Updates

Radio for Education: Reaching classrooms with radio

Thousands of schools throughout Indonesia have access to news and information from the award-winning, independent radio program Asia Calling, but only one utilizes this resource as part of its curriculum.  The students at SMA2 Sekayu tune in to news updates to practice pronunciation, analyze government elections to learn grammar, and study sentence structure by listening to the latest headlines from across the region—and soon students throughout Indonesia will be doing the same.

Asia Calling's Radio for Education program, a partnership with the Sampoerna Foundation Media Project, will select and train high school English teachers to “use the news” in their English conversation classes through an interactive step-by-step teaching method that focuses lessons on the political, social, cultural and economic issues concerning Asia.

The program will provide what classrooms in Indonesia, and throughout the world, desperately need: dynamic lessons, relevant information, and multi-media instruction.

But students have their own reasons to be excited about Radio for Eduation.  “I like it because I hear stories about women,” says Sri, an 11th grader at SMA2 Sekayu, one of the program's pilot schools.  “I like hearing their voices.”

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January 26 , 2007

A little station making big headlines: Suara Smanda in the news


Read about the "first radio station in Indonesia to be run by high school students and teachers." Get the full story, or at least my version of it, from my blog. And download program prospectus here.

*Project update* See Use the News Initiative

 

January 26 , 2007

b4 the la-la-la: the new bla-bla-blog

Someday I’m gonna learn to sing and play the guitar (maybe even at the same time). When that happens, I’ll need something to sing about. Since my memory is almost as pathetic as my musical skills, I thought I better start writing some stuff down now so I’ll have material for that first Grammy.

The blog is also part of my New Years resolution to clean up my desktop. I moved to a rural village in Southern Sumatra five months ago to teach English and journalism. With no Internet to keep in touch with folks back home, and limited ability to communicate with those here, I’m slowly loosing my mind and passing the time by writing stories, rants, and a few rhymes. It’s three hours to the closest Internet spot, so I probably won’t be updating it a lot. But I’ll do my best to make it worth an oogle before you google. check it out

November 25, 2006

On the move: Suara Smanda hits the blogosphere

Recent visits and huge financial support from Lien Aid and the Sampoerna foundation have fast-tracked things here at Suara Smada.  So much so that my novice Web design and editorial skills can’t keep up with the updates and developments.  So I’ve relocated all things Smanda to the blogosphere to better serve our international audience.  Check it out.

Ideas

January 26, 2007

Are You Ok?

I received another distraught call from my parents this week—this time about a tragic plan crash. Other than tea-time with President Bush, disasters seem to be the only way Indonesia—the world’s largest Muslim population—makes the headlines back home. This moderate majority is easily overlooked because somehow guys with face masks in the Middle East are more telegenic than my smiling students—unless of course they’re not smiling because of some disaster. And when this happens, I get an “are you ok” call from home. It usually goes something like this... Read Article

January 10, 2007

WOW: a not-so-practical approach to ESL

"Like everyone else in the back row, I never consider using what I was learning for a job or for any other practical purpose.  But it didn’t matter; I was in it for the WOW." More

November 23, 2006

Elephant magic:: practical hocus-pocus for team-teaching

I was able to choose any topic for my public speaking debut at the Lampung Teachers Conference, so I went with the most obvious classroom issue I could think of: elephants and magic.
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