Welcome to the February 2019 edition of the ETA Monthly Highlights! Around this time of year, you will find the ETAs and their school communities consumed with their local WORDS competitions.
Each of our 22 ETAs hosted a local competition at their schools and the first place winner of this competition will compete in the national WORDS competition in Jakarta during the month of April! In this batch of The Monthly Highlights, you will find ETAs praising their students for taking the time to produce creative storybooks and showcase their creations through lively performances. Additionally, in this month’s highlights, you’ll see that our ETAs feel more comfortable than ever at their sites. This month they led presentations about American culture, celebrated birthdays, led teaching workshops, and of course engaged students with creative activities in the classroom.
The grant year may be winding down but our ETAs are not slowing down any time soon. Find out more about the ETAs’ February activities in the stories below.
Many thanks to all of the ETAs for their wonderful stories and photos.
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A Month of Storytelling
In February, tenth-grade classes at SMKN 1 Sangatta Utara learned about narrative text and storytelling. Spread over four lessons, students created their own characters, plots, illustrations, and then put them all together in a final storyboard, which they presented to their class. ETA Brian Miner was very proud to see how students took advantage of.. Read More.
What Makes a True Friend?
Life as an ETA will often mean making more friends in a day than you can count using both your fingers and toes! Although it’s been more than six months since arriving at his host city, ETA Alexander Lopez-Perez was given a kind reminder of this when he participated in a Friendship Day hosted by.. Read More.
Creativity in the Classroom
On February 22 in Demak, Central Java, ETA Sarah Wozniak gathered with fellow ETA Sabrina Verleysen and English Language Fellow (ELF) Devon Jancin to host a teaching workshop for the Demak-Jepara area. Teachers from senior high schools filed into the seminar room, chatting and exchanging stories (and laughs) about their classrooms and experiences as English.. Read More.
Finding Her Stride
ETA Emma Barnes’s highlight this month is not one specific event, but rather the feeling of finally being more at ease in the classroom. Since returning from the Mid-Year Enrichment Conference in Jakarta in mid-January, Emma has been working extra hard to make sure her classes always include fun and engaging English activity, usually in.. Read More.
My Little Valentine
It was Thursday, February 14, 2019, Valentine’s Day, ETA Ryan Ulrich had just completed an awkward day at school. Ryan had attempted to make the class that day Valentine’s Day themed. He had planned to have his students make cards and play some fun games but spent most his class time explaining the history of.. Read More.
Lebih Dari Beautiful
On February 20, 2019, ETA Anisha Tyagi held a female empowerment seminar at her school SMKN 6 Semarang. The culmination of months of discussions with Indonesian college students and neighboring ETAs Sarah Wozniak and Sabrina Verleysen, this discussion’s main idea was that women are worth more than their beauty. Inundated with concepts of beauty that.. Read More.
Celebrating WORDS
February was a busy month for ETA Anna Misenti as she and her co-teachers assisted students in preparing for the WORDS competition. Throughout the month Anna was amazed by her students’ progress as they shifted from being intimidated by the task of developing their own creative stories, illustrating their books, and practicing their talents and.. Read More.
Predicting the Future, One Classroom at a Time
ETA Andrew Shifren thought hard this month about how to get the whole school involved in the English storytelling WORDS competition. For his classes, he wrote five stories about Flores in the future. After the students translated his stories with some shocked reactions (A train in Labuan Bajo?? A direct flight to New York from.. Read More.
A Month of Storytelling + Green Initiatives
Month 7 is now behind us and so many things have been in motion for ETA Catherine Krol. MAN 1 Malang hosted their local words competition in February and the students showed tremendous capacity for creativity, creating their own stories related to the future of Indonesia such as the importance of waste management, the dangers.. Read More.
Teacher Bonding
As soon as ETA Riley Heist arrived in Samarinda, it became clear to her that teaching bonding would be a huge part of her experience. This was most evident when she walked into the teachers’ room on the first day to discover that all of the teachers had woken up extra early that day to.. Read More.
