Category: Indonesia

Last week I visited the newly opened Goducate Language Center in Batam, Indonesia.

Batam is an island of almost 1 million people. It is an hour’s ferry ride from Singapore. Most of the people in Batam work in factories, many of which are owned by foreigners. It is also a popular tourist destination for Singaporeans, especially at the weekends. As such, those who are able to speak English are in great demand.

Though Indonesians learn English in school, for most of them what they are taught in school helps them to pass exams rather than to speak English. This is especially true for those who come from rural areas.

The Goducate Language Center hopes to teach Indonesians to speak English, so that they can optimize their potential. To do so, we will need a large pool of English teachers in order that the students will learn much of their English from conversations with their teachers rather than from listening as part of a large class.

The first batch (6 ladies and 2 men) of such future English teachers have arrived from Goducate Training Center in the Philippines, where they learned how to teach English to foreigners. They are at the Goducate Learning Center in Batam to learn to speak Bahasa Indonesia so that they can  be more effective teachers in Indonesia.

We hope that they will be able to complete their Bahasa Indonesia course in about 6 months and then begin their roles as English teachers.

Sing Your English is a Goducate extracurricular program for schools that uses songs as the main tool in teaching English. Sing Your English was conceptualized last year and launched in two schools in Batam, Indonesia, in August this year.

In the Sing Your English method, if the topic of the lesson is Myself, then a song about “Me” is taught to them, along with some writing, drawing, or coloring activity. If the lesson is about Basic Parts of the Body, then the song will contain the relevant vocabulary and will be supplemented by the appropriate activity.

Sing Your English is quite effective because the students can remember the songs and can be heard humming them unconsciously out of class. Starting a class by singing songs learnt is a fun and easy way of reviewing previous lessons. Singing the songs with action helps students remember the meaning of words.

Sing Your English is an extracurricular program, so there are no examinations and gradings, which reinforces the fun and activity aspect of learning English. This would help change the mind-set that English is difficult to learn.

The Sing Your English program is not confined to teaching vocabulary. The students also learn conversational English, because during class they are taught and made to practice simple phrases, as well as the names of objects they commonly come across.

 

The testing of the program will be intensified next week at our first Sing Your English two-day camp to be held for students in their last year of primary school.

Goducate is about to start a language center in Batam, Indonesia. The building has been acquired and is undergoing renovations.

The Goducate Language Center will train people from other countries who will be serving as community development workers in Indonesia. A working knowledge of the language is essential if these community development workers are to be able to help needy Indonesians effectively. Since English is also an important language to know, either for teaching the needy or to communicate more widely, the language center will also offer English lessons.

The Goducate Language Center’s three-storey building will be equipped with dormitories, classrooms, and a spacious area for more interactive learning.

Guest writer Mel, Staff from Goducate Training Center