Source : Personal

In March, I finally got my competency certificate from Lembaga Sertifikasi Kompetensi-Bahasa Inggris, or the English Certification Board for English for Specific Purposes in Tourism.

I feel happy because I had to take the course for 3 months starting in September 2021, and it ended in November of the same year before I took the competency test in November of last year.

I didn't have any basic tourism skills, like how to greet tourists, explain tourist attractions to them, or guide them on what to do next. Fortunately, all of it is taught well.

I'd like to share some experiences from this program in the hope of motivating people who are trying to learn these types of skills.

I first signed myself up on the site that was provided by the course I joined. There's a drawing test and, as a person who knows nothing about drawing skills, I drew a tree just like how kindergarten students draw and I wasn't sure of the purpose of this test, but I ended up drawing for the requirements.

A few months later, I got a notification that I was accepted along with the other 47 students who joined the same program. Surely, I was happy though, because I didn't expect anything at all.

And in November 2021, the first class started online via Zoom for 15 students because we were far away from the course location, while the rest were offline.

By chance, I've got a teacher who is friendly and fun when she's teaching. She taught us many skills in English for the Tourism subject, such as different cultures between a country and another one, so just like doing what Romans do to respect each other's cultures, like for greetings, for instance. In India, people usually greet each other by saying "namaste," so when we know the tourists from there, we can do the same as much as we can to respect them. Aside from English skills, the most important thing I've learned from this course is personal manner.

We learned four skills such as listening, reading, writing, and speaking, of course, in a fun way while joking for a while in the middle of the lesson. 😅

And finally, three months passed. In the middle of November, all of the course participants took the competency test by two methods: offline in the course place and online with a proctored system.

The format of the competency test is similar to IELTS, I think, because it provides four skills in two hours. 

The first one is listening with 50 questions. 

The second one is reading. 

 The third one is writing; two sections with 100-250 words each. 

And the last one is speaking in person with the assessors for about 15-20 minutes.

The questions are awesome. (This can be my practice tests before taking IELTS someday 😅)

I encountered a lot of problems, mainly my bad connection when I was working on the test. I thought I would fail, though.

After taking the test, the program was finally wrapped up together via zoom and we were waiting for the last announcement of who passed or failed, and from 48 participants, only 88% of them passed. I was worried, wondering if I passed or failed, was I part of the 12% who failed? I ended up overthinking it.

And in March, I got a notification that I passed and got the Certificate of Competency in English for Tourism. What a blessing!

The assessors tell us that the certificate is just a piece of paper. I hope you're skilled in the subject you take the test in, because by being certified, your skill is useful either for you or others. 

I'd like to embed the link for you who have a plan to take English competency test.

Popskull English Competency Test

Let's get certified! 😊