Indonesia Australia Forest Carbon Partnership

Through the Kalimantan Forest and Climate Partnership (KFCP) (see KGI magazine March 2010) Indonesia and Australia are working together to support international efforts on REDD Plus (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries).  On 13 February, 2012 in Kapuas, Central Kalimantan, Kang Guru observed the signing of a declaration by 7 village heads whose villages have recently joined the Indonesia-Australia Forest Carbon Partnership (IAFCP).

Pak Dahlan, the Kepala Desa of Mantangai Hulu explained why this was important for his village: “...karena kelihatannya kegiatan ini sangat menyentuh masyarakat langsung dan melibatkan beberapa lembaga yang ada di masyarakat di desa. Jadi kemungkinan ini berjalan dengan baik dan sukses.”

See the whole story of the KGI trip to Banjarmasin, a KGI FOKUS teacher workshop in Bati –Bati and a visit to MTs Al Amin on the KGI Travel Page on the KGI website.

Australia-Indonesia Youth Exchange in Riau

Australian and Indonesian participants of the Australia-Indonesia Youth Exchange Program (AIYEP) spent eight weeks, starting late December 2011, living and working  in communities in Pekanbaru and Rokan Hulu in Riau province. During their time in Riau province, the participants lived with host families in the village of Rambah Hilir Tengah and worked with them to develop and implement community development activities. They also presented interactive cultural performances and English teaching and sporting activities with local school children. Do you know that the Indonesian participants lived and worked in Australia for two months in late 2011 before returning to Indonesia with the Aussie participants?  This involved a two-month homestay and work placement program in Adelaide and on Kangaroo Island just south of Adelaide, in South Australia. AIYEP is an annual program promoting people-to-people links between Australians and Indonesians and is managed by the Australia-Indonesia Institute and the Indonesian Ministry of Youth and Sport. Check out the KGI website for a full report and video of AIYEP 2012.

IndoGym in Yogyakarta

In February this year, the Australian Ambassador to Indonesia,  Mr. Greg Moriarty, visited an Australian-funded gymnastics program for Indonesian youth in Yogyakarta (see front cover). The IndoGym program is conducted by education foundation Tunas Cerdas Gempita and provides gymnastic training to 100 girls and 25 children with special needs from local communities. The Australian Government has granted $19,500 as part of its Australian Sports Outreach Program to provide 20 weeks of free training for all participants of the program. The program is a ‘Gymnastics for All’ initiative designed for children below the age of 10 years and is adapted from an already successful program operating in the state of Victoria, Australia.
The Ambassador said, “This is an excellent example of a program that promotes social inclusion, healthy behaviours and education and leadership opportunities for young men and women. It is important for Australia to support programs like this in Indonesia. Sport is an excellent vehicle for bringing together people of our two countries and building stronger links at all levels of society.”

Australia Indonesia Education Partnership 2012

It is important that all schools in Indonesia provide the highest quality programs to their students and that the teachers who work within their classrooms are of the highest quality possible. Islamic schools are an important part of the Indonesian education system. In Indonesia, there are thousands of schools and a significant percentage of these institutions are Madrasah. The new $500 million Australia Indonesia Education Partnership is working with the Ministry of National Education and Culture and the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MoRA) to help improve access to schools, improve the quality of schools and support accreditation for Madrasah.

The Australia Indonesia Education Partnership provides technical assistance to the Ministry of Religious Affairs via the Directorate of Madrasah Education to support MoRA’s program of preparing Madrasah to apply for National Education Standards (NES). Up to 1500 Madrasah across 21 provinces and in 72 districts will be supported by a mixture of capacity development activities and block grants assistance. MoRA’s goal is to have a majority of Madrasah accredited to the NES by 2014-15.

International Women’s Day

On March 8th, AusAID and Australia Awards joined together to present a full day program entitled ‘Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures’ at the Taman Ismail Marzuki Theater complex in Jakarta. Activities included a forum where Australia Awards alumni met together to listen to keynote speakers talking about building the capacity of, and overcoming the challenges faced by women as they take up their roles in the development of Indonesia. In the afternoon participants were joined by 150 female high school students to enjoy a Talk Show moderated by radio presenter Sarah Gadrie. Panellists included news anchor and Australian Development Scholarship recipient Najwa Shihab, singer and writer Dee Lestari, Suzy Hutomo,  the head of The Body Shop in Indonesia, and Sara Moriarty, Climate Change Counsellor from AusAID. The interactive Talk Show was designed to create an environment where female secondary school students were encouraged to dream big.

“This International Women’s Day, inspirational and successful Indonesian and Australian women will be sharing their career successes, challenges and lessons learnt with young Indonesian women about to embark on their careers,” said the Head of AusAID in Indonesia, Jacqui De Lacy.

Other activities included a photography exhibition of Indonesian women involved in AusAID projects including Australia Awards and Kang Guru Indonesia.

Sue’s Tips for Effective Teaching

Teachers, have you ever wished you could improve your English classroom or the way you teach? Be sure to listen to KGI radio, Series 7700 beginning in mid April for ‘Sue’s Tips for Effective Teaching in the Classroom.’ Listen to Sue Rodger presenting her special tips on preparing yourself before the term begins, what to include when planning your lessons and ways to motivate your students.

There are more suggestions for you about using textbooks, why it is so important to review and revise both grammar and vocabulary, and also hints to improve your classroom management skills. Try them ALL and why not write to Kang Guru with a tip that you would like to share with other teachers - srodger@ialf.edu

Planning Lessons

• Planning is essential – not just individual plans or short term plans but long term plans too. There are many reasons for this, including achieving aims, good timing, covering all skills, giving a variety of tasks and activities, reviewing and giving preparation for exams.
• Timing is an important aspect so you are not rushing either at the end of individual lessons to complete your daily lesson plan but also in the long term so that all topics have been covered adequately by the end of the term before the exam. Don’t forget to leave enough time for review.
•  As you are planning, check that you are covering all the skills equally and not having too many lessons where perhaps writing or reading is the main skill.
• Try to make the topics as interesting as possible - include the students in some aspects of planning the lessons sometimes.
• As you plan you can also check that a variety of activities are presented. If you always give students the same type of task they will get bored and you are not giving them the opportunity to stretch themselves.
•  Include a mixture of activities where students work alone, work in pairs and work in groups. Students need time to work alone sometimes to test themselves. Working in pairs helps students with self-correction and take some responsibility for their own learning. Group work gives students time to explore topics together and talk with confidence.
• Include games, songs and quizzes from time to time. Make them a reward or treat rather than in every lesson.

Quick Fix and ….. shhhh pronunciation

During April and May why not listen to Kang Guru Indonesia’s weekly radio programs to improve your pronunciation. KGI has written some special Quick Fix segments about pronouncing words which contain tricky, silent letters. Letters such as k and p and t which are there when we spell the word but not when we pronounce them - knowledge, psychology and fasten. This is a great opportunity to hear how these words should be pronounced. Hopefully there is a KGI radio station near you. If there isn’t a KGI radio station near you then please tell us! Maybe you can help us get one for you in your area.
www.kangguru.org/broadcastschedule.html

KGI Bilingual Podcasts

What’s a podcast? It is a type of MP3 file you can download to your HP or computer. Did you know there are bilingual podcasts available for free on the Kang Guru website? That’s right! Free, bilingual podcasts to help you with your English. Listen at home, on the bus or at school.  Listen in Indonesian and make notes about the text in English – then listen to the English and see if you had the right ideas. Or listen to the English version and write about it in Indonesian.

Check your notes by listening to the Indonesian version. Teachers, why not set some questions for your students as they listen to one of the podcasts? Go to the KGI website – www.kangguru.org  and click on the podcast link. There are lots of interesting topics to choose from and more are added every few months. Free bilingual podcasts from Kang Guru Indonesia –   what a great idea for all English language students.

KGI In The Classroom

Have you ever visited the KGI website? What did you look at? Many of you already visit and learn from the Quick Fix, Idioms Inggris, Different Pond Different Fish, and the Joeys Pages. But what about KGI’s In the Classroom Page? There are many, many ideas for teachers including MP3 podcasts and PDF activity sheets complete with teacher notes and answer keys. Have you tried them yet? They are easy to download yourself and use in the classroom. Have a look today and try them. KGI is here to help, ok?

Although KGI is currently in a transition phase,  there are still many things happening.For example, recent teacher workshops for FOKUS MTs SA AIBEP schools has meant that lots of materials need to be packed up for workshop participants. These boxes (see above) were taken by Sue and Ayu to Tasikmalaya in February. They contained workshop and classroom materials, posters and prizes. That’s a lot of pre-paration, packing and sending. Thanks Hendra and Ogi

What is ‘Neologism’?

Neologism is a combination of two ancient Greek words “neo” (new) and logos (word). Basically, a neologism is a new word that is being used by native speakers in conversation and text, but hasn’t appeared in a dictionary yet. In fact as soon as it appears in dictionary, it is no longer a neologism - just like bahasa gaul in Indonesia. 

An example: to tweet (to send messages using Twitter), NEET (acronym : not in employment, education or training), etc. But remember not all native speakers know/use these new words. Now can you give examples of a “neologism” in our language?

KANG GURU INDONESIA FANS PAGE

The KGI team is happy to announce that the Kang Guru Indonesia Facebook Fans Page membership has reached over 12,000 people. Can you believe that? And the number is increasing every day. KGI would like to say thank you for being one of our fans on Facebook BUT don’t stop now. Please keep promoting the KGI Facebook Fans Page to your friends, ok? Thanks for your posts and your responses!