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.
Students express themselves in W.O.R.D.S
“What does it mean to be an Indonesian?” Perhaps only a few students can answer this question especially if they have to express their opinion in a foreign language
Change Size
“What does it mean to be an Indonesian?” Perhaps only a few students can answer this question especially if they have to express their opinion in a foreign language.
Agnes Maria, a student at state high school SMA Xaverius 1 Palembang, was one of a few youths who dared to embrace their fear of expressing themselves in English, the most spoken language in the world.
Expressing her aversion of corruption, she said that younger people could change “the culture” of corruption in Indonesia just by making small changes in their daily life.
“The horrible impact of corruption is that it brings poverty to Indonesian people,” Agnes said.
Many people forget that they can change this terrifying culture in the future by doing small things that oppose corruption in their lives, she said.
Indriani Eka Pratiwi of state vocational school SMKN 6 Palembang said the young generation was not nationalistic enough.
“Visiting museums can be an enjoyable but effective way to study about our struggle to achieve our country’s independence. It might strengthen one’s sense of nationalism,” she said.
Agnes and Indriani were two of 42 students who reached the final of W.O.R.D.S Competition, a national creative writing competition.
The competition was sponsored by Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA), a 10-month-program for American Fulbright grantees to come to Indonesia to help English teachers at 44 different Indonesian high schools, both public and private.
The competition persuades high-school students to express themselves about Indonesian culture and identity through writing in English.
This year’s W.O.R.D.S competition asked high school students in the ETA Program to answer the question: “What is my generation’s vision for Indonesia?” through speech, song, story-telling, poetry, and monologue.
AMINEF executive director Michael E. McCoy said the idea of the competition came up several years ago when a group of young Fulbright ETA Program participants decided that it would be a good idea to give students from schools an opportunity to talk about the future of Indonesia.
“We found that students from over 40 schools around the archipelago have very different perceptions about what it does mean to be an Indonesian,” McCoy told The Jakarta Post at the competition last week.
The competition, he said, gave the students the opportunity to voice themselves in different creative ways and also a chance to use English rather than just learn about it.
“Many students learn about the language, about the grammar and structure from their teachers, but they don’t have the opportunity to use English in a communicative way as they do today in expressing themselves,” McCoy said.
Most of the American grantees of this year’s Fulbright ETA program said they had seen that Indonesian students had very few opportunities to write creatively in English.
Mary C. Martin, who is currently teaching English at private high-school SMA Terpadu Krida Nusantara, Cibiru, Bandung, tries to make more room for her students to be creative.
“In class, I give each of the students a writing prompt at the beginning of each class. It’s called free ride,” Mary told the Post.
In that session, she gives students a topic, such as “If I could have any super power, I would…”, for example, and they have 10 minutes to write about it, she said.
“I do not care about grammar mistakes or anything. It’s just to put them to practice writing. We do that every week, and they can look at their progress. As time goes, they get better,” said Mary, whose student Dita Cut Aisyiah won the category of Best Use of English during the competition.
Aprilla Shinta Uli from SMKN 1 Pekanbaru won the Best Overall Recognition category, David Willy Otniell from SMAN 8 Pekanbaru triumphed in the Best Creative Recognition category and Satrio Riyadi Putranto was voted winner for Best Use of Theme.
They all received further education scholarships in Indonesia.
