Kang GURU   Connection Clubs of the Month for 2007

Kang Guru Radio English Connection Club network has over 60  language clubs in Indonesia.
Here are a few of the Clubs of the Month Reports (CARs) for 2007.

English Conversation Club of YPRU – Trangkil, Pati
English Club of Pamekasan Youth – Pamekasan
Sasak English Club – Lombok
Five Conversation Club – SMPN 5 Tuban, East Java

Club Of The Month for April 2007 English Conversation Club of YPRU KGCC #014

YPRU English Conversation Club with a special guest from the American consulate in Surabaya.

This club is based in a boarding school, and the members are very busy with their normal school activities as well as club activities. Here's what they've told us in recent Club Activity Reports.

Club of the Month March 2007
English Club of Pamekasan Youth KGCC #068

In our letters, POUCH bulletins and magazine pages we often talk about Club Activity Reports (CARs). English Club of Pamekasan Youth is an active club with a wide range of activities and they send us regular CARs with lots of information about what they're doing. Here are some examples from recent reports written by club secretary Anis.

‘In December we did our usual programs in weekly meeting every Friday. We did not have a special program here. We just learnt English by means of discussing grammar in accordance with our members' interests. In the speaking activity we talked about the current topic that happened around us. For example the topic we selected was the disasters in our country such as ‘Lapindo Mud’, ‘Flood’ etc. that have made our brothers miserable. Additionally, we always try to have good pronunciation by learning phonetics either based on our handbook or our Oxford dictionary. In fact, we attempt to provide and give vocabularies with their phonetic symbols.

Furthermore, we had listening class twice in December by using September and December Listening and Reading Class Sets. As a result we got improvement in listening skill because the material is so interesting and very helpful for all of our members.’

‘The first time we met again after the fasting month we had a speaking class to discuss certain topics happening around us. Then we learnt English grammar about Quick Fix (the use of ‘ever’ and ‘of course’) in the September Kang Guru magazine. On Sunday 12th November we got an invitation to an English course in Blumbungan. We were supposed to give a presentation in their annual program (Let’s Get Fun in English’). We had many activities there such as introducing our members, club activities, having discussion or presentation about ‘Teenagers’ Lifestyle’ and giving interesting games with a few prizes for the students. Then we got entertainment from Tunas Putra students. We enjoyed mini drama, English songs, poems etc.

On 17th November we did the usual activities like speaking, learning English grammar and pronunciation. After that we worked together to do the ‘Baby Animals’ competition in the October – December Pouch. We were very interested to find the correct answers and draw the pictures of the baby animals.’

Well done KGCC #068 and thank you Anis for such informative and regular CARs.

Club of the Month for January 2007
Sasak English Club in Lombok KGCC #023

The Sasak English Club recently attended an RRI Mataram meeting with Kevin in November 2006 and afterwards at a dinner meeting at a nearby warung. The following day Kevin presented a KGRE Teacher Workshop in Praya and Sasak English Club members were there too.

In a recent report they mentioned two important things English clubs should remember: firstly, it's okay to make mistakes, and secondly, teaching grammar in club meetings is not the best way to help club members improve their English.

‘He told us that we should be brave to make a mistake. And he also introduced our club to the members of the English teacher workshop in Praya. And you know that right now many students came to our club to join us. Most of then come to the club because they are very interested in our club. And to make more people know about our club we try to visit some of the private courses and we teach them by speaking. We do not teach them grammar, we just talk one to each other and most of them enjoy using English in the classroom.’

In an earlier report the Sasak Club wrote about visitors from overseas who have spent some time with the club during their excursions.

‘We had a native speaker of English from Busselton, Western Australia. His name is Michael. He taught us how to speak, he was telling us about Australian culture, how to look for a job in Australia, about Steve Irwin the famous ‘Crocodile Hunter’ and how many people felt sad about his death.

On the first of September our Sasak English Club held a study tour to Senggigi Beach, West Lombok. We chatted with English speakers from Germany. During this study tour to the beach we realized that English language is very important to the outside world. We chatted longer with mark from Germany and he told us about his country's culture, the people, and also about the World Cup 2006 in Germany. We did not know much about Germany before this time. He was also able to teach us a bit about the German language such as: apa kabar = wie geht es ihnen dir, siapa namamu = wie hissen sie, selamat pagi = guten morgen, terima kasih = danke schon and sampai jumpa lagi = auf wiedersehen and so forth.’ Good luck Sasak!

Club of the Month February 2007
Five Conversation Club in Tuban KGCC #006

Five Conversation Club is based at SMPN 5 Tuban, East Java. Here is what they told us in a recent Club Activity Report.

'Our club has a regular meeting on every other Tuesday. In the meeting, of course, we have different activities. However, listening and speaking is our focus because we want to improve English skill.

Starting with our ‘yel-yel’: “F Double C, Good English, Better Future.” We start our activity with listening materials from KGRE then reading materials from the Pouch and the KGRE magazines, pair work (information gap) activity and sometimes games. We usually discuss the answer of the quizzes but sending the information to KGRE is a personal job. It means it depends on the members whether they want to send it or not. Sometimes we have ‘jazz chants’ with Pak Muin, our English teacher. He also sometime plays the radio materials (listening series).

We think the meeting would not be complete without singing a song to close our activity. Using Listening and Reading Class Sets is also very beneficial for us. Even though not all materials are suitable with our topics in our English lessons, but they are helpful for our listening competence'.