Australian Ambassador visits the Kang Guru project

Australia’s Ambassador to Indonesia, His Excellency Bill Farmer, stopped by IALF Bali to visit the office of Kang Guru Radio English. Kang Guru is an English language project funded by AusAID that produces a weekly radio program, a quarterly magazine and classroom resources for teachers – all in English. Many of the stories featured are about links between Indonesia and Australia and the cooperative activities between the two countries.

The Ambassador was met by Kevin Dalton, the project manager, and given an overview of Kang Guru’s activities by Ogi Yutarini, the project coordinator. The Ambassador agreed to be interviewed for the radio program: the interview will be broadcast in May this year.

Conference on competency-based teaching

A conference, Competency-Based English Teaching: Theory and Reality, was recently held at the Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB) in cooperation with the British Council and the University of Leeds. This biennial conference was the sixth in a series of conferences on issues in English language teaching in Indonesia. The series began in 1995 and has focussed on themes such as young learners, testing and evaluation and learner autonomy.

Agnes Shanti Nindyarini and Jeanette Lindsey-Clark from IALF Bali presented a workshop, Practical ideas for the Competency-based Classroom, based on their work in writing a coursebook for use in junior secondary schools in Indonesia. The first book, in a series of three, is due to be published by Erlangga press later this year. The coursebooks are designed around the national competency-based curriculum as well as incorporating aspects of genre-based teaching.

Rachel Pearson and Rahma Diana Sari from IALF Bali presented a workshop on the Kang Guru teacher resource packages linking them to the teaching of listening in junior high schools.

The conference provided an opportunity for participants to discuss the challenges they face in implementing the competency-based curriculum as well as to share ideas for making their classroom teaching effective.

Indonesia Australia Language Foundation IALF Language Centres in Indonesia:
Jakarta Sentra Mulia Building, Ground Floor Jl Rasuna Said Kav X-6 No. 8 Jakarta 12940 Tel. (62-21) 521-3350 Fax (62-21) 521-3349 ialfjkt@ialf.edu	Surabaya Jalan Sumatera No. 49 Surabaya 60281 East Java Tel. (62-31) 502-6400 Fax (62-31) 502-6408 ialfsby@ialf.edu	Bali Jalan Raya Sesetan 190 Denpasar Bali 80223 Tel. (62-361) 225-243 Fax (62-361) 263-509 ialfbali@ialf.edu