The massive global economy has certainly brought about changes in the lifestyle of the industrial and business world. The presence of a global economy that has permeated and been felt in Indonesia has also changed the cultural paradigm applied by companies.
Not only have companies globalized their work culture, but also their language. Language is an important instrument and tool for business communication in the corporate world.
The English Club (EC) of Universitas Widyatama (UTama) held a GROW event. GROW is an annual event consisting of a series of seminars and English competitions.
The seminar, which was filled with several speakers who have traveled extensively in their fields, attracted hundreds of enthusiastic students from UTama and external students in the Bandung area. The speakers included Rudiniyadi, S.Pd (German Education Scholarship Recipient, Founder and President Director of Russell Sprachule and Corporate Training College), Viktor Asih, Ir., MBA., MT (Founder and Permanent Mentor of USB School Free Business School, Motivator and Inspirator), Ayu Gani (Model, Winner of Asia’s Next Top Model Cycle 3 2015), and moderator Fikri Alwi Hasan, who is also a staff member of the UTama Marketing Bureau.
Each speaker shared their knowledge of English. Not only that, they also talked about their experiences in the fields of education, entrepreneurship, and fashion in the context of language use. Ayu Ghani shared a fact when answering questions from the audience. Ayu said that Indonesians are a smart nation with various innovations, but the “gap” in language makes Indonesians less competitive in global innovation programs. Rudi experienced the same thing. He saw many innovative Indonesian programs being recognized by other nations because Indonesians lack proficiency in foreign languages (in the context of English). This factor motivated Rudi to take the initiative to open a free weekly speaking class at the tutoring center he currently runs.
The seminar held at GSG Widyatama was part of a series of speech contest events held on Wednesday, April 13th, 2017. The winners of the Speech Contest category were as follows:
1st place: Rizky from Komputer University
2nd place: Andrian Gandhi from Widyatama University
3rd place: Daniel from Universitas Widyatama
With the theme “how to apply English from our daily life”, the English club committee hopes that the use of English in Indonesia will not be something foreign to us, but that the difficulties can be packaged into something fun so that the term “learning by doing” becomes something that is implemented in everyday life.
