Kang GURU Travels to Lombok with P4TK Bahasa

The flight from Bali to Mataram, Lombok is very quick. It seems like you have just taken off when the plane is already beginning to descend! It seemned like in no time at all after leaving Bali I checked into the hotel. The boxes of materials Kang Guru had sent in advance had arrived so I took them to my room and got everything ready for the next two days activities. For lunch I visited a new restaurant but unfortunately I can’t write a good review. I ordered spaghetti and a salad. The salad came very quickly so I ate it and waited for my spaghetti - and waited, and waited. Three times I asked the waitress ‘where is my spaghetti?’ - ‘Coming’ was all she said. After 40 minutes and watching the five other people in the restaurant being served their meals, I decided to find lunch somewhere else.

That’s how I ended being stranded in Mataram Mall! After eating I was about to leave when it started to rain very heavily. And it rained for one hour! In the end I had to get a taxi back to the hotel which was only about 500 metres from the Mall. I asked the driver to wait while I changed out of my wet clothes into something dry. Then we drove out to the workshop venue to meet Pak Djody from P4TK Bahasa. Kang Guru had been invited to contribute to the two-week training workshop they were conducting in Mataram. I met Pak Djody and Pak Taufik and we discussed the workshop. I checked the equipment KG had requested was available and met some of the participants during their coffee break. I recognized some faces from previous workshops and other KG events. I even met a teacher who regularly emails KG, but we had never met face to face. I returned to the hotel and arranged for the taxi to meet me again in half an hour. I was going to mt members of a Gado Gado Language club. These particular members were all training to be English teachers and they were a fantastic bunch of students, They really wanted to practice their English and asked me many questions about learning English. They also wanted to share my experiences of teaching and asked me lots of questions about that too. I stayed with them till about 8:30 then went back to the hotel.

The next day I returned to the workshop venue to have a day working with the SMP teachers. 30 SMP teachers had been invited to attend and they were a very enthusiastic group. They joined in all the activities wholeheartedly and with a sense of humour. In the morning sessions we looked at how to improve listening lessons. During the afternoon we worked on adapting materials and each group had to present their task to the rest of the class. The teachers loved the last session which was called Games Songs and Quizzes. They were very active and there was time for several teachers to talk about the favourite games they play in their classrooms. After the workshop a group of the teachers came to me to thank Kang Guru for a great practical session. They said all the activities they had done that day would be useful to pass onto other teachers in later workshops in their regions. Although it was late when I went back to the hotel I was happy to know that Kang Guru had been able to help another 30 teachers!

The next day I did similar activities with the SMA teachers. And again they were very active and at times a bit more talkative than the SMP teachers The days were long – we started at 9:0am and didn’t finish till 8:30 in the evening. There were breaks for lunch and dinner and tea. But it is still a long day both for the trainer and the participants. Interestingly P4TK ask the instructor to give each participant a score at the end of each session. Good job each teacher had a form with their photo on, as I don’t think I could have remembered the names of all 30 participants after just one day! But it was a very enjoyable two days and I look forward to meeting another group of teachers in Makassar at the end of May.