Because of my goal of studying music and culture in Indonesia for a year, a lot of the tasks in my learning plan have to do with day-to-day activities and cultural comprehension. This includes preparing to eat at Indonesian restaurants, reading Indonesian folk tales, watching Indonesian movies, and learning about Indonesian clothing and fashion conventions. Some of the tasks relate directly to my study of Indonesian music, including the study of Javanese-language traditional ensemble music and Indonesian-language pop songs.
My fellow classmates were helpful in sharing their tasks, as I was able to incorporate some of their tasks into my own learning plan, including watching Indonesian-language TV shows to get exposure to both language and popular culture. Although we have had only two group sessions with our Bahasa Indonesia instructors, I enjoy the way these lessons use almost exclusively Indonesian, and motivate me to work on my own between lessons using language learning podcasts and the Indonesian Grammar in Context textbook.
I am thankful to be a member of the University’s gamelan ensemble as well, as our twice-weekly rehearsals provide touches of Indonesian language exposure in addition to building interpersonal musical skills playing the music I will study. This, after all, is what got me interested in Indonesian culture in the first place. As my Bahasa skills increase, I hope to be able to have conversations with the members of the group who are from Indonesia or are proficient in the language.
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