufficiency of qualified BIPA instructors due to, among other factors, lack of BIPA teacher training and education in formal education domain. The intention to tackle the challenges has emerged at the English Department, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia together with the attempt to renew and develop the curriculum by integrating BIPA education subjects. The analysis was done upon documents documenting the process and the documents serving as the products of the curriculum development. The entire process has resulted in the novel graduate profile, description of competencies acquired, the inclusion of BIPA education subjects in the new curriculum, and the provision of modules serving as the main materials for candidates BIPA teacher. This paper, eventually, aims to provide the brief overview of the BIPA education curriculum development embracing its rationale, process and final design of the curriculum at the institution.