Speakers
Description
Cuisine is Indonesia’s most fluent second language to the world. Through globally celebrated dishes, Minangkabau culture offers a fresh lens for introducing Indonesia, not through abstract historical narratives, but through tastes savored, smelled, and remembered. This study positions Minangkabau cuisine as an entry point for cultural diplomacy in Indonesian Language for Foreign Speakers (BIPA) instruction. Through a Living Lab in BIPA Pedagogy conducted fully offline across Padang, Solok, and Bukittinggi, diaspora BIPA teachers in Thailand become co-creators in exploring, interpreting, and transforming Minangkabau taste and culinary vocabulary into living teaching materials. They do not merely read about lamak and padeh; they experience them directly in traditional markets, community kitchens, and eateries, alongside the UPGRISBA community as cultural partners and local culinary communities as native speakers. Four iterative cycles of co-design, exploration, experimentation, and evaluation integrate market visits, cooking demonstrations, guided tastings, vendor interviews, and material-development workshops. These explore taste lexicons, iconic dishes from three cities (randang, teh talua, gulai, kalio, soto Padang, karupuak sanjai, sate Padang, nasi kapau, bubur kampiun, gulai itiak lado mudo), and Minang culinary philosophy. Data were collected through vocabulary tests, speaking tests, participatory observation, and interaction recordings, and analyzed qualitatively using thematic analysis. Preliminary findings indicate that the Living Lab not only enhances diaspora teachers’ mastery of taste and culinary vocabulary but also transforms them into ambassadors of Minangkabau taste capable of bringing Indonesia into Thai classrooms. This study offers novelty by positioning cuisine as a language of cultural diplomacy and diaspora teachers as its agents.
| Teaching and Learning BIPA | Inovative BIPA |
|---|---|
| Digital Inovation | Language Models |
| Literature and Translation | Thai and Indonesian Cultural |
| Language, society, and regional relations | Sociolinguistic, Cultural Diplomacy |
| Online / Onsite | onsite |