Message From Suzanne
My dream is to have this web site play a small part in cementing the relations between Indonesia and Australia, two great neighbouring nations with two diametrically opposed cultures.
I believe through fostering language learning we can achieve this to some extent. I am particularly interested in the foreign language learning, and have been for many years. I've personally been passionate about several languages since childhood: Indonesian, ESL, German, French and Hungarian. But it would be an enormous task (and most unrealistic of me) to build a web site which could do justice to all of these at once!
So for now, if I can just offer Indonesian teachers and their students an excellent meeting place to begin with, without having to worry about the divisive barriers of state, private and public education systems, we (teachers and students alike), can have an excellent playground and learning centre right here on this site!"
The fact of the matter is, that having been involved in language learning/teaching for over 25 years now, I have been around long enough to see the cycles of popularity of these languages particularly Indonesian teaching in Australia. It pains me to think that our Governments have always taken a "short term" view of the usefulness of learning Indonesian, even though Indonesia is our closest neighbour! These cycles of interest are a bit like the "flavour of the month" and they seem to go up and down constantly in line with the whims of government policies and in recent times of world events.
But the good news is, that foreign language learning will never die, because communication is the key to human existence and we are all social animals - thank goodness! Not to mention that internationalization and the advent of sophisticated communication technology has meant that contact with people from other lands is inevitable. Coupled with this, language educators are a resilient lot, (see the Great Indonesian Teacher's Survey), and we will fight to have our students exposed to the key to human interaction - learning a language belonging to another nation and people.
About Suzanne Kiraly
Hungarian born Suzanne Ildiko Kiraly, was a practising teacher until recently, when the internet attracted her into a whole new world and a different career direction.
Initially qualifying in general primary teaching, her broad teaching experience has covered K-12, encompassing diverse positions within both the Government and Private sectors. She has taught ESL and general primary on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, and in the ACT school system. Suzanne has teaching experience in Indonesian, ESL, German and French in secondary schools in both the ACT and NSW, both in the private and public sectors. She was also involved in teaching English as a foreign language to adults on Christmas Island and ESL for the International School of English and Business in Canberra, as well as the teacher for intensive English programmes in a number of institutions to prepare overseas students for tertiary study in Australia via the IELTS and other assessment vehicle entry points.
Suzanne is the author of two commercial Indonesian language courses, as well as having written and published numerous teaching resources for foreign language acquisition.
In the late 90's, Suzanne marked the NSW Higher School Certificate examination for the Board of Studies, for five consecutive years and has sat on the HSC examination writers' committee for three of those years, setting the Higher School Certificate papers for Indonesian.
She has also regularly marked for the University of NSW Testing Centre for national writing competency based tests.
Suzanne recently (early 2000) co-authored sample Indonesian programme materials included in a publishing project for the new (at that time) National Curriculum for Indonesian for the Association of Independent Schools, and has led many practical workshops for Indonesian teachers on teaching ideas and practical applications of current theories of second language acquisition. She has presented/led professional development courses for both the ACT, WA and NSW departments of education.
Suzanne has graduate and postgraduate qualifications in ESL, Primary Teaching and Second Language Acquisition and has studied at ANU, Canberra University, University of Sydney, Adelaide University and Monash.
She is a self confessed "obsessed" language learner and currently lives out this obsession through her publishing company, "Kambing International Press", which she has been operating since 1993, (with a few short breaks for teaching), and has been trading on the internet since 1995, (prior to the internet fever days and post the "tech wreck"!)
Suzanne is a keen and interested listener and welcomes initiatives of teachers who want to promote Indonesian language learning and/or Indonesian/Australian relations. She believes that there is power in the voice of the many,and it can be wielded through publishing mediums. She will lend a hand to any worthwhile project she can which promotes and encourages foreign language acquisition.
If you have a proposal you wish to discuss, please don't hesitate to contact her personally at suzanne@kambing.com.au
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Suzanne Kiraly