Kang GURU Travels to Jakarta — April, 2007

by Sue Rodger

I was looking forward to my trip to Jakarta. I lived there for seven years and even though I love living in Bali, there are times when I miss the hectic life of Jakarta. The flight from Bali was trouble free, but rather sticky. The lady sitting in front of me reclined her seat rather quickly and the action knocked a glass of orange juice all over my trousers. I was wet through! As it dried I began to realize just how much sugar there is in a glass of orange juice as my trousers dried into a sticky mess!

On the journey into the city I phoned all my contacts for the next few days to check appointment times and venues. I was quite relieved when my first appointment postponed by a couple of hours so I was able to go directly to the hotel and get changed before I went to meet him. I took a taxi to Trans TV and asked at reception for Pak Ikhsan. The reception area was bustling with people coming and going, many of them dressed in black shirts and trousers, the uniform of the staff employed in Trans TV. I was shown up to the eighth floor and while I was waiting chatted to a very friendly security guard. He was surprised that I have been living in Indonesia so long. Pak Ikhsan surprised me!! He was very young. As the producer of such a popular show as Extravaganza I expected a much older man. He was very polite and had great English. I told him about KGRE and then we recorded a short interview.

Unfortunately none of the Extravaganza team were there as they had to go to Balai Kartini for a rehearsal for the big Third Anniversary of Extravaganza show. I couldn't stay too long either as I was off to meet the committee of the workshop which was to be held on Saturday in Bekasi. The workshop venue was excellent and I was sure it would be a success. Some of the committee told me how tired they were making all the preparations for the workshop. I assured them they would be able to sleep well on Saturday after the event. I then returned to the hotel and experienced the rush hour traffic on the toll road and the roads leading into the city center. It was quite nice though sitting back and passing buildings and places which I remembered from my time in Jakarta. I'm very happy I don't have to sit in Jakarta traffic jams every day though!

Friday morning I was up early and in a taxi by 8:15 on my way to Yayasan Pustaka Kelapa, the Wandering Books Foundation. The main aim of the foundation is to build good reading habits in children and young adults by giving them access to good literature. The motto of the foundation is if children cannot come to the books, let's take the books to the children. Ibu Yetti told me the foundation has 3 mobile libraries that provide reading materials in Indonesian and English for children and teenagers in schools, community centers and housing developments. It also lends boxes of books to responsible institutions and they also have a small community Library which people can use.

They are two American ladies who are involved in the foundation and have also begun the ELVIS program. No, they are not singing the songs of Elvis Presley but ELVIS stands for English Language Volunteers in Schools.This program is helping SD teachers improve their English through workshops and conversation classes. They are also providing training to native English speaking volunteers who want to go into the schools and help students and teachers with their English. Soon they hope to have 13 volunteers in schools across Jakarta. KGRE presented the ladies with some KGRE materials which we hope will be useful to them in their work.

Next on my agenda was an afternoon presentation/workshop for 38 mentors on an IASTP course in IALF Jakarta. They are from all over Indonesia and one of their assignments is to plan an English club to be used in their place of work when they return. So I gave them suggestions and took ideas from the soon to be published ‘KGRE Club Kit.’ They worked in groups to answer who, what where when and why questions and then we discussed their suggestions together.

The session continued with ideas for what to do at meetings and how to use KGRE materials in their clubs. We finished the session with some games which could easily be played such as a spelling race, find your partners and a word chain. Before the event was over we had some KGRE quizzes and there were lots of enthusiastic participants. Hopefully they went away with lots of ideas for starting their own English Club.

Saturday I left the hotel early so I could arrive at the workshop in good time and prepare my materials. The traffic was light and the taxi driver negotiated the narrow, winding road leading to the venue in good humour, so I arrived before 7: 30 and the hall looked great. Some teachers had already arrived and offered to help me prepare. The CD machine worked well and a member of the committee was put in charge of operating it. Most of the teachers arrived on time. I met Mr Fattar, the principal of SMAN 5 Bekasi and he opened the workshop with a short speech. The teachers were an enthusiastic group and were keen to learn some motivating ways to teach listening. They worked together with their partners very well and before long it was lunchtime.

Lunch was served downstairs and was very tasty. Some of the teachers remarked on my small helping of rice and I told them if I eat too much rice at lunchtime it makes me sleepy! I warned them not to fall asleep! The afternoon session passed quickly and the teachers showed great enthusiasm for the KGRE quizzes. Finally it was time to close the workshop but before I left Pak Fattar presented KGRE with a wonderful gift from SMAN 5 Bekasi. Thank you so much for all your hard work preparing the workshop, I'm sure all the teachers appreciated it. Maybe one day we will return to SMAN 5 Bekasi, I hope so.

The day in Bekasi finished with some activities with a group of students. About 40 students from neighbouring schools arrived and we sat in an informal circle while I introduced myself and told them about KGRE. Then it was their turn to ask me questions. They were very interested in comparing schools in Indonesia with schools in Australia. They asked about subjects studied, uniforms and facilities.

I enrolled the help of Suzanne Warmerdam, an Australian Business Volunteer (ABV) who is working at SMAN 5 to help with a couple of the answers. To finish of the day we played some games in English. The students had a very good level of English and KGRE wants to congratulate their English teachers. My day finally ended about 5 o'clock and despite Pak Fattars concerns about sending me home by myself in a taxi I arrived safely at my hotel about an hour later. I really enjoyed my trip to Jakarta and hope I am invited back again soon!