Late last year a teacher, Beth, a regional WA Indonesian teacher, reached out for support with transitioning to CI/ADI and our continuing discussions have been so rewarding. It has just occurred to me that Beth’s questions together with my answers will beautifully fill in the gaps I have recently realised exist in my blogging. Her questions also confirm another recent realisation in that previous posts have been too wordy and broad where it would be more useful if posts focused succinctly on a single aspect from my CI classroom and practice.

Our most recent topic of conversation has been about classroom jobs which you can read about here and here. There are several other references to the various jobs I created over the years and you can find each by clicking on the category ‘student jobs’ found on the right hand side of my blog page.

Bryce Hedstrom has created this document explaining classroom jobs which I highly recommend. Another advocate for using classroom jobs is Annabelle, Lamaestra Loca. Here Annabelle and John Sifert join Claudia Elliott on her ‘Growing With Proficiency’ podcast to discuss every aspect of classroom jobs; from the why to the how.

Let’smake a start with Beth’s questions about classroom jobs…..

Question #1 How long do students keep their job for?

When I first began using jobs in the classroom, students held the job for a term and in the last week of term, it would take almost an entire lesson to choose the new job holders. While it was a fun lesson using an Indonesian game (Hom, Pim, Pah) to choose the lucky winners, it quickly became something I dreaded. Not only was it a huge sacrifice of precious lesson time with limited quality input but also it was draining dealing with classroom managment and the extreme emotions that come from winning and losing. From there, I have morphed into my current style where once a student has won a job, they hold the job for as long as they want it for and they can opt out at any time. As soon as they opt out, I announce the decision to the class, adding that their replacement will be chosen in the next lesson.

Question # 2 How are classroom jobs explained to the class?

After CI Down Under in 2024 where I had the unforgetable opportunity of being a student in La Maestra Loca’s class, I immediately adopted her way of introducing classrom jobs. Introducing the jobs as I needed them was a game changer. As the purpose of classroom jobs is to allow me, the teacher, to focus on delivering comprehensible target language input for my learners, whenever during class it was necessary to use English, I immediately evaluated the value of it becoming an opportunity for a student to shine or stay focused. This reflection happened when noticing that using English led to student disengagment &/or was in itself detrimental to the flow of language. If so, I would stop and in English request help from the class.

From there, I would explain what the job entailed and why I needed help and once the students were clear on the role, I would invite students to stand if they would like to do the job. Any students currently holding a job are inelegible. Occasionally at this point, a few students would immediately ask to resign from their current job so they can try out for the new job, yet I remind them, that while they can resign, they still hold the job for the lesson and until we choose a new person, the job is still their responsibility. This was purely to prevent a ‘mass exodus’ and then upon not winning the job, immediately asking to be reinstated!!

Depending on the number of students standing and the job itself, would dictate how I move forward with the selection process. If it is a job that requires a specific skill/attribute (eg loud voice and can speak over the hubbub), I hold auditions and then choose the student who either demonstrated best the skills/attribute required or the student with the greatest potential. This does take the longest, however in the long term, helps to clarify the class responsiblity and respect for the job holders role. Jobs that I use auditions for include the tukang diam, ie the student who saves my voice. If the noise level is too loud, I face my tukang diam giving the signal of my finger in front of my mouth (shh) they then have to stand up and say (not shout) very slowly and loudly, Satu, Dua, Tiga, DIAM. (1,2,3, QUIET). Funnily, the best person for this job often turns out to be the loudest student, and sometimes when I gestured to them, they would forget why and immediately guiltily hunch down lowering their voice before suddenly remembering their job and jumping to their feet!

If many students stand up wanting to try out for the job, once I have confirmed they are all not current job holders (important because it is super frustrating to go through the whole process and then discover the winner was ineleligible), I like to play an adaptation of ‘hom, pim’ pah’, a brilliant Indonesian game that is super engaging and easy to stay in the target language once students know how to play it. Unfortunately I don’t have a video of students playing this, but watch the above YouTube link to get an idea. Briefly, my version is similar to the video; all students stand in a circle. Students put their right hand behind their back and together we all slowly chant, Hom, Pim Pa. In the video, students are saying Hom-pim-pa alai-um gam-breng, however, to simplify both the chant and remove the low frequency language, we say only Hom-pim-pa. On Pa, students bring their right hand into the circle at exactly the same time either face down or face up. Immediate disqualification for hands were not simulaneous, that are sideways or that flip over. In the target language, count all the face down hands and then all the face up hands. Which ever is the largest, ask those students to sit down. I usually tap their hand gently saying ‘duduk’ (sit down). We then replay the game with the winners until you have a winner or there are only 2 left and in that case, I always have them play 1,2,3, yo! (rock, paper, scissors) stating clearly that they only play it once!! Hopefully with the video, the instructions are clear.

If only two students are interested in the job, then we move straight into 1,2,3, Yo, again only playing it once!!

Question 3: How do students apply for jobs?

It’s totally up to the teacher how this is done. Using ‘Hom, Pim, Pa‘ to choose students for jobs is risky as sometimes the winner is not the perfect person for the job. This does have consequences but on the whole I think I’ve only ever had to fire one student for not doing their job well. As their role brings them so much pleasure and joy, I only speak to them if the way that they are doing the job doesn’t help me do my job or I’ve had reasonable complaints from other students. I once had a tukang waktu (timer) fudge the stopwatch time because he wanted his class to win an interclass competition but after a quick reminder that trust is an important quality for holding a job, and that if it happened again, he would lose the job, to my knowledge, he didn’t repeat it.

Lamaestra Loca has blogged many times and talked about this too on her podcast explaining how her students apply for jobs and then how she assigns the jobs. You will find stacks of ideas there!!

Bonus – How to Address the Need for More Students Jobs

While my goal was for all students to hold a job at least once during the year, this was difficult to achieve satisfactorily. The year I created sufficient jobs for all students, there was still disappointment, particularly with those whose job were rarely, if ever, called upon. Disappointed job holders will quickly resign and lose trust in the process which in several cases sadly led to a decrease in their sense of belonging to our class community.

As a result, I now put the onus back on students. When they speak to me about wanting a job and begging for the creation of one especially for them, if I do not have a job in mind, I explain that students can suggest jobs. This helps them understand the value and purpose of jobs and to look for opportunities during lessons where they could help to make lessons run more smoothly. My only caveat is that job discussions can only happen during break times.

Bonus – My Favourite Student Jobs

As I said earlier, I now largely create jobs on the fly. As an idea pops into my head, I run with it. My ultimate aim when creating new jobs is for lessons to run smoother, to maximise limited lesson time and to boost student engagement and success through building community.

Here are a few of my super popular classroom jobs:

Tukang Waktu (Timer Expert)

Timer Experts time anything that needs timing and is super popular because the timing is done on an ipad. A bonus benefit can be offering students the opportunity to learn how to use this function! It’s amazing how many times in a lesson it is handy having someone who can be called on instantly to time. I love timing certain lesson routines, eg calling the roll, to build automaticity, add challenge, and ultimately to build community. For more ideas about how I use timers, read this post.

Tukang Poin (Points Tally Expert)

The Points Tally Experts keep a tally of all points acrued during lessons. This is an excellent job for students who have trouble sitting still &/or staying focused as they will be constantly getting up to add points to the tally on the board. For more info on the tally system, read this post.

Group Echo

If it becomes obvious that a target structure needs a repetition boost for acquisition, then this classroom job is a briliant way to both achieve this goal as well as giving students a reason to focus and enjoy the benefits of a micro brain break. One of the target structures for an orangutan clipchat (movietalk) was ‘tree’. Obviously, not a word that comes up organically in a classroom context, yet super important for discussions & readings about habitation loss. To boost repetitions and to add fun to a pretty dry word, I created the Group Echo job and it goes like this:
1. If students hear me say, ‘pohon’ (tree), they had to stand and choral together (not shout) ‘pohon’ while simultaneously doing the gesture! Depending on the target structure, students may also again choral together the English translation, in this case, ‘tree’ while again repeating the gesture, which for tree I borrowed from auslan as it matched the meaning beautifully. Finally they sat down.
2. Any student who did not choral at exactly the same time as the rest of the class or who did not sit back down with the rest of the class was immediately unable to join in again for the remainder of the lesson. This was only enforced with students who deliberately sabotaged the process and generally I only needed to do this once a lesson! If they were genuinely apologetic and respected the consequence, I invited them to join in again after a few more times.
3. Practicing the job before continuing the lesson is super important to clarify your expectations and consequences. It also gives bonus repetitions!!
4. I generally allow anyone to join in for this job unless they already have a job however, have been known to relax this rule towards te end of the term! I also did not count it as a ‘real’ job if a new job became available.

Quirky Target Structure Response

For a story about a dog barking and a cat meowing, with two of the target structures being ‘gonggong’ (woof/bark) and ‘meong’ (meow), I introduced a job for 3 students to get fun repetitions on ‘gonggong’ ‘diam’ (quiet) & ‘meong’. The job went like this: if I said the word ‘gonggong’ in any context, the student with the gonggong job had to bark in Indonesian, ie say gonggong repeatedly without stopping, until the student with the ‘Diam’ job said loudly and exasperately, Diam! Conversely, if I said ‘meong’ in any context, the student with the ‘meong’ job had to meow in Indonesian until the diam student loudly nd exasperately said, ‘Diam!’ This job was brilliant for repetitions on all three structures and had the rest of us in stitches. One shy student enjoyed the opportunity to shine by quietly meowing over and over again while we waited for the Diam student who had zoned out at exactly the wrong moment!! It was fun inserting a ‘gonggong’ or ‘meong’ randomly into a TL sentence and watching the class suddenly turn as one to the students with the job! This job is fabulous with students having trouble with sitting still and/or focusing. I have created similar jobs for target structures that are verbs or sports whereby the job holder had to move to the centre of the horsehoe of chairs and demonstrate the structure. For a sports topic, I had a student for each sepak takraw, badminton and soccer and each time I said their sport, the student had to get up and see how many times they could keep the ball/shuttlecock in the air! With the entire class counting in Indonesian, it was incredibly compelling! A terrific way for students to shine in front of their peers.

Tukang Video (The Video Expert)

Have you ever wished you had footage of something that happens in your class either to show other classes or to share with colleagues during professional conversations? Then this is the job for you! I appoint three video experts and they either take it in turns to record an activity or if I want three perspectives, I set them up around the room. They are then responsible for firstly getting the footage on an ipad and then immediately airdropping it to my mac. I prefer to have three students for several reasons. It helps with continuity for student absences as well as minimising disappoinment through missing out on a engaging activity. This job developed after several times intending to record a lesson and then discovering the ipad sitting at the back of the room during the next lesson break!! It also allowed me to record snippets which are much shorter and easier to edit.

Ketua Kelas (Class Captain)

I haven’t done this job for a while mainly because at my last school I didn’t get as many visitors to my room as I had at previous sites. This job is fantastic for impressing visitors as well as supporting observers in your room who do not speak the target language. The role of the ketua kelas is to, on seeing a visitor enter our classroom, stand and say very loudly in the target language, Class, please stand and greet (add name of visitor). Then together, the class stand and choral respectfully, Good morning/afternoon Mr/Mrs ______. If it is a familiar person within our school, the ketua kelas will recognise them however for an unfamiliar person that I am expecting, I like to prepare the ketua kelas by sharing their name with them and writing it on the board so they can refer to it when needed. If the visitor is planning to stay, it is the ketua kelas’ job to set up chairs at the back of the room, including one for themself ,and it will be their responsibility to answer any questions about what the visitors observe plus help with any translating. I had two people from the SA Department of Education languages team (one a Spanish teacher and the other an Italian teacher) visit to observe a CI lesson and they were blown away with the ketua kelas who competently answered all their questions about aspects of the lesson and the impact of CI on their learning.

The Proxy

Hands down the most important job. The student who agrees to this job must understand that they will need to cover for anyone absent on the day of any lesson who holds a current job, regardless if their job requires drawing or writing (sekretaris), meowing, playing badminton, tally points etc. It is their responsibility to realise who is away and get organised to cover for them. A proxy for the proxy can always be quickly chosen with a quick game of hom, pim, pa.

Jobs Person

I should have a better title for this job! The role of this person was to help me keep track of who is doing which jobs and is fantastic for primary teachers with a full load and many classes. When working full time, I could not keep up with this information, so I created a laminated card with a magnet on the back for each job. For this job, the student on entering the classroom, had to select from the pile of jobs cards, the jobs held by students in their class. They would then arrange them on a designated section of the board or on a small mobile white board and write next to each, who currently holds that job. It was their responsibility to, without distracting the class, confirm this information either by silently consulting the sekretaris (class secretary responsible for keeping all sorts of class data) or a friend. At the end of the lesson, the cards had to be removed and the names rubbed off the board ready for the next class.

Here are a selection of job cards I have used:

What are your students favorite jobs?

Do you have a question about any of the above?

Please add a comment below to continue the conversation about classroom jobs!