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literature in the form of written documents such as letters, books, scripts, and others. People who do not have alphabet in their language are known as people
with oral tradition. People with oral tradition will transmit the cultural material orally from one generation to another.
Most of Papuan tribes did not have their own alphabets. They were accustomed to use the oral tradition. Slamet 1964 points out that Papuans, Flores
and Kei are people with oral tradition. They do not have any alphabets or written record on their history and traditions. Instead, they tell their values and traditions
orally from generation to generations through symbols, ceremonies, songs, myths, and stories p.25. This background rendered to the missing of normal process of
abstraction, where language was its main agent. Most of the Papuan seminarians were unable to represent language in writing form, and vice versa namely coding
and decoding. As the consequences of the oral tradition, most of Papuan seminarians were not able to compose sentences incorrectly both in Indonesian
and English. Concerning the used for teaching and learning process in Papua, Surya
2013 claims that the main problem of education in Indonesian is the lack of good teachers and appropriate methods. Nowadays, the technique used in Papua
such as rewriting the materials from the blackboards without emerging comprehension of the students is useless p.126. His statements indicate that in
teaching Papuan seminarians, the technique which focuses on writing activities must be avoided since it does not strongly cultivate students’ understanding in
learning.
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c. The Overview of the Basic Disposition of Papuans
Papuan seminarians tend to have unique perspective toward teachers and educations. Majority of seminarians experience the sense of inferiority in school
because teachers usually come from different regions with good quality of education. Robbins in Munro 2013 describes “diminishment” as discourses of
race, wildness, childishness, backwardness, primitiveness, and temporal “behindness” that can cause humiliation and a sense of inferiority p.27.
Diminishment is coupled with nation-state and local discourses that inflate the transformative potential of education.
It is worth nothing that the migration which happened in Papua also brings impacts to Papuans’ education. Based on Upton 2009, the migration has also
limited the educational and employment opportunities of indigenous people, creating hostility towards the newcomers among indigenous people and resulting
in an alienation from the Indonesian nation. For urban areas, education levels in Papua are better than for the nation as a whole. However, for rural areas,
education levels in Papua are worse than for the nation as a whole. It is equally important to understand that the quality of teachers also
defines the output of the students in an area. According to Upton 2009, teachers in Baliem Valley area in Wamena are often inexperienced and those who are
experienced have a lack of interest in their teaching jobs. Besides, the teachers are poor of teaching methods, have no proper assessment of students’ progress, have
no preparation for classes, and a lack of materials and facilities.
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These statements are strengthened by Munro 2013 who describe that the quality of teaching is questionable since there is the fact that teachers are absent
during school hours approximately 30 percent. Meanwhile, Surya 2013 believes that the keys for successful learning in Papua are a good teacher and the
appropriate method p.125. A teacher who is respectful of both process and performers will ultimately improve the product, both the performance and a
successful student outcome. Related to students’ comprehension, Krashen 1981 in Willis 2010
stated that physical structures or neural networks in brain are influenced by stress. Neuroimaging studies reflect the influence of stress and pleasure on the filtering
of sensory input that enters the brain determines whether the information goes to the thinking brain or the lower, involuntary reactive brain. When the stress directs
sensory input to the lower brain, the input does not become consolidated as stored memory. Hence, the students’ comprehension of the first or second language
occurs when they are able to get the message of each language in low anxiety levels.
d. The Overview of the Social Life of Papuans
Merriam and Kim 2008 highlight the learning of non- Western adults which are communal, lifelong and informal, and holistic. In contrast to how
Westerners view learning as individual, non-Westerners tend to view knowledge as communal. From this communal perspective, learning is the responsibility of
all members of the community because it is through this learning that the community itself can develop p.73. It means that the knowledge gained is to be
