Professional Development - University of Indonesia

Professional Development for English Teachers in UI

On August 8, RELO Damon Anderson gave a 2-hour presentation on Professional Development for the English Subject Lecturers of the University of Indonesia. Attended by 36 lecturers, Damon reminded them the need to grow academically, technically, and socially. Damon also gave alternatives of professional development.

When going over a certain checklist, the participants found out that there are things they have not paid attention so far, that need to be done, focuses that need to be shifted.
One of the points that Damon underlined was the need to ‘share’ knowledge, through discussions, presentations, article publication, anything. By ‘sharing’ we gain knowledge, sharpen our own skills, add our credentials, and of course, grow.

If you are interested in learning more about Damon’s presentation or want the soft copy of the Powerpoint, please send an email to relojkt1@cbn.net.id

Multimedia in ELT - ICELT 4 - USD

On Monday, August 7, 2006, RELO Assistant Kun Herrini went back to Jogjakarta to give a presentation at ICELTS – 4 held by Sanata Dharma University. Her presentation entitled: Multimedia in ELT: from Blink-Blink to Elegant Users. She underlined that there are 2 different groups of technology users, ie. Those who just use the technology as they like, always try new things, and those who use it elegantly: learn about it well first before using it.

In the presentation Kun used the Dale’s Cone as a reference when teachers were selecting media to use in their teaching. Kun also showed some authentic examples how some people ‘abuse’ the media rather than use it elegantly.

Questions from the audience was around the time spent for such use of media (in this case: power point) and the needs of teachers to learn about Emotional Intelligence especially to learn more about the students. Kun replied that it indeed took time to create a PPT presentation, but please note that it could easily be recycled, imported, modified, etc. As for the EI, it surely was important. Kun also underlined to prioritize the students rather than themselves, and to concentrate more on learning rather that teaching.

If you are interested to know more and/or get a copy of Kun Herrini’s presentation, please send an email to relojkt1@cbn.net.id

The First Two Workshops in Jayapura

On July 29, RELO Assistant Kun Herrini went to Jayapura for the first time. The plan was to team up with Gumawang Jati from FKSU program (under DIKTI) to facilitate a 3 workshop on IT in ELT in Universitas Cendrawasih (UnCen) and 1,5 day workshop with Highschool Teachers sponsored by The Manyouri and STIE Otto Geissler on Teaching Communicatively.

A long and tiring trip, leaving Jakarta at 11 PM, transiting in Denpasar and in Timika, arriving in Jayapura at 09:30 AM, in the mids of heavy pour. The drive from the airport to the city, passing amazing Danau Sentani (Lake) on the right side and mountain range on the left side, all still in their pristine state.

I was a little more prepared then when I visited Manokwari for the first time in October 2005. Jayapura is the capital city of a province, anyway. It is a quite big city. And I was relieved when I saw the city skyline and learned that the hotel is right in front of KFC and Gelael Supermarket.

Workshop in Universitas Cendrawasih:
Teaming up with Gumawang Jati, the program of “Maximizing the Use of Technology in Teaching English” at Universitas Cendrawasih, was attended by 23 teachers, split up almost evenly between lecturers of UnCen and highschool teachers from the surrounding areas. It went for 3 days. Gumawang Jati led the workshop Kun was more assisting, especially when the two group of teachers had to split. The Lecturers were trained to use ‘hotpotatoe’, ‘nicenet.org’, and ‘blogs’, while the Highschool teachers were working only with ‘hotpotatoe’ but in details and real practice for their teaching’.

Between the sessions Kun also had the time to present about RELO profile and its services. Teachers seemed to be interested to learn more about RELO and planned on contacting RELO for different professional development activities.

Workshop in The Manyouri
On August 2nd , in the early evening, RELO Assistant Kun was invited to a welcoming dinner at STIE Otto-Geisler. Kun invited Jati and the FKSU people to join, but only Jati could come. To Kun’s surprise, the Manyouri foundation had prepared an ethnic welcoming ritual, where she was fetched by a group of traditional dancers and had to stand in a big bowl as a symbol of acceptance. An unforgettable experience. After some speeches then Kun presented the RELO profile and answered a lot of questions from the audience.

The next day, starting at 08:30 AM, the workshop was attended by 26 highschool teachers, some came from 2 or 3 mountains (their way of measuring distance) away.
The plan was to finish at 3, but they were so enthusiastic and sometimes did not want to stop an activity, so it finally ended up at 4:30. They were awfully thirsty and in bad need of such enrichment programs.

Maximizing the Use of Self Access Center

July 27th, 2006: RELO Damon Anderson and Assistant Kun Herrini finally made it to Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta. The workshop on “Maximizing the Use of Self Access Center” was planned to be held end of May, but then rescheduled due to the earthquake.

During the preparation, RELO suggested to hold the workshop at the Self Access Center. Ibu Rose, though a little hesitated, agreed. She was really not sure whether it was a good idea to do it.

Anyway, the workshop was attended by almost 40 participants, some had even to move to corners and squeezed themselves between shelves. But by doing the workshop right where the Self Access Centre was gave the participants a direct feeling and experience of the use of it. When they had to work in groups an designing pointers for their students to overcome their problems, the participants directly experienced browsing and using what were available there, the Grammar Section, Reading Section, Video, Computers, etc. Everyone learned that the SAC can be a great place to support their teaching, and that to activate the SAC, there should be a cooperation from the teachers and also with the management.

Here is what Ibu Yani, the Head of the Language Center, wrote to RELO after the workshop:

Surprised!.. Why? This year is my 15 years I work at the library of PPB UGM and also the first Workshop in the PPB library. Maybe, library is uninteresting place to hold the Workshop [or Seminar?] and the question about why the Workshop is held in the library has been asked last week. I think this program also can be model for the other institutions' library [or SALL] to hold the similar event. Thank you so much. It means a lot to me and my question to myself is am I able to follow up of the Workshop, improve the SALL, to hold the other programs in the library and the most important thing is to talk with the higher management :)I also appreciate with bu Kun's idea about room or space for discussion in the library. Yes, actually we have plan to build room for discussion with fund for SP 4 this year. Hope, it can be realized soon.

Vocational Highschool English Teachers' Visit

24 Vocational Highschool English teachers from various places such as the northern part of Maluku, from East and West Nusa Tenggara, some small cities in East Java and other places were visiting the RELO Center. Not just visiting, we had a workshop on how to teach English communicatively and how to create authentic use of English in the classroom. They were actually in the middle of a training in PPPG (Vocational Teacher Training Centre). They were chaperoned by 4 of their trainers.

It was then full of fun when teachers were asked to work in groups and create manuals in processing some activities around their true life, such as ‘how to tie your shoe’, ‘how to choose a fresh fish’, ‘how to change a tyre’ etc. They did not realize how challenging those ‘simple’ activities are, especially when they had to create instructions as detail as possible. Most of them learned that they could use the things and situations around them to teach English.

The visit which was scheduled for only 2 hours went on to 3,5 hours. Teachers enjoyed all the activities and had a lot of questions to ask.

To my understanding this was the fourth group coming to the RELO Center. All from the Vocational Teacher Training Center.