A Chance Encounter

13 Dec 201415 Dec 2014Leave a comment

About 3/4 of my students have only ever been to one school – PEPS – since reception (first year of school/prep). These students have only experienced language teaching with me and are thus very familiar and comfortable with my routines and expectations in the Indonesian classroom. Consequently I also know these students very well, I know their family history, their siblings, their strengths and weaknesses, their hobbies etc. By the time they get to year 7, I have been their Indonesian teacher for 8 of their 12-13 years of life! This relationship has taken years to build and with my recent explorations into TPRS, I am beginning to realise just how important these relationships are.
The other quarter of my students consists of a group of children, some of whom have been to many primary schools and unfortunately for a few, PEPS will not be their last either. This group of students have moved either internationally, interstate, intrastate or even locally from one of our nearby local primary schools for a variety of reasons and whatever the distance they have travelled to move to our school, starting at a new school can be overwhelming. The older the student, the more complicated it can be. One of the complications involves adjusting to new teachers and often very different teaching styles and pedagogies.
This last group of students, for me, contains some of the hardest students to engage with. I am just one more new teacher they have to get to know and for most of these students, the language they learned at their previous school was not Indonesian and unfortunately too, for most of these students they do not bring with them positive memories of learning that language. Quite a lot for me to overcome and for one or two older students, unfortunately, this ingrained negativity remains. So disheartening. The mixture of hormones, peer acceptance and being ‘cool’ together with the knowledge that high school is just around the corner is too much for them.
In one of my older classes, I have 2 boys, Kane and Jack (not their real names). Both are very quiet and reluctantly participate in class discussions. Both come from tough city neighbourhoods and dysfunctional family backgrounds. Both boys started at our school at the beginning of this school year. Both have learned that to survive, you need to keep your head down and stay under the radar. Insisting on eye contact with them both during lessons is exhausting and to be honest, something I give up on early in the lesson to ensure I don’t loose momentum &/or student focus. Neither boy is my “barometer student” because it is rare to have eye contact or to gain a response from them. If I ask them a question, (eg. Billy mau beli apa?) based on the PQA we are doing, a very simple question that has the rest of the class busting to catch my attention to answer it, both boys will hang their head or look at me vaguely. My assumption from this was that that firstly neither had been 100% focused and therefore had missed so much either due to day dreaming (Jack) or being hyper-vigilant of the movement near him (Kane) or secondly that I had gone too fast and 100% comprehension had not been achieved.
Then a chance encounter helped me understand what was actually happening with these boys. Kane’s older sister wanted to talk to me about a personal matter, so we arranged to meet for a dog walk at the beach. She arrived with Kane!! We walked along the beach with Kane having a ball playing in the waves with the dogs. It was just lovely having the opportunity to interact with Kane out of the classroom and watch him enjoy his new life down here in our beautiful part of the world. At the end of our walk, we sat down and chatted while Kane brushed the sand off his feet and put his shoes back on. The conversation turned to Indonesian and Kane’s sister asked him what he could say in Indonesian. He then proceeded to demonstrate that he had remembered all the vocabulary we had covered that week from the 2 movietalk trial lessons I had done. In class, Kane had said that he was having difficulty comprehending our discussion about the pasar burung in Jakarta. So this demonstration of Indonesian left me dumbstruck!! And then the penny dropped.
Both Kane & Jack have much in common. TPRS pedagogy actually suits their style of learning perfectly because both are passive learners and definitely not yet risk takers. They enjoy TPRS pedagogy where they can sit down and just listen- it’s a pedagogy that allows them to stay right in their comfort zone until they are ready to venture out. A pedagogy that allows them to participate on their terms and still be highly included in the lesson. Both prefer not to contribute to discussions at this point, largely because they lack the confidence to ‘have a go’. Neither wants to make a mistake in front of their peers, even after 12 months. Yet, the most exciting thing is that TPRS allows them to do this; with or without a conscious decision on their part! They love the high focus on input rather than traditional pedagogies which focus heavily on output.
How lucky am I to live and work in a small community where such an encounter could happen. This opportunity not only gave me insight into that group of students who have concerned me previously, but has also made me even more determined to continue with my TPRS learning journey in 2015.

PQA, Point & Pause, Circling – Weeks 1-3

31 Oct 20143 Nov 2014Leave a comment

This term I have been exploring the TPRS/CI pedagogy with my year 5’s and the year 5/6’s- basing it all around Ben Slavic’s book, “TPRS in a Year”. I read somewhere, probably in his book, a good way to start is to focus on new aspect/skills, one by one, and in doing so, one hopefully can develop a basic level of proficiency within a year.
My first week’s focus was PQA – Personalised Questions and Answers. This skill is important for getting to know the students personally and is especially valuable at the start of a new school year with brand new students. Interestingly, even though I have been teaching most of my students all of their primary years, there is still a lot I don’t know about each of the three hundred and thirty five students I teach. This understanding of PQA only gelled recently and thus instead of PQA in my first week, I mistakenly focused on circling. Last week my focus was ‘point and pause’. When pointing to new structures or the important question word posters, give students the time to grasp the word and its meaning by not speaking for at least 4-5 seconds. I could actually hear the ‘kerthunk’ Ben Slavic talks about when pointing and pausing for students. This week, I will be focusing on circling again however this time I have added a few extra pointers to help develop it even further.
Each weekend in preparation for the upcoming weeks lessons, I write a mini script for my TPRS lessons based on a segment of the master dialogue that I wrote in the holidays. The master is a work in progress and goes roughly like this:
S (Seller)- Good morning
C (Customer) – Good morning
S How are you
C good thanks
S What would you like to buy?
C I would like to buy fried rice
S OK
C How much is fried rice?
S ten dollars
C OMG. That is too expensive.
S How much?
C five dollars.
S OK. How many would you like?
C two please. How much is that?
S ten dollars.
C Ok, Thank you
S You’re welcome
C/S Goodbye

In week one, the target structures were:
1.mau beli apa? – What do you want to buy?
2. Saya mau beli ….. – I want to buy …….
3. penjual – seller/shop keeper

In week two, the target structures were:
1. berapa – how many
2. katanya – he/she said

And in week three the target structures will be:
1.terlalu mahal – too expensive
2.berapa satu? – how much for one?

Student progress has been very slow so far but I only have two fifty minute lessons with each class per week and one of those lessons clashes with choir which affects a handful of students. At the beginning of the term, I explained that any work missed due to choir, was not going to be revised in any great depth during the following lessons and if students thought this was going to be too difficult then they would need to think very carefully before deciding to continue with choir. Several of them wisely made the decision to drop choir, but there are still about four from one class and two from the other. I also have to keep reminding myself that my students are only ten years old and that going slowly is VERY important. It is far more important to have comprehensible input than rush to meet the looming deadline of having the entire script completed by the end of term.
My weekly scripts take a small section of the above dialogue and focus on just that part. Here is my teacher script for next week to give you an idea of what I am talking about.
Lesson # seven
Focus Structures: Berapa satu – how much for one (fried rice)
Astaga. Terlalu mahal – OMG, that is too expensive

Good morning students.
I want to go to market. oooh
Who wants to go to market?
That’s right, Bu Cathy wants to go to market.
Where do I want to go?
That’s right, Bu Cathy want to go to market.
At the market, I want to buy fried rice. ooooh
What do I want to buy?
That’s right students, Bu Cathy wants to buy fried rice.
Do I want to buy fried rice or yellow rice?
That’s right students. Bu Cathy wants to buy fried rice.
Why do I want to buy fried rice?
Ss to suggest a reason to which I will rephrase in a complete sentence eg That’s right, I am hungry.
Ask the students, How much for one fried rice? Choose the most ridiculous answer.
One fried rice is one hundred dollars. oooh
How much is the fried rice students?
That’s right, The fried rice is one hundred dollars.
What do you think, is that good or not?
That’s right students, one hundred dollars is too expensive
OMG, that is too expensive.
Where is the rice seller? Choose a student to be the seller and call them to the front.
repeat dialogue:
C Good morning Mrs/Mr
S Good morning. What would you like to buy?
C I would like to buy fried rice. How much for one fried rice?
S one hundred dollars.
C OMG That is too expensive. How about (5) dollars?
S OK. gives fried rice to customer and receives money
C Thank you
S You’re welcome
C/S Goodbye

Repeat this dialogue using hands as puppets a la Senor Howard.

~~~~~~~~*******~~~~~~~~~*******~~~~~~~~*******~~~~~~~~~~~*****

I have found that I need my script to be extremely detailed and also close to hand for when I reach a point and forget what comes next because my mind has gone blank. I learned that the hard way. I also read through the script just before the lessons which luckily are back to back, to have it fresh in my mind as well. If during class, I walk off without my script and backtrack for it, not one student has made a comment. They understand that I am a learner too and need my notes which is lovely.

In the very first lesson, I planned a brain break activity to get students up and moving after sitting and listening for so long and it turned out to be a huge winner. It is so incredibly popular that it is now requested at the start of every lesson by both classes. I wrote on paddle pop sticks either penjual …….. or mau beli ………… ensuring that there is a pair for each item.

The vocabulary for the items is lifted straight from the pasar stalls that classes are each organising for the end of the term. The paddle pop sticks are in a jar and students choose a random stick.

If they are a penjual they sit at a table and wait for a customer and if a customer, sit on the floor and wait till everyone is ready. Customers then have to move around to converse with each seller until they find the seller selling the item they are looking for. Students converse using the dialogue covered earlier in the lesson repetitively. When they find their pair, they complete the dialogue and then the customer chooses either sits on the floor waiting for the others to finish or continues asking other sellers to practise further the structures.
So easy to organise and so much fun. I usually join in if there are left over pop sticks which gives me the perfect way to assess the language of individual students.

Why Am I hooked on TPRS? Watch This & Understand!

26 Oct 201426 Oct 2014Leave a comment

Astaga! What A Story!

18 Oct 20142 Nov 2014Leave a comment

On a high after my first lessons exploring TPRS pedagogy, I was really motivated to take it one step further and explore the skill of storytelling. A google search quickly confirmed that I would need to write my own story (Mainly Spanish and European Language stories available) so that it contained the exact language I wanted to target as well as incorporating already familiar vocabulary and sentence structures from previous unit of work.
After much thought, the story came to me one evening while walking the dogs! This is always the perfect time for me when thinking about any aspect of my writing, I work through blog posts, student dialogues, film scripts, in fact, just about anything and everything – and the best thing is that because it is just me with the dogs, once the idea has gelled, I can then say it aloud and hear how it sounds.
I wanted my story to ;
1. incorporate some language from terms 1 & 2 (myself & school),
2. incorporate some of the language we had circled the previous week (kenalkan),
3. be succinct
4. incorporate students
5. have a twist at the end
6. be easily performed
When it came together, I was so excited. I quickly returned home so that I could write it down while it was still fresh in my mind.
Here it is:

Before the first lesson, I identified the vocabulary that would be unfamiliar yet vital for comprehension:
dikena
pergilah
piket
tidak boleh
bermain
mari &
kamu
and wrote them up on the board before students arrived for class.

We then began the first lesson by focusing on the pronunciation of these new words. I next wrote the meaning for each word alongside it and asked the class to suggest a gesture for each. This was lots of fun and students were very creative. The gesture I particularly liked was for ‘piket’ (yard duty) which was the enactment of putting the duty vest on. Simple yet effective. Once the gestures were each firmed in our minds, I began circling with, “Saya bermain hoki.” Colby bermain kriket? Tayla bermain apa? Once students had relaxed with this familiar line of questioning, I invited a student to become my first actor, with, “Mari!” I then asked him, “Oscar bermain apa?” to which he replied, “Saya bermain futball.” As a class we then repeated this using gestures for each word. I then began the story and asked Oscar to mime each sentence. The first sentence included the word, “aspel” (asphalt) – vocabulary from 2nd term – and at that point in time I was surprised that not one student remembered this word which to my ears, even sounds like asphalt!! However later it became clear that as they knew it was against the rules to play football on the basketball court, they had automatically disregarded that option!! Funny really as this was the basis of my story!! (i.e. A student doing the wrong thing!)
Next, a second actor was invited to the ‘stage’ and we began the 2nd line of the story. As a class we agreed on which teacher the actor was portraying and then she mimed the gestures as I spoke the next aspect of the story.
The third line, being an action word, also hadn’t been added to the initial list of vocabulary because it was oenapapatic and I had correctly assumed that students would easily work out its meaning.
At this point in the story, I stopped and repeated these 3 lines of the story with a fresh couple of actors. Once the first actors had demonstrated the action, others became keener to volunteer which was pleasing. For the next actors, we changed the sport, the teacher on duty (pop-up for Pak & Bu with this point) and the location.
This repetition was valuable, however as our lessons are 50 minutes, I started to run out of time. So unfortunately the latter half of the story was not circled anywhere near enough for my satisfaction and consequently we didn’t even cover the final stage of the story where the twist was! Oh well….

For the second lesson (and final lesson for term 3), I instructed students to form groups of 2-3, and then gave each a cloze of the first part of the story.

Even though I only had this one lesson of 50 minutes to achieve quite a lot, I have discovered that having a tight timeline when working with iPads, actually motivates most students to stay on task.
Their task for the lesson was:
complete the cloze
use the app puppet pals to create an enactment of the dialogue.
use themselves as the characters (not the clipart looking characters provided by the app)
upload to camera roll when finished.

Overall, I was extremely satisfied with this extension activity with the story – mainly because of the enormous amount of oral language each student was uttering. While most groups did not finish the task, I wasn’t too disappointed with that aspect. For me, the main aim of this lesson, was to provide students with an engaging way of manipulating and repeating the sentence structures we had worked on till it became firmly entrenched in their minds. Walking around and listening to groups recording their voices reinforced just how successful iPads can help in achieving this. Some groups edited and edited and edited, each time having to repeat their lines over and over and over again until each group member was satisfied with not only the pronunciation and expression but also importantly that the actions matched the words! Even now, 3 weeks on, students still remember lines from the story. Yesterday Jamie, clutched his leg and claimed, “Saya dikena Oscar!”. How awesome is that! (linguistically not the fact that Oscar had actually deliberately bumped his leg!)
Now enjoy a few of the finished projects:

My Initial Attempt with TPRS

11 Oct 20142 Nov 20149 Comments

I discovered TPRS (Teaching Proficiency Through Reading & Storytelling) towards the end of last term on Martina Bex’s blog. She is a Spanish teacher working in Alaska and is regarded highly amongst her peers in the field of language teaching.
This pedagogy resonates with me for several reasons. Firstly, I remember how important sentence and word repetition is for young students learning how to read and write. It has been a constant source of frustration for me that there are limited Indonesian storybooks/texts which incorporate predictable and repetitive sentence structures. The Seri Mari Membaca books are brilliant for this and are leveled but unfortunately they are the only book series I have discovered and not only are all the authors definitely not native speakers but the illustrations, while of Indonesian people, are totally out of date and old fashioned and reinforce culturally inappropriate and inaccurate stereotypes!
Secondly, TPRS is a pedagogy that for me, addresses an issue first raised by Bu Febi when she visited us in 2011. One day after our lessons had finished and we were chatting generally about my Language program, Bu Febi offered me some advice. She recommended that I needed to incorporate more spoken Indonesian into my lessons. She was right! 98% of the language in my room at that point was English. I agonised over this for years because I knew I should reverse this but I couldn’t see how I could. Finally, the last point which makes TPRS a style of teaching I want to explore in more depth, is the recent approval of the new (Australian) Indonesian Curriculum. I have attended workshops and conferences devoted to familiarising teachers with our new curriculum, however I still remember my very first introduction to it with Andrea Corston. What jumped out initially for me was the amount of spoken language teachers were now expected to incorporate into their teaching. These 3 points have been recently niggling in the back of my mind while on Pinterest or Twitter or while searching for language teacher’s blogs.
Once I began researching TPRS in greater detail, it became clear just how well TPRS addressed all these issues. I then watched a few YouTube videos and I was instantly hooked. I couldn’t wait to try it with my students. About week 8 last term, and at a point where the upper primary classes – whose term outline and planning had gone down the gurgler because of the difficulty of finding mystery Skype partners in Indonesia or Asia (school holidays, Ramadan, new school year)- I was provided with the perfect opportunity to trial TPRS.
I first started with the year 5’s and 6’s. I even pushed all the desks to the back of the room and had them sitting in a semi circle on our stools, which actually worked well because it emphasised that we were about to embark on something totally different. To start with, I focused entirely on ‘Kenalkan’ (introducing oneself) language which was for several reasons. Firstly, it was personal; an important aspect of TPRS, and secondly I could begin with a topic that would be based on vocabulary students were already familiar with and therefore hopefully would be less threatening for them. The new words I did introduce were:
tidak (no/not),
paham (do you get it?/ understand?),
Astaga (OMG),
laki-laki, perempuan (boy/girl),
kamu (you),
dia (he/she) and
kami (we).
It was exhausting but oh so exhilarating. After the first class, I asked students what they’d thought of it and they admitted that at first when I’d stated that we would only be using Indonesian in that lesson, they’d been concerned but once we got going, they just loved it. The only negatives were that at times I went too fast and that sometimes students got too carried away shouting ASTAGA to encourage each other!! Their positive feedback blew me away.
However I knew my toughest and most honest critics would be the year 6/7 class (11 – 13 year olds), so I dug deep and led them through a lesson too. Considering that in the class that week was a student on exclusion and 2 other reasonably recent transfers, all from the same school, (where they too have an awesome Indonesian language program) and therefore included 3 students who do not have the same depth of relationship with me that the others have, the lesson went smoothly. I began with asking individual students, “Nama saya Bu Cathy, siapa nama?” (My name is Bu Cathy, What’s your name?) a format they are all familiar with but then I began PQA, eg, “Ini Mitchell?” to which they could answer ya or tidak. At this point, I realised that I should have also incorporated mentioning ‘bukan’ into my circling script but as it was my first lesson, I hadn’t thought that part though beforehand. Hopefully one day I will be able to seamlessly incorporate successfully a grammar ‘pop-up’ within a lesson! I next progressed to, “Saya tinggal di Port Elliot” and after that, “Umur saya dua belas.” I then called for 2 volunteers – Flynn & Oscar- and we did some more PQA about the 2 boys. With the other classes, I usually stopped there, but with this older class, they then had to write non stop for 7 minutes using only Indonesian. This was very interesting. I gave no direction, only that if they couldn’t write sentences, they could just list words, it just had to be 100% Indonesian. Surprisingly, only a few wrote a paragraph about themselves, they mostly wrote unrelated sentences or words. After the 7 minutes were up, I then asked them to count the number of words they had written and then give me some feedback on the lesson. I asked for a positive comment and a negative comment. Here are their responses:

Positives
Loved having the oportunity to talk in Indonesian 4
Enjoyed learning new words 6
Enjoyed watching Flynn & Oscar perform 2
Enjoyed being brave & Performing inn front of peers 2
Enjoyed writing in Indonesian 3
It was funny & fun 3
I sort of understood everything 2

Negatives
Did not like having to write 6
There were too many new words 4
Not fun 1
Didn’t like the audience whispering during the performance 2
It went for too long 2
We don’t do enough writing in Indonesian lessons 1

Isn’t that fascinating! For me, their feedback clearly demonstrates that their introduction to TPRS was largely enjoyable and definitely worth repeating.
The other feedback that comes through loudly and clearly is that I expected them to learn too many new words in one lesson and did not circle them enough. If I look back at the basics of TPRS, I can see that I tried to cover all 3 steps in just one 50 minute lesson!! I also need to incorporate more activities into the lesson like brain breaks, so that students are not sitting still for so long.

TEACHING INDONESIAN IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA

19 Sep 201419 Sep 20141 Comment

I have just found this article on the APBIPA website which was written several years ago. It is quite timely as both Ibu Sharon & Ibu Trees are currently visiting Pak Agus in Singaraja and working with the students at his school! The lasting effects of such a visit are never ending not only for the adult participants but even more importantly, for their students.

Fourteen Days of Teaching Indonesian in South Australia

Agus Jaya Parhyuna (SMKN 1 Singaraja)
Usman Ismail (SMKN 1 Kota Bima)

The following is a short report on a two-week teaching experience in four schools Adelaide by Pak Agus and Pak Usman. They joined our new program: Indonesia-Australia School Attachment Program – specially designed for SMK, SMA and SMP teachers. This is a joint program between APBIPA Bali and SMKN 3 Denpasar (representing Directorate of Vocational High School), Ministry of Education and culture. The first part of teh report is by Pak Agus and the second is by Pak Usman.

It is very interesting to know not only what they experience in Australia but also how they have felt about Bahasa Indonesia and about being a native speaker of Indonesian in the middle of Australians teachers and students of Bahasa Indonesia.

1. “I would like to tell you about my experiences with the Indonesia-Australia School Attachment Program on the Fleurieu Peninsular, South Australia. Before going overseas I needed to catch up with current trends teaching methodology of Indonesian as a second or foreign language (known as BIPA), the Australian cross cultural issues, 4 different schools where I would teach Indonesian and typical Australian way of life.

It was like a dream visiting that giant continent for the first time. There were many and long steps I went through to be admitted in the program including: applying for my visa and passport, organizing a letter of invitation from the school in Adelaide and a sponsor letter from SMKN 1 Singaraja. I would never have imagined how I could manage all these just by myself considering I am only a high school teacher. Fortunately, there is an association in Bali (APBIPA Bali) that assisted me with all the necessary preparation, e.g., BIPA teaching methodology courses, introduction to Australian culture, child protection programs and many kinds of Indonesian teaching techniques and games.

I was so lucky to be hosted by three kind and friendly families. They live in a beautiful, quiet coastal, rural area in South Australia. Sometimes the sea breezes cooled me while I was fishing during my spare time. Moreover, almost all families have pets and look after them as they look after each other. They feed and bath their pets regularly. Every day I ate something different and I really appreciated their willingness to help me learn about Australian cooking. I enjoyed trying so many new types of fresh fruits and vegetables.

School started at 8.55am and finished at 3:00pm on Monday to Friday. Some students walked to school, others were driven by their parents. Punctuality is valued and mandatory for all staff and students. There is a high commitment among students and teachers in the process of teaching and learning. Staff and students bring their own lunch from home. We ate our lunch together at lunch time in the staff room with a cup of tea or coffee or a glass of water or milk. Staff and students rarely buy food from the school canteen for price and health reasons. Students learn Mathematics, English, Indonesian, Sport, History, Performing Arts, Visual Art, Spelling, Society and Environment, Science, and well as many other subjects. The teachers are so warm and friendly towards each other and towards students. Assessment is done compassionately as is student punishment for those who don’t follow the school rules.

The people on the Fleurieu Peninsular live in harmony with their environment and each other including Aboriginal peoples, animals, and many kinds of native plants. Everything is so different, but the differences shouldn’t create conflicts. Instead, they create a wonderful and harmonious rainbow in the sky. I am so grateful and blessed to have experienced these all.”

2. “Puja dan puji syukur kami panjatkan kehadirat Tuhan yang Maha Esa, karena kami telah dengan sukses kembali ke Negeri ini setelah melaksanakan satu tugas mulia: memperkenalkan bahasa dan budaya Indonesia kepada sejumlah siswa di Adelaide. Saya dan dua teman lain (Pak Agus dari Bali dan Ibu Indra dari Palembang) mendapat kesempatan mengajar di empat sekolah: Port Elliot Primary School, Victor R-7 School, Goolwa Primary School dan Victor Harbor High School.”

Kami tiba pada hari Minggu, 11 Maret 2012 dan dijemput oleh Ibu Trees dan Ibu Katty di bandara Adelaide dengan sangat luar biasa setelah melakukan perjalanan selama 7 jam 30 menit dari Denpasar via Sydney. Selanjutnya, kami dijamu makan siang oleh Pak Tony, keluarga besar dari Ibu Katty, dan dari sini kami dijemput oleh keluarga angkat masing-masing.

Selama satu minggu pertama di host kami masing-masing dilayani dengan baik dan dihormati. Mereka megganggap kami sebagai satu keluarga besar. Kami diperkenalkan pada seluruh keluarga besarnya dijamu makan malam dan diperkenalkan budaya mereka dan terjadi diskusi tentang budaya kita dan mereka yang berhubungan dengan lingkungan tempat tinggal dan lingkungan sekolah. Di rumah begitu hangatnya perbincangan kami sewaktu makan bersama, sebuah perbincangan tentang lingkungan di mana manusianya betul-betul saling menghargai, saling percaya, dan menghormati.

Kami bertiga bergiliran mengunjungi empat sekolah yang berbeda selama dua minggu. Kami bersepakat bahwa para siswa di ke empat sekolah sangat antusias berbahasa Indoensia dengan kami, penutur asli yang khsus datang untuk mereka. Kami senang bisa melihat penerapan prinsip dan norma pendidikan yang berjalan dengan sangat baik. Prinsip ‘reward and punishment’ juga dikelola dengan sangat apik.

Ruang kelas untuk Bahasa Indonesia ditata sedemikian rupa yang menggambarkan peta budaya Indonesia dari Sabang sampai Merauka. Kami pun menangis terharu dan merinding karena mereka begitu menghargai Bahasa dan budaya bangsa kita, Indonesia. Ternyata di ruang ini kami bisa merasakan sisi-sis indah Indonesia yang sebenarnya.

Kesan penting lainnya adalah bahwa mereka menyatakan program ini sangat singkat sehingga mereka berharap agar program seperti ini akan berlanjut.”

Original source of article:http://www.apbipabali.org/home/2-blog/74-teaching-indonesian-in-adelaide.html

Masterchef Unit?

12 Sep 201412 Sep 2014Leave a comment

This post was originally uploaded last year as a page and in a reorganisation of my blog, I have decided to delete the page and reload this as a post.

How about a unit on cooking incorporating iPads and interactive smart boards? How fantastic. Have just stumbled across a Spanish teachers blog which included a fantastic idea for doing just this. The unit starts with simple cooking recipe YouTube videos. So i guess, my first task is to track some Indonesian cooking youtube videos down and if none are there, then add that to my list of resources to collect while in Jakarta with Bu Valentina or Kalimantan with Bu Arfa.
After watching one, The students then use an app on the iPad to complete a cloze. So much more motivating than doing it on paper. Although, how do i keep a digital copy of it? And how do i manage this with only 6 iPads? Maybe in groups, 1 student has the iPad and the others do the task on paper?
The lesson then proceeds to use the smart board for students to make their own cooking tutorial video! Sounds amazing however i think we may have copyright issues about using google images. If so, then either i will have to photograph the ingredients and utensils myself or students will have to take their own photos beforehand! Can’t wait to investigate this use of the smart board!
Look here to see the original post.

Penny

Hi Bu 🙂

I’ve been enjoying following your jalan2 blog! So much so that I have sung its praises on the wa-indon mailing list. Hopefully others will follow along too! Particularly enjoying your adventures in Kalimantan – somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit. Ahhhh!! To hop on a plane right now! I really love your photos and seeing things with a “teacher’s eye”. 🙂

I aim the MasterChef unit at yr8s in second semester. Once the Year 12s finish Term 4, we can access the cooking room and so I aim to do one “practical” lesson per week and one “theory” lesson 🙂 When we enter the cooking room, we -only- speak Indonesian (so classes are quite quiet… heh) but I find that the change in environment has a huge impact on kids’ willingness to speak the TL and creates a pretty clear boundary. Practical, hands-on lessons are also easier to facilitate in the TL I find, and the iPads come in handy because we can “beam” the action from the back of the room to the front of the room using AppleTV and a projector.

Last year we just spent Term 4 on “Masterchef” because we looked at the Olympics term 3, but this year we’re exploring it for the whole semester. It’s soooo much fun! I like styling lessons after the “challenges” on the show – mystery boxes, skills tests, invention tests, masterclasses, team challenges etc. and because students are playing a role they’re more likely to play along 🙂 We watch the show quite a bit but also do a lot of vocab building activities. We also have an immunity pin challenge – whoever gets the highest score in Language Perfect for the month wins a garuda pin and gets to trade it in for a “free lesson” of their choosing. They can go to the library for free time, or (if they give me advance notice) join another class. If we have a test on that day, they don’t have to re-take it at a later date. In previous years, no-one actually traded in their pin – they enjoyed wearing it too much and didn’t want to miss a lesson 😉

Tweet or email me your email addy and I can pass along some tasks if you like. It’s all a bit here and there, I keep promising myself to sit down and put it together properly, but that’s teaching for you!

We have a blog at http://www.indo5.net and “signature dish” recipes (their major assignment) are at http://www.indo5.net/masterchef 🙂 We also published a bilingual cook book last year in collaboration with SAIMS, our sister school in Surabaya. Phew!! Now if only I could sell them…

bucathy
bucathy.wordpress.com
casibly@yahoo.com
112.215.36.143

Submitted on 2013/09/30 at 3:01 pm | In reply to Penny.

I am really interested in your master chef unit. What year level do you aim it at? I have just watched a current master chef episode and I can see how students would enjoy it as the formular is identical to what our students would be familiar with in Australia.
PS have you seen my current travel blog (Jalan Jalan With Bu Cathy)? It is mainly for my students (primary) so they can see what I am doing on my travels. If there is a topic you are currently covering and you would like me to do some research, just let me know!

Penny
indo5.net
p.coutas@gmail.com
202.89.183.245

Submitted on 2013/09/30 at 10:09 am

I’ve been doing a MasterChef Indonesia unit of work for 3yrs now – more than happy to share!! The 3rd season is all (legitimately) on YouTube and is fab! It’s sooooo drawn out that students follow along and don’t get overwhelmed because the format is incredibly familiar (and one if the judges is from Sydney!)

Twitter Time

9 Sep 201413 Sep 2014Leave a comment

So many ideas here for me to reflect on. I have an Indonesian language class Twitter account which some classes adore using, but it seems there are a million other ways to utilise it in my classroom which would make it equally engaging for other classes. Do other Indonesian teachers have twitter accounts and how do you use it? So far, I have mainly used it as a tool for classes to reflect upon and then summarise the learning we have done in class that lesson. With the Junior primary classes, I encouraged them to use Twitter to tweet their inquiry questions about volcanoes. This was not so successful except for one of our amazing fathers who is following us and together with his daughter, they would go online and then tweet back the answers. How awesome is that!!

Learning and Growing

It makes my heart happy to see so many teachers creating class Twitter accounts. Having a one has created some wonderful learning opportunities for my students over the past two years. I’ve learned a few things (sometimes the hard way) so thought I’d share some things in the hope that it can help others.

One of the first things to you need to do is create a Twitter handle – I chose @Millgrove4H. I would probably use something different now because I’ve learned to

pick a name that will last
keep it short
make it memorable

When selecting a name, try to choose something suitable that will continue through the years. As teachers, we often change grades and even schools. (As well, we discovered that using a school name can make your site simple to find during a Mystery Skype). It’s a good idea to try to keep…

View original post 1,047 more words

Harnessing Volcanic Energy – Geothermal Power

6 Sep 2014Leave a comment

What a fascinating topic! I have just discovered (on Twitter) that Indonesia has very recently changed legislation to cut the red tape currently needed for harnessing energy from volcanoes. Read this article about geothermal energy, how it is harnessed and how earthquakes surprisingly help geothermal plants.
From this article, students would be able to brainstorm many inquiry based questions around a topic which appeals to students of all ages.

Geothermal plant in Iceland
source: http://www.photoree.com/photos/permalink/5824949-42244487@N04

A Dream Photo Shoot Through APBIPA

29 Aug 201430 Aug 20142 Comments

Over the last 2 weeks, 2 schools on the south coast were extremely fortunate to have met Pak Ida Bagus Sudana & his 19 year old daughter, Trisna. Their visit was coordinated entirely by Pak Nyoman from APBIPA and as usual our visitors were perfect Indonesian ambassadors who supported the Indonesian Language program beautifully.
For me, the event that blew me away was the privilege of watching Trisna prepare for Tari Puspanjali (the welcome dance). The entire time I was taking photos, I wanted to pinch myself. Having Trisna all to myself to photograph! How rare is that – being able to watch a dancer prepare for a dance? In Indonesia, she would have been surrounded by family and friends all helping, here all she had was her father and me, although my expertise was limited to doing up a few safety pins!
Here are just a few of the photos I took:

Trisna then put her jacket back on as it was quite chilly and then began applying her makeup:

Once the makeup was completed to her satisfaction, Trisna put her runners back on and we headed to class. There waiting for us was the year 4 class who were also blown away by Trisna’s finery and beauty.
We talked briefly about the dance and the costume and then Trisna led the class through the beginning of the dance. I was very keen for my students to experience themselves attempting the dance because I remember all too well just how hard it is to do from my ELF experience last January in Bali. The dance looks so slick but it isn’t till you dance yourself that it becomes clear just how many difficult aspects there are that need coordinating.