Co-Presenting with Teachers from Manokwari Papua

Bandung, February 21-13, 2006

As the follow up of a 3-Day Workshop on Action Research in Manokwari held in October 2005, RELO sponsored 2 teachers from Manokwari to present in ITB International Conference on Competency BAsed Curriculum. Sarah Isir was co-presenting with Itje Chodidjah on Mission Impossible: Implementing CBC in West Papua; and Kristina Awom with RELO Assistant Kun Herrini doing Poster Session on The English Teaching Saga in West Papua.

The two teachers really struck the heart of RELO Assistant from the very beginning of the Action Research workshop. They were the only Papua native teachers who were dared to join the workshop. They worked really hard to their very limited English despite of their being English teachers at the local highschools. They were so observant, attentive and so willing to actively participated in every activity. They did not have enough education and yet Sarah taught 42 hours a week in her highschool and Kristina's experience with English was 'only' as a telephone operator, but then she was the only English teacher in her school.

RELO asked the courtesy of Universitas Negeri Papua Director of Language Center, Sukristiningsih, to help communicating and preparing the data for the presentation. Also since the two teachers had never left Manokwari before, nor travel by plane, we asked Sukris to accompany them on their way to Jakarta and BAndung.

They arrived 2 days prior to the conference date to finalize the preparation with Itje and Kun at the RELO Center. It was really touching to listen to their comments about the plane ride, about staying at the hotel, their learning to flush, to stay be in an air-conditioned room, to sleep on soft matras, and many others.

All set up, we travelled to Bandung by train. It was fun to observe the changes of their face when experiencing the train ride for the first time. How nervous they were with all the new experiences.

Surprisingly, or not surprisingly?, Kristina's poster session attracted so many participants, including Simon Colledge from the British Cuncil, Geoffrey Crewes from IALF, and many others. They asked a lot of questions about ELT in Manokwari. Sukris, Sarah, Itje and Kun were helping her at hard times when there were many people around her asking for different questions re. the poster.


Sarah's presentation was also a bang. Itje and Kun were nervous, but Sarah surprisingly, was so calmed and so self confident. With her limited English, she managed to deliver the presentation well enough. Listening to all the facts she presented, the audience got emotional. So, the reactions were more to encouraging Sarah to hang on and thank her for all the work she had done.

RELO was proud to be able to bring her down to the CBC conference, so that a voice from Manokwari can be heard by the authorities, not as a report of a visitor, but more coming first hand. During a lunch farewell with RELO Damon Anderson, they mentioned how lucky they were and that they still did not believe that they would get the chance to experience all of those.
The facts that

CBC Seminar in Politeknik Negeri Pontianak

Pontianak, February 13-14

ELF Coordinator Michael McCoy and RELO Assistant Kun Herrini went to Pontianak to be the presenters of one-day seminar on Competency Based Curriculum. The second day Mike led a discussion with the Faculty Members about how to set up and promote cooperation between university, government and local enterprises.

The CBC conference was attended by around 80 teachers of different levels, from kindergarten teahers up to lecturers. For two hours Mike gave an overview of what was meant by CBC and the consequences for the teachers. And for another 2 hours Kun continued by giving more examples of application of the CBC involving the participants in different activities.

The second day, while Mike was busy leading the discussion on the linking program, Kun was involved in deep discussion with the staff at the Language Center re. program management and program development also how to manage self access center and materials development at the SAC.

Pontianak lies right on the equator, so it was really hot. The city was also famous of its black orchid, but we could not find any good one around the city. Where were they gone?

1st Roundtable Discussion in DKI Training Center

February 9th, The English Program of Jakarta Training Center held its first Roundtable Discussion for Junior Highschool English Teachers. RELO Damon Anderson facilitated the lively discussion, after Itje Chodidjah and Ibu Asih (the Head of the English Training Program) did a warm up activity by leading them to sing and dance.

The program was a further dissemination of the RTD held biwekly at the RELO Center. Ibu Susarsih who attended the RELO RTD found the format was very effective and yet convenient for Professional Development. It motivated participants to share and especially to use their English. Those are the main reasons why she held the Roundtable Discussion for teachers around Jakarta.

The main difference with the one held by RELO was that participants were more homogeneous. When the topic was for Juniro High teachers, then the attendee will be all SMP teachers. Beside that, participatory was more ‘assigned’, either by Headmaster or other authority, while the one in RELO was really voluntary.

Anyway, this was a good beginning. DKI Training Center planned to hold it monthly trargeting at different groups of teachers and educational professionals. Good luck with the efforts, hope RELO can support and join the program accordingly.

ELF Mid-Year Conference

Marriott Hotel, Jakarta, January 27-29, 2006

On January 27- 29 all the English Language Fellows in Indonesia got together to have the Mid Year Conference in Jakarta. This is a chance for all fellows to share what they had achieved so far and to plan ahead to make the next half year of their service much better. Time to recharge and energize. For the venue we chose Marriot Hotel.

The conference was opened with a dinner reception attended by all the fellows and their significant others, RELO Damon Anderson, RELO Assistant Kun Herrini and RELO Center Manager, Fetrizal. Then, during the three-day conference, everyone was assigned to share and or lead a discussion on the topic of his/strength or experience.

What came up was not only the variety of expertise or successful program sharing, but how each presented / led the discussion was unique. A,azingly, no one did it in the same way. It just showed how rich the Fellow program was and how especially great this team of fellows we have in Indonesia this time.

Third Colloquium of UIN/IAIN

Jakarta, January 25-27, 2006

The Third UIN/IAIN Colloquium was held at State Islamic University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta, involving UIN Jakarta itself, UIN Yogyakarta, UIN Semarang, UIN Makassar, and IAIN Medan; while IAIN Bandung, UIN Malang and IAIN Banten came as observants. Among the VIPs who attended this colloquium were: the Director of Islamic Institution, MORA Dr. Arif Furqon, UIN Vice Rector Dr. Masykuri Abdillah, MA, Director of UIN Language Center Murni Djamal, Cultural Attache Donna Welton, RELO Damon Anderson.

As how it was with the 1st and 2nd Colloquium (scroll down if you are interested to know more), RELO supported this program by providing funding for transportation, accomodation, and administration of the event.

Result of the colloquium was presented to and consulted with Prof. Arif Furqon, the Director of Islamic Higher Education, MORA on February 2nd. In the report meeting, MORA stated the following:
1. MORA committed to providing financial support for the fourth colloquium to be hosted by IAIN Sumatera Utara Medan.
2. MORA supported the establishment of the Modern Language Teachers Association of Islamic Higher Institutions. But, target outcomes of the association should be further formulated as realistically as possible.
3. MORA would provide web space for the association particularly for Modern Languages Sharing of Best Practices at the MORA website
4. MORA asked the materials development committee to list commercial books which are needed for materials development purposes.
5. MORA would encourage Rectors to pay more attention to team building, teamwork, networking, and sharing of best practices to promote the improved quality of modern language programs at their institutions. For this purpose, the Ministry was very concerned with:
• setting the national standard and threshold for English/Arabic Proficiency to be achieved by the students of IAINs, UINs, and STAINs in both English/Arabic and non English-Arabic Departments. Any institution can set a higher level of the proficiency but not a lower one.
• developing models of standardized tests to accurately measure the attainment level of the proficiency.
• developing models of modern language programs on the institutional level to achive the proficiency. The models will certainly vary but they move towards the same direction, achieving the standard and threshold of the proficiency.
• The project will be piloted at the institution that is currently hosting a RELO Fellow or hosted the Fellow in the past.

A wonderful commitment and result of a colloquium. And with the commitment MORA had stated, RELO felt like it had accomplished something important. Not only regarding the development of language teaching in UIN/IAIN circle, but also that MORA had taken the ownership of the ELT development efforts.


For additional information:
The first Colloquium was held in UIN Yogyakarta in 2004. The initial idea came from Prof. Dr. Amin Abdullah, Rector of UIN Yogyakarta who would like to see English as one of the modern languages taught in UIN/IAIN circle get a better and stronger position academically. RELO then sponsored a colloquium involving the 4 UIN/IAIN hosting the English Language Fellows at that time, i.e. UIN Yogyakarta, IAIN Makassar, IAIN Medan and IAIN Semarang. The first was really a sharing session, where each of the UIN/IAIN shared the best practices they had so far been doing in each respective institutions.

The second colloquium was hosted by UIN Makassar, involving the same 4 UIN/IAIN plus the UIN Jakarta, and what made it special was that it was visited by one of the important figure in Islamic Education Directorate, from MORA (Ministry of Religious Affairs). One of the interesting things learned was that by then some best practices shared in the first colloquium were practiced by the other institutions. From all the discussion came up the need to have something standardized and the need to form special interest group of materials writing, assesment, and other things. These issues would be discussed further in the third colloquium.

Conference of the English Education Program Management

Yogyakarta, 16-18, 2006

Dr. Bismoko and Dr. Dwijatmoko from Sanata Dharma University intiated to have all the English Edcuation Department Heads to get together. The talk was meant to get to know each others’ program, how to update it, and to discuss the issue of teachers’ certification already in the discussion of the Natioanal Education Department.

So, there were 98 representatives from teacher training institutions around Indonesia coming to the 2-days meeting. RELO was able to provide funding for the admin and proceeding of the conference and provide accomodation for participants coming from outside Yogyakarta.

As guest speakers, there was Mr. Bahrul from the Education Quality Assurance Directorate sharing about the governments strategic plan re. Teachers Certification. Dr. Sadtono and Dr. Bismoko shared about the English Education programs, Dr. Helena talked about the Competency Based Curriculum in general and Damon Anderson talked shortly about the English Education in Higher Education.

After the pleanary and brainstorming sessions, participants were divided into 3 big groups to address 3 different big topics, i.e. Teachers’ Certification, Curriculum for Profession Courses, and Standardization of the English Education Program. There was also an issue of forming another English Teaching Professional organization, but the big group could not into an agreement, with a strong consideration of not hurting the existing organization now, TEFLIN.

On January 30th, there was a follow up meeting in Universitas Negeri Semarang, with 10 representative participants designing a recommendation that would be brought to the QA Directorate as an input of the Certification processing now being further discsusses in MONE. Again, RELO played an important role by providing tranport allowance for thos soming from outside Semarang.

On February 6th, 6 representatives (Dr. Bismoko, Dr. Dwijatmoko, Prof. Sadtono, Itje Chodidjah, RELO Damon Anderson and Kun Herrini)met Dr. Bahrul Hayt at the QA Directorate, MONE.

Having Fun with Pabelan Pesantren Big Family

January 14th, RELO Damon Anderson and Assistant Kun Herrini went to attend Microscholarship Certificate Awarding Ceremony marking the ending of the Microscholarship program in Pabelan Pesantren, about 20 kilometres north of Yogyakarta.

It was a different situation of a pesantren, where the kids can make friends more openly and there is even a freedom of wearing headdress or not for the female kids. The Kiai was a real moderate and wisely open figure, very knowledgeable and also value knowledge highly.

After a series of speech reminding the students that now the challenge was in their hands, since the course have ended, the Kids were awarded with their certificates. Then, as a token of gratitude, the kids performed a very simple but touching choir singing He Raised Me Up.

The program we had there was collaborated with the United Nations Development Program who introduced community technology and so RELO equipped them with the language. The Microsholarship program in Pabelan Pesantren reached 60 students and they studied English with two special teachers coming to Pesantren for 2 years.

The next morning the kids were taken to a picnic, but too bad, Damon and I could not join them. But we heard that they enjoyed the picnic very much, especially when they were taken to Pizza Hut. It was their first experience eating pizza, some of them even saved the small parts of theirs to be brought home to share with their parents.

Thank you to Kang Azul, the point of contact there, Itje Chodidjah, the Academic COnsultant and Teacher Trainer, and Giartina the enthusiastic and caring teacher.

Joining Next Generation TOEFL Workshop

A very good jump start for the new year. After being rejected for the first two workshop for the reasons of over quota, finally we made it to join the workshop led by beautiful Diana Jahja from IIEF. The rigorous workshop was a great reunion as well as a strong networking event. So many familiar faces from Jakarta, Yogya, Bandung, and Semarang.

I learned a lot and now at least would be daring to answer questions about NG-TOEFL.
This new format of TOEFL and its new approach for me is more challenging and interesting. I believe it makes more sense now than the format before. Now we really need to master the skills of communicating and using Englsih intead of only mastering about the rules of and about English.

However, the most challenge I think was designing teacher training modules so that they can prepare the students taking TOEFL accordingly. I had a sketch already, and I planned to present it to the English Language Fellows in the Mid-Year Conference to come. Hope it would also help them especially when they were requested to talk about NGT.

Anyone interested to get the soft copy of my PPT entitled : Next Generation TOEFL : What Should Teachers Do to Help, please send email to relojkt1@cbn.net.id