Welcome to the April edition of the ETA Monthly Highlights! Ten months flew by quickly! It was an emotional and reflective month for many ETAs as they focused on concluding their grant experience. They spent their time wrapping up their classroom and extracurricular responsibilities. They also said farewells to community members.
Click through to read the final highlights from the 2018-2019 cohort!
Many thanks to all of the ETAs for their wonderful stories and photos.
Be sure to check out our special edition Best of Fulbright ETA January – April 2019 that compiles best stories from the past semester.
AMINEF American Program and Communications Teams
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Please share with us your favorite stories: which stories struck you as interesting, which teaching method is the most fun or you’d like to apply, or which activity you’d like to hear more. Email us at socmedia@aminef.or.id and we’ll post your feedback in the next newsletter and you may win a special thank-you gift from us.
2019 WORDS National Competition
One of the highlights of the ETA grant year is the annual WORDS event. WORDS is a national English language competition that brings together one student from each ETA host school. The 2019 WORDS competition followed the format of a storytelling and storybook competition. However, the best part of WORDS is not the competition—although it.. Read More.
Engagement in Ende
On April 25, 2019, the three winners of the 2019 National WORDS Storytelling and Storybook Competition accompanied by their three ETAs and three staff members from AMINEF participated in a service-learning trip to Ende, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara. The theme for the 2019 WORDS competition was “Future of Indonesia”. The three winners of the competition.. Read More.
Grilling Fish and Exchanging English Tips!
ETA Sabrina Verleysen had the pleasure of spending the afternoon and evening with several other English teachers in the Demak regency in the home of Muji, a close friend of Sabrina. Muji invited many of her English teacher friends from her school and others to join with her family and Sabrina for a beautiful meal.. Read More.
A Month Spent Hiking & Reading
During the week of April 14- 20, ETA Gordon “Peter” Bensen was able to wrap up his two final Community Engagement Projects for the year. Throughout the end of March and beginning of April, Peter recorded himself reading 20 Children’s English books that had been sent to his school, MAN 1 Kota Payakumbuh, by the.. Read More.
Earth Day Reflections
To commemorate Earth Day, ETA Anna Ringheiser and her counterpart led a student-centered lesson on the environment. They started by asking students to brainstorm about problems they see, smell, or hear in their environment. Students also were asked what they could individually do about it. If a student couldn’t think of a solution to the.. Read More.
It’s Not Over Until The ETA Sings!
ETA Sophia Lopresti incorporated songs into other lessons throughout the semester, like “Count on Me” by Bruno Mars to discuss conditionals and “Monster Mash” by Bobby Pickett to introduce her English club to Halloween. Popular culture like music and television helped her to learn more vocabulary and natural speaking flow when she was studying Spanish,.. Read More.
Lasting Connections
There were numerous occasions during April that ETA Neelam Vohra felt surrounded by love, compassion, and kindness that thinking about leaving the next month brought tears to her eyes. As April came to a close, Neelam focused on spending time with those who she would miss the most, including her fellow teachers at school, her.. Read More.
Last Hoorahs!
In her last full month in Gresik, ETA Elizabeth “Liz” Wallace has had a series of bittersweet goodbyes. April brought the end of her weekly Kids’ English club where students enjoyed their going away party full of Oreos, charades, singing, and American stickers. It was exciting to see how much the students had grown in.. Read More.
Get Ready to Debate!
For April, ETA Darby Jones at SMA 2 Sangatta Utara had the pleasure of coaching the school’s English debate team and preparing them for a province-level competition in Samarinda. Her three students, Bintang, Fahrilio, and Gabriela, committed to working hard and learning as much as they could before their first-ever debate. The group learned how.. Read More.
Last Day at the Pre School
It’s hard to believe the final weeks of ETA Emma Barnes’ time in in Padangsidimpuan is fast approaching. She has been spending a lot of time with people in the community, starting to say the first of her goodbyes, and having the first of her “lasts” in Indonesia. One of these “lasts” was her last.. Read More.
