This month, ETA Greg Sutton initiated a pen pal exchange between his English club students and ETA Katia Oltmann’s English club students from Manado. He began by teaching his club a lesson about culture, its aspects, and how to appropriately communicate with people from other contexts. His English club discussed cultural differences between Indonesia and the US as well as regional cultural differences within Indonesia. After receiving the first round of letters from Katia, Greg taught the students how to write a letter and the students began to write their responses. This pen pal exchange will last until April, and after several letters are exchanged the students will have an opportunity to meet each other virtually via video chat.

Greg has also begun preparing his students for the upcoming school WORDS competition. He has hosted daily workshops with the 18 participants to help them with their books and presentations. He has worked individually with each student to improve their grammar and story content within their respective books, and has also assisted in improving their pronunciation, fluency, and confidence for their presentations.

Finally, Greg also had the chance to visit a local SMP (middle school) to lead activities and practice English conversation.

Greg Sutton is currently teaching at SMK Muhammadiyah 7, Gondanglengi Malang, East Java