In our "Meet the teacher" series of blog articles, we want to introduce some of the countries and cultures that our teachers represent. The best way to do this is to explore some facts about them, giving you a flavour of their richness. Then, we debunk some cultural myths and discover the beliefs that dominate particular regions. Last but not least, we present some of the lesser known traditions that are typical for the country in question. This week, our teacher Ati Kisjanto shares some of the cultural insights into Indonesia.

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Imagine you are at an international conference in the interpreters’ booth. The presenter starts speaking and you start interpreting. The speech starts with a joke and you have to think quickly and find a translation that works both linguistically and culturally. Luckily, the audience laughs! Phew! 

Even though the joke might be well accepted, there are a lot of ‘what-ifs’. What-if the joke isn’t funny or relevant and is met with blank stares? Even worse, what-if the joke is misunderstood or, even worse, the audience finds offensive?

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Why should we be interested in Stephen Krashen’s ideas? For those of you who haven’t heard of him, Krashen is a leading linguist and educational researcher. He’s a big name in the world of second language acquisition and has written a number of very well-received academic books leading to a number of his approaches, theories, and ideas being used by teachers around the world; such as the Natural Approach, the Affective Filter and many more.

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 The internet is full of fascinating information for language teachers, it’s also full of terrible information for teachers! So we've done the hard work for you by trawling the internet and curating a list of the best podcasts around, all about languages: teaching them, learning them, or just loving them! 

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