Category: Bahasa Indonesia

Getting Started

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Starting with TCI pedagogy in the Languages classroom is extremely challenging. It can start off well with everything progressing smoothly and then suddenly it falters. It is a tough transition and it takes a bucket load of resilience to continue on the TCI track. If you are one of the many just beginning your journey, it is important to know that an up and down track is completely normal. Everyone has experienced it. PLease don’t give up – the TCI community is like a huge family and there are many places you can go for  help when you hit a rough patch. 

On the moretprs listserve, there was a thread recently called ‘Then What?’ Here are two contributions which hopefully will help you continue past your next roadblock:

New teachers are still concentrating on keeping the many ping-pong balls of TPRS or TCI in the air. Going slow, three-fers, shadow items, checking comprehension, adding a detail, managing behavior, leaving time for assessment, teaching to the eyes…They do not need to have to think about what to teach next; they are still working on how to teach next. This is why I recommend learning classic TPRS and learning it well before “branching out” to other forms of TCI, and why I recommend that new teachers use an existing TPRS textbook if one is available. It is enough to have to worry about maintaining 100% comprehensibility while also managing a roomful of students and dealing with teaching in today’s public schools. Just my opinion, though. 

Terry Waltz

For me, the biggest hurdle to overcome was how to sustain it and how to connect everything that we learned in the series of class stories, and I have often heard the same sentiment echoed by other newbies. Helping teachers to find and work with high frequency word lists is a good starting point; so is connecting them with existing curriculum for those languages for which it exists. A lot of us started out doing random stories and then invested in a curriculum to help guide us before eventually abandoning it as we found our own style and became comfortable working with our own students to create content. As Terry said, just learning and practicing the basic skills is enough to fill a teacher’s plate; so trying to figure out what to do and when and for how long can be REALLY overwhelming and can distract from the road to mastery of those skills. Eventually they too might toss aside the curriculum, and that’s great. It’s important to tell them that they aren’t going to become Master TPRS teachers overnight. I’ve often heard the time period ‘3 years’ tossed around as the amount of time it takes for you to really feel like you’ve got your feet under you (if not longer!). Don’t be too hard on yourself! And expect to feel frustrated and like a failure at times. And when you do, reach out to your PLN to get back on your feet 🙂

Martina E. Bex

World Languages Curriculum Consultant

The Comprehensible Classroom

As Martina stated, your PLN (in my case, my hub group), should be the first place to turn to. For me, my  hub group have been wonderful. When I hit road blocks, Annie & Sharon gave me ideas and encouragement which enabled me to see where to go next. If you don’t have a TCI PLN/Hub Group, then I recommend joining an online PLN. The moretprs listserve is a great place to start but beware, you will be inundated with emails. The trick is to be very selective and delete anything that is not relevant. I  have picked up many ideas through this listserve, even if it seems I am the only Indonesian teacher out of the 7000 members! Most times, if you have a question/comment, long time members are very happy to  help you get started. Another point to be aware of is that almost all members are based in the States, so their needs are 6 months ahead or behind us here in Australia. At the moment they are all focused on starting a new school year and all that entails. 

Another excellent online option, particularly for high school teachers, is Ben Slavic’s website for a small monthly fee. Again based in the States (& now India) and thus can be very quiet over their summer holidays or when their school  year is about to start or finish.

If these options don’t appeal to you, feel free to contact me here on my blog. I am more than happy to help you with aspects of TCI if I can, and if beyond me, I will seek guidance from other experienced TCI practicioners on your behalf.

The most important thing to remember on your TCI journey is that it will be very challenging and it is not a methodolgy that comes easily to us all. Yet, it is such a powerful way to teach languages that it is well worth the rocky, bumpy road. 

Almost Midterm Reflections

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The end of week four has just arrived, thankfully, as I am so exhausted. Our community has a variety of nasty viruses in circulation at the moment which has had in some classes, a devastating affect. I just hope the sore throat I feel coming on is just the result of my previous class which consists of several challenging students!

This term, I approached my story slightly differently to how I have done so before. The main target structure for the current story is bisa (can/ to be able to do something) but I also wanted menyanyi (sing) & mencium (kiss/smell) to be taught explicitly too because both are great TPR words. I love the way Eric Herman uses TPR,to introduce target structures and know that I will be able to get good mileage from both words during brain breaks.

I firstly focused on bisa. This took about 2-3 lessons. I began by focusing on the skills and abilities that students identified having and then had a fun lesson asking students, “Siapa bisa handstand?” If students raised their hand, I then asked them, “Billy bisa handstand?” and if they didn’t raise their hand I would go right up to the student, look them in the eye and then ask suspiciously, “Jill bisa handstand?” I then circled their answers briefly before inviting the student to the center of the chairs which were arranged in a U for this lesson. The student then did the handstand and I was able to get many repetitions of bisa. Billy bisa handstand? Billy atau Bobby bisa handstand etc! One class asked me, “Bu Cathy bisa handstand?” To which I answered,”Tidak bisa.” yet they insisted I show them, so we all had a good laugh because I could barely got my feet off the ground. More repetitions of tidak bisa!!  Such a fun and relaxed lesson.

  
My lesson on mencium was a culture break – because it was largely in English. We talked about the differences between mencium and kiss/smell and also why in Indonesian, mencium means to kiss and to smell. This collaborative blog has a post which clearly explains the various ways in which Indonesians greet each other. I had students pair up and practise hand shaking (gentle and finishing on your heart), mencium (cheek to cheek while doing a gentle smell/sniff) and also kasih hormat kepada guru (holding the teachers hand to the students forehead). We also demonstrated all 3 greetings at a whole school assembly with a group of young students finishing up the demonstration by showing respect to our principal. It was a hoot.

I  next did Martina Bex’s wordle activity as outlined in my previous post. The link to this and other activities is on the new TCI activity page, found in the top band of the homepage. All these activities meant the lead in to the story took much longer than it did in terms one and two. Because bisa is such an important word in Indonesia and comes up constantly in a variety of contexts, I really believe it was vital to devote several lessons focusing on it. Also now that I am into my second semester of TCI, I feel a lot less pressure to cover topics/target structures quickly which has been a wonderful revelation. It is so empowering to be able to focus on student acquisition as apposed to keeping up with a rigid term overview. 

2015 Intan Conference – Adelaide, SA

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Yesterday (last Saturday) saw about 40 – 50 Indonesian teachers gather together at the Education Development Center in Hindmarsh for our annual conference. It was organised, as always, by our hardworking Intan committee and included many wonderful opportunities for us to belajar/mengajar (learn/teach) each other. Bersatu kita maju (United we progress)
The day began with the presentation of a goody bag upon registration. Each year the goody bag is heavier and heavier! This year’s bag contains mostly promotional information. The ones I think look interesting and have earmarked for perusal include :
The guide for the upcoming OzAsia festival,
Two magazines – Indomedia & Indobulletin
Information about the Treasure Ships exhibition at the SA Art Gallery
Outreach Education
Menu for Ketut’s Kitchen 95A O’Connell St, North Adelaide
Notepad from the Credit Union SA
Flyer about the Jembatan Project – a Flinders University initiative
A flyer for Michelle Kohler’s book, Teachers as Mediators in the Foreign Language Classroom (will check my class budget)
Adelindo Flyer – Great to learn there is a local business that repairs angklung! (link)
Flinders University 2016 Postgraduate programs list (definitely on my bucket list)
Language Perfect poster – world championship in 2016!! Offering $25,000 prize money – well worth investigating!!
Amansar journeys of discovery and learning flyer – hopefully soon our short sighted state government will realize the extent to which they are short changing language programs by refusing to sanction school trips to Indonesia. In the meantime, I look at this flyer and imagine a future where I can travel with my students to Indonesia….
Indo Ink order form
Asia Bookroom booklet – particularly interested in the ‘Our Jakarta’ series. Are they anywhere near the quality of the amazing books printed and published through Dyatmika School???
Lote Teaching Aids – catalogue, pen, keychain, bookmarks and sticker selection.
Not bad hey? Bagus kan?
After Brent informed us about the location of the amenities and the evacuation procedures, he welcomed Uncle Frank Wanganeen to welcome us to country.IMG_1975 Uncle Frank spoke briefly about his contact with his language – the Gana Language and his country – Narrunga. He told us that he had grown up in Adelaide during a time when there were unpleasant consequences for those heard speaking in the Gana language. Consequently it wasn’t till he was an adult that he could learn Gana. In the 1980’s there was a conscious movement to revive Aboriginal languages and today there are many resources available specifically aimed at teaching and learning Aboriginal languages, including YouTube videos!! Uncle Frank then acknowledged his ancestors and welcomed us to the land upon which the conference is being held both in the Gana language and in English! A beautiful start to our conference. I always find the welcome to country moving.
After Barbara Hatley was invited to officially start the conference,IMG_1978 Brent outlined all the reasons why the Intan conference is highly valued amongst Indonesian teachers. These reasons include the ability to collaborate, network, for professional development and to discover useful resources. Brent next officially launched the Intan website and outlined a Treasure Hunt competition cleverly designed to motivate us to investigate the website.
He then again introduced Barbara Hatley from the University of Tasmania IMG_1983who spoke about the role of theater and drama in Indonesian society both historically and in the present day. It was a fascinating presentation including photos and video snippets of a group called Teater Garasi who will be performing in the OzAsia Festival.
The next sessions were the ‘back by popular demand’ proficiency workshops. This year, the committee was very innovative, as the 3 workshops were provided by the AILF in Bali via Skype! IMG_1990The 3 workshops catered for different levels of proficiency and focused on quite different topics. The novice workshop focused on traditional games, the intermediate workshop topic was the mudik tradition, (the returning home to family after Ramadan), and the advanced workshop focused on modern day slang. As it was hard to choose, Annie, Sharon and I each went to one and on the trip home outlined all that we covered. Each workshop was led by a native Indonesian speaker and other than a few wifi connectivity issues, it was a great initiative. Ibu Putu Ayu Asri who led our session has promised to email a copy of the PowerPoint she used for our session. I am looking forward to receiving it as I only got the main slang words written down! Here are a couple of the ones I loved:
Lo = anda
Rempong = repot
PD = percaya diri
Semangat dong! = cheer up
Ciyus = serious/seriously?
Capcus = cepat, cepat
Sip = right/ok
Cekidot = check it out
KEPO = Knows Every Particular Object (knowitall)
BT = bad tempered
ilfil = ill feeling
ABG = Anak Baru Gede (teenager)
Jomblo = single
Aren’t they seriously bagus banget???
Following straight after the proficiency workshops was the first of 2 lines of available workshops. This first line included the workshop we presented on Teaching Indonesian with Comprehensible Input. This is the first time we have ever presented anywhere, so unsurprisingly we were nervous yet it made such a difference to be presenting together as a team. Our workshop ran for 45 minutes which wasn’t anywhere near long enough to do the topic justice, yet hopefully was long enough to give participants a taste of TCI. The workshop ran smoothly and to be honest, is a blur. We began with Sharon introducing each of us and then giving a bit of history about us and our hub group. We then showed 3 of Diane Neubauers videos (see here, here and here) as we believe that the impact of TCI is stronger with an unfamiliar language. We then began a TPRS lesson from term 1 which centered on Catharina’s Taylor Swift story. Annie demonstrated step 1 and introduced the target structures and modeled how to choose the gestures. Sharon told the story and then I pointed out the new page on my blog where I have been collating a list of TCI activities, some of which are perfect to do after telling the story. I then attempted to give a circling demonstration (which included a total mental blank on how to model 3-1) and then we finished up with questions while a slide show of students learning with TCI activities in our classrooms was projected up behind us. We fielded many questions including
How to extend the 4%ers (gave Diane Neubauer’s suggestion of offering jobs)
How to use TCI in high school where the curriculum is very structured and inflexible (explained that this too is an issue for TCI secondary teachers in the states who have various ways of dealing with this)
Overall the feedback we received afterwards was incredibly warm and encouraging. Following immediately after our session was lunchtime, which we gave us some extra time to chat with those who had more questions. Excitingly for me too, I got to meet 2 of my followers, one of whom has also been trialing TCI in her classroom!! Lovely to put faces and names to a few of my followers!!
We were all treated to a delicious lunch where the carnivores could choose between rendang and ayam goreng while the vegetarians enjoyed tempeh, cap cai and pecel – all served, naturally, with rice.
After this feast, we next could choose to attend a further selection of workshops. Sharon, Annie & I divided ourselves again between Brent’s workshop on assessment and evaluation and Daniel Bradbury’s Number workshop.

IMG_2002Brent’s workshop began with a focus on the aims of the Indonesian Curriculum.
The aims are:
1. Communicate….
2. Understand language & culture……
3. Understand oneself as a communicator…
I understand the first 2 aims and agree they are important aims for a language curriculum but have difficulty getting my head around the third. I need to research it in order to understand exactly what it means and then hopefully it will be clearer as to why it is listed as one of the overall aims. Personally, I feel that it should be in the health curriculum!! What do you think???
Brent then shared with us how he has identified each and all of the Achievement standards and demonstrated how they all link back to the content descriptors. He also shared with us several items developed by staff from his site. These include a very detailed rubric that his school site has put together which they use to grade student work, a suggested F- year 2 curriculum demonstrating how thematic units of work can be devised to achieve curriculum objectives.
The conference finished up with short presentations from various groups.
Pak Budi talked about the Jembatan project which aims to build bridges between Indonesia and Australia. IMG_2015He mentioned that in 2016, 2 internships will be available. Must keep that in mind!!
Chris from Indofest very kindly interrupted his tennis game to speak to us. Indofest, an annual Indonesian festival, has been running since 2008. It is usually held earlier in the year in Rymill Park however this year it will be held on October 5th in the Migration Museum, Art Gallery, State Library, SA Museum precinct and most importantly, there will be free parking in Adelaide all day long.
Helen Munro from The Orangutan Project (TOP) spoke. She is the current education officer and is available to visit schools. IMG_2018A variety of programs are available and can be designed to complement a variety of topics and age groups.
Jodie Edwards reminded us about the OzAsia festival which will be held the day before Indofest. This year it includes several exciting Indonesian performances.
Rosslyn Oldfield encouraged us all to get together with our hub groups. Hub Groups are support groups for teachers and are an informal gathering for teachers to support each other and learn from each other! Just like a teachmeet. There is definitely interest for a hub group meeting on the Fleurieu, so we asked people to nominate the best week day and have tentatively organised our next meeting to be in week 5, term 4.
The conference finished up with the drawing of the raffle which is always lots of fun as there were over 25 prizes!! First prize was generously donated by Amansar Travel and Diane was extremely thrilled to win a prize which included various day trips in and around Malaysia.
A huge thank you to the brilliant Intan committee and hats off to acknowledge that yet again, the conference was highly successful. So: yes Brent; it definitely did meet our expectations!
Makasih semua

Bisa = Can/ be able to do……..

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We are starting off this term with a focus on the target structures ‘bisa’ & ‘tidak bisa’. We asked our mentor, Catharina, for a story and she suggested:

Lucy tidak punya mulut. Kasihan Lucy. Lucy bisa makan? Tidak. Lucy tidak bisa makan. Lucy bisa minum? Tidak. Lucy tidak bisa minum. Lucy bisa berkata? Tidak. Lucy tidak bisa berkata. John punya dua mulut. John beruntung. John bisa makan? Ya John bisa makan. John bisa makan banyak! John bisa makan dua eskrim. John bisa berkata. John bisa menyanyi. John baik hati. John kasi Lucy satu mulut. Jadi, Lucy bisa berkata. Lucy bisa makan. Lucy bisa minum. Dan Lucy bisa mencium John!

I love this story because it not only revisits punya and kasi (useful for new students), there is also plenty of scope for the actors to ham it up and entertain the rest of the class!!

I began my lessons by revisiting the expectations in the Indonesian classroom. I decided upon this mainly as I felt I didn’t have the energy after 2 weeks of being unwell (great way to spend my holidays!), yet funnily enough, I discovered it required more energy to teach a non TCI lesson!! Still it was beneficial to revisit the expectations

1. Look

2. Listen

3. Respond to questions

4. Signal when unclear or too fast

5. Respect everyone and the process

because we have several new students who have started this term.

I then began preparing for the  story by introducing ‘bisa’. I did this by going through the student questionnaires. One of the questions on the questionnaire was

image image image image

I looked for answers that I could either explain with a picture (to make it comprehensible) or the word was a cognate (similar to the English word). I then made up a notebook file for each class. On each page was a picture of the acitivity and underneath it was the Indonesian word. For example, the drum page had an image I found on google images of Animal (from The Muppets) drumming furiously and underneath it I had the Indonesian ‘bermain drum’ written. I then used this file to PQA to get repetitions of bisa. I asked the class, “Siapa bisa bermain drum?” Several hands went up and knowing that it was Jack who had written he could drum, I left him till last. Harry had his hand up, so I asked him, “Harry bisa bermain drum?” Harry answered, “ya”. I responded with, “Murid murid, Harry bisa bermain drum. Harry bisa bermain drum?” The kelas then answered a mixture of ya/tidak. I then handed Harry 2 drum sticks and a practise pad while asking him again, Harry bisa bermain drum?” Harry answered, ‘ya’ and then beat the drum pad with no skill at all!! It cracked us all up. I repeated this with all the others who claimed they could drum and then finally handed the pad over to Jack who wowed us all with a fancy rhythm using rimshots. It was soo coool. Lovely to see him shine in class as he is such a quiet student who is generally happy to leave the limelight to Harry & the others. Other entertaining abilities included menyanyi (students actually got up and sang to us), terbang (the sight of a year 7 boy insisting he could fly and then standing in front of his friend imploring him to help with the demonstration was hilarious), berdansa & gimnastiks (had quite a few students demonstrate back bends and the splits).

Step 1 of TPRS = establish meaning – which incorporates introducing the target structure and selecting a gesture for it. As bisa is such an important and often used word in Indonesian conversation, I felt it vital that the gesture we ended up with was a practical and lasting one. So I left that part of step 1 till the 6/7 lesson. Initally some of the suggested gestures were ridiculous because there was no way they would help us to remember or even think of bisa/can. After a lot of discussion they chose the opening a can gesture, which really works! Thus for that lesson, when I did PQA with them, I gestured each time I said ‘bisa’. It felt so much better doing PQA with a gesture. Gesturing helped with student acquisition because it slowed me down considerably; it was like a visual point and pause.  It felt as though students in the lessons that included the gesture had a deeper level of acquisition than those who have yet to learn the gesture. Very interesting.

How compatible are ACARA & TPRS: Part 1

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For me, the most significant sentence in the ACARA document is found on page 14:

Teachers will make decisions about pedagogies that best meet the learning needs of their particular students and the context of their particular program.

In essence, this sentence acknowledge that it is sensible and practical for teachers to make the  decisions necesary for selecting the most suitable pedagogy to use in their classrooms. As long as the needs of the students are met and it matches our teaching objectives, then the choice of ‘how’ is up to us.

So obviously, the next question becomes: can TPRS provide us with a methodology that delivers the curriculum in a way that ‘student needs are met’? To begin to answer this, consider the gist of this sentence found in the same paragraph as the above quote:

……. band descriptions, content descriptions, content elaborations and the achievement standards provide an overall sense of … expectations about language teaching …. (and) provide a reference point for making judgments about students’ progress in learning.

In other words, band descriptions, content descriptions, content elaboratons and achievement standards should all  be considered equally when planning, programming, teaching and assessing (even though my principal added only a copy of the achievement standards with our semester 1 reports). Thus if we create a word cloud of the entire Indonesian Curriculum, we discover the high frequency words used which would, we could argue, illustrate the key points that teachers should consider a priority  when programming.

curriuclum word cloud

From this, I would conclude that the curriculum suppports the teaching of Indonesian language via the use of texts!! Do you agree??

If we break it down though and look at word clouds created from the content descriptions, the band descriptions and the achievement standards, is there a difference?

Band Descriptors

woord cloud band descriptions

(most common word: language)

Content Descriptors

word cloud content descriptions

(most common word: texts)

Achievement standards

word cloud achievement standards

(most common word: Students)

If ‘texts’, ‘Students’ and ‘language’ are the key words, then I can easily argue that TPRS is a pedagogy highly compatible with the Australian Curriculum. Students are provided with language texts constantly!!

Consider the 3 basic steps of TPRS:

  1. Introduce the target structures
  2. Story telling/ story asking
  3. Reading

TPRS is all about presenting our students with compelling Indonesian texts!

 

My Deskless Classroom…

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I am very lucky because when we moved to our new site in 2007 each teacher was given the opportunity to choose the furniture they would like to have in their new classroom. I chose trestle tables (which came with a bonus trolley) and stools. I have always loved the flexibility of trestle tables as they fold flat when not being used and are so portable either in the classroom or when transported around the school. 6 students can sit at them comfortably and when pushed up with one end against the wall, it creates an illusion of an open & spacious room.  I chose stools rather than chairs because they are more practical for the range of student sizes and ages (5 to 13 years) I teach each day. My very first classroom at the old site contained a mish mash of tables and chairs of all heights and varieties which in itself spoke volumes about the value of the Indonesian Language program! I was very relieved to be able to leave that cruddy furniture behind! Yet, the very first thing I did when I initially made the decision to attempt TPRS methodology, was to fold up my tables and stack them at the back of the room!! For that lesson I put the stools in a circle which in retrospect was valuable because as soon as students walked into my room, they knew something critical had shifted and it wasn’t just the tables and stools! Students loved too, the privilege of sitting on stools while listening to me; previously they’d sat on the floor and then moved to the tables to complete set tasks. However I soon found that the stools did not work. For all students, the stools weren’t particularly stable, so after a while, I stacked them too at the back of the room and expected students to sit on the floor once again, except for students doing jobs; they could sit on chairs at the back of the room in kelas satu (first class). My room stayed like this for a whole term and then during the last holiday  break, I read about the value of brainbreaks to help students cope with sitting still for large blocks of time. I remembered too sitting in conferences for hours on end and being uncomfortable and imagined that sitting on the floor would be even more uncomfortable. I then also began to realise that it was difficult to dictate student seating when they are sitting freely on the floor. So during that holiday break, I carted all my stools up to the shed and swapped them for upper primary chairs. I firstly set out the chairs in 2 rows in a semi circle facing the white board (kelas dua) and a narrow aisle running up the middle, with kelas satu still along the back wall. The area in front of kelas dua has become ekonomi! I chose the word ekonomi because it is a cognate. Later I want  to investigate the frequency of the word ‘lantai’ (floor) to determine the usefulness of it in the classroom.   Then last weekend I watched a Ben Slavic youtube video and loved the way that the classroom was set up. So I gave it a go last week! While I think the above works well when students need to focus on the white board or smart board, the setup below would be great for story asking.   I asked the students at the end of their lesson for their opinions on the new seating arrangement and overall it got a big thumbs up. I think they too, like me, enjoy a change now and then! Students also commented that if my room is going to be set up like an airplane, then kelas satu should be at the front of the room. I really like that suggestion and will incorporate it when I next use the first chair formation. It makes sense that kelas satu have the prime position!! It will also make it considerably easier for the students to do their jobs.

If you are interested in reading more about this, then I highly recommend Grant Boulanger’s post on his deskless classroom experience.

Why are Frequency Lists Important For Language Teachers?

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A frequency list identifies words that occur most frequently in that particular language in everyday conversations. For most languages, frequency lists are easy to find, yet for Indonesian the first one I found was this one and that was thanks to Penny Coutas. There are many sites that offer lists of common Indonesian words. See here, here (my favourite) and here. Look through their word lists and see if you agree that they are in fact a list of the words that you would use the most when communicating in Indonesian.

Ben Slavic says that a language teachers curriula is a list of words and for me this rings true. No matter what methodology you use to teach a language, your lesson is based around a particular group of words. As the goal of language teachers is to provide opportunities for students to develop conversational fluency, it makes sense for teachers to target the specific vocabulary necessary for this. The frequency lists are thus lists of the most frequently used words that occur naturally and regularly in everyday conversations.

From the list of 200 most common Indonesian words, we wanted to determine the Indonesian ‘Super 7” (credit Terry Waltz). To identify the core vocabulary  necessary to ensure 100% comprehensibility in all classroom conversations. Terry Waltz says of her ‘super 7’ that “if you can get novices to really, really, really own these words, they can figure out how to communicate about quite complex things with just a few words.”

So we decided we wanted to determine the Indonesian ‘top 10’. However I do agree with Penny Coutas about sudah/belum, so therefore I personally suggest that the Indonesian list becomes known as the Top 10 + sudah/belum. Knowing our Top 10 + sudah/belum, helps us determine the path necessary for students to develop and improve their proficiency.

So far, in term 1 we covered suka, pakai, punya, kasi, di and mau while this term our target structures have included revising the above as well as ada & pakai. The idea being that once students have thoroughly acquired the Top 10, we can start introducing more complex  target structures.

Elsewhere on Ben Slavic’s blog, he and other experienced TCI teachers advise that frequency lists are a very good place for novice TCI language teachers and learners to start; they are the ‘beginners curriculum’ (Alisa Shapiro). TCI teachers are in favour of a personalised curriculum – that is a curriculum based around the  interests and needs of students. Engaged students are after all far more enjoyable to teach, so it is a win – win!!

The Top 10 + sudah/belum list is always open for discussion and will be revised over and over as time goes by. No doubt, during the next opportunity to speak in Indonesian, I will hear/use a word that will make me stop and wonder whether it too should be a consideration!!

 

What are the Top 10 High Frequency Words in Indonesian?

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If you had to identify a  list of no more than 10 Indonesian words that are absolutely essential for communicating with anyone in Indonesia, what would they be? 

We have been working on this list all year and hope to complete our first draft of it during the upcoming July school holidays. No doubt the list will be constantly tweaked as we progress along the TCI road. 

My list includes:

  1. punya – to have/own
  2. kasi – to give
  3. suka – like
  4. ada – there is/are
  5. bisa – can
  6. mau – want
  7. pakai – wear/use
  8. ke -to
  9. di – in/at/on
  10. ambil – get

Other words that I believe are also important (although could largely be communicated using body language) include:

  1. sudah/belum
  2. ya/tidak/bukan
  3. sedikit/banyak 

What do you think of the first list? I would love to hear your comments if you are an Indonesian teacher/learner.

Once the top 10 list is finalised, we will next identify the top 100 high frequency words which are pertinent and relevant for beginner Indonesian learners. I believe it is useful to know what these words are because they focus and guide teacher planning. When I look back over the thematic units of work I have done with past students, very few (the 4% ers) can recall much of the vocabulary we covered. Our new catchcry is narrow and deep unlike our previous method for which the catchcry in  hindsight seemed to be: shallow and broad. The top 10 essential words for communication will become the foundation for our current and future students’ aquisition. 

Term 2 Story – Lucy Mau Jaket

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This term we have been working towards the story recommended to us by Catharina. We are about to head into week 5 and not counting week 3 (our cultural break with Ibu Mia), we have been working towards this story for 3 weeks. Here is my version of the story:

Ada perempuan.
Nama perempuan Lucy
Lucy dingin.
Lucy tidak punya jaket.
Lucy mau pakai jaket.
Lucy lihat laki laki kecil.
Nama laki laki Will.
Will punya jaket tetapi jaket Will terlalu kecil.
Lucy lihat Pak Hudson. (Our principal, who has kindly lent us an enormous jacket especially for this story)
Pak Hudson punya jaket tetapi jaket Pak Hudson terlalu besar.
Lucy lihat Jane.
Jane punya jaket dan jaket Jane pas.
Jane kasih Lucy jaket.
Lucy pakai jaket.
Lucy berkata, “terima kasih Jane.”
Jane berkata, “Sama sama.”

The names of the 2 central characters are flexible and when I first told the story last week to classes I chose names of students who were prepared to act out the story and for whom the props would fit according to the story! Naturally this didn’t always go to plan, but mostly the students pretended and went along with the story!!

In the first weeks of term, I introduced the structures terlalu besar, terlalu kecil and pas, trialing the concept of visual PQA which I read about on Ben Slavic’s website. See this post for more information. I continue to refer to and add to the notebook file as I go along. It truly has been an engaging  technique for introducing and/or reviewing structures.

After I was reasonably confident students had acquired the above structures, I then introduced the cognate, jaket and the verb ‘pakai’. As I also want students to be aware of the vocabulary for other forms of clothing preparation for their freewrite next week, I chose ‘topi’ as in term 4 when we have a compulsory hat wearing policy and ‘sepatu’ because with winter almost here, I need to prepare for the seasonal after recess & lunch JP student requests to remove muddy shoes!

Thus I introduced the structures:

pakai topi
pakai jaket &
pakai sepatu

and established gestures that represented each. I have now incorporated a TPR session into all my lessons to both reinforce and review the gestures we have established so far. As Catharina has found with her students, Simon says (Bu Cathy berkata in my case) is one of their favourite games and once students become complacent, Catharina recommends ramping it up by saying one thing and doing the gesture of another. My students ABSOLUTELY love it too!! Go figure!

A fun activity I did was put together a collection of soft teddies, monkeys and orangutans as well as a pile of baby clothes. In small groups, students had to dress a teddy and then come to a consensus about whether the clothing was terlalu besar, terlalu kecil or pas. It was hilarious and students from all year levels had a ball. While there was a lot of English in the overall dressing of the teddies, the discussion about the clothing was 100% in Indonesian which was awesome. I also had a ‘tukang foto’ who took photos of groups once they had all agreed on the clothing size/fit. If we had time, I asked groups to show us their teddies and then tell us all what was terlalu besar, terlalu kecil atau pas. Some groups incorporated the vocabulary of other forms of clothing using the posters I had up on the white board but the main aim was to get repetitions on the target structures. The following lesson, I put up some of the following  photos taken  by the tukang foto on the smartboard to provide an opportunity to combine the reps of all target structures while circling.

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This week we are going to focus firstly on the story via retells, readings, and then in the second lesson, I might try one of these TCI activities that I have found in my emails from the moretprs listserve. The activities are:

  1. Draw & Guess – Each student to choose one line from the story and then illustrate it on a clear board. When all are finished, students will be invited to come to the front of the class and the rest of the class have to guess which line from the story it illustrates! Source: Niki Tottingham
  2. Flyswatter – choose 4 (or more) illustrations from the above activity. Arrange them on the floor in the middle of a circle. Hand out flyswatters to 4 students. Say one of the sentences from the story and students have to swat the picture that matches the line from the story. Best of 3 wins. Source Todally Comprehensible Latin
  3. Noisy Pictionary –  2 teams  – Everybody is in one of the teams and everybody participates. One artist from each team comes to the board. Show them  a sentence from the story. They then run to the whiteboard and draw the phrase for their team mates who scream out the sentence it is. Point to the team who first match the sentence with the illustration. (While this sounds a great game – I am wondering if it might be easier to manage if each group takes it in turns and they are timed. I also like the  idea of drawing it on the smartboard so that I can save a digital copy of the illustrations!) Source: Bryce Hedstrom.