Indonesia is now confronting globalization and ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). The capability of a field should be supported by language proficiency.

In the opening of International Language Festival ‘World Literacy’ on Tuesday (10/05) at Mini Theater of Universitas Muhamadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY), Dean of Language Education Faculty (FPB) of UMY Gendroyono, S.Pd., M.Pd. stated that students should focus on their study area they learn and should master foreign languages.

He told that a lot of Filipino nurses work in Australia. “Australia needs approximately 4,000 nurses each year, but the county can only provide a half of the demands so that nurses form other countries come to work there. The Filipino nurses can work in the country due to not only their capability but also their good language proficiency,” he conveyed.

He said, “I got information that the ability of Indonesian nurses, in fact, is better than the Filipino nurses. Indonesian nurses are well-known for their patience, but their language proficiency is not as good as the Filipino nurses.”

Students are now facing a competition of both study area and language proficiency. “Hence, student must learn foreign languages, not only English but also other languages such as Spanish. The more languages you master, the more occasions you get to work abroad, to broaden links, and to study with scholarship,” he ended.

Additionally, International Language Festival (ILF) was organized by Self-Access Center (SAC) of UMY on Tuesday-Thursday (10-12/05). Chairperson of SAC of UMY Lanoke Intan Paradita expected to enhance students’ interest through the theme of ILF ‘World Literacy’.

Many people argued that literacy was only dealing with reading. “Indeed, it is in regard to reading for pleasure, but a few people are aware of it. Therefore, the ILF invites students to read since the activity is exciting,” Lanoke contended.

She claimed that Indonesian students should enhance their language proficiency and the way to improve it is from reading habit. “SAC is now acting as a trigger for students to love reading,” she told.

The schedule of the ILF was a big Drop-In Center (DIC) Class that the speaker was Angela from the United States of America, language classes (10 languages), Talkshow of ‘Literacy Beyond Borders’, Movie Screening of ‘Dead Poet Society’, Story Telling and Poetry Reading Competition for high school students, Photo Contest and Short Story Writing Competition for public.