Maria Yosephin Widarti Lestari

Abstract

In Indonesia, based on the 2003 Curriculum for Junior school, there are three languages, e.g. English, Bahasa Indonesia and indigenous languages in the group of language. It means that all three languages are taught though in fact the indigenous language is not the subject examined nationally. The government policy to place indigenous languages in education system is meant to be one of the ways to avoid it from extinction. Unfortunately, many problems arose in the teaching and learning process because of the status of the language. The research was carried out in 2 junior schools in Bandung, West Jawa, Indonesia. The schools chosen are based on the location and status in which one is a private school in town (77 students) and the other school is public/state one located in outside the city (74 students). Findings suggested that the students from public school have higher attitudes toward the use of Sundanese language and the Sundanese language learning than students from private school. It is influenced by social and educational factors internally and externally.