The following screen shot comes from a video which was shared a couple of weeks ago on the Ohio TCI Facebook page and seems not available anywhere else! 

As soon as I watched it, I was determined to give it a go. I love trying new TCI activities!

The first time I tried it (week 5), it became quickly apparent that I had not prepared my students well enough by providing them with sufficient reading opportunities because for this activity to succeed, students must know the story very well. So, to achieve this, students did a listen and draw and played strip bingo which provided students opportunities to hear the story repeatedly.

Then this week we attempted paper plane reading once again and it was a hoot. Giving the instructions was largely done in English, which was frustrating, however one class did not give me permission to speak in English, and we didn’t do too badly, even though with the final instructions and clarifications, we did use English!

The two best things about paper airplane reading, is that movement is interspersed with reading and that students are asked to make paper planes; something which has never been encouraged in my lessons befre!!

Here are the instructions that I used in my year 3 – 7 lessons:

Hand out a sheet of paper to each student with the class story printed on one side, as well as a clipboard & a lead pencil.

1. We first chorale translated the story together. My instructions to students were: Bu Cathy membaca pakai Bahasa Indonesia dan murid murid membaca pakai Bahasa Indonesia.  Murid murid ekho Bu Cathy. (Ekho – one of the new words I learned this week from our visitors Yoedha, Dian & Zvana!!) I then read the sentences one by one and asked the students to choral read once I paused. If we came to a word I knew would be tricky or if students were skipping a word then I broke that sentence up into a phrase.

2. I then asked the students to read the story and choose one sentence from the story that they could translate easily but not to mark in any way the location of that sentence on the sheet of paper. They then had to turn the sheet over and at the top, write in ENGLISH the translation for that sentence. I then gave an example using the first sentence in their story. I chose the first sentence (Ada perempuan dan nama perempuan Harry Potter) because students are often muddling up the word ‘ada’ (there is) with ‘apa’ (what?) and we translated it together. I then gave everyone time to choose a sentence and write its translation on the blank side of the sheet of paper.

3. While students were finishing step 2, I explained, “Kalau sudah, clip board dan pensil dibawah kursi” (clipboards & pencil under you chair) and then asked them to make a paper airplane from their sheet. It was surprising both the variation of paper airplane designs we got and that there were a few in every class who did not know how to make a paper airplane. It worked well to encourage those who knew how to make a paper airplane to help those who didn’t by demonstrating the steps with their own paper so that their friend could do the same with theirs. This way, we all finished about the same time.

4. “Murid murid, berdiri kalau sudah punya airplane.” (Stand if you have a plane) I decided not to teach the word for plane as it is not a cognate and these days, the word plane would be largely understood in Indonesia anyway. While we waited for everyone to finish up and stand, I explained the next step in English to ensure that students understood completely and every lesson, there were a few who did not. I drew their attention to the loud speaker outlet in the ceiling which is in the very centre of the classroom ceiling. I explained that I would count to tiga and on tiga, students would launch their planes at the speaker and that we needed to do it together for safety. I pointed out that only those wearing glasses had eye protection (which chuffed those students!) so we needed to ensure we aimed upwards. Then, students had to find an airplane that was not their own. They had to buka kertas (open the page) and read the English sentence on the back before turning over the sheet and locating the Indonesian translation in the story. They then had to translate into English the very next sentence of the story before recreating the plane and launching again. 

5. “Bu Cathy menhitung, satu, dua, tiga.” The feeling in the room at this point was magical. As students lauanched their plane, they marvelled at the flight of theirs and others and then madly scrambled for a plane before sitting down to complete the task. The 2 instructions that had to be clarified multiple times were 1. write only in English & 2. translate the very next sentence. The only sentence chosen randomly was the first one. The airplanes fell everywhere and it was so much fun searching for ones that fell into unlikely spots. One even landed in the bin!
6. I then explained that the next launches would happen frequently so that the fast processers didn’t sit around bored. Obviously that last bit wasn’t verbalised!! From this point I could stay in Indonesian because it was just a matter of asking students to stand when they were ready, counting the number of students standing and then counting to 3 for the next launch.

http://youtu.be/ZrzQQC1IqJY

5. To finish off, in Bahasa gado gado (English/Indonesian mixture), I explained that this was the last round and this time when you found someone elses plane, buka kertas and membaca (open and then read) and enjoy the story in English. This was fascinating because students realised that there were many who had not understood the instructions and the story was higgledy  piggledy, so hopefully when we do this again, the story translation will be smoother now that students understand what to do!

6. We finished off by scrunching the paper into a ball and throwing into the recycling bin! We learned that the Indonesian word for scrunching/mashing/squeezing is ‘meremas’ thanks to our wonderful visitors who joined us on Thursday.

I highly recommend you give this a go as it was so much fun. All classes enjoyed it and participated 100%.

Footnote: read here for instructions on how you could do this as a partner activity!