Sebasa: Police Language School

Today marks the end of my first full week of teaching at Sebasa. It was exciting, nerve-racking, and at some points a little tough and exhausting, but I can't imagine a better fit for me. Sebasa is a Police Language School that offers courses in five languages (English, Arabic, Mandarin, French, and Bahasa Indonesia) to police from all over the country. The students have already completed the Police Academy and come from all ranks and divisions. They stay for three months, learning, eating, and sleeping on the Sebasa campus. Right now, we have sixty students from the Mobile Brigade (similar to our special forces/SWAT) and thirty more students from various departments prepping for various missions. So, yeah, it's kinda a big deal. :)

Part of my job here is to teach the Brimob (squish Mobile Brigade together...they squish words together a lot here). So, Monday - Thursday, I teach the two morning sessions from about 8-11:30. Class topics vary from day to day. One day I could be teaching a writing lesson, and the next day it could be a grammar lesson. All of the lessons are based in the context of policing, so I spend a lot of my time reading the two English newspapers (Jakarta Post and Jakarta Globe) to find police/crime related articles. Inevitably, though, I end up spending a good chunk of every class fielding questions about American police and American everything else. Since I don't have a heavy background in criminal justice (i.e. none at all other than those few speeding tickets), I spend a lot of time researching answers to questions about department organization, training, requirements, and even police relations with the military. I'm currently looking into buying some posters that I can hang in the classrooms to explain all these things better than I can. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has them! The students are hilarious and very sweet. They hail from  many different islands and countries and have all at one point or another offered a place for me to stay if I should ever visit their cities. Our ninety-minute classes zoom by without a thought. We have a lot of laughs over pronunciation (usually at my expense) and sometimes even fit some English lesson in!

I have to say that perhaps my favorite part of Sebasa, however, is morning PT...that's right - physical training. Every Tuesday and Friday morning, all students and staff get into formation at 7:00am. The ka. Sebasa - head of the school - addresses the students/staff while we alternately stand at attention and at ease. Most of this is in bahasa, but occasionally he'll throw me a bone and talk in English. As one unit, we stretch, yell, and...dance? Yep. Silly me and my Hollywood influenced beliefs about PT. I thought we would get right into some push ups and sit ups. No, no, no. We finish stretching, and the music comes on. It's time to line dance. And, everyone loves it. So there I was, Tuesday morning, minding my own business and stretching my left hamstring when over the loudspeaker I hear: "Miss Jackie, come up and lead the dancing." There was no getting out of this. They were cheering my name. Gulp. Just go with it, Jackie. I walked up to the front of one hundred plus students and staff and helped lead the electric slide...Indo-style. I'm still working on my follow-up act. Perhaps some Cupid Shuffle...or the Cha Cha slide? Oh, the possibilities.

The other part of my job (besides teaching the police and leading line dancing) is teacher training. There are about twelve English teachers and about thirteen non-English teachers, and I am responsible for their professional development. My ultimate boss, ICITAP - the overseas branch of the US Department of Justice - wants me to move the staff into modern teaching theory and methodology. I've never done this before, so it's more than a little intimidating. Don't get me wrong, I believe I have enough experience to do it, it's just new and requires intensive prep work. Again, though, I couldn't be happier for the opportunity because it's allowing me to form my niche in ESL, namely teaching English for Specific Purposes to adults. Right now, I'm working with the non-English staff for three days a week. I will work with the English staff weekly to continue work on a curriculum development project, and we will have intensive training when the students leave in November.

So, there you have it... a typical week at Sebasa. Life outside of Sebasa is as equally entertaining...but that's for another blog. :)