Kang GURU
Travels to Jakarta and TEFLIN, December 2007
After a very nice start to the weekend in Bali, Kevin left for Jakarta on Sunday afternoon. Kevin and other members of the Kang Guru team, along with IALF Bali staff, were going to attend the 2007 TEFLIN Conference at
the State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta. Other activities included a presentation of Kang Guru in Indonesia at L4PTK, the Indonesian education department’s language training center for teachers plus something a little different - a workshop at the Indonesian Defense Forces Language Training Center at Pondok Labu.
The Garuda flight left Ngurah Rai at 3.25 pm and lucky for Kapt. Kang Guru, it was a full flight. In fact, not enough seats for all the passengers who wanted to fly to Jakarta that day. All seats full so as a Frequent Flyer (59 flights during 2007) Kevin was upgraded to Business Class and that was nice. A big seat, lots of leg room and a nice meal. However Kevin slept most of the way to Jakarta. Kevin actually quite likes sitting down the back of the plane.
On Monday morning Kevin went to the Indonesian Defense Forces English Training School in South Jakarta. It wasn’t the first time Kang Guru has worked with the school. The last time was just a few years ago. The journey to the school took 90 minutes by taxi from his central Jakarta hotel to get there as the traffic was dreadfully busy and congested – normal for Jakarta, according to the taxi driver anyway. Kevin met with three groups of people from the defense forces – army, air force and navy. The students were just finishing their English language training courses and were about to go back to their units throughout Indonesia. The three activity sessions were fun and very light-hearted however they apparently enjoyed them a lot. There were music quizzes, language activities and games PLUS prizes too. They really liked that part.
Major Barbara Tipper from the Australian Army has been based at the training school for the past three years as the only native speaker teacher/trainer there. Barbara loves working there but is (sadly) due to return to Australia in January. Barbara has enjoyed the work and will always have fond memories of her time in Indonesia.
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On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning Kevin attended TEFLIN – Teaching …. – along with Denise Finney, Manager of IALF Bali, Sue Rodger, Kang Guru’s ELT advisor, Ogi from Kang Guru and Indah from IALF Bali. Ana and Jeanette were also there together with Caroline and Zuli from the LAPIS-ELTIS program from AusAID. Kang Uru and Ialf had a promotional stand at TEFLIN so that teachers could look at what there is available for them to use as teachers. Ogi and Indah were quite busy talking to people about Kang Guru and IALF, handing out free goodies an taking orders for materials and courses. TEFLIN 2007 was held at the State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta, Jl. Ir. H. Juanda No. 95 Ciputat 15412, Jakarta Selatan.
Sue Rodger from Kang Guru gave a presentation to teachers entitled ‘Listening Activities that work in SMP and SMA Classrooms’. It was well received by the participants and generated quite a deal of interest in Kang Guru too. Caroline and Zuli gave a presentation about their work with LAPIS-ELTIS while Jeanette and Ana talked about their work writing the series of English language books for classrooms entitled 'Flying Start' available now from Erlangga Press. The next major conference for English teachers will be the conference in Bali in August 2008 - the Asia TEFL International Conference. If you are a teacher then try to attend that conference. Keep watching Kang Guru for more details later next year.
It was good to meet Agustian Sutrisno, UNSW alumni 2005 - 2006, who now works at the Australian Embassy. Do you remember reading about him in the December 2006 magazine?
He was full of news and enjoyed the event immensely.
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On Thursday afternoon Kevin, Denise and Sue traveled out to Depok to meet with Trainers at PPPPTK – the Indonesian education department’s language training center for teachers. They met with 12 trainers from the English language section of the institution to present to them the story of Kang Guru and to introduce to them some of the Kang Guru materials. Ibu Haslinda and Pak Fausta, along with their team of trainers, were a great audience with lots of questions and even better, lots of suggestions and ideas about how Kang Guru can further improve the teaching materials that it already has. Hopefully there will be more interaction with the staff at PPPPTK during 2008 and both the training group and Dr. Hatta, the Head of the Department, are keen to do that.
Sue and Kevin returned to Bali the next day aboard a very large jumbo Boeing 747. The plane was full of people heading to the Climate Change Conference in Bali. It was said that even the President of Indonesia was on that plane but if he was, he certainly wasn’t sitting any where near Kevin or Sue. They both had Kang Guru badges ready for him if they happened to see him during the flight!
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