Interactive English learning for environmental sustainability

Bank Sampah Bersinar is contributing to help improve the welfare of the surrounding community through various educational activities. Initiated by Fifie Rahardja in 2014, this non-governmental organisation stands on five pillar values, which are environment, education, economy, health, and cultural arts. Bank Sampah Bersinar launched various activity programs to directly benefit the surroundings.

ACER Senior Project Manager, Excelita Syahrani was involved in one of their recent activities, to conduct a fun pop-up classroom for teaching English to elementary school students in the neighbourhood by asking the children to bring along used plastic bottles from their home as a “tuition fee payment.”

This activity has become routine around Taman Ceria and Taman Air, Baleendah, Bandung Regency, West Java, Indonesia. Activities usually begin at 1 pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The selected hours are adjusted to avoid the hours of school activities so that more students will be able to join. One session can reach between 10—30 elementary school students. The material given was geared towards the introduction of English vocabulary with interactive activities such as singing and dancing to make learning activities more enjoyable for the children.

During the pandemic period that started in March last year, this activity was greatly welcomed by the children since they could no longer interact with their school friends daily. The presence of this English language learning activity is also an opportunity for students to release their stress.

The collection of used plastic bottle waste as a requirement of participating in the activity supports the message that Bank Sampah Bersinar wishes to deliver to the young generation — taking care of the environment through recycling — by showing how garbage should not be thrown away and even can still give a benefit. Baleendah area is often flooded due to piles of garbage created by people's thoughtless behaviour.

The program carried out by Bank Sampah Bersinar is one example of improvisation in the implementation of learning, and is very open to collaboration with other parties.

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This article is submitted by Abyan Artyasana Pradana, one of the main volunteers at Bank Sampah Bersinar.