I have had so much fun since Ibu Anne introduced me to the My Talking Pet app. Firstly I created a video using the orangutan and the tiger picture provided within the app and showed it to my junior primary classes. It became such a hit that other classes asked to see it as well.

 

I then followed Ibu Anne’s lead and invited students to email me a photo of their pet and from the steady incoming emails, I have created many more videos. I love creating these videos because I can get repetitions of a variety of language structures including those  covered in Kursi Luar Biasa (special person interviews). My scripts include a selection of the following language:
-a hello to both the students and a special hello to the owner of the pet,
– I am a (rabbit, dog, cat etc)
-My name is
-I am (students name)’s (rabbit, cat, dog etc)
-(Students name) is in year 1,2,3,4 etc
-I like to eat (cognate e.g. hotdog, hamburger – something really crazy)
-I am clever at singing, dancing.
-Goodbye

The videos are extremely compelling for all year levels. I even showed one to a year 9 student who dropped in to see me yesterday and she too was absorbed. You just can’t help smiling while watching animals singing or talking in Indonesian!!

I began by purely creating speaking videos and have slowly ramped them up so they don’t become boring and repetitive. The ways in which the videos can be ramped up include adding headwear, facial hair or eyewear. Unfortunately beards, moustaches, glasses, eye patches, monocles and necklaces are not cognates. However the variety of hats has been perfect for reps of ‘pakai topi’ (wears a hat) & noun adjective word order e.g. topi besar/kecil (large/small hat).

I then began investigating other talking photo apps to add another dimension and discovered one more that also include singing and dancing options. Morfo provides the option of 3 dances – rock, disco & toon as well as various costume options. Generally the costume options have not been that successful with the pet owners as they tend to obscure the majority of the animal and are quite dark/gothic looking. However the dancing has been a huge hit. Here is my dancing cat video.

 

Yesterday I did some more research and trialled every talking photo app I could find on iTunes. The next best one that I have discovered and can recommend is called Talking Photos. I love that this app also includes 2 singing options that are simply hilarious. So the latest photos sent to me by students, have been made into a video incorporating the sentence; “Saya pandai menyanyi.” (I am clever at singing). It is sure to be a hit also. Here is a clip I created yesterday with the la, la, la option!

Because the free version of the Talking Photos app has a time limitation, for the cat video above, I created two videos and then combined them into one using iMovie!

This idea then lead to creating a talking video using a hand drawn character and his biodata presented to me on Wednesday by Mani, a year 3/4 student. This is what he presented me with:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and here is what I created from the above information! I hope Mani likes it!

 

If you like this idea and would like to see more of my pet videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel and you will get a notification each time I upload a new video!