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KangGURU
Travels to Pak Haris picked me up at Juanda, Surabaya’s international airport, and within an hour we were parked outside Radio ‘Suara Pasururuan’ in the city of Pasuruan. I met Louise and Dean there. They are members of AusAID’s ISELP and AVI programs respectively and are based in that bustling East Java city working at pondok pesantren PP Al-Yasini. They have also been speaking with the people at Radio ‘Suara Pasururuan’ and especially with the stations’ six interactive radio program presenters. Radio ‘Suara Pasururuan’ will start playing KGRE in the next few weeks so a big welcome to them and thanks to Pak Subario for allowing KGRE to be heard in Pasuruan. Mbak Astri is the co-ordinator of the presenters and along with her fellow presenters/teachers is very keen to link with KGRE and very keen to become a member of the KGRE English Language Interactive Presenters’ Network. Their talkback, or in other words interactive program has been ‘on air’ for over two years and is already well-known in the area. KGRE hopes to be able to help the program to become even more popular. My hotel for the night was very close to the gigantic electricity power stations at Paiton, East Java. No worries about mati listrik there. Enough electricity for everyone. I worked solidly in Room #20 at my hotel all morning on Monday writing radio programs numbered 5107 – 12. It is always fun making up radio programs and these six programs include Fiona and Caroline and the return of an old friend, Dr Pintar. We even have a new series of radio station promos in every second program AND information about a new Special SMS Competition just for radio program listeners.
We had games and quizzes and even teachers joined in. Club Leader, a class three student named Elvin Arinal, was a bright and enthusiastic leader. She finishes school in May/June but her deputy leader, Novi Merianita is ready to take over the club. The club had already made plans for the hand-over of positions. This is a great idea. Many clubs have this problem each year. Older members leave and nobody is ready to take their place as leaders or organizers.
Tuesday was workshop day at Nurul Jadid. Spanduks were up and members of the committee were ready to start work. Teachers began arriving at the venue at 7.30. By the beginning of the workshop there were 160 eager teachers waiting for the ‘show to go on’. Aussies, Alistair and Paul, ISELP teacher trainers based at PP Nurul Jadid, were there to lend support and to encourage ‘their’ teachers throughout the 6 hour workshop. The committee had worked very hard for many months to make this workshop possible and participants really worked hard to make it a success too. There was a lot of chatter and working together throughout the day and according to Workshop Feedback Forms, the workshop was a great success.
At the small radio station I was greeted by about 50 students who had been invited to join with the interactive meeting. Pak Mujib Hamzah welcomed me to the station and was very well-prepared with his opening remarks. Questions were wide-ranging and in fact the very first question was about the current situation between Australia and Indonesia – the visas for Papuan asylum seekers. Other questions were about KGRE, Australian students and language clubs. A few calls came in from listeners too so that was good. KGRE hopes that the KGRE presenter at Bromo FM, Imam Syafiri, that an English language interactive program can be set up soon.
I flew back to Denpasar early on Thursday morning.
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