For many of the English Teaching Assistants, parts of December are spent away from traditional classroom teaching, as schools begin testing and the short holiday in between the semester starts.

To celebrate the end of the semester, SMKN 2 Salatiga held a day-long ceremony that featured Zumba, presentations from various extracurricular groups, and of course, karaoke!

This was a great opportunity for ETA Michelle Nguyen to be with both students and co-teachers to celebrate the school’s anniversary and the end of a successful semester. Then, Michelle took some time to explore Salatiga deeper, outside of the classroom setting.

The connections that Michelle has made both within and outside of SMKN 2 Salatiga have been crucial to her ETA experience. After a presentation Michelle led during November, a Salatiga native and newly graduated university student, Thea, came up and introduced herself. Since then, Michelle and Thea have spent a lot of time together, exploring more of Salatiga and practicing both English and Indonesian. Although Michelle loves spending the majority of her time with her students and co-teachers, she has also appreciated learning from Indonesians outside of her school as well.

Michelle Nguyen is currently teaching at SMKN 2 Salatiga, Central Java.