We finally reached Talekoi after a long 8 hours drive from Palangka Raya. As the cloud slowly began to unfold, we dropped our bags at one of the villagers' houses, Mama Beta. We already contacted our partners in Talekoi, Ardi and his friends to gather the children. That afternoon we moved the children from the customary school's dance practice in front of the kindergarten to the dock. We had the sessions head to head as we only had two days in the village.
There were 26 children participating in our mini English class, ranging from 5 to 18 years old. They were very excited joining the class. The class was so beautiful outdoors with the beautiful sunset view behind the dock. The sun rays were not strong, instead so calming and aesthetic, said by youth nowadays. Besides the children, there were also some of their mothers who joined to support them.
We started the class by introducing ourselves. I and Kak Neney then gave the modules to the children one by one. As most of them did not bring the pencil or pen, we also gave the pencil colours. Thus, the modules were later filled with their colourful handwritings.
The theme of the day's class was Places in Talekoi village. The first page of the module was a list of landmarks, such as village hall, library, dock, forest, etc. They played a guess, to name the places in three languages: Dayak Maanyan, English and Indonesian. By using their mother language, we hope the children can remember the vocabulary easily as they are already familiar with it.
By talking to some of the children, we learned there was no English class in their school, except in Senior High School. However, the children were so excited to follow the class. From guessing the name, spelling the English vocabulary, they had fun. Of course they made some mistakes as well, but we appreciated their high-spirit to try and be brave.
At the end of the class, as the sky started to dim, we invited the children to conclude the class by giving quizzes. We asked them to mention 5 vocabularies we have learned in 3 languages. Kevin, Justin, and Joshua were the winners. The gifts are wood keychains brought by me from Baduy. Other winners were Layu, Yieska, and Raisa, one hand perfume for each girl. They won by answering questions about the places in Talekoi.
Last but not least, we gave each child a bottle of milk, and took photos with sunsets as the background. By saying goodbye, we also asked them to keep learning English by fulfilling the rest of the module: the plant and animal topics. It was unfortunate that we could not finish all the topics. Thus, this class might not be the last, but a start for more English classes in the future for Talekoi's children.
We also invite you to teach voluntarily for our next visits to Talekoi! Please contact us and we look forward to your participation. (Masayu)
