Pelaihari, South Kalimantan (ANTARA) - Team of lecturers from the Indonesian Teachers Association (PGRI) University of Kalimantan (UPK) conducted community service in the form of English learning training based on local environmental wisdom for English teachers in Tanah Laut District, South Kalimantan.
"The training held in 10 session from July 19 to August 2, 2025 in the hall of (public high school) SMAN 1 Pelaihari," said head of the team Yasyir Fahmi Mubaraq, M.Pd in Pelaihari, Saturday.
The team, which consisted of three lecturers and three students, trained 100 English teachers from various schools in Tanah Laut.
Not only from the capital city of Pelaihari, they also came from other sub-districts or villages, including Jorong, Bati-Bati, Batu Ampar, Tambang Ulang, Bumi Makmur, and also Bajuin, Panyipatan, and Kintap and actively participated in the training.
This training is a competitive grant from the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology through the Directorate of Research and Community Service (DPPM) for 2025.
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Yasyir said the training is designed as a strategic efforts to improve the quality of English learning in Tanah Laut.
The aim is not only to stengthen teachers' competencies in preparing teaching materials based on local enviromental wisdom, but also to encourage the integration of cultural values, tolerance, and concern for environmental sustainability into teaching and learning process.
Teachers were provided with a collaborative space to share best practices in contextual learning relevant to social and environmental reality of their students.
Yasyir here emphasized the importance of making English learning as a means to build students' character, not just linguistic skills.
He also highlighted education role in disaster mitigation. Nature-and-environment based learning approaches are believed to foster ecological awareness from early age.
Head of the South Kalimantan BPMP Partnership Working Team Nurul Amini said the training provided by PGRI University of Kalimantan supports the government's policy requiring teachers to study an hour per week for self-development applied by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (Kemendikdasmen) in 2025.
Head of the Senior High School English Teachers Conference (MGMP) in Tanah Laut Fahri Ramadani, S.Pd admitted that this training provides a new perspective on developing English learning in the classroom.
According to him, the local wisdom and environmental-based approaches are highly relevant to current needs and foster students' cultural and environmental awareness.
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