Term 2 Story – Lucy Mau Jaket

24 May 201525 May 20151 Comment

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.

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:

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
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
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.

PEPS’ First Ever Bilingual Assembly

20 May 201520 May 20155 Comments

Last Friday, year 5/6 Roberts ran the school assembly. It was amazing!

However before I explain in more detail why it was amazing, I have to explain a few things….

Their teacher, Margaret, has incorporated Indonesian wherever possible into her classroom routines. Displayed in her room are the classroom phrases students use and know well, including

Boleh saya ke w.c.
Boleh saya cari minuman
Jangan lupa, cuci tangan
Jangan lama lama
Sudah!
Sampai jumpa
Terima kasih
Apa kabar?
Boleh saya pinjam…

These phrases used to be the cornerstone of my language program before I discovered TPRS. These phrases were thus the limit of my student’s fluency because these were they only phrases that were repeated from lesson to lesson, term to term. (Other vocabulary was limited to ‘themes’ and once the theme was finished, the vocabulary was rarely used or covered again.) Margaret has always supported the Indonesian program where possible in her classroom yet lately she has taken it one huge step further. During her release time, she can often been found joining her students in their Indonesian lesson!! I am so touched and impressed for many reasons that she gives up her non face to face time to join us. I really appreciate her feedback on the many aspects of the lesson and love it when we run through the target structures that she has acquired later in the classroom.

So I really shouldn’t have been surprised when Margaret announced that she wanted to run a bilingual assembly!! She gave me a copy of the script and together with Ibu Mia, we were able to easily translate the dialogue using the target structures students have covered to date. This exercise in itself demonstrated just how powerful TPRS is when the initial structures are high frequency ones. Using the following target structures, the year 5/6 class were able to conduct PEPS’S first bilingual assembly:

berkata – to say
nama saya – my name is
mau – want
berdiri – stand
diam – quiet
duduk – sit
kasih – give
lihat – see
dengar- listen
sudah – already
sampai jumpa – goodbye

The assembly went so smoothly and I was immensely proud of the fact that students could conduct an assembly in two languages and that it was 100% comprehensible for all students in the audience. The very first sentence was “Murid-murid, berdiri dan diam untuk Advance Australia Fair.” Immediately the entire assembly of students stood quietly! Wow!! The class teachers, who had no idea of what had been said, were puzzled when the entire student body stood up. Not realising why, class teachers immediately insisted that their students sit down! The students were confused! They had just been asked in Indonesian to stand and now they were being told to sit down!! The sight of the entire school getting to their feet en masse was very moving for me. The students who had spoken the words had used no hand signals, yet the students fully understood it and immediately followed instructions!

I also spoke at the assembly to formally welcome Ibu Mia to our school. Once again I was blown away by their comprehension and was so incredibly proud. I spoke in Indonesian and when I asked them all, “Paham?” they answered en masse, “Paham!” Ibu MIa then presented a trophy to our principal that her students had made especially for our school. When I held it up to show the students they all agreed: “Astaga!” It blew Ibu Mia away!

What an amazing assembly! To think that our students now know enough Indonesian to conduct an entire assembly is pretty cool! Congratulations to the year 5/6 class. You have certainly set the standard now and I really hope that the next class who runs the assembly is also keen to conduct it bilingually!

Ibu Mia From Batam, Kepulauan Riau

15 May 201515 May 20152 Comments

This week my students are enjoying a chance to interact with and learn from Ibu Mia, an Indonesian high school English teacher from Batam, Kepulauan Riau. She will be in our area for 3 weeks, spending a week at each of our schools. Her visit has been entirely coordinated by Pak Nyoman from APBIPA and we are so, so fortunate to able to particiapte in this program. Through APBIPA, we have hosted teachers from Sumbawa, Bali, Sumatra, Jakarta, Kalimantan, Bandung and now Batam. What a fantastic way for my students to experience the diversity of Indonesia.

We learned many interesting facts about Batam. Some of which are:

Even though it is a tiny island, the population is roughly similar to Adelaide; 1 million.
It is only 35 minutes from Singapore by ferry and Ibu Mia has often taken her sons to Singapore for a day trip!
There are 1500 students and 90 teachers at her school, SMK 1 Batam.
Batam was only founded in the 70’s and then developed in the 80’s as a centre for free trade.
Batam has a good selection of high class hotels, one of which is a restored cruise ship!
There are 7 domestic harbors and 2 international harbors in Batam.
Batam has beautiful beaches.
Batam has a huge industrial sector.
Ibu Mia lives in Batam Centre.
There is a ‘Welcome to Batam” sign which is exactly like the Hollywood sign in California.
Batam’s skyline resembles any develped city’s skyline. Multi-story buildings and freeways.

This visit has been so enjoyable for me for a variety of reasons. Usually I teach as per usual and my visitor co-teaches i.e., assists with modeling pronunciation, extra facts etc. However this time, the focus of the lessons this week has been Ibu Mia, thus being a cultural brain break for all of us. While lessons largely reverted back to the 90% English/10% Indonesian ratio, it was so interesting and informative that it wasn’t an issue and we still managed to where possible incorporate the target structures for this term and students enjoyed plenty of opportunity to demonstrate their growing ability to speak in Indonesian with many classestotally impressing Ibu Mia! So exciting!! I couldn’t help pointing out to the older classes, that the level of communication we used with Ibu Mia was far above that which we have used with any previous visitor.

Our recent acquisition of pakai was very useful and we enjoyed the opportunity for many repetitions with all the classes due to discussions about why students thought Ibu Mia was Indonesian (as opposed to be being Korean, American, Spanish etc). They all said that had they seen her in the street, they would guess she was Indonesian because of the clothes she was wearing which led beautifully back to our circling:

Ibu Mia pakai topi? bukan
Ibu Mia pakai jaket? bukan
Ibu Mia pakai sepatu? ya
Ibu Mia pakai apa?

This then led to a discussion about her clothing. Students learned the word for her Muslim dress (gamis) and her head scarf (jilbab). I have a selection of jilbabs from Kalimantan, so we dragged them out which led to many questions from students about jilbabs. The questions were hysterical and I wish I could have recorded them all. It was so hard keeping a straight face! Questions included:

How do you put on a jilbab?
Do you sleep in your jilbab?
How do you get your hair cut if you can’t take it off in public?
What is that thing under your jilbab? (ciput)
What happens if someone comes to your door that is not family and you are not wearing your jilbab?

The most amazing thing about all the questions was that they were all respectful! Not one student made a negative comments about any aspect of Islam. I am so proud of my students. Ibu Mia was so relieved. She showed me an article from her local paper for which the headline which roughly means: Ibu Mia is a ittle bit worried about visiting Australia On The Heels of The Bali NIne Executions.

Her friends all warned her that Australians would harrass her because of the executions and that it was a terrible time to visit Australia. Many also suggested she reconsider wearing a jilbab in Australia or at least wear a smaller one. Thankfully she did not listen to their advice!! At our school and in our local community she experienced exactly what I experienced while traveling in Indonesia amidst the telephone spying scandal: most of the hullaballoo is political and hyped up by the media. The general public are largely cynical consequently and thus when a visiting national from that country is polite and personable (as Ibu Ma definitely is), it dissolves any animosity one may have for their nation and is brilliant for breaking down the stereotypes that events such as these perpetuate.

The classes that have 2 lessons a week, were treated to a cooking demonstration for their second lesson. Ibu Mia, not only loves cooking but she is an awesome cook. We brainstormed one evening after school for recipes that are quick, easy and will surely be popular with students. Ibu Mia suggested her own recipe of Mie Goreng Telur A La Ibu Mia which is a popular snack she makes for her sons when they are hungry. We found all the ingredients at our local grocery shop and she was especially delighted that we could buy the extra spicy chilli sauce made by ABC!! Needless to say the small noodle pancakes were a huge success. Students could choose to have theirs with saus tomat, sambal atau tidak pakai saus. The entire cooking lesson was a double bonus because where possible Ibu Mia used the target structures that students have learned this year. It was awesome that Ibu Mia understood the power of TPRS/TCI so quickly. Her circling required that all students to listen, look & respond! It was so cool. Her language to the students included:

Kasih Ibi Mia gunting
Siapa mau menjadi assistan Ibu Mia?
Apa ini?
Kasih Ibu Mia telur. Apa telur? Ya, telur egg!! Jade, kasih Ibu Mia dua telur. Berapa telur?
Berapa murid di kelas ini?
Ayo, Menghitung! They would then count with her while she tricked them by going fast sometimes and slow sometimes.
Garamnya (apa garam? Ya, garam salt) Garamnya terlalu besar, terlalu kecil atau pas?
Siapa mau makan mie goreng telur pakai saus?

Terima kasih IIbu Mia. PEPS will miss you!

Ayo, Menghitung!

Amazing Indonesian brain break – Hit Like A Girl!

8 May 201525 May 20151 Comment

I know I have already posted today but this is so exciting, I can’t help but share it immediately. I have just had a email from a friend who teaches in Bandung. She is so proud because one of her students has been announced as the under 18 winner of an international competition – Hit Like A Girl.

I cannot wait to show my upper primary students this amazing clip of Nicx, who by the way is only 10 and won the under 18 category! She has such a future!!

Here’s some more information about the competition:

PQA & Direct Instruction in the TCI Classroom

8 May 20158 May 20151 Comment

Last week, 2 important aspects of TCI gelled for me. The first was the true understanding of the Personalised aspect of PQA (Personalised Questions & Answers), and then experiencing how it transforms discussion. Read this and/or this to learn more about PQA. Ben Slavic also has published a book called PQA In A Wink which I am reading at the moment and can highly recommend.

Over the holidays, I created a notebook file full of quirky pictures to support the acquisition of

‘terlalu’ besar’ (too big)
‘terlalu kecil’ (too small) &
pas (just right/perfect).

As the class was looking at the pictures on the smart board during the first day of school, it became clear that once the novelty of the pictures wore off, I lost the students. I puzzled over this during my evening dog walk that evening. I revisited in my mind all that I had done in the lessons, trying to pinpoint where I had stumbled. It suddenly dawned on me that PQA was not asking about the colour of the jacket nor whether the bike was big or small. That was incredibly boring because, honestly, who cares if the bike is red or green! Ho Hum… PQA is asking questions that relate directly to the students. I was so excited to finally get this that I couldn’t wait for school the next day to give it a go!

The following day I had great success and students were thrilled that I was asking them questions about their own personal lives, their likes/dislikes etc. For example, one of my pictures was a pictures of a man in a pink tutu riding a tiny bike with the word ‘sepeda’ typed and an arrow pointing to the bike. I asked questions such as:

Siapa punya sepeda? (while pointing at the word sepeda with my magic laser pointer) then asking the student who had responded:
John punya berapa sepeda? and then asking:
Sepeda John terlalu besar, terlalu kecil atau pas? I then moved on to asking about the bikes of their siblings which also apparently, is mesmorising!

Another picture was of a tiny turtle dwarfed by a strawberry with the turtle labeled kura kura & the strawberry labelled arbei. For this picture I asked:

Siapa suka arbei? ( One year 4 boy answered, saya suka makan arbei dan kura kura! It was pure gold!)
Siapa tidak suka arbei?
Siapa allergi dengan arbei?
Siapa suka makan arbei dengan es krim?

I am still amazed at just how much questions such as these are engaging for our students. My only concern was that general questions to the class evoked an incredibly enthusiastic response which was at times deafening. Awesome that everyone is so engaged but so hard to manage and keep students focussed without lapsing into English.

Then after school Wednesday, I watched a webinar from the TPRS Publishing website which led to my second realisation thanks to Carol Gaab. The beauty of this webinar is that it is specifically for elementary language teachers. I have seen it several times and each time I watch it I learn something incredibly useful. I was delighted this time when Carol outlined several techniques she uses to minimise students calling out during PQA. She recommends asking students to do a given action if they agreed/disagree with a statement, eg berdiri kalau suka arbei, angkat tangan kalau tidak punya anjing. Once again, I couldn’t wait to try this idea and again, it worked so well and made such a difference.

So this week (week 2) I combined asking personal questions together with asking the students to reply to questions by standing/ sitting/ raising their hand etc and it was brilliant. One of my year 6/7 classes today arrived to class in an unusually unfocused fashion. They fussed around getting jobs allocated and with the delay became even further unsettled. Yet as soon as I started PQAing the pictures on the smartboard, they were suddenly quiet and hanging off every word. At one point I asked whoever had 3 dogs to stand up, I then asked each of the students standing what their dogs names were. This produced some hilarious names which had the students in stitches. However when I tried to move on to another question, the students quickly reminded me that I had yet to ask Winter about her dogs, who was not fussed at all that she didn’t get to share!!! We also had a giggle when Connor told me that he had 13 dogs but he couldn’t keep a straight face and then quickly confessed that he actually only had one!

A truly terrific week due to finally experiencing the power of the ‘P’ in PQA and learning techniques which help to keep us all in Indonesian!! My next personal goal is to learn how to incorporate awesome student contributions into our class stories! Imagine the story we could have created involving a turtle hamburger!

Written by the Penulis Twitter

Listen & Draw

23 Apr 201525 Apr 20151 Comment

At the end of last term when both myself and the students were worn out, I tried ‘Listen & Draw’ using the fantastic clear folders I bought at the end of last year. Inside each folder I put a sheet of A4 paper. I bought a packet of large green wipes which I cut into quarters and one is stored inside the folder while the pen slips into the elastisized pen holder at the top. Very compact.

As an end of term activity, I can totally recommend this as it was so peaceful and enjoyable. It gave me a chance to rest my voice while giving me the opportunity to assess the acquisition of all students with the target structures we focused on last term ;-

mau – want
kasih – give
punya – has &
makan/minum – eat/drink.

Here’s how I did it. I firstly showed students a notebook file containing clipart pictures of vocabulary such as bus (grammar pop up opportunity for Indonesian pronunciation) to not only help students turn their language switches back on but to also give them ideas on how to draw certain objects. I then said a sentence that included one of the target structures, a familiar character and cognates and asked students to illustrate it while repeating it several times. Perfect for getting in more repetitions! The students absolutely loved this activity and I can see how easy it would be to overuse this as it was just so enjoyable for everyone.

For more information, I recommend watching this series of youtube videos by Dianne Neubauer, a Chinese TPRS teacher.

Here are a few of the illustrations from students in years 1 – 4:

Batman mau pizza.

Patrick mau sprite

Monyet mau ikan

Patrick kasih Spongebob sprite

Pak Hudson punya bus

Spongebob mau sprite

Unikitty mau pizza

Olaf kasih Patrick krabby patty

Monyet makan ikan

Such a pity in some ways that all illustrations were erased as they were sooooo good!

Term 1 Reflections

14 Apr 201514 Apr 20152 Comments

As term 1 draws to a finish, I have been looking back over my first dedicated block of teaching Indonesian using TCI . It has been a steep learning curve yet at the same time deeply satisfying. I have learned just as much as the students!! Here are the major gems that I would like to share with you from my short journey thus far:

Props – Don’t ever underestimate the power of props. When I copied Sharon’s brilliant idea of using a bottle of Sprite to tell the story:

Jessie haus
Jessie mau minum Sprite
Ella punya Sprite
Ella kasih Jessie Sprite
Jessie minum Sprite.

I was blown away with the total and utterly mesmorised attention of the classes from year 2 right up to year 7! Even when the Sprite finished, students insisted I refill the bottle with water, so we could continue. Even with water, students were still highly engaged and following the dialogue closely. It not only hooked the actors, but hooked the other students too as they decided whether Ella would give Jessie a drink of Sprite and if not Jessie, then who would be given a small drink of Sprite. It is definitely worth taking the time to organise props for lessons with all year levels. Not only do students beg for repetitions, but it is so much more fun too for everyone. I have never laughed so much with students!!

2. Public Holiday Pitfalls – Usually I begin my week with the year 4’s and they are a great bunch of students to ‘trial’ my middle/upper lessons with. They give me the opportunity to fine tune my plan before facing the year 6/7’s the following day. While I enjoyed my first Easter long weekend in many years (our Ed Dept usually cleverly incorporates them into our mid semester break), I forgot to keep this in mind and consequently yesterday’s lesson with one of the year 6/7 classes was a disaster. With this class I need to be one step ahead of them. Maybe Trashball or something similar would have been a better plan for a challenging class in week 11..

3. Trial by Error – A exhausting yet necessary aspect of teaching and a fact that I (and any learner) needs to philosphically and practically accept. I’ve read that it can take up to 2-3 years for a teacher to acquire competency using TCI methodology. This is what keeps me going! There are many fantastic blogs and websites full of TCI brilliant ideas and suggestions. Gleaning through them all to find ideas suitable for teaching primary students and then trialling it requires a huge step out of my comfort zone and so much energy. Yet each step is an important and integral aspect of the entire journey. I must keep reminding myself to continue plodding steadily along the TCI path and not to expect too much too soon!

4. Dehydration – TCI requires so much teacher talk and I have discovered that I am so much more dehydrated at the end of my days than I was ever before. I have tried to keep up my fluids over the day but haven’t been successful consistently with this yet. I get so engrossed in the lesson that I totally forget to stay hydrated. The most successful stategy I had was finishing my 750ml drink bottle at the beginning of recess and lunch on my way to the staff room but lately even that has fallen by the wayside. Any suggestions gratefully accepted!

5. The Importance of Developing A Personal Learning Networks (PLN) – The core of my PLN consists of Annie & Sharon, my Indonesian colleagues who teach in nearby schools, together with Catharina, our mentor who teaches French in New Jersey. The middle layer of my PLN consists of teachers who teach Indonesian and have been following this blog or my tweets. Their input has been invaluable and I have truly appreciated their comments and feedback. While there are common aspects between different languages, there are also certain aspects that are unique and therefore those who teach and speak Indonesian have that special eye through which to understand my reflections and experiences. They too are are coming to grips with our new Indonesian Curriculum to be implemented fully in 2016, another valuable persepctive. The outer layer of my PLN consists of all the TCI language teachers who post on their own blogs or on websites like Ben Slavic’s. There is definitely a gap for me between the middle and outer layers purely because most of the teachers in the outer layer are secondary teachers and none of them teach Indonesian. Yet, they are still a major and important part of my PLN as they have such a wealth of knoweldge and experience that I am truly in awe of them. Without this special group of people, my first term of TCI could have finished so differently. Whenever I felt like I had hit a brick wall and I couldn’t see where to go next, someone would be there to encourage and help. Annie and Sharon have been awesome and once again I am so fortunate to work so closely with 2 teachers who readily joined me on this journey. Our frequent Friday meetings were invaluable opportunities to share lessons that worked well and thus give us each the inspiration and encouragement to continue. Our Skype sessions too, with Catharina have been incredible. Each time we all took copious notes. It is so amazing to have the opportunity to speak with a junior primary teacher about TCI and how to apply it with very young students. Now that term 1 has almost finished, we are really looking forward to our next Skype call with Catharina. While we usually only speak for an hour, each call is jam packed full of awesome suggestions and information. She truly is an amazing and inspirational teacher to have in my PLN and a huge thankyou must go to Ben Slavic for initially suggesting it!

6. Lesson Planning – On looking back through my lesson plans, I have definitely learned that while it is good to have a few brain breaks up my sleeve, it is also important to keep my planning simple. My initial lesson plans from the first weeks were very long and were a great example of over plannning which is a good way to start! I tried to cover everything at first and then realised that it was not only unrealistic but also pushing the students too quickly. Narrow and deep is the TCI catch cry for a very good reason and this is what underpins the success of TCI over the methodologies I used previously.

7. Patience is a Virtue – When reading blog posts written by other teachers who also use TCI, I have to keep reminding myself that comparing my students (or their lesson outcomes) with theirs is pointless. My students & i have only just started so it is natural that we can’t yet have impromptu detailed conversation that are 100% comprehensible. It is of greater importance that we start with the Indonesian version of the super list of verbs sourced from frequency lists and accept that initial discussions will be be very basic.

8. Humour – At a point about mid-term, I reached a point where everything gelled. Suddenly I relaxed and started to enjoy myself with the students. At that point I realised that it was the first time I have ever laughed so much WITH my year 7 students. Previously, any hilarity got out of hand and ended with me having great difficulty bringing them back on track without loosing that sense of connection. Yet with TCI, we laugh together at the ridiculous scenarios the students suggest and then act out. Not only do students have fun, call out and be totally silly, but because it is all in Indonesian, it is amazing and all students are totally mesmorised and engaged thus keeping it manageable!

9. Tight Timelines have Vanished – Previously, my term outline was tightly planned and in order for me to achieve my term outcomes, every lesson was precious and heaven help anyone who interfered with my schedule!! Taking sick leave was avoided and any additional offered non contact time was reluctantly refused because my planning didn’t have much flexibility. This has all blown away with TCI as everything is based upon student aquisition which is a huge unknown. Once we know what the target structures will be, out planning will focus on that until we, the teacher, deem the students ready to progress to the next step. Consequently, with our upcomiing APBIPA visitor, Bu Mia, I feel far more relaxed and am really looking forward to her time in our school. Students will be able to experience a cultural lesson with her and this will also give them impromptu and authentic opportunities to practise and demonstrate their acquired Indonesian to date.

I am so looking forward to term 2 and having the opportunity to apply all that I have discovered. I also hope that my reflections give other Indonesian teachers the encouragement to consider trialing aspects of TCI in their classrooms. Last year, I dabbled just by experimenting with a few activities that sounded interesting and that is how I urge you to start too. While I am nowhere close to TCI mastery, I am nontheless, very happy to help any Indonesian language teacher if you would like to discover more about TCI. Ask away and if I don’t know the answer,, someone from my amazing PLN will certainly help!!

Running Dictation

30 Mar 20153 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I tried Running Dictation with my students using a recommended twist I read about on one of the many amazing TCI blogs I follow.

All year 3-7 students have been focusing on the following target Language this term:
mau – want
kasih – gives
punya – has
minum/makan – drinks/eats

Using a familiar mini story about Spongebob and Patrick, (who are without doubt the most popular celebrities I have discovered for all year levels), I pared down one of our stories down to:
Spongebob mau makan krabby patty.
Patrick punya krabby patty.
Patrick kasih Spongebob satu krabby patty.
Spongebob makan satu krabby patty.
Spongebob kenyang dan senang sekali.

I wrote each sentence in very large font and then printed it onto A3 paper. I cut up the sentences into strips and then put each sentence in different spots around the room randomly. One was on the telephone bench, one on the computer desk, one on a back table, one on another back table and one on the table near my desk.

In groups of 3, students had to nominate
a reader – the fastest and most confident reader with a good memory,
a writer – the neatest and fastest writer who is also a good speller
an illustrator – the best drawer/illustrator.

Before we started, each group needed to organise 2 clipboards, 2 pencils and have 5 sheets of A5 white paper.

The reader had to, in any order, find a strip of the story, read it, memorise it, and then run back to his/her team and retell the writer the sentence. The writer then neatly wrote out the sentence onto one of the A5 pieces of paper, checking with the reader any spelling that they are unsure about. The writer then gives the page to the illustrator who illustrates the sentence.

When all 5 sentences are written and illustrated, the group then puts the 5 pages into the correct order and hands them in to me. I then checked that
a) the pages were in the correct order
b) the sentences were written correctly with no spelling errors
c) the illustrations matched the sentence and demonstrated comprehension.
If all the above were completed, I announced a winner.

It was a terrific and fun activity which consolidated beautifully our focus these past 4 weeks on this vocabulary. I loved the illustrator job which invariably was awarded to the group member with the weakest literacy skills. The look of relief on their faces when they discovered one of the jobs was, in their minds, not literacy based, was really lovely to see. The language that the students used was fantastic and it was truly a collaborative activity. The discussion about the sentences and illustrations was awesome.

My only beef was that as it was a race, the writing and the illustrations were largely rushed. I would love to repeat this again with no time restraints so that the final product could be turned into books which could then be added to the class library.

Here are a sample:
Spongebob mau makan krabby patty
Spongebob wants to eat krabby patties.

Patrick punya krabby patty
Patrick has krabby patties

Patrick kasih Spongebob satu krabby patty
Patrick gave Spongebob one krabby patty.

Spongebob makan satu krabby patty.
Spongebob ate one krabby patty.

Spongebob kenyang dan senang sekali.
Spongebob is full and very happy.

Can you just imagine the possibilities there are for taking this even further using these pictures!! Imagine a smart board notebook file with them all and the class matches the sentences to the illustrations, Putting the pictures into the correct order, Retelling the story, Embellishing the story….. the possibilities are endless…

Staying in the Language

17 Mar 201518 Mar 20152 Comments

One of emphases of TPRS/TCI is for the whole class, including the teacher, to stay in the TL (Target Language) and in the USA, there is a 90% target! We don’t have any such emphasis in the Australian Curriculum, in fact our curriculum appears to largely expect teachers will teach in English.
In order to not only record our progress of how many minutes each class stayed in Indonesian in each lesson without blurting (speaking in English) but also to add a level of competition between classes, I introduced the student job of timing just this. A student in most lessons now sits at the back of the room with an ipad, next to the Pembantu Guru, whose job it is to squeeze a plastic pig loudly each time any English is spoken. This is easily the most favourite job we have so far explored! Each time the pig is squeezed, the timer (Penghitung Waktu) stops the timer and records the time. At the end of the lesson, if a new record was achieved, it is added to the board. The second number alongside is the total number of repetitions we get in a lesson of the target structures.
Here is the first photo I took in week 4 with the very first scores:

And here is week 5:

Here is week 6:

And finally last weeks:

The funny thing about this latest shot is that 6/7 Turley came in to class and were determined to beat their score. They agreed it was pathetic that the 6/7 class had the lowest time. They tried and tried and yet someone would blurt out in English after just a few minutes. Finally with 11 minutes to go, they all realised this was their final chance and it was so impressive how they all dug deep to keep a lid on their blurting. It was such an accomplishment for them. The very next class though, was the other 6/7 class. When they walked in and saw that they were the only class yet to beat their initial score, they all decided then and there to not only set a new PB, but to also totally thrash the other 6/7 class. And boy did they ever!! 33 minutes was far in excess of what I was expecting from any class in first term!! I had actually said to classes all I’d really hoped for was 10 minutes!! What made me smile though was that whenever a 6/7 student asked, ‘Boleh saya Bahasa Ingris?” The rest of the class would shout “Tidak boleh!”
So now there is a huge inter class competition between the two year 6/7 classes!! I don’t know who is more challenged by this determination of the two classes to only use Indonesian in class; them or me!! My challenge is that whatever I say has to be 100% comprehensible to each and every student!! No easy feat I can tell you! Today because 6/7 Clark wanted to reach the target of 40 minutes, we went into recess slightly and ensuring comprehension remained, I had to resort to a few quick written translations on the board so that I could continue without blurting myself!! Made me feel a little guilty but it is sooo hard when we have only been using TCI properly for barely 8 weeks!!

Our Week In Sydney with The Bridge Project

28 Feb 20156 Mar 20154 Comments

What an amazing week we’ve just had here in Sydney for the Bridge Project. While we sit at the airport waiting for our flight, doing a last minute catch up with Erin and Mel who are also hosting 2 partner teachers from Medan, I’ll try to give you a brief picture of our full on 4 day training and development.
Marg & I first met our partner teachers, Pak Pahot & Bu Elizawati, in the breakfast queue at the Novatel. Pak Pahot is a year 2 teacher and Bu Elizawati is a year 6 teacher at a school called SDN 025443 Medan Barat which apparently is rated number 1 in Medan. Of the 400 odd students who apply to enrol each year, only 100 are selected!

Over the past 4 days there has been a strong emphasis on collaboration, planning and communication. Presenters recommended a variety of ways in which we can achieve all 3 successfully with our partner schools and time was provided to not only make a start on them but also so that we could familiarise each other with our school calendars, so that any planned projects avoid school holidays, religious festivals and national exams.

We also spent time discussing cultural differences. Our partner teachers have already noticed differences with punctuality, environmental pride, traffic and the differences between Indonesia and Australia with the use of right hands to pass items.

Thursday afternoon, we were given a challenge:

This was a brilliant and fun way for all of us to explore Sydney. The resulting photos on Twitter were varied and the shared experiences were vast. Check out #bridgeproject!!

Another fun outing was lunch at the local Giants stadium.

After lunch, 2 of the stalwarts (proud muslims) explained about the various programs they run which target disengaged youth and promote education. Very impressive. Afterwards, we enjoyed a tour through the facilities:

Presenters over the 4 days included Mike Bartlett & Danielle Leggo, education officers from from Sydney Olympic Park (SOP). The program they run there is truly amazing and caters towards both local and distance students. It largely focuses on sport, agriculture & sustainability and can be accessed either face to face or by video conferencing. Thirty thousand students annually access the ranger led Australian curriculum aligned activities learning about the local wetlands and other local habitats and there is also an online Koori classroom! One great suggestion from Michael was to set up a collaborative project to study the migratory birds that fly from Siberia to Australia, transiting Indonesia! For further information about SOP, regardless where you are globally, check out their website and youtube channel. They are currently searching for non Australian classrooms interested in an international 2015 netball challenge.

Joedy Wallis from AEF, divided the group so that the Australian teachers and the Indonesian teachers could each focus on their own curriculums to identify areas compatible for collaboration as well as identifying goals and outcomes for student learning. She pointed out the areas of the curriculum covered by the bridge project include:
literacy
numeracy
ict capability
critical and creative thinking
personal and social capability
ethical understanding
ICL (Intercultural Understanding)
which together create successful learners, confident and creative individuals and active informed citizens.
Joedy outlined some history behind the inclusion of the ‘Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia’ priority in the new Australian curriculum. The global shift which has lead to policy changes and the Melbourne Declaration, first signed in 2008 (changes advocated by AEF) provided the impetuous behind our Bridge partnership meeting this week. This promotes student acquisition of 21st century skills. all beneficial for Australia; socially, culturally and economically.

Joedy promoted twitter to all, encouraging all teachers to sign up and discover just how amazing it is for professional learning and sharing. She also promoted the AEF website (which is currently undergoing a huge update to become even bigger and better), the AEF newsletter and #AEFchat on twitter (details on the website) which currently run monthly but will happen more frequently if the number of teachers on twitter increases.

Julie Lindsay from Flat Connections presented on Thursday for 2/3 of our day focusing on the challenges connected with our partnership schools beyond face to face and how to sustain global connections and collaborations. She raised an important point about the need for deep global learning and the importance of constructing a legacy. Encouraging teachers to think deeply and creatively so that whatever project our students create, it will be their legacy.
Julie suggested a variety of online tools through which this could be achieved:
1. Ning.com (not free) which is a multimedia networking tool was recommended highly by Julie for asynchronis communication if both schools can not be online at the same time.
2. voicethread.com – highly recommended. students can record their voices along a given video/photo
3. Wikispacess – where students and teachers can collaborate on projects
4. blackboard collaborate – students present for 1-2 minutes about their learning to an international audience.
5. globalyouthdebates.com asynchronous global debates between classrooms
6. wevideo
7. Animoto
8. Edmodo – private; great tool for creating discussions)
9. Hangouts
10. Skype
11. Padlet – a private forum for groups to share

Before any actual planning, it is critical all teachers agree on a cyber safety policy and have in place an agreement to monitor all students.
Projects could be based on a range of activities:
interpersonal
research (joint?)
problem solving – kerja sama tentang kebanjiran?? find something in common and explore issues!! eg rivers, sea,
artifact and co-creating (eg making video alone or by collaborating with partner students)
connect
communicate
collaborate
create

Most of the suggested project ideas would be entirely undertaken in English which would create opportunities for deep ICL for classroom teachers. Julie suggested students take the learning home (al la flipped classroom style although she didn’t name it!) which gave me the idea of tasking students to record themselves teaching their parents ‘siapa nama’ & ‘nama saya”. Could create a funny yet educations video about specific target language!
Other flipped ideas that arose over the 4 days included a flat Stanley project whereby students make a puppet of themselves and then send it to their partner school who then takes it with them in their every day life photographing everything and creating a journal which is then returned to their partner school either digitally or by snail mail. Another idea I really love which would be perfect for a look and discuss activity is called, A View From Your Window. Tasking students to take a photo from a window at home and then writing a caption about it.
Julie’s presentation was chocker block full of suggestions with little time to fully explore and trouble shoot. Most teachers felt totally overwhelmed and this confirmed for me just how fortunate we are at PEPS to not only have had a ICT Coordinator for the past 3 years but to have someone of Kathy’s high expertise and dedication in the position. Teachers were also concerned about poor tech support on return to their schools, which again for Marg & I, is rarely an issue!! Our highly capable tech team of Darryn & Kathy is second to none! What they don’t know isn’t worth knowing!! One principal told us about a class set of computers still in boxes at their school because they only get 2 hours of tech support per week!!
The second part of Julie’s time with us was task based. We had to create a digital story with our partner teachers. I quickly wrote a script which I then typed up in Pages and emailed to Marg, Pak Pahot & Bu Eliza. Using Puppet Pals, we quickly made a film entirely in Indonesian about the transport we used in Sydney yesterday which Pak spiced up with some evil laughs!! We uploaded it to Youtube and then pasted the link on the Bridge Padlet to share with everyone.

Pak Donny, the Indonesian translator and coordinator, constantly stressed in his translations, that the partnership is all about our students and should benefit them not the teachers and that all projects must keep that in mind! There was also a huge push to encourage Indonesian teachers to review their learning style (methodology) so as to adopt more western aspects. I can see that encouraging students to ask questions, to be more confident in exchanging opinions has benefits but it is a huge cultural shift and with it comes other aspects of western culture. Other factors which must be considered is that class sizes at our partner school are enormous. Classes range from 34 to 46, Class rooms too are not large and school furniture is also not conducive to more ‘creative’ styles of learning. I can see benefits in encouraging a methodology shift but would like to explore ways in which it can be done that are more sympathetic culturally. It makes me feel like a missionary rather than an educator.
It had been an amazing week, meeting teachers from almost every state. We have swapped email addresses and Skype handles as well as following each other on twitter so that we can keep in contact and help each other with any upcoming challenges this year as well as sharing our successes. Marg in particular was brilliant with this. She has already arranged a Skype call with Mel & Erin this coming Friday!! Another teacher has offered to set up a Facebook page for us all and Aaron will create another Padlet too. The September study tour will be a reunion for those of us who sign up for it!

Goodbye Sydney!

Thank You so much to everyone involved for such a memorable week and in particular to Pak Aaron, Ibu Bonnie & Pak Donni.

Indonesian Teacher Reflections

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Category: engagement