IALF Bali, in cooperation with Balai Bahasa Denpasar, recently conducted a workshop on Communicative Teaching of BIPA (Bahasa Indonesia bagi Penutur Asing – Teaching of Indonesian to Speakers of Other Languages). The workshop was attended by over 100 participants. The guest speaker was Karen Bailey, Board Chairperson of Balai Bahasa Indonesia Perth, Western Australia (WA) and Head of Languages of SIDE (Schools of Isolated and Distance Education), WA.

The workshop was officially opened by Mr. Ruddyanto, Head of Balai Bahasa Denpasar. In his opening speech Mr. Ruddyanto addressed the need for teachers to improve their teaching skills in order to meet the demand for qualified Indonesian teachers of Indonesian. This workshop was one way to share information and experience, as well as to update the participants with the current practice of communicative teaching of Indonesian.

Mr. Ruddyanto presented a plenary session, Linguistic Aspects in BIPA Teaching, which discussed three linguistic aspects that sometimes cause problems for teachers: the use of affixes, register and vocabulary. In the second plenary session, Karen Bailey presented the e-learning program for Indonesian conducted at SIDE. Both sessions, moderated by Soetopo Setijono from IALF Jakarta, were very informative and provided new insights into aspects of teaching Indonesian in different contexts. 

Other presentations by teachers from IALF Bali included Reny Mulyaningsih, who demonstrated various internet-based teaching resources and how to exploit these for classroom activities and Joyce Adiwinata who presented fun and practical tips in teaching vocabulary related to current events. She shared ideas on how to use authentic texts in class, including how to ‘unload’ the texts, choose vocabulary to be introduced, discuss sentence structure and create spoken and/or written follow up activities. A.A. Subagia focused on the linguistic side of teaching Indonesian. He demonstrated practical ways to understand and teach grammar, especially the use of affixes.

Luh Sriasih, in her presentation entitled Improving Students’ Communication Skills through Fun and Meaningful Pairwork and Groupwork Activities, discussed some issues that need to be addressed in designing effective pairwork and groupwork activities. She also gave some examples of pairwork and groupwork activities successfully conducted at IALF Bali. Ayu Kusumastuti (Kang Guru Indonesia) showed some samples of Podcast listening materials on the Kang Guru website and also demonstrated easy and simple steps for making listening materials through Podcasts.

Eny Parwati (Balai Bahasa Denpasar) collaborated with Wahyudi Suprayatna (IALF Bali) in their presentation on the use of folk stories in introducing Indonesian culture in BIPA courses. Balai Bahasa Denpasar, as a technical administrative unit of Pusat Bahasa (National Language Centre of the Ministry of National Education of the Republic of Indonesia), has published teaching resources in forms of trilingual Balinese folk stories (in Indonesian, Balinese and English), in which IALF Bali took part as the editor for the English version. Eny and Wahyudi showed some techniques in using these stories in class, as effective ways to introduce Indonesian culture as well as improve students’ language skills.

As a result of the very positive response to the workshop, IALF Bali and Balai Bahasa Denpasar have decided that similar workshops will be conducted annually. Papers presented at the recent workshop are now available on the IALF website - www.ialf.edu

Training Teachers: Developing Mentoring Skills

Developing Mentoring Skills is a new C-CELT (Certificate in Communicative English Language Teaching) module developed by IALF Bali’s Teacher Training Department to meet the needs of teacher trainers.

This module was first run for Master Trainers from the AusAID-supported English Language Teaching for Islamic Schools (ELTIS) activity. Twelve trainers from Surabaya, Mataram and Watampone  participated in training that will enable them to act as more effective mentors for teaching staff in various teaching institutions throughout Indonesia.

In the workshop input sessions the ELTIS trainee mentors explored many areas of mentoring. These included: empathy & interpersonal skills; action planning; supportive lesson preparation & the role of reflection. They also took part in practical sessions which gave them the opportunity to put their new skills into practice. During these sessions they were video-taped giving and receiving feedback, and at the end of the workshop they were presented with a collection of these recordings as a future reference.

The IALF Teacher Training Department is pleased to add this new C-CELT module to its range of specialist modules, which also includes Using Technology in the Classroom and Teaching IELTS.For more information about these modules and the C-CELT, visit www.ialf.edu

Fun Fair at IALF Surabaya

As part of end-of-term celebrations IALF Surabaya recently held a Fun Fair. Activities included competitions – one for the design of a new IALF T-shirt, another for a new catchphrase in English and another for eating the most klepon, a traditional Javanese snack.

Students also had the chance to throw a wet sponge at their teacher as well as compete against each other in various typical fun-fair games. A tarot card reader was available for those who wanted to know what the future may hold. The Smalltalk Café set up a barbecue area and several students sold fashion items.

The T-Shirt design competition, judged by Eric Hill from BC Communication and Geoffrey Crewes from IALF, was won by Roby Fadilah from IEPOS 2. Roby also won the favourite design, chosen by students. The catchphrase competition, judged by the Word magazine editor team, was won by Diana from SP 4, while Galih from GEA 3
was the students’ favourite winner. And the klepon eating was won by Arif.

This was certainly a fun way to end the term of study.

Academic Preparation at IALF Surabaya

Department of Education (DIKTI)

IALF Surabaya recently completed a course in Academic Writing for IELTS for candidates for scholarships offered through the Directorate General of Higher Education (DIKTI).

The course focused on familiarizing candidates with Task 1 and Task 2 of the writing module and provided practice and guidance for test-taking strategies. The course was taught by Philip Rees, Director of Studies at IALF Surabaya. The participants were early career lecturers at Airlangga University, Surabaya, from a range of faculties, incuding Law, Nursing, Social and Political Science and Psychology. Under the DIKTI scholarship scheme candidates are able to choose the country and the university for their postgraduate study. This group is looking at programs in the Netherlands, Australia and Malaysia.

Scholarship Recipients

IALF Surabaya is currently running an intensive preparation program for overseas study for several recipients of scholarships. These include New Zealand Development Scholarships, University Syiah Kuala (Aceh) Scholarships and the AED scholarship funded by United States Agency for International Development.

The course aimed at preparing the participants for the academic demands of postgraduate study in English medium universities as well as for the IELTS or TOEFL iBT, depending on the destination country. As with the DIKTI scholarships, the group is from a range of disciplines, including Law, Medicine and Education.For information on the range of IALF courses for academic preparation please visit our website – www.ialf.edu

Indonesia Australia Language Foundation

IALF Language Centres in Indonesia: