On Wednesday, 20 August 2025, the fourth floor of Universitas Jambi’s Hexagonal Building hosted a meeting between students whose campuses sat far apart on the map but shared one working language for the afternoon.
The Universitas Jambi Library Unit organised the sharing session through English Club. According to the university’s official report, 88 UNJA students attended alongside three visiting University of Leeds students: Molly Conaghan, Sophie Barclay-Smith, and Asha Horbacki.
Drs. Saharudin, M.Ed., M.App.Sc, Ph.D., Head of the UNJA Library Unit, also joined the event. The university’s account noted his own connection to Leeds as an alumnus of the institution.
Language learning through direct conversation
For Saharudin, the session offered students a place to learn a foreign language, particularly English, through direct engagement. His stated ambition extended beyond a single gathering. He hoped the activity would continue to grow, move beyond the library, and eventually create opportunities for students across UNJA’s faculties to learn English with native speakers. He also expressed a wish for the relationship between Universitas Jambi and the University of Leeds to continue.
The exchange was not described only from the host’s perspective. Sophie Barclay-Smith reflected on the visitors’ first experience in Indonesia and Jambi. She described the people they met as friendly and spoke positively about the students’ ability to grasp lessons, communicate in a foreign language, listen, and respond to guidance.
Those observations gave the session a human scale. English was not presented as an abstract subject confined to exercises. It became the means through which visitors and local students could listen to one another, compare experiences, and find enough shared language to keep a conversation moving.
One session with a wider direction
The official story, published on 27 August 2025, does not report a formal agreement between the two universities. Nor does it measure any change in participants’ proficiency. Its record is narrower and more immediate: three visitors from Leeds, 88 UNJA students, one room in Mendalo, and an afternoon built around speaking and listening.
The event occupied one floor of one campus building, but the hope attached to it reached further. Saharudin’s vision was for similar opportunities to grow across the university, allowing English Club to keep turning international contact into something students could experience directly.
Source
Official sharing-session report — Universitas Jambi, 27 August 2025
