Feels like in home, but i'm in Japan 🏠✨

In Tsukusaka, I felt a familiar feeling, as if I was back in my homeland. Indonesian is one of the subjects taught here, and seeing students learning enthusiastically makes me feel at home.

On February 18, I had the opportunity to observe the Bahasa Indonesia 1 class, which is a basic Indonesian language class taken by 10th grade students. With Ms. Arum, the Indonesian teacher teaching this subject. The class started with the students saying 'Selamat Datang' or 'Welcome' and 'Apa kabar?' or 'How are you?' to me and Galuh who had come to see and observe their class. On that day they were learning about 'Rasa' or 'Taste' and 'Cuaca' or 'Weather', the class started with Ms. Arum reviewing the vocabulary they had learned the previous week. After she finished, she handed out a worksheet that they had to do that day, she told me and Galuh to watch and help them with the worksheet. The students really enjoyed the class, as they did the worksheet quickly and correctly. This was a great experience for me, because not only helping them in Indonesian, I also trained myself to help them translate the meaning of the Indonesian words into Japanese, at that time there was a student who asked what is 'Garam' or in English 'Salt' then I tried to answer it in Japanese which is 'Shio'. What a fun new experience!

Observing Bahasa Indonesia 1 Class

Then on February 21, Ms. Arum invited Galuh and me to observe the Bahasa Indonesia 2 class. Where this class is taken by 11th grade high school students, in this class the number of students is much smaller than the Bahasa Indonesia 1 class. But Ms. Arum explained, a class that contains a small number of people actually makes the quality of students' abilities in Indonesian language better. And it was true, when observing the class the students were able to speak Indonesian well and confidently! They were so fluent that they were able to have simple conversations in Indonesian, it was amazing!

Docummentation wit Ms. Arum!

In addition to observing Ms. Arum's Indonesian class, she invited us to participate in an Indonesian food cooking activity! This activity was held on February 1st, one day after my arrival in Japan. Ms. Arum informed us, the SEA-Teacher participants, to attend the cooking activity at the school. The menu we made was one of Indonesian food, 'Soto Ayam'. Soto Ayam is a very suitable food to be eaten during the cold or rainy season in Indonesia, because the soup served in Soto Ayam can make the body warm. The cooking activity started by dividing the cooking groups because in addition to Soto Ayam, we made a side dish called 'Tahu Susur' which is fried tofu with vegetables inside, a delicious side dish with Soto Ayam. I was assigned some students to boil some vermicelli for the main ingredient of Soto Ayam, and after that Bu Arum told me to invite the students to fry a typical Indonesian snack when eating heavy meals, namely 'Kerupuk'. Kerupuk is a traditional Indonesian deep-fried cracker made from starch and various ingredients for flavoring, I invited the students to fry kerupuk together and try the taste of kerupuk. They loved the taste of kerupuk so much! We had to fry it three times because everyone loved it so much! This made for a great experience that I will always remember with great love, being able to introduce my country's culture as well as its characteristics and share it with the students in Japan!

Docummentation of Cooking Class!