Does my son speak American English ?

Salam Hangat,

One day about 2 years ago, when I was filling the check in form at a motel in Bondi, Sydney Australia, all of a sudden the old gentleman at the reception desk spoke to me in his "Aussie English" : "Sounds like that your son here has just arrived from California mate !" I was startled and looked into his eyes, making sure that the old man was talking to me. Then I looked down to my 9 year-old- son who was reading and playing with several tourist brochures stacked on a rack nearby - he was talking to himself reading the brochures, and once in a while talked to me without moving his eyes away from the colourful brochures - not needing my answers for sure. Then I looked back to the old receptionist who was smiling at me, and he said : " Yup matey, he sounds very American !" Oh my God ... apparently this old man was listening to my son's chittering in his "American English". I laughed and replied back : "No sir, we've just arrived from Jakarta, Indonesia, and he has never been in the States before". He stared at me with his - 'I don't believe you - mode' look, and smiled : "Then how come that his English is so American.. ?"

When I got back to our room, I shared this "incident" to my wife Mita, and we laughed - no one has ever commented Raihan's ( my son's name ) English accent before, even though we knew all along that his English has an American accent. Well, nothing wrong with that, but it was just the first time that an English native speaker told us about that.

So we rewinded our memories back to the year 2004 when Raihan was only 1 year old.  He loved watching Baby Eisntein videos that we bought for him. They were about basic things in life such as names of colours, shapes, animals, including colourful alphabets. When he was a bit older we started to introduce him to Barney series ( with no Indonesian dubbing nor subtitles - as he couldn't read anyway ! ); and Little Einstein - a higher level of Baby Einstein Video series which already had short stories in it.

In his first few years, all he did was just sit still and locked his eyes on the tv screen, with no comments ( of course ! As he wasn't able to talk back then )- paying full attention to the whole videos. After a while, he started to imitate the sounds from the videos, from the various sounds of music instruments until the roar of a lion !
After a few years, one day he came up to us and "Bang !" from out of nowhere, he just shot out many English words forming sentences which later we found out that they were exactly the same as what he had heard in the videos ! Infact he just imitated and memorized all of the lines in the videos and repeated them to us ! And his pronunciation sounded very American !

Time went by and Raihan is 11 years old now, and one of his favorite activities is watching TV, movies and videos - in English ( besides playing Lego Hero Factories, Ipad, Tennis and Violin ). And unfortunately ( or can I say fortunately ? ) the English were American English ! So we can't help it if his English is with an American Accent now - influenced by his "TEACHERS" - the videos !:-(

Of course I didn't explain that to the old man in Bondi two years ago . But at least we know a way ( because there must be many other ways ), how to make someone using a spesific accent in speaking a language .... not limited to English for sure, even in speaking Bahasa Indonesia - give it a try : if you have a young toddler who is learning to speak bahasa Indonesia, why don't you go and live in Surabaya - East Java, and employ a native East Java nanny to assist you daily to take care of your child when you are away to work everyday - Guaranteed, that your child will be speaking Bahasa Indonesia with a perfect  Surabayan Accent ! As Surabaya or East Java Accent is known as one of the strongest accents in Indonesia that can influence heavily your pronunciation !  Believe me ! You spoke what you listened

Well, so much for accent discussion for now which involves 2 skills : listening ( plus memorizing ) and speaking . Hope to see you again in my next posting ! Feel free to comment or give me feedback ... :-)

Salam Hangat .....

Rilwan hamzah - 22 June 2014
( Happy Anniversary dear Jakarta ! )

Returning Teacher

Salam Hangat,

This is my first blog that I am writing now. I named it "Returning Teacher" .. Why ? Because it represents my condition at the moment.  Well, you can say that I "used to be" a Teacher; an English Teacher to be more precised, ( or at least that's what I had in mind ). I use the terminology "used to be" which is a past tense, because I was an English teacher 20 years ago; I am not anymore today; and I want to be ONE again tomorrow ! So I am Returning to be an English Teacher again ! I hope that explained the background of my Blog's name.

What brings me to this "Blogging" activity all of a sudden ? I'm no blogger before ! I only read several blogs that attracted my attention once in a while in the past( one of it was my cousin's blog - an aircraft expert who used to work for Airbus Industry in France, but now migrated to Canada - He named his blog "VeroVenia", and it's all about aircraft stuffs, professionally written with close to perfect English Language ! ( totally different with this super basic blog of mine you're reading ! ). Check it out for yourself if you don't believe me.... :-)

Well it all started one day when I first saw this "Language Village" banner in front of a small ruko in Bali View, Cirendeu, Ciputat - Tangerang Selatan when I was  day-dreaming in my parked car, waiting for my son attending his Saturday-morning Sakamoto Math Course class at one of the rukos near to this ruko with the above mentioned banner.
I stepped out of my car, and take a closer look at the banner, and walked to the ruko and greeted by a very friendly "bule" gentleman to whom I opened a conversation by asking what is this "Language Village" all about. After giving me explanation, this
very nice Australian gentleman then invited me to his "Mastermind Gathering" that he is arranging every fortnight, consisting of English Teachers from Jakarta and surroundings , to give the opportunity to meet, share and discuss any topic about English Teaching stuffs, which to me is very interesting - in line with my plan to become a "Returning Teacher" .

To make the story short, I did go to his first "Mastermind" gathering on 31 May 2014, where I met about 12 other teachers from various institutions and backgrounds; from elementary schools, secondary schools, private teachers as well as a lecturer at the University of Indonesia; and the second Gathering was on 14 June 2014 where I met a totally different crowd, consisting of 2 young fresh graduated teachers from UIN Jakarta, who are now teaching English at Universitas Muhammadiyah Jakarta - Ciputat, focussing in English Conversation - who brought their 6 students along to give them experience in speaking English outside their campus, which to me it was a good thing to do !
And the topic of the second gathering was "Teacher Bloggers", where Mr. Hugh Elliot Al Faruq ( the nice and friendly gentleman's name ) - the owner and founder of "Language Village" gave us the steps and tips to start a simple blog of our own !

So .. Voila ! As you can see ....  I have my own blog now ! And hopefully I can follow what Mr. Elliot has advised us in the meeting about blogging :
- Discipline ( I usually do that at the beginning of something , 
  and gradually fades away ).

- Focus on a specific theme ( I tend to mix everything I had in 
  mind when writing something ! )

- Make different blogs to write different themes ( After trying this
  very user friendly blogging machine, I'd make more blogs for
  sure ! )

Well, I think I better stop writing now for my first "episode" of my blog, so that I still have things to write for my next postings ! I promise I will be focussed and relate my writing(s) to  my blog's name : "Returning Teacher". - So I will try to write only the aspects around Teaching stuffs !

Million of thanks to pak Hugh Elliot ( he always calls me pak Rilwan, so I'd better call him pak Hugh as well ) for being part of my plan to become a Returning Teacher !

See you all in my next postings ! ( Crossing my fingers ).

Salam Hangat,

Rilwan Hamzah
15 June 2014