https://drive.google.com/file/d/18JtLA09lX4Hh1_4XUtL3bTP8ectN7UmY/view?usp=sharing
The Bintan Trip was a new and introspective experience which changed the way I looked at things.
The different stakeholders of the society offered valuable viewpoints; some which even cleared up our former misconceptions. This was an important step in the process as without this; we would’ve been unable to make an accurate judgement on the different problems affecting the area.
During the course of the trip we mainly interviewed the village folk based on the different compass perspectives that we were assigned; ( Nature. Economy, Wellbeing, & Society). Time and translation skills were a constraint so, we were to make best use of our time by asking meaningful questions as the translation too was a skill that took effort. Following the guidelines of the compass perspective was useful as, based on their occupation and the compass perspective we were required to look over; it was easier to frame meaningful questions.
The main point which was brought up by the stakeholders that framed our perspective clearly was the importance of the English language in the island of Bintan. Many brought up the issue of locals not being hired due to their lack of English speaking skills and brought up that foreign workers were more preferably hired. For instance; Nikoi Resort staff Andy old us about how unlike the resort he works in which employs 85% locals, most other resorts refrain from hiring locals at all and pay them less even if they do so. We were also able to notice a clear issue in the education system upon interviewing a middle school student who felt overwhelmed by the English subject and lacked the English speaking skills of even a pre-schooler. Unlike most other societies, the locals of Bintan do not feel the strong urge to increase their technological development but rather feel that improving their English speaking skills will help them thrive better in their chiefly tourist based society.
I often found my peers and I trying to expand on just one question and collecting information that was not necessarily useful for us. Instead, we could’ve moved on swiftly after each question so as to cover more topics and make better use of our time.
While presenting our compass perspectives my partner and I could’ve managed our time better by clearly discussing the important points to go over beforehand, instead of getting overwhelmed over the plethora of information that we were able to garner. Upon watching the video again I was able to notice that we often expanded on one think as soon as we started making links and took time to move on to our next point. We were excited to present our findings, but could’ve done a better presentation.