P.T. Koba Tin Consultancy Thor May, April 1996

John Batman Institute of TAFE, P.O.BOX 157 Coburg, Vic. 3058, tel. (03) 9353 1875; fax 9350 1148
Thor May 4/12 Wallace St, Brunswick West, Vic. 3055, Australia; tel. +61 (03) 9387 8284; thormay@melbourne.dialix.oz.au

 

 

date: 1 May 1996

from: Thor May

to: Neil Rich (ITS) & Jenny Molan (Social Science)

topic: Overseas Assignment -- P.T. Koba Tin Consultancy, Indonesia

 

1. The P.T. Koba Tin Project has been concluded successfully. Koba management is pleased with the service they received from the language consultancy. They are slightly dismayed in retrospect at their own initial ignorance of what was involved. They also feel that the JBI sales team could have been more informed and explicit about language issues. There may be a little after-sales service needed, such as assisting with further book recommendations and purchases. This should be done on a complimentary basis in the interests of customer relations.

 

2. An Interim Report (20 pages) and a Project Report (26 pages) are attached. These reports were critical in educating P.T. Koba Tin management, in guiding policy decisions, and in persuading the client that they had received value for money. JBI Social Science management and the ITS staff should read them with care so that they too become fully informed on what is involved in a language consultancy. In future operations, JBI management should be confident that whoever they send on such assignments is capable of assessing the situation on the ground and producing such documents under pressure.

 

3. If and when Social Science staff are involved in overseas assignments in the future, JBI will need to become more professional in its preparation and backup. Failure to do so is likely to result in the loss of contract clients (very large sums of money) and/or loss of the participating JBI consultants. In some cases it could result in legal action against JBI. The comments below stem from my own experience. The important thing is that lessons are learned from them.

4. An overseas language consultancy is much more than teaching a few lessons in another place. In Indonesia the consultant is not even legally permitted to teach (on a business visa), and whatever "demonstration" teaching is done might be the easiest part of the assignment. Other tasks include managing the local politics of the operation from top management to shop floor worker levels (very difficult and time consuming), educating personnel at all levels of the project in language needs, options and procedures (all sorts of barriers here), kick-starting the operation from initial interviews, to timetabling to curriculum planning (much negotiation), training local teachers (who are apt to be largely untrained), providing, recommending and adapting resources, anticipating and providing long-term program, curriculum and policy options .... and so on. All of this has to happen within a very compressed time frame with busy people from other professions and trades. They have to be left as satisfied customers, or there is no repeat business.

 

5. I spent most of the last two weeks of my own vacation time preparing for the Koba Tin consultancy. In retrospect, without that planning I would have been hugely handicapped and JBI may have lost any future contracts. No preparation time at all was provided for this contract by JBI. That must not happen again. If necessary, Social Science should negotiate with the ITS for some release time.

 

6. The language contract package sold by JBI to P.T. Koba Tin succeeded despite a lack of knowledge about language teaching, both by JBI management and by the client company. Re-educating Koba management towards a realistic appraisal of language options took considerable diplomacy. When I arrived at P.T. Koba Tin I found the following situation:

 

a) Koba management had been assured, they said, that I spoke flawless Indonesian. Although anxious to learn the language, in fact I presently speak only a little, very basic Indonesian. It needed some fancy footwork to persuade the client that this was not critical to the consultancy. As it happened, relations were able to proceed smoothly, but it could have been very awkward with a different mix of personalities.

 

b) JBI had sold the language program as a package of modules. I was repeatedly queried about these modules by the President-Director, the Mining Manager and other senior personnel. The modules sold were actually eighty-five units of my own draft volume, English for Mechanics, which are my personal property, copyrighted to my name. The copyright has been documented with JBI management back to early 1995. JBI has made no agreement whatsoever to pay a royalty on the use of this material in spite of repeated written requests. I will of course be pursuing this matter further, with legal advice if necessary. On-site in Indonesia I could have either told P.T. Koba Tin that they had been defrauded, or made the material available with a view to seeking later compensation from JBI. I chose the latter course.

 

When I located and interviewed the students to be taught at Koba, they turned out to have a language competency of around 0+/5 ASLPR, so it will possibly be a year into the program before the English for Mechanics Material can be optimally used in its present form. This was explained to P.T. Koba Tin management in two project reports and several management meetings. Koba management still required me to hand over the materials. The local trainer plans to use the units as his prime source for adaptation to elementary material.

 

5. The attached reports set out in detail the inception and development of the Technical English program. A formal report cannot properly record the enthusiasm of the students, or their commitment to learning the language. Such interest transcends whatever narrow industry benefit might accrue from using English. It is now a truth embedded in Indonesian popular culture that English language ability opens doors to career and social advancement at all levels of the society. For a very modest investment, P.T. Koba Tin has scored a major boost in employer-employee relations.

 

6. It is very important for future development i) that ITS staff become more knowledgeable about language acquisition and language-affected teaching, and ii) that at least a few key Social Science staff become aware of what goes on in a language consultancy. Point 7 below illustrates this.

 

7. With regards to i) the Heavy Vehicle Maintenance Training Program modules, Peter McLinton has worked hard to establish proper groundwork and set up links with the local technical high school. He has been most successful. However, the Heavy Vehicle Maintenance Training Program modules have been sold in English to a non-English speaking country, to be taught by largely non-English speaking staff. There is vague talk of "interpreters" in the classroom whenever the language matter is raised. K.P.C., where the modules were first developed, was ultimately forced to commission its own translation. From an honest teaching perspective, the English language version is designed for failure in Indonesia. That was not a proposition I could discuss on site of course. However, P.T. Koba Tin management arrived at the same conclusion independently as they began to focus on the realities of implementation.

 

P.T. Koba Tin is now grudgingly about to commission its own translation of JBI materials. JBI itself shows no signs of thinking about professional solutions. This is just plain bad business and bad educational practice. Translations could be commissioned in Indonesia at a reasonable cost. Early in the consultancy I suggested (by fax) to JBI that, as a minimum, word lists could be extracted from the modules to help in compiling bilingual glossaries. Word lists are easy to extract from computerized material.

 

8. The consultancy experience was challenging, but a rewarding experience on many levels. It opened up both professional and personal contacts. It gave a rare experience, that could not be duplicated easily in other ways, of living in another culture. There was a larger perspective on JBI operations, both of opportunities and risks. There were clear signs that openings exist for educational services that are honestly marketed, carefully prepared for real regional needs, and professionally delivered.

 

Regards, Thor May