About Vicki

Who Vicki is

Vicki teaches Indonesian. People come to it for very specific reasons: a move to Indonesia, living there already, a partner’s family, Indonesian colleagues, or simply wanting to hold a real conversation instead of reciting phrases.

Lessons are private and taught online, which means the material can follow the student rather than a fixed course. Someone preparing for their first month in Yogyakarta and someone who wants to understand what their in-laws are saying need different Indonesian, in a different order.

What she teaches

Indonesian, or Bahasa Indonesia, is the main focus. That covers everything from a first lesson for a complete beginner through to conversation practice and the parts of the language that most learners never quite resolve on their own: the affix system, the gap between written and spoken Indonesian, and knowing which register a situation calls for.

Javanese, or Bahasa Jawa, is taught as a second, smaller service. Javanese is a separate language from Indonesian, not a dialect of it, and it is usually learned for a particular family or region. The Javanese lessons page explains what is involved and what to agree before starting.

How she teaches

One to one, online, built around what the student is trying to do. In practice that means a lot of speaking, grammar introduced where it unblocks something you are trying to say rather than as a syllabus to march through, and attention to the difference between the Indonesian in textbooks and the Indonesian people actually use.

That last point matters more in Indonesian than in most languages. Learners who study only the formal written register often find that a normal conversation moves past them. Lessons deal with both: understanding how Indonesians speak day to day, and being able to produce something polite and correct when the situation calls for it.

Indonesian Fluency, previously Fluency Indonesian

Vicki previously taught under the name Fluency Indonesian. Indonesian Fluency is the current home of the same teaching, with the same two words turned around. The teacher, the lessons and the approach have not changed; the website has moved.

If you found Vicki through the old name, or through a listing or profile that still uses it, you are in the right place. This site is where her teaching lives now, and the one to link to.