Learning Bahasa Indonesia - Week 1

I am just wrapping up my second week living in Indonesia and my first week of language school. As I mentioned in a previous post, after a placement test I was placed in Unit Four. I was concerned about being placed that high, as I knew my grammar was not that good but we have come up with a solution for that (more on that a minute).

I am studying at the Indonesian Language Center for Cross-Cultural Communication (IMLAC). Right now class is from 1 pm - 3 pm with about 4-6 hours of homework every evening.  I am actually in a class all by myself, which gives me plenty of time to practice and for correction. It is also exhausting, since the focus is always on me. If there were other students, we would each have to do a presentation every couple of days, instead I have to do one every day and an essay.

Ibu Susanna

Ibu (Mrs) Susanna was my teacher for this first week. It has been so nice to have an encouraging teacher right at first. We have had fun sharing stories and I am pretty sure we have disrupted other classes with the laughter that comes from our room at times. She takes my grammar to task though and probably about 50% of the time I have to redo a sentence because I didn't conjugate my verb correctly, although she said in our end of the week meeting that has decreased to 30%. I will be switching teachers next week and it will be interesting to see how that goes. 

As of Monday, I will also be adding an hour of grammar in the morning. I will be joining a Unit 2 grammar for the rest of the month and then a Unit 3 grammar class in August. Hopefully this will help fill in some of the gaps in my education. Everyone keeps saying I know bahasa sehari-hari (daily language that is not formal) fairly well but it needs to be more formal. I am glad we were able to work something out because I really do want to get this right, especially since soon I will be the one teaching! So now I am in the process of catching up on all the lessons from week one of Unit 2 grammar and my other homework. 

Here are a few pictures from my first week of study... 

Time for PR (homework)! My lesson book is on the left, a notebook in the middle to write the assignment in, and an Indonesian-English dictionary on the right. And when all else fails sometimes Google Translate has come in handy :) 

After I do a presentation, my teacher writes all the things I did wrong (either grammar or pronunciation) on the board and we go through them one by one. I also write them down in my notebook, so I can look them over later. It is already helping! 

My first test! I had to write an essay on greetings in Indonesia, do a grammar exercise and write 10 sentences with words I wanted to learn better.  

Thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement via email and facebook! Onward and upward - week #2 here I come!!