Receiving a lot of Gifts from People

Counting the days, we only have today and tomorrow before finally starting to travel back to Philippines. We started our day late since today’s schedule was intended for finalizing our reports and documents signing. Bu Irmayani notified us ahead of time that she will pick us up from our homestay to stay a night in Bojonegoro, a neighbor city, for us to experience a different environment.

               Before Bu Irmayani arrived, Bu Titin asked me to drop by SMK NU 1 for they will give me something which I don’t have any idea of. I went there and Bu Emy, my cooperating teacher and Bu Titin was there holding the gift they soon handed to me. It was a picture frame full of my photographs saying: Congratulations Mr. Baby Von Bajenting for completing your teaching practicum! It was an overwhelming thing knowing that it came from the English teachers of SMK NU 1. I said my gratitude and took photos with them and head back to our homestay where Bu Irmayani will meet with us.

               We found ourselves in Bu Irmayani’s car and went to her house and meet Nenek, Bu Irmayani’s mother. We talked about the first time we met and how funny that encounter was where she (Nenek) spoke to us in Bahasa Indonesia with which my co-exchange student and I didn’t understand a thing and so Jeremy tried to open a sack of rice and act as if he is going to cook. Nenek couldn’t hold her laughter and always burst into an overjoyed emotion when he remembers what Jeremy did. She already cooked for us and that we don’t need to cook anymore. As soon as Jeremy opened the rice cooker, he was like “Oh, so there’s already cooked rice here.” And we were all very happy with this moment. We said our farewell to Nenek in Bahasa Indonesia, gave our hugs and took photos.

               After visiting Nenek, it was time for us to say our goodbyes to Pak Anam, Bu Irmayani’s husband who is a headmaster of SMP NU 1 in Lamongan City for almost 9 years now. We stayed at his office. His office who speaks so much of how successful he was as one of the longest-serving headmaster of the school. Trophies and certificates and photographs of him with the big fishes in Indonesia are well-arrayed in all four corners. He gave us batik fabric as souvenirs of Indonesia.

               We were now on our way to Bojonegoro, savoring every second of the time knowing we won’t be staying any longer in Indonesia. It was almost sunset and the sun was brightly shining through the windows of our car while we were listening to Indonesian love songs.

               We arrived at the hotel after about an hour and a half and got some rest and freshen up for our dinner. We had it at a restaurant nearby where I ordered Nasi Goreng or Fried Rice. This was also the time when we said our goodbyes and thank you’s to Bu Irmayani, the very motherly dean of UNISDA. She gave us another batik garment and said that we will wear it the next day during our seminar, bags for our parents and loved ones too. We couldn’t be more thankful for Bu Irmayani’s thoughtfulness. We also met her son Mas William who accompanied us throughout the night.

               Jeremy and I prepared a bit for our seminar the following day as soon as we got to our hotel and slept the night away with all the happy thoughts and memories of Indonesia.

We ended the talk by asking them how do we get to deal with all these differences to which most of them participated in and answered. Jeremy and I shared our experiences in their country and how well culturally literate the people are. Respect and acceptance and tolerance to the differences made us get along despite and in spite of our personal identities and varied worldviews.

               This is where our journey ends. It was the best experience in my college life so far!

Application of our Indonesia’s Experience

Unfortunately and fortunately, the last day of our practicum has arrived. It commenced in UNISDA and also culminating at where it all began. Today, we are to become resource speakers of an international seminar attended by students of UNISDA who are naturally from Indonesia and a few from Thailand. Today’s them was all about Cross-Cultural Understanding: Assimilation of Indonesian and Philippine Culture and Education.

               We are on our way to the university from Bojonegoro. During the trip, Jeremy and I thought of a game to stimulate interest and fun to the students and we discussed about the content of our talk to make the best use of that one hour and a half travel time.

               We organized our talk in a way that I will first introduce Philippines’ culture and education, language, and religion. Jeremy will then talk about Indonesia’s. Finally, we will take a closer look at the striking differences between the two countries.

               First, in understanding the culture, we have to take a look at the three parts of the whole i.e. education, language, and religion.

               Under education, Philippines is governed by the Department of Education while Indonesia is run by Ministry of Education and Culture. Class size is also one of the glaring contrasts between the countries aforementioned. This also includes the educational systems and although the total number spent in Basic Education is the same, there are differences in clustering the years in Junior High School and Senior High School.

               Language if not the first difference, is the most obvious contrast we can observe. In terms of medium of instruction in education, the language in which the textbooks are written, public advisories and announcements, daily conversation, corporate world and so on, Philippines use English more often than Indonesia does.

               In terms of religion, please see charts below for the differences.

               We ended the talk by asking them how do we get to deal with all these differences to which most of them participated in and answered. Jeremy and I shared our experiences in their country and how well culturally literate the people are. Respect and acceptance and tolerance to the differences made us get along despite and in spite of our personal identities and varied worldviews.

               This is where our journey ends. It was the best experience in my college life so far!

Spending Quality Time with with Bu Emy, Bu Titin, Student buddy and co-exchange student Jeremy

The purposes of why we were sent here in Indonesia aren’t just all about knowing their education. The society and the country’s identity are also some of things that we have to get to know. Visiting one of the tourist spots near Lamongan is definitely a good way to start in getting to know about their culture more.

               I woke up early as we would have to travel by 9:00 AM. We have to do our preparations and eat breakfast and condition ourselves for the “Jalan-jalan” or excursion we will do today.

               Before I forgot the promise I made to my students the day before, I dropped by Basmalah store just nearby SMK NU 1 school to buy some chocolates and candies and sweets my students deserved for having done great work yesterday. I went to SMK NU 1 and handed the sweets to them, inside their classrooms. I painted smiles on their faces when they saw me entering the class bringing that bag of sweets and appreciation for them.

               I was overhearing a lot of gratitude and grateful words from them although some are said in Bahasa Indonesia. My day started so good receiving comments from students that they are happy but sad at the same time that we will no longer meet as next week we will have to fly back to the Philippines.

               Despite the idea of me not having a lot of time to be with them anymore, I still tried to enjoy the day and made the best use of my remaining time here in Indonesia. After all, I also have to know the place and enjoy this opportunity at the same time.

               A teacher from SMK NU 1 transported us to WBL using the car from their school. Accompanying us are my cooperating teacher Bu Emy, Mr. Alawi our student buddy, Bu Titin, another English teacher from SMK and of course my co-exchange student Jeremy Zulueta.

               We were heading north for quite some time now and we still didn’t run out of topics to talk about. At last, my compass tells me that we are now heading west, taking the left turn and that tells me that we are about to arrive in WBL or Wisata Bahari Lamongan.

               We walked a little distance from where our car stopped to the entrance of the big amusement place. As soon as we got our tickets, we were welcomed by a traditional music band. The music that welcomed us, I thought, is a very familiar music or it may not be but I felt that the music was very closed to my heart and it didn’t sound foreign to me at all.

               Now that set my mood for the day and we started our WBL journey by sightseeing some animals which some we have never seen before: camels, raccoons, some species of cats and the bulls. We looked at the map and went straight to the 3D movie theater.

               After which, we enjoyed our lunch and my co-exchange student and I ride the Speed Spin which was literally a mess. During the entire duration of the ride we just closed our eyes and scream our hearts out saying, “Stop the whole thing and just let us live!” Going down the swing, we find our knees and hands shaking all the same. It was one of the things that we won’t forget here in Lamongan.

               We then tried to just have relaxed tours and went sightseeing again on some planetarium and museums and smooth train ride inside what seemed like a cave of a palace.

               This day the weather was scorching hot and it led our feet nearby the shore in one of the gazebos. We rest for a while and took some photos.

               The day was a bit tiring but every bit and piece of this excursion is a memory that I will forever cherish.

Drugs and Substance Abuse as Social Issues

Counting 5 days before we fly back to Bali in preparation for our Manila (Philippines) flight, this day was well-spent as we were given the opportunity to listen to a seminar of Indonesia’s national police. Just how important this seminar is for the university students? We’ll take a look at Indonesia’s statistics in terms of drug and substance use. And just how important it is to talk about these things? Why do a lot of young people resort to such? To understand this much better, I have to look back to my country and how bad the case is especially for young people like me. And as part of the younger generation, what can I do to help?

               In the case of Philippines, official statistics show that approximately 4 million of the nation’s population are drug users (“users” defined as someone who had used the drug in the past year) as pegged by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency or PDEA. Study has it that primary factors for drug abuse are the negative attitude towards stress, sleep deprivation and emotional instability. It’s a postulate that no one’s life is perfect. Everyone finds himself in situations where he gets to be confronted by the usual challenges and difficulties in life. Financial problems, family-related conflicts, social and personal issues, academic concerns are just few of what people, most especially teens and students, face every day. Excessive workloads, be it academic or work-related (as some students are employed) or personal-responsibility bounded (some working-students are also “bread-winner”), deprive one of sleeping which psychologically affects and alters a person’s mindset or perspective about the world and everything in it. This then leads to emotional imbalance and instability. While there are a lot of avenues to improve Adversity Quotient and Emotional Quotient, young people choose to resort to drug consumption in the interest of veering their minds away from stress that consequently and gradually results to drug addiction. Every little problem equates to a dose of drugs. Every stress calls for a little intake of the future-ruining substance. Young minds are isolated into thinking that the only way to fight against problem is forgetting about it (instead of actually resolving it) thus they use drugs in the process and eventually become addicted. Young minds imprisoned to that concept.

               Given how dependent to drugs youth had become, study shows that these users find the need to take increasingly larger and more frequent doses to maintain the desired effects while preventing psychological and physical symptoms of withdrawal, as cited by Drug &Alcohol Dependency (Detoxrehab Website). Furthermore, chronic and regular stress are known to be associated to high drug rates of addiction. According to Stress and Addiction (Al’Absi, 2007), there is a solid evidence that further verifies the connection between stress and motivation to abuse addictive substances. For instance, research in human studies shows that adverse childhood experiences such as physical and sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and family dysfunction are associated with increased risk for addiction. People with an unhappy marriage, dissatisfaction with employment, or harassment, also report increased rates of addiction. Aside from the fact that these illegal drugs are made available by the sellers, we also can’t discount the fact that people most especially Filipinos tend to self-medicate and therefore use drugs to feel better whenever confronted by problems and crisis. Having said this, it’s important that we teach the young minds on how to go about handling stress and how to become resilient during hard times.

               Understanding all of this, I can say that my key contribution around this particular social issue is that I have to start with the man in the mirror. First off, I would give serious attention to learnings that I freely have access to as in my Sociology classes, in order to be well-informed and be aware about drug addiction and how it starts and what symptoms one can see to identify if he has fallen to this bad fate. This way I am able to keep myself from being imprisoned or dependent to drugs whenever I face serious problems. After gaining basic knowledge about this issue, I can share it to my friends who I think may be going through challenges in their lives so that they can also avoid resorting to drugs to solve their problems. Also, our institution, the University of Mindanao conducts seminars like the ones I have previously joined in before going here in Indonesia themed Excellence Beyond School through Resilience. I can always take advantage to this opportunity of being educated and helped on how to deal with stressors and how to be resilient in trying times, instead of using drugs. I can also influence my friends to come and hear out these types of seminar as educating the mind breeds making the right decisions.

See you Next Time!

“I hate Goodbyes, maybe See you next time! is better.”

I knew I have to wake up early today and I did. However, the preparation and dressing up seemed to be a difficult step to take. I wouldn’t want to start the day as I know things today are going to come to an end. I am a person who gets emotionally attached easily and to say that I wasn’t connected to my students and the teachers in SMK NU 1 doesn’t speak truth.

               The clock continues ticking and the sun is high up though my spirits are low. I have to carry each step heavily towards the school. I knew I have to say goodbye. I was lost in these sad thoughts and finally found myself standing in front of the institution I have been with for almost a month. The institution that taught me a lot of things and helped me see the world through a different lens.

               Pak Fatih, a faculty of SMK NU 1 hardworkingly organized the farewell program, gathered both the English teachers and the students all the same in their newly built social hall. While the students assemble themselves in front of where the teachers and I were seated, I wept a tear falling unconsciously down my cheeks. I wish the students didn’t notice such thing. But, some teachers notice how sad my face was.

               My cooperating teachers Bu Uswaton, Bu Emy, Bu Titin and Pak Masbuhin and all their classes, Pak Bisar, the vice headmaster and the program organizer Pak Fatih and his co-staff was all there for me, bidding their farewells and their best wishes. Students have representatives to tell what they have learned and their impression and what their message was for me which emotionally moved me knowing that somehow all the hard work and efforts I have poured have somehow paid off.

               After that, it was my turn to deliver a short speech and I hardly tried not to cry in front of them and was surprisingly successful to have concealed my heavy and sad emotions. I told them that joining in the Southeast Asian Teacher Exchange Program was one of the best decisions I have made in my college journey. How their country and the experience impacted me will forever be a part of who I am and who I will become. I expressed my gratitude to the teachers and the students and staffs alike. And told them not goodbye but See you next time!

               Upon arriving home, I opened the gifts and received Batik fabrics, a watch, a bag, picture frames of my students and myself. I couldn’t be any more thankful than I have been.

Asking for and Giving Directions and Simple Tenses and Perfect Tenses

I went to the class early and set up my projector as visual aide for my new lesson with the banking class. It’s all about asking for and giving directions.

               After my review of the previous topic, Recount Text, I asked them how to get to several places around here in Lamongan City. As the students knew that I am originally not from this local neighborhood, they tried their best to tell me what they knew on how to get to those places I mentioned. I can see their very helpful eyes and accommodating attitude.

               This serves as my motivation to the new lesson I will talk about today. I asked them what information did I need them to give me and what did they give me in return. There was silence for a while until I pointed the specific and clear instructions they told me about how to get to a destination. They finally answered directions and I started defining directions from that point on connecting it to the motivation I did initially.

               I was still using the localization and contextualization principles here for the students to find the lesson relevant.

               They did a role-play acting tourists and tour guides showing how to ask for and give directions. Considering their courses which is vocational by nature, I decided to do this performance task as their activity to further employ correct manner of both asking and giving directions.

               One group did well in being very detailed and clear with their directions. Other’s have opportunities in distributing their lines and scripts so everyone was able to speak and practice. Overall they showed great interest in the topic and tried their best in showing understanding of the lesson.

               The assessment wasn’t completed as the time wasn’t enough.

               We have moved on the next class who are accountancy students.

               We continued what we have previously talked about last time, Simple Tenses and Perfect Tenses. I only dwelt in the review for a few minutes and proceeded with the assessment in a game-like activity.

               I divided the class into four groups and have each of the member of the group write a sentence using the tense assigned to them.

               “The first to finish will get a special prize from me,” I said. As soon as I said this, the groups seemed to have panic and started working on the board as fast as they could.

               Others have finished faster but it isn’t just the time that we have to consider like I told them. We also have to count the number of correct sentences. Most of them have the right answers and almost everyone finished at about the same time.

               So this leads me to announce that all of them will get the special prize. The students are shouting for happiness and I realized I felt happy too. Reinforcing them and recognizing their good works are something they deserve and it made them want to learn English more and just enjoy the process of learning grammar.

               I promised them I will bring them the prize the following day.

Global Campaign against Inorganic Waste

This day was a big day for my co-exchange student, Mr. Jeremy Zulueta for he will be representing the Philippines and the University of Mindanao in the first ever international forum held in UNISDA participated by 4 countries including ours. Along with Philippines are of course Indonesia, Thailand and Timor-Leste. This international forum talks about a social issue that these countries and most countries around the world, if not all, are currently facing.

               With the theme “Global Campaign against Inorganic Waste”, this first ever forum of millennial students was spearheaded by Mr. Hafidh Nusrallah for the cause of raising awareness to students about the condition of inorganic waste and its impact to the society, environment and health.

               There were about 400 students attending the program and joined the short march nearby the .university as petition for people around to be particular in reducing the use of inorganic materials and take care of their own wastes.

               The program was emceed by Yesnia Nourma Permatasari, a graduating student of UNISDA majoring English Education. Indonesia was represented by Khoirotun Nisa, who is from the English department and on her last semester. She is also a student from UNISDA. Risna Afriliani represented Timor Leste and Arseeyah Tahe represented Thailand. And of course, I couldn’t be more any proud than I already am with my co-exchange student who didn’t just represented Philippines but represented it well, with class and intellect.

               Each of them was asked about what they think of the inorganic waste condition. I learned from Nisa that this is a big problem in their country, Indonesia despite the regulations and laws in place. Jeremy mentioned how there are about 40,000 tons of inorganic waste generated everyday in the Philippines and how plastics largely became a part of every Filipino life.

               Jeremy mentioned that inorganic waste isn’t an isolated problem as it leads to other severe social problems like ground and water pollution, air pollution, flooding and spread of diseases. Being a Filipino myself, I can attest to what Jeremy was saying. There were a lot of sources of plastics back in my country which includes wastes from regular households and manufacturers whose packaging are made from plastics, be it food, medicine, water, and other goods.

               I was amazed with how my co-exchange student stood up in front of the mass of audience confidently and spoken articulately about this problem. He cited several initiatives that the Philippine government has right now in order to minimize the use of plastics namely straw-less restaurants policy, paper bags for grocery and shopping, CLAYGO or Clean as You Go policy in some universities and other regulations.

               University of Mindanao is one example of a university under the policy of CLAYGO which according to Jeremy, builds sense of responsibility and a character of accountability of students to their own wastes.

               Each of the countries’ representative has a lot to share. I am so elated to have attended such gathering where people from different parts of the world talk diplomatically about a particular issue.

               “AS AN INDIVIDUAL, one act may not move mountains or may not give a huge impact but if we do this together and everyone do their part, it will give solutions we never thought possible.”

– Jeremy Zulueta, 2019

Taking New Tasks as Judges for English Speech Contest

SMK NU 1 Karanggeneng was conducting a teachers’ meeting today and so I won’t be meeting with my students. Being free for the whole day, we were asked to be the judges of an English Speech Contest of SMP NU SIMO Karanggeneng.

               We were invited by Mr. Himi, a teacher of their sister institution Ma. Matholi’ul Anwar to criticized the contestants and choose the best out of them.

               The program started with their usual ceremony and so the speech contest started afterwards. We were seated in front of the students, just behind where the contestants are standing. My partner and I decided with the criteria for judging. Physical delivery which includes eye contact, hand gestures, body posture, how the speaker occupies the stage would give them 15 points. Vocal delivery is as equally important as the physical, which includes the tone of voice, pitch, volume, speaking pace, voice animation would give them 15 points as well. The content most importantly would give them the highest points of 20.

               Some of the contents tackle globalization, the use of gadgets, the importance of education, how to become responsible students and a lot of other substantial topics. Given the limited time of preparation, we were delighted and positively surprised that the contents are definitely relevant, timely and speaks a lot of volume.

               Few of the things that the students have opportunities to improve on are the engagement to the audience which can include their eye contact, asking questions to the audience, pausing for a while to elicit and retain interest. Other areas for improvement are the tone of voice, it could have been more convincing by the proper control of volume, pitch and speaking rate. They could have occupied the stage more freely rather than stiffly standing in one spot.

               But the things that we liked the most are their confidence in being able to speak up in front of their schoolmates in English language. Aside from the content, some of them did well in the emotion they poured out in their piece which is evident with their sing-song tone of voice.

               Before the awarding ceremony, we played some games while the results are tabulated by one of the teachers in SMP NU SIMO. We asked them random questions that include the details about the speech contest, ourselves, Philippines and Indonesia. The students who answered received the gifts they are due prepared by the SMP NU SIMO staffs.

               We announced the awardees and they were called in front to get their trophy.

               It was a great opportunity to have been chosen as judges to practice our knowledge about public speaking.

Experiencing and Receiving Rejeki in Indonesia

One of thing that made the teaching experience less painful for me was the full-pledged support from my cooperating teachers. Even just their presence, knowing that they are there for me in every step of the way gives me comfort in the class that I know I can make it successfully.

               Today however, Mrs. Emy my cooperating teacher won’t be able to make it to school due to some concerns that are medical in nature involving her son. It didn’t really make me feel worried but I know things are going to be different.

               As soon as I read from my notifications that Mrs. Emy won’t be there, I imagined how I am going to devise my instructions differently. While I am immersed with this thought, I was eating my breakfast and sipping from my coffee when my phone beeps again and read the message: ‘Bu Titin will be the one to accompany you today in your classes.” I felt rather relieved knowing that someone, a real teacher, and an Indonesian would be there in my class. Someone can help me translate when situations would require it and oversee the class for me and can give me feedback and things to improve.

               This day was one of those remarkable days I have of this exchange program experience. As soon as I had finished the class, the students gave me a letter and gifts with which my heart high key melts for. They gave me a batik fabric which is something traditional, speaks a lot where the material is from. They gave me a cute ballpoint pen with a Doraemon cartoon character at one end.

               These students are sweet lovely little angels. I never expected anything like these gifts from them. My heart got deeply overwhelmed at their thoughtfulness and concern. I consider the gifts I received as “Rejeki” or Fortune since I didn’t do anything at all to deserve such things. I was doing what I was required to do but I can say that I did it with love and maybe this is what I get for having done such. Terima Kasih anakanak! Thank you, children, for appreciating all the efforts we are doing for you, if you are reading this blog! See you around!

Assessments to Measure Learning Progress

Assessment is an indispensable part of the teaching-learning process.

               This is where the teacher can measure how much the students have learned and whether or not his teaching style is effective. Today, I conducted a pen and paper assessment to my classes. They had to give me 15 sentences employing the correct forms of Simple Future Tense for the first part. For the second part, they have to look for the adjectives from the given text in their textbooks and write it on a separate sheet of paper.

               I immediately checked their works the night of the same day and so far, got good results for the first topic: Simple Future Tense. For the Adjectives quiz however, one group had difficulty identifying adjectives from their given texts.

               On our next meeting, I would return their papers back and would give feedback about the result.

               Some of them also have challenges with adding an object to the transitive verbs that they used. Others have challenges with using the correct form of verbs considering the singularity of the subject. Also, some have issues with spelling some words.

               As a future educator, I need to learn how to provide feedback that doesn’t demoralize the students but rather in a way that makes them want to improve more on their English craft. And that’s what I will do in our next meeting.