TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

NIE workshops take educators by storm

TEAM PRESENTATION: A team of teachers present their "invention" during the "Gadgets & Gizmos" segment of The Jakarta Post's Newspaper in Education (JP-NIE) workshop in Jakarta on Jan

The Jakarta Post
Surabaya, Malang, Yogyakarta, Jakarta, Bandung
Sun, February 10, 2008

Share This Article

Change Size

NIE workshops take educators by storm

TEAM PRESENTATION: A team of teachers present their "invention" during the "Gadgets & Gizmos" segment of The Jakarta Post's Newspaper in Education (JP-NIE) workshop in Jakarta on Jan. 29. (JP/Mia Rubianti)

Hundreds of teachers, school principals and students across Java and Bali found themselves back in the first grade with scissors and glue as The Jakarta Post recently launched its Newspaper in Education (JP-NIE) outreach program.

The six-city touring workshop opened on Jan. 19 in Sanur, Bali, and traveled across Java to end Jan. 31 in Bandung, and involved the participation of almost 600 teachers from state, national plus and international schools.

Officially launched in Sanur by the newspaper's founder, Jusuf Wanandi, the outreach program is part of the Post's "Year of Education".

"The Jakarta Post believes education will open doors and opportunities to our young students, who are our future leaders. We (the Post's Board of Directors) strongly support the NIE program to help teachers and students improve their literacy, an important tool in entering the global scene," said Jusuf at the first Jakarta workshop on Jan. 28.

He added that the newspaper's 25th anniversary and Year of Education would be marked by a series of activities, including a seminar on education with prominent speakers set for early May.

The Post's marketing general manager Yulia Herawati, JP-NIE program coordinator Rita Widiadana and managing editors Ati Nurbaiti and Riyadi Suparno, along with the JP-NIE workshop team, took to the road for a series of hands-on teacher training workshops to introduce how the nation's leading English daily could be applied in schools as an educational tool.

The response from principals, university lecturers and teachers was overwhelming. For example, the head of the University of Indonesia's (UI) Language Center, Sisilia Halimi, said the program meshed with her dreams for language studies in the country: "This is the program I have dreamed of for so long, and UI looks forward to cooperating with The Jakarta Post."

Separately, Laela Hikmah Nurbatra, a Muhammadiyah University student in Malang, East Java, commented, "This program is excellent, and I hope I can join another program of The Jakarta Post," while English teacher Yuliana Pratiwi said in Semarang: "It is important for me to know how to motivate students to do their assignments like you have done with me."

English teacher Subiyanti from Muntilan said "the workshop really inspires teachers to do interesting activities in the classroom".

School principals from across the nation, attending a National Education Ministry seminar in Jakarta on Jan. 30 -- to which the JP-NIE workshop team received an impromptu invitation -- agreed, saying they felt refreshed and energized after completing just one of the NIE activities.

East Java teachers were so impressed with the program that they have asked the Post to host another workshop, with 300 teachers keen to attend.

Evaluation forms filled out in each city reveal that nearly 100 percent of participants gave the JP-NIE workshops top marks for their quality and potential application at schools.

The outreach program, which comprises workshops, competitions and teacher training activities, is one of the paper's two "arms" committed to national education through its NIE program; the other is the JP-NIE editorial arm. The first English-language NIE program in the country was launched last November with the Post's monthly teen publication, Youthspeak, and Discover, an education-oriented supplement appearing biweekly in the Sunday Post.

Rita Widiadana -- a veteran Post journalist and the former Bali bureau chief -- claimed she was bowled over by the response from teachers and principals to the program, which she has been advocating for the past two years.

"It was extraordinary. We expected 40 to 50 teachers at each workshop, but that number was almost doubled," said Rita. "Teachers in each city were sms-ing their peers, saying this was a workshop not to be missed. I was amazed by the response, and this testifies to the dedication of our nation's teachers and their hunger for additional materials."

She added that one of the most important elements of using the newspaper as an educational tool was the physical experience of scanning, cutting and pasting materials -- an experiential form of engaged and active learning.

"There are thousands of different modules available through the NIE program, which was started by The New York Times more than 70 years ago. During the workshops, teachers invented new gadgets by cutting and pasting from the paper, did newspaper scavenger hunts and made front pages of their own newspaper," she said. "They worked in groups on the floor, spreading the papers wide to scan and find what they were looking for. This engaged their hand-eye coordination. They were very physically involved so at the end of each session, they were refreshed rather than exhausted."

Rita noted that the teachers were so engaged in the activities, it was almost impossible to drag them away for lunch and coffee breaks.

"Teachers rapidly saw that this very hands-on, group work would help their students to use English while learning a different subject -- the program shifts attention from being language-specific and uses reading, speaking, writing and listening skills as tools to do something else. This allows even the most shy individuals to gain confidence, as their self-consciousness is lost in the activity," said Rita.

Additional workshops are being planned for the coming months, according to marketing general manager Yulia Herawati.

"The Jakarta Post is now in its 25th year and our commitment this year, and in the years to come, is assisting in the education of our students by making available a living textbook -- that is, newspapers," said Yulia.

"We have excellent sponsors coming on board to support this effort. They recognize that education is a key building block in Indonesia's future and, like the Post, are backing education for all students across the nation," she added.

NIE was first developed by The New York Times in the 1930s to raise education standards in that city. Since then, it has expanded across the globe, and long-time supporters of the program include nations such as India, Malaysia and Singapore.

For more information on The Jakarta Post's NIE program, contact Rita Widiadana at nie@thejakartapost.com.

{

Your Opinion Matters

Share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.