A new semetser, a new episode

 Hola!

It's been a while since I last updated this blog. I know. My mistake. 

It's gonna be a bit busy semester. I'm teaching several courses, including the new Integrated Communicative Course. Basically, it's a combo of Extensive Reading and Extensive Listening. Whoa!

So, I have new students that hopefully will enjoy their reading-and-listening journey—and eventually love English more!

This week, my students and I started by sharing experiences about learning languages, not just English, and our reading and listening stories so far. I invited them to reflect on their memories and stories.  

I myself first learned English at elementary school. Back then, I hated it, seriously. 

While somewhat I liked to learn topical words, I knew nothing about why I had to memorize all the irregular verbs, for example. The teacher, who happened to not master English (yes, we had no teacher majoring in English at that time), simply write down the words or structures that she copied from the coursebook. I failed at understanding English.

It was my tutor—guru les—who made me fall in love with that foreign language. He taught with a grammar-translation method. Lots of grammatical points to learn, but I did enjoy it! Plus, he gave us those short (funny) texts to read from Hill's collection of reading texts. And I won't forget that I grew up with those silly stories of Nasreddin Hodja. My cousin and I studied with the same tutor. Sometimes a few new friends joined in. 

Hill's reading comprehension book and Murphy's grammar book

Since then, I got more and more curious and eager to learn English. My EFL teacher in junior and senior high school also did well in teaching the language! They're among those who inspired me to be a teacher. I even remember once I asked my teacher if she knew anything about TOEFL, while I wrongly understood it. LOL. When she finally gave her copy of TOEFL, I was puzzled. 

I bought a few books on English trivia and quizzes, fun ones to do. And I did buy Murphy's legendary grammar reference book when I was in high school. 

As I grew with my grammar-translation-influenced teachers, I was rarely confident to speak in English. Even when my tutor invited me to discuss things in English, I was reluctant to respond to his questions. My cousin was more challenged to answer those questions. And speaking classes were not my cup of tea when I was studying at uni (I got a BC for my Speaking 3 course. #sad)

Now that I am an EFL teacher, I always try to challenge myself to read and listen to more things in English. Oh, I still love Bahasa Indonesia, too. After all, I love language and learning languages (and I'm learning Spanish too: soy Daniel y soy un maestro de Ingles!). 

What about my students' reflections? Well, you might be interested in their newest blog updates.

• Aldila, who found inspiration for learning English from a Korean film.
• Alex and his 'English Hut'. What a creative name!
• Kezia, who fell in love with English after reading Franklin the Turtle!
• Arba`Ul. She was introduced to English in her elementary school.
• Arin, #TeamPessimistic here. LOL
• Axl and how he learned English from playing games! Haha
• Betty; she watched some English films and started to like the language more and more.
• Dwi, who began to love English from watching Narnia!
• Enya and her dream to be an English teacher. Woohoo! 
• Jessica, who enjoys writing for her self-expression
• Tegar. He started to love English in his fourth year at elementary school!
• Tita, who thinks that speaking is easier than writing.
• Widhi and her experiences on learning English
• Viza, who enjoys reading in English.

ER Assignment #2: I think, I don't think...

Even when we're talking about the same thing or topic, we might have a different opinion from others--and that's okay actually. That also applies to the discussion on reading interest and habit.

Some might think that reading is fun, while others don't really enjoy it. I might prefer a particular genre or topic to read, but my friends might roll their eyes when they find out that I love reading a certain book. Many can read texts quickly and fast, while others, including me, often need to read and reread a sentence to really grab its meaning. 

Today's online discussion I had with my students is about our opinion on reading. We need to respond to these eight statements. 

1. Reading in my first language is fun. 
2. Reading English is difficult. 
3. I should usually look up new words in my dictionary.
4. Reading English is boring. 
5. It is easier to read about sports than science. 
6. If I read very fast, it is hard to understand the meaning. 
7. Reading out loud is a good idea. 
8. Reading English is fun.

I think I'd agree with the first statement. Of course reading in Bahasa Indonesia is (still) fun, although I do enjoy reading English books, too. I would carefully choose what I want to read, which includes selecting the topics and the authors. I am easily interested in an article when I know who writes it. I fall in love with certain authors or writers, whose writing is systematically composed and style is both engaging and convenient to follow. 

Reading in English can also be difficult for me, again, based on the authors and the topics. Even if the language is difficult, with complex structures of sentences and unfamiliar words, I'd still love to read the material if it's written by a certain author or it discusses a topic I love. And when I come across difficult words, I sometimes need to consult an online dictionary (I have a dictionary app on my phone too). I'll write about online dictionaries next time. 

And when I have to read those 'challenging' books or articles, I often have to slow down my reading speed. Rereading a single sentence or a paragraph and even reading out loud helps me much in understanding those tough materials!

Talking about my favorite genre or topic, I'd easily (and proudly) say that I always enjoy reading sci-fi or fantasy stories (Magic always excites me! I'm not into occultism, tho. LOL). I used to read many novels. Nowadays, I'd rather read non-fiction: self-help, personal development, communication, or even psychology. And I'd admit that I enjoy reading books or articles on Christian spirituality too. Sports? That's not my cup of tea. 

A few weeks ago, there's this challenge I joined on Facebook. I was asked to share seven book covers, without providing any explanation or reason. But of course, I picked those seven books because I love them and I want to encourage my FB friends to read them too. Here are those books, 

1. How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk
2. Boundaries
3. Mere Christianity
4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
5. Talk Like TED
6. Matinya Kepakaran, or originally The Death of Expertise
7. Judy Moody Menaklukan Dunia

Wanna read what my students think of those eight statements related to reading? Check their recent blog posts below.

• Yohanna Amanda Putri, who finds it challenging to read in English. Awesome!
• Johanna Jerusha Prasodjo. Jojo thinks that reading out loud is a bad idea. 
• Angel Indrawati Intan Wiyoso; she's eager to learn more new words in English. Cool!
• Vinsensius Brahmantya Adityawan, who think that learning English is important. It is indeed.
• Sony Chrissetiyaki. Quietness is his reading company.
• Theresia Ratna Shela Puspita Sari. I could learn Javanese from her.
• Gracia Marchelly. Pssst. She likes reading out loud. 
• Diki Setyawan Kristiananda; now he gets more challenged to read in English. Way to go, Dik!
• Yeremia Edo Surya Noegraha -- a football enthusiast here.
• Melkisedek Osibas Tauho. He loves football!
• Rista Arin Ningsih -- she got challenged to read more in English.
• Emmanuela Kurnianti -- well, she prefers a quiet place when reading.

What about you? Please leave your comments below.

Teaching Extensive Reading Course at PBI, UKSW

 Hi!

First of all, actually, this is not the first blog I created. I have my personal blog as well as another teaching blog (in Bahasa Indonesia, not yet updated). Hopefully, I can update this blog more regularly. But for sure, I will often update this blog, at least once a week.

That's because this semester, I'm teaching an extensive reading course at PBI, UKSW. This is not my first time teaching an ER course. Years ago, when I first taught at PBI too, they trusted me with an ER course. Now that I'm back at PBI (after several years working in Magelang, managing schools), I'm trusted to teach this course again. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Daniel Kurniawan (@dankuur) on Oct 23, 2019 at 5:27am PDT

(You might want to check this post I have on Instagram. It was last year when I taught Extensive Reading at both PBI and Sastra Inggris program.)

What's new this semester is that we're still doing remote teaching and learning because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We used to have book clubs or conferences in the classroom. I would invite students to have an individual conference with me occasionally. And students would hand-write and submit book reports weekly. But now, here we are with this online teaching. 

So, instead of asking our students to submit their hand-written book reports, we have decided to go online and use a weblog! So, here I am. With this new blog. But I have promised myself to regularly update this blog not only for the extensive reading course I'm teaching. I also plan to share ideas and stories related to my teaching. #fingerscrossed

Let me end this post by inviting you to watch this short clip introducing the Extensive Reading course we have at PBI, UKSW. Ciao!