Beyond the Classroom: Field Trips as Valuable Learning Experiences (2)

By:
Marie Lizette Tampon
High School English Teacher Manado Independent School Minahasa Utara, Sulawesi Utara

SINCE its establishment, Manado Independent School (MIS) has acknowledged the value of providing its students an avenue for experiential learning.

This is concretized in its annual program of conducting local, national, and international educational field trips.

With this, MIS has embraced the vital role of connecting the classroom and community/society in increasing the students' interest, knowledge, and motivation.

These school trips resonate its consistent endeavor to relate theory to action and to instill in the students historical and cultural empathy. With renewed vigor and zest for travel.

MIS set its sails to discover and unravel what lies yonder mystifying Asia.

More audacious and resolute to go farther and further, 55 participants from both Middle and High School Departments joined the very first sociocultural excursion to the United States held on May 16-27, 2016.

This opportunity was also born out of the intitative of the Kawanua Foundation Inc. to invite MIS kolintang players to perform in the First International Kawanua Convention.

For nine days, the participants were given the luxury and delight to experience firsthand the very diverse American culture.

While it's true the trip was fraught with many challenges, which included enduring a 40-hour flight, it was also rewarding.

The participants got to have an authentic encounter with the language that has become the lingua franca of globalized societies.

The English skills of students were tested and put to good use as they filled out immigration cards and answered random queries with regard to their travel itinerary.

Every glitch, gap, or pothole in the highway of communication at that time surely gave those who usually took the backseat in their English classes a gnawing realization that English is as important and valuable as the other subjects.

For one to be a citizen of the world, he must be conversant of its language and that is as clear as crystal, English.

Being proficient in the English language is sine qua non to being a globally competent individual. Indeed, the entire trip led to a cornucopia of information.

Yet, the real challenge was in keeping an open mind and in being receptive to the eddies and swirls of these new great ideas.