It has been close to a week since I came to Leeds from my LIA this summer which has given me a lot of time to think back and process the entire experience to share some meaningful insights. So let's start from the beginning - I decided to complete my LIA by travelling to Indonesia and teaching English in a local primary school to young Balinese kids. 

Weeks 1 & 2

After a brief journey entailing 24 hrs of nonstop travel, I  finally reached my accommodation in Ubud at midnight. The next day, we were informed about the school location and assigned classrooms. Here I was introduced to Inés, a bright Mexican teen who would become my teaching partner and a good friend as we took on the challenge of managing a class of twenty 10-11 year-olds.

The first few lessons were about testing the waters and seeing where the kids were at in terms of their vocabulary, pronunciation and grammatical understanding. It really helped going in with an open mindset and an aim to build further on the kids existing knowledge and help them in areas they need it most - an important theme which not only serves good in this context but that also has a universal application.

By the end of the first week, we had a good understanding of concepts covered previously and how to follow through. The next week involved testing out various activities and teaching strategies to see what works best. I should mention our classes ran for 2 hrs with a short break in between. So we wanted to make the most of the time without burning out the kids too quickly. Inés and I would have daily chats about lesson planning and naturally, as two different individuals, would start on different paths before eventually converging somewhere in the middle. The end result turned out to be a beautiful blend of focused active reading and writing, and passive learning through educational games.

I feel the most suitable word to describe this time would be "Change" - It meant a lot of change for me in terms of new surroundings and environment. It was a change for the people I interacted with: the staff, my teaching partner and other volunteers. And an even bigger change for the students, who now had two foreigners in their classroom, people they would get to know better over the next month and a half.

Weeks 3 & 4 

Teaching so far has informed us that our kids command a strong vocabulary and have a good knowledge of common topics like colours, animals, weather, body parts, etc but they struggled to use them and build up simple sentences. The solution is simple - there are 8 parts of speech in English grammar (Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb, Pronoun, Preposition, Conjunction and Interjection), learn these 8 concepts and you can draw from a potent word bank to craft complex sentences. Is covering so much ground in a few weeks an ambitious goal? Yes! but that is precisely the point of this experience, setting goals and achieving them. So we got stuck in and began going through the different parts.

The idea of structure comes to mind here. Structure in language and correct arrangement of words, structure in the lesson plan and topic sequence and finally, structure in classroom activities in terms of the timing breakdown. All this information was also communicated to the kids which I believe had a crucial impact in the successful delivery of the lessons, especially for something as demanding as learning a new language.

Week 5

By this time we had made good academic progress (with only Conjunctions and Interjections left) and developed a more personal connection with the kids. You could hear them shout "Mister! Mister! Miss!" everyday as we stepped in the school grounds and made our way to the class. Teaching became more enjoyable with giggles and laughs interspersed throughout. I had also somehow managed to gain the respect of the boys by displaying my abysmal football skills during recess. 

The thoughts of going back had started to creep in and I was trying my best to deal with this sinking feeling. Bali had become a new home, and I had found family in friends here. Teaching had become a daily routine and I had settled well into the new lifestyle. However, I knew going back to reality was inevitable and so, I wanted to do something more, something different, a nice gesture to show my appreciation to the local community I had developed a bond with. That came to fruition with the help of Inés, when we decided to paint a mural for the school library. It was a great creative outlet and we hoped it would bring more life and attract more kids inside.

So we got the school's approval, bought supplies and started the sketch. For this week we would stay an additional 2 hours after class to draw and paint. Suggestions for ideas were taken up in class and animals were the clear winner. Something I was captivated by was watching kites fly nearby and got overjoyed when a kid asked for them as well. The vision for this wall was there and I am really proud of the end result.

This brings me to the final idea of creative freedom. During my time there I met people from all around the world with very unique stories and reasons for joining this volunteering project. It made me think about the kites in the sky, seemingly floating in the air aimlessly, looking for some direction. But they are very much following a path, partly controlled through the yarn in the palm of a kid and partly through the winds, guiding them along the way. I like to think life is somewhat like those kites, where we try to commandeer it to the best of our abilities but a lot more is governed by external factors. Sometimes you need to be the passenger next to the driving seat and let the universe take the wheel. If you told me 3 years ago that I would be where I am right now, I would have said you don't know what you are talking about. But make some thoughtful decisions, follow your mind and you'll be surprised at the results.