Fabiola Dharmawanti kurnia

The fact that many indigenous languages in Indonesia have been dying out as a result of the ineffective way of language planning. This study aims to construct critical thinking indicators and to describe the strategies used for enhancing critical thinking in language planning (LP) concerning local language maintenance, particularly Banjarese language. The qualitative method was employed in which all data were elaborated in a descriptive manner by employing an interview and documentation to collect the data. The former was performed by interviewing the two older native Banjarese persons: The one is a researcher focusing on native languages as well as on Banjarese maintenance; and the other is the main official person in charge of history and tradition maintenance of the Education and Culture Service of South Kalimantan. The latter was done by taking articles concerning Banjarese maintenance and its teaching, and policy documents issued by the government. The data were analyzed through content analysis. The result shows that there is no curriculum design to maintain Banjarese at schools. The local government’s support in maintaining Banjarese does neither run well nor seems to be serious. The existence of local government regulation No. 7/2009 about the local language maintenance does not continue to practical procedures on how local language should be designed and taught at schools. Therefore, the issues of Banjarese should be the main indicator to map needs analysis in local language maintenance and strategies for language planning dealing with the classroom as the way of teaching Banjarese