I am sad that my Indonesian studies are coming to an end this semester and also that my language partner, Farida, is going back home to Indonesia soon. I truly learned so much from her this semester and not only that, but we have so much in common and I consider her a friend rather than just a language partner or instructor.
Our last few weeks were spent wrapping up our lessons, which was the A1 unit. When I continue next semester, I will be moving onto A2. I had a midterm a few weeks ago, which went a lot better than I expected. It included multiple sections that effectively incorporated listening, writing, and reading. The actual content was fair and included several units we had studied before. My only issue was forgetting certain vocabulary. I understood pretty much all the questions, instructions, and the grammar points included, but there were a few words that I had to guess the meaning for. I used context clues and process of elimination, however, so I think it all worked out well. I was nervous before because I did not actually know how/what to study for the exam. I understood that the A1 level was derived from a textbook which Farida introduced to me and showed me the PDF for in the beginning of the semester, but it was not something we explicitly looked at. Most of the time, the lectures would be from PowerPoints she created, so I studied by reviewing those and looking at new vocabulary I had written down in my notebook.
Since we had a midterm, I assumed we would have a final exam as well, but instead we have a final presentation. This final presentation is one I had to create (with Farida’s help) all in Bahasa Indonesia, about an American topic, and presented to her Indonesian colleagues and students. I chose the topic of mental health in American universities. She prepared me for this presentation by dedicating our last few lessons after the midterm to useful things such as transition words, slang, and formal language (specifically for delivering a speech). These lessons were very interesting because I had never heard of most of the content before, and they were extremely helpful when creating my presentation. The lesson on transition words/phrases is definitely something I referred to when creating/thinking about my presentation. There were a lot of adverbs and prepositions that I had heard before in Bahasa, but never knew the actual meaning of, so it was very valuable. Learning about formal speeches was probably the most difficult one. We went over the opening, body, and closing of a speech (we later modified it to fit a presentation rather than a speech). Most of the language used in the opening/closing is extremely formal so I was not familiar with them at all. Something we also did after midterms was listen to her fellow Fulbright colleagues give presentations on Indonesian subjects. One was on Balinese culture and the other was on Ramadan practices in Yogyakarta. I had actually remembered about these presentations just now, but she may have included them to show me examples of a presentation in Bahasa Indonesia as a form of preparation. To be honest, I am very nervous to present, which is happening on Tuesday evening! I have had assignments in the past where I had to converse with native Indonesian speakers, but this will be the first time speaking in front of several native Indonesian speakers and delivering a presentation. Wish me luck!
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