I subscribe to the Edutopia newsletter which occasionally has excellent articles. I particularly like any dealing with aspects of memory however this article – Getting (& Keeping) Young learners Attention, caught my eye.
After reading the article, right down the bottom was the option of asking the AI tool to summarise the ideas from the article!!
Below is the edited version of the AI summary so that it targets language teaching specifically:
- Visual Hooks: Use video clips, picture walks, and images to capture students’ attention. For example, show a quirky image or a photo taken of a student in a previous lesson and use it for circling & thus repetition of target structures.
- Interactive Hooks: Engage students with activities like Kursi Luar Biasa, where a student is invited to sit on the special chair and be deferred to throughout the lesson. The joy of this is immeasurable with egocentric young learners.
- Audio Hooks: Incorporate songs, jokes, riddles, or rhymes to make lessons more engaging. Use or adapt song lyrics or nursery rhymes to ensure comprehensibility.
- Environmental Hooks: Use props and puppets during lessons. For example, use puppets to tell a story, to speak to & interact with students using repetitions, or to use props to support classroom expectations, for students to demonstrate comprehension (ie asking in the TL, do you want the big hamburger or the small hamburger?) or to ramp up story acting.
- Board Messages: interesting inclusion for pre literate students however we will have students with emerging literacy and any opportunity to celebrate this should be grasped with two hands. Instead of messages though, I have consistent behaviour management signs that are always on display in the exact same place & I refer to each when necessary by tapping on it with my finger & saying the word (eg making eye contact with someone doing the right thing, pointing to the pandai sign & saying clearly ‘pandai’) whenever needed. Never fails both as a positive classroom management tool & a way to sneak in repetitions.
- Adaptable Hooks: Customize these hooks to suit different grade levels, cohorts, and student groups, ensuring they are relevant and engaging for your specific classroom needs.
Link to original article: https://www.edutopia.org/article/getting-keeping-attention-early-learners
Indonesian Teacher Reflections 
Hi Bu Cathy,
I have subscribed to your blog for years and have loved reading all your ideas. Recently I joined the group FB page as well.
However, I’m now retired and taking a slightly different focus on Indonesian so forgive me this question that’s basically unrelated to your work!
I’m Chair of Balai Bahasa Indonesia Perth this year, and I believe you have joined as a member! Welcome and I hope we can do something together one day. This is about our Indonesian language classes. We have been relatively successful in offering Indonesian language classes to adults (I suspect we are pretty much the only organisation in WA that does). We have a fantastic online teacher, Pak Andre, who is located in Sumba and we’d like to promote our online classes which lag behind the face to face ones in terms of student numbers.
We’re thinking of advertising in other states, e.g. South Australia, to catch in teachers who might work in regional areas and be interested in maintaining their language. But we are hesitant to contact anyone in Victoria because we suspect there is already at least one organisation offering online Indonesian classes, possibly in Victoria and Tasmania. Are you able to give me any information about that at all? It’s just from a perspective of kerjasama, since with Indonesian as precarious as it is we all need to work together!
Look forward to hearing from you.
Salam hangat, Sue Cooper
Hi Sue,
Lovely to hear from you & like you, I’ve also recently retired! I’m not sure that I have joined balai Bahasa, however my memory is appalling, so anything is possible!
I am unaware of any current online Indonesian teaching and I have no suggestions on who you could contact beyond the state MLTA’s. Awesome to hear Pak Andre is working with you! Is he a traditional language teacher?
It is absolutely criminal what is happening to language programs across Australia isn’t it? When will Australians reach the point where the decline is recognised and addressed as the national emergency it is? When will politicians reduce war funding and increase diplomacy funding?