I have just finished my first week of teaching Indonesian at my new site. Yes, that’s right, I’ve moved again, and it was the best decision I ever made. After resigning from DECD SA and on the advice of several good friends, I applied for and won a job in Sydney! It has been refreshing working with staff who have my back!!
The main attraction of this job (other than being in NSW), was the potential of being a dedicated TCI/TPRS junior primary teacher. I absolutely love working with JP students – their motivation and engagement is off the chart and consequently their progress is insane. They don’t get hung up on making mistakes, and they give everything and anything a go. It is so rewarding beginning with students usually start with no Indonesian and yet by semester two, our lessons can be 95% in Indonesian!
As always, I have started with Jim Tripp’s “Pleased to Meet You” story. It’s the perfect story to start with – regardless of age – for laying the foundation for future lessons being 95% in Indonesian.
I also love TPR (Total Physical Response) as both a means for keeping students moving and for acquiring verbs. Our first lesson this week introduced berjalan kaki (walk), stop and duduk (sit). Offering young students’ frequent opportunities to move is the secret to increased focus. It sounds like an oxymoron but frequent brain breaks effectively manage wriggles. TPR is a brilliant brain break as not only does it get students up and moving, but also introduces students to structures that will eventually occur in stories e.g. pelan/cepat (slow/fast), berdansa (dance), menyanyi (sing), berlari (run). TPR is a win:win!
Another aspect I introduced last week into my first lesson is calling the roll with Class Dojo. Assessment wise, the data is incredibly helpful for students who are regularly absent from lessons (MiniLit, MultiLit, extra curricula), but it also has another major advantage. It provides me with regular opportunities to target “Apa kabar?” (how are you?) which is usually the first question my students are asked when greeted by Indonesian friends and colleagues. I begin with the basics; firstly baik-baik saja (fine), then lumayan (ok) & finally kurang baik (not so good). These three structures are incredibly versatile and thus are excellent foundation structures.
I strongly believe that we should choose early structures wisely. Look for ones that are easy to say (consider the difference between pronouncing paham and mengerti for early learners), ones that provide a base upon which future structures/ grammar popups can be based e.g. senang sekali (word order) and for intercultural understanding opportunities e.g. kurang baik (less than good). I love ‘lumayan’ (so-so) as it is amazingly versatile. Not only is it useful for explaining how you’re feeling, but is also can be used with adjectives e.g. lumayan besar (sort of big).
Thus, once the basics have been acquired, the roll is the perfect way to introduce other feeling structures that will come up in future stories e.g. lapar (hungry), haus (thirsty), panas (hot), dingin (cold), ngantuk (sleepy) etc.
With JP classes, the aim of the roll is purely acquiring a wide variety of structures, however with MP & UP classes, the aim changes to building automaticity. This is done through adding challenge by timing classes. This starts with classes each lesson trying to beat their own class high score before introducing a whole school challenge to see which class can call the roll the fastest. Can you see the structures needed for this? Brilliant hey?
I really hope that even though my posts will now come from a JP perspective, you will gain ideas regardless. Maybe, in reverse, you will see ways in which what I write about could be adapted into meeting the needs of your cohort. In actual fact, all language learners have the same needs regardless of their age!
First day of term 2 and I am sick! So disappointed to be missing out on a day of the honeymoon week that is always the first week back. At my current site, we are required to write up notes for our TRT (subsitute teacher) which is often harder than just turning up. However in these COVID times, soldiering on is no longer an option. Mostly writing for a TRT is hard but doable, however sometimes, like now, my brain feels like glue and concentrating on anything for longer than 30 minutes is impossible. I texted my DP to let her know all of this and she kindly offered to find a few activities for me if I hit the wall. I was so grateful for this! I then fell back into bed where an idea suddenly popped into my brain. What if the students each created a story using their own likes and dislikes eg food, people, places?
Here is what I created:
The story then begins likes this:
I have tried to keep the language as simple as possible because my TRT usually know no Indonesian so students will be relying on their own acquisition and the word wall. My lessons are 50 mins long, so after filling in the missing words, I have asked the students to create a comic strip using only Indonesian with the reminder that names of people, places and brand names do not change in Indonesian. I added this to remind students that characters speaking in ‘Indonesian’ comics will speak in Indonesian!!
The layout could be clearer, eg putting brackets around the numbers for starters, but I still have my fingers crossed that this idea is successful for my year 6,7 and 8’s today and the TRT.
I would love your feedback on this idea and am especially keen to hear of any suggestions for improvement. Stay tuned for an update after I return to work hopefully on Thursday.
Joy, oh joy, one of the topics I chose for this semester serendipitously follows on from Motivation, Cognition and Metacognition, the topic I enjoyed the most last semester! While that topic was compulsory, The Psychology of Learning & Instruction is my first optional choice. I had originally hoped to enrol in Introduction to SLA, but like many others, it’s only available in first semester.
My first assignment for this topic is a study of learners thoughts while engaged in learning. To create a class of learners, I am teaching Indonesian to two 25 year olds. This will be as challenging for me as it will be for them. They have both studied Indonesian to year 12, and while that was 7 years ago, their Indonesian proficiency is far above most of my previous students (excepting you, Trees). They both are adjusting to a CI approach after traditionally learning Indonesian with me in primary school (pre-CI) and various teachers in high school. I though, am adjusting to working with a ‘class’ of learners who all have very sound vocabulary and grammar knowledge. Both learners also represent two types of students I struggle catering for simultaneously in lessons. One, E, represents the majority of students in that she enjoys the lessons and is progressing well due to excellent levels of focus, participation and self-regulation. My other learner, B, is a 4%-er. She is highly successful when challenged, yet is easily bored when not. How fabulous is it that I get the opportunity to study student thinking, focus on juggling two learner types we all have in our classrooms, while also stretching myself through teaching advanced Indonesian! Steep learning curve for all three of us!
I began my lesson with explaining briefly how CI works, but when B’s eyes started glazing over, I cut it short. Probably makes sense to just add snippets to each lesson as necessary. I then handed out a piece of A4 paper, asked them to fold it in four and then number each square and write their name in the middle. In square one, I asked them to list all languages they have learned over their lifetime. I then asked them to circle the one they are the most proficient in and underline the one they are least proficient in. I had hoped this would lead to a discussion about the best way to learn a language, but as again I could feel the interest level dropping, I again kept it brief. Again, I will revisit this when appropriate. In the second square, I asked them to draw a venn-diagram for the two languages identified in square one and then think about emotions involved with the learning of each. B’s diagram for Indonesian & latin represented a true 4%-er!
Here is E’s:
In the third square, I asked them to think of a maximum of 5 every day inanimate objects. This was in preparation for the first planned task; one word image. I decided to do the thinking here to help minimise the amount of English once the lesson started formally. In the final quarter, I wanted to both give them to access long term memory and in doing so, hopefully give them a feeling of success. I asked them to write the English translations for the top 10 + sudah/belum. Unfortunately this didn’t go quite to plan, as E mixed up a few which hopefully didn’t confirm her self-belief about her level of proficiency. However overall, they both enjoyed the opportunity to discuss formal/informal aspects of Indonesian language. Maybe the are all 4%ers!!
I then established a gesture for not understanding (hand moving over head) and ‘Slow Down’ (dribbling a basket ball), before introducing the language “Apa Bahasa Indonesianya” to help reduce English during lessons. In retrospect, this proved invaluable as they are so used to using English in lessons as is typical in the traditional language classroom. A huge shoutout to Daniel Dubois for this tip. I will be reflecting on Daniel’s skills more and more as my lessons progress, and not just for his impressive management of all learner types.
I opted not to start the lesson formally with card talk as my two learners know each other very well, (friends since year 3), and instead started with a one word image (OWI). The reason behind this was to have a neutral subject that neither had any foreknowledge of and to encourage them to bounce off each other. Firstly, doing a OWI with just two people was tricky and thankfully one of the suggestions given was a ‘home run’. I went through a selection of OWI questions to flesh out the character. These included size, colour, name, kind/mean, wealthy/poor, likes/dislikes & motion. All except for likes/dislikes generated so much collaborative discussion. They bounced ideas off each other, I couldn’t keep up! I had planned to do a write and discuss but postponed it till the next lesson as there was so much detail and they kept working on the storyline in dribs and drabs; so I am looking forward to tomorrows lesson to see if we can remember all the suggestions that were thrown out there and incorporate them more smoothly into a piece of writing.
In reflection, I wish I had organised a secretaries book for B. She will benefit more with the duties of a secretary during lessons. Multi tasking will hopefully provide a challenge while also giving me time to check in with E more often. The squeaky wheel certainly does get more attention! The notes will also help us keep tabs on what they talk about during lessons and as I am writing now, I will also suggest that B uses the opposite page to record any thoughts/feelings about how she is learning to supplement the questionnaires I send them after the lessons.
I incorporated just one brain break and will try to include a few more now that I have more idea of what will work. It worked well!
Here it is:
Finger tips
Make an x with your arms with your palms facing you. Lock thumbs together. With your index finger, try to touch each finger tip on the opposite hand one by one. Repeat with opposite fingers and then proceed through all the different fingers.
Here are my ‘field notes’ for my first lesson:
When compelling, was engaged in task however as soon as that finished she began over thinking again.
My difficulty was keeping both B and E engaged while catering for their different ability/confidence levels.
Both thoroughly engaged while collaborating on aspects of the OWI. Most engaging were: the name (Jessy Jigsaw), the object (a jigsaw piece), kind/mean & rich/poor.
Highly engaged when they sparked off each other and collaborated together.
Down time provided time for over thinking.
Overcome B’s attitude that because she can understand the conversation, she is not being challenged.
Overcome frustration that learning can only happen when pen and paper are in one’s hand.
Tackle the belief that it is the teachers job to extend and challenge students.
And here are my reflections to help with planning my next lesson:
Need to limit the amount of unfamiliar vocabulary for E while also challenging B without stressing E.
invite B to explain grammar, artist/secretary (book), reading, translating,
invite B to put target words into a sentence
search a list of high frequency vocabulary for future vocabulary targets.
Be more vigilant of E’s efforts to stay in the loop and comprehending.
Exclamations – include them!
I need to focus on engagement and motivation for students with differing needs i.e. proficiency, challenge & similar needs i.e. performance and achievement anxiety.
Any feedback on my reflections will be greatly appreciated. Any suggestions or comments to help with either lesson planning or seeking ‘data’, would also be warmly received!
‘Pleased To Meet You’ is without a doubt the best story (I believe) to use as a springboard into TCI/TRPS. In my first year of using TPRS, I used the version below of Jim’s brilliant story with all year levels; R (prep) – year 7. A huge thank you to Jim Tripp for his kind and generous permission allowing me to share it with you. The beauty of this story is its simplicity, quirkiness and economic use of language.
The outline in this post is a blend of a unit of work that Ibu Sharon and I created in 2017 for conference presentations and my own classroom practise. It is designed for preliterate students however can equally be used successfully with all other junior primary year levels. I now teach these lessons with both the straight reception (prep) classes and the composite R/1’s. Thus the year ones in these composite classes work with this story twice and I’m guessing you’ll be astonished to hear that I have not ever had a student comment about this!
If you are starting out on your CI journey and your JP students are also unfamiliar with CI, this outline can also see used successfully with all JP levels as not only does this story introduce structures vital for story telling & co-creating stories but it also is a gentle and engaging way to introduce your students to the language and expectations useful in a CI classroom.
The target vocabulary in the junior primary story version includes the following three structures: nama saya, siapa nama, berkata (My name is, What’s your name, said)
The following are also in the story: di (at), dari (from), Astaga! (OMG!), autograph & pingsan (faints) but instead of pre-teaching these, I personally prefer to say the words in both languages (Indonesian first followed immediately with the English translation) & incorporate comprehension checks until I assess they were no longer necessary and then just use Indonesian. With my reception (prep) students I use ‘di’ & ‘Astaga!’ but not ‘dari’ or ‘pingsan’; I use ‘from’ & ‘faints’ instead. We all know our own student cohort best and you will know whether to use the Indonesian, the English or both for these ‘bonus’ words. I can’t stress enough the importance of always minimising unfamiliar vocabulary to avoid student cognitive overload. The only way you can fully understand how stressful this can be for your students is to join a class teaching an unfamiliar language as we did with Blaine Ray at the recent 2019 Australian TCI Conference. Please, please, please keep this in mind when teaching.
To personalise the story, I highly recommend using the name of familiar staff from your school in your story. Changing the celebrity name and the location to suit your current student’s interests will also ensure that the story appeals to your students.
It is also important in all TCI stories that cognates and proper nouns (not common nouns) are used. For example ‘McDonalds’ & ’hamburger’ are easily recognisable cognates whereas ‘rumah makan’ (restaurant) & ‘nasi’ (rice) are not. Cognates & familiar proper nouns are a gift to language learners and teachers. They help us to reduce the cognitive load and facilitate the ‘narrow and deep’ mantra that underpins CI teaching.
One final note regards the intentional lesson structure I use when planning activities in my JP lessons. The younger the students, the more important it is to keep activities short and sweet and for every sitting activity, follow it with an up and moving activity. I call this the up/down/up/down format! Students this age need lots of movement and restricted sitting time!
Here is the JP story version;
Pleased To Meet You by Jim Tripp
Taylor Swift di MacDonald’s.
Pak Taylor di MacDonald’s.
Taylor Swift berkata ‘Halo. Nama saya Taylor Swift. Siapa nama?
Pak Taylor berkata ‘Nama saya Pak Taylor.’
Taylor Swift berkata ‘Pak Taylor? Pak Taylors dari PEPS? Astaga!
Taylor Swift berkata, ‘Autograf?’
Taylor Swift faints
English Translation:
Taylor Swift is at MacDonald’s.
Pak Taylor is at MacDonald’s.
Taylor Swift said ‘Hallo. My name is Taylor Swift. What’s your name?
Pak Taylor said ‘My name is Pak Taylor.’
Taylor Swift said ‘Pak Taylor? Pak Taylor from PEPS? OMG!
Taylor Swift said, ‘Autograph?’
Taylor Swift faints
Junior Primary Lesson Outlines
LESSON 1. Target Structures:
nama saya (my name is)
ya/tidak (yes/no)
Welcome:(A huge thank you to Diane Neubauer for her permission to use an adaptation of her wonderful introduction here)
Halo Kelas! Welcome to Indonesian. My name is Bu/Pak (Mrs/Mr)_____. Can you say that?
(Repeat very slowly) ‘Bu/Pak _____ . What do you think Bu/Pak means? Ya! Bu/Pak
means Mrs/Mr and if I was a man/woman, my name would be Pak/Bu ______! Pak/Bu
means Mr/Mrs.
How do you feel about learning Indonesian?
I think learning Indonesian is cool too.
Some students feel nervous/ worried about learning Indonesian. They think it is
going to be hard. Do any of you feel more like that? Thank you for telling me this.
I’m going to share with you a few things which will help you enjoy learning Indonesian and also help you learn it faster.
Go through the rules briefly: JP – Dengar, Diam, Duduk (Listen, Quiet, sit down)
Do you know any Bahasa Indonesia?
What do you think learning Indonesian will be like?
TCI Activity # 1: Roll
I always begin calling the roll with the statement ‘Ayo mengabsen’.
followed quickly by pop-up English translation; That is Indonesian for let’s call the roll.
I call the roll using class dojo.
Greet each child with a wave & a halo with their name.
Encourage students to reply with Halo Bu Cathy.
TCI Activity # 1: Class Expectations Direct student attention to the 3 monyet poster. Discuss briefly what they are doing? Sitting, listening and being quiet! Explain that the monyet are being very clever and they are reminding you of what you need to do to learn Indonesian. Clarify that when students are doing the right thing they can earn positive class dojo points and when they are not doing the right thing, they will get a negative class dojo point. I then refer to the poster throughout the lesson and give class dojo points to students doing the right thing!
(see TPT for a free copy of this poster – acknowledgement to Annie Beach for her impressive artistry)
TCI Activity # 2: Introduce the target structure ‘Nama saya’
1. Say ‘Nama saya’.
2. Explain ‘Nama saya’ is Indonesian for “My name is…”
3. Students echo the teacher with various voices. Voice ideas include growly, squeaky, opera, whisper, very slowly ( I really love saying the structure slowly because it provides youth the opportunity to clearly enunciate it!). Notethat ‘listen & repeat’ is strongly discouraged in CI classrooms however I have found that junior primary students thoroughly enjoy it because of the quirky voices. It is a compelling way for them to hear novel repetitions of structures and the more unusual the voices, the more engaged the students become!
4. Provide the gesture.
5. Do one more comprehension check. (what does ‘nama saya’ mean, close your eyes and do the gesture for….)
TCI Activity # 3: Circling ‘- Nama saya’ (Remember to speak SLOWLY)
Here is the script that I used with my 2018 reception classes:
Say ‘Nama saya Bu Cathy’ and point to myself.
What do you think ‘Nama saya Bu Cathy” means?
Ya; ‘Nama saya Bu Cathy” means, “My name is Bu Cathy.”
Hold up a Dora The Explorer (or any soft toy character that is easily recognisable by that age level).
Nama saya Dora.
Ya! Nama saya Dora.”
Comprehension check: Nama saya Dora means My name is Dora!
Is that right? Is her name Dora?
Ya!!
Point to myself:
Nama saya Bu Cathy!
Ya! (thumbs up)
(Pointing to myself) Nama saya Dora?
No!! Nama say Bu Cathy
Nama saya (their teacher?)
Nama saya Jett? (Use a student’s name from the class)
No!!
Bagus!!
Nama saya Bu Cathy?
Ya!! Nama saya Bu Cathy!
Nama saya Mrs Turley or Nama saya Bu Cathy?
Bu Cathy!
Ya!!
What do you think ya means? That’s right – yes!
Hold up monyet puppet and say:
Halo kelas! (Waving his hand at them) and then:
Nama saya Big Bird??? Monyet shakes his head no.
No!! Bukan!!
Nama saya Cookie Monster??? Monyet shakes his head no.
No!! Bukan!!
Nama saya Monyet?? Monyet shakes his head yes!
Ya!! Nama saya Monyet! Monyet nods his head yes!
What does ‘Nama saya Monyet’ mean?
Ya!! Nama saya Monyet means, my name is Monyet!
Monyet again asks, Nama saya Jett? (student from the class)
Simultaneously with the class, negate this saying bukan!
Nama saya Monyet!
Nama saya Bu (their class teacher)?
Simultaneously with the class, negate this saying bukan!
What does ‘bukan’ mean? Repeat again shaking head. Ya!! Bukan means no.
Bagus!
Monyet again; ‘Nama saya Monyet’.
Nama saya Monyet or Nama saya Jett?
Ya!! Nama saya Monyet!
Repeat this with other student names from this class and each time, Monyet waves to that student!
Continue circling with other cards/props until you feel students have sufficiently grasped the target language or the students are becoming restless.
TCI Activity # 4: Fun Target structure Repetitions(to get more repetitions of the target structures use games, fun rhythms or songs that do not contain any unfamiliar vocabulary.)
Choose one of the following ‘nama saya’ activities:
1. Clapping: Clap hands twice and then knees twice while simultaneously saying intimate to the clapping; ‘Nama saya Bu/Pak ______,’ then repeating the clapping rhythm for the students to echo you, in time with the rhythm. Continue using students names by going around the circle with the students echoing! In the second round, encourage individual students to say it using their own name with the class & you echoing.
2. Piccadilly Circus – students stand in a circle with one child in the centre holding a soft a ball. They walk/run to someone in the circle and say as they hand over the ball, “Nama saya _____”. The 2 students then swap places & the person with the ball then walks/runs to someone different and says “Nama saya ________”. You can vary this game by asking students to sit down after they have passed off the ball or you can add another different coloured ball and play it with 2 balls. 3. dum dum dah dah – (replace dum, dum, dah, dah with Nama saya)
LESSON 2. Target Structures: Siapa nama? – What is your name?
TCI Activity # 1: Roll (Getting to know the students and familiarising them with how each Indonesian lesson begins)
I always begin calling the roll with the statement ‘Ayo mengabsen’ and again follow this immediately with a pop-up English translation; That is Indonesian for let’s call the roll.
Call the roll using class dojo and as with the previous lesson, greet each child with a wave, a halo and their name while encouraging students to reply with Halo Bu Cathy.
TCI Activity # 2: Review & Expand Student understanding of Class Expectations Review the 3 monyet poster and the benefits of sitting, listening and being quiet in Indonesian lessons!
TCI Lesson Activity # 3 – Nakal/Pandai (Introduce your preferred behaviour management system. Here is a link explaining in more detail how I manage my very successful JP behaviour management system.)
Discuss nakal/pandai and reiterate what is pandai in kelas Bahasa Indonesia and what is nakal di kelas Bahasa Indonesia. Link to tiga monyet and give class dojo points to students being pandai.
Introduce and sing together the following song to reinforce tiga monyet.
satu, satu, duduk, duduk, duduk.
dua, dua, diam, diam, diam.
tiga, tiga, dengar, dengar, dengar.
satu, dua, tiga, duduk, diam, dengar.
Put a stick up on the board next to the pandai poster using blutack and again reinforce diam, dengar, duduk.
TCI Activity # 4:TPR (Total Physical Response)
1. Revise meanings for berdiri, duduk. (stand, sit) &
2. Introduce perempuan/ laki-laki (girl/boy).
3. Explain/translate ‘perempuan’ is Indonesian for “girl” and ‘laki-laki’ is Indonesian for “boy.”
4. Students echo the teacher with various voices. Voice ideas include growly, squeaky, opera, whisper, very slowly ( I really love saying the structure slowly because it provides youth the opportunity to clearly enunciate it!).
5. Brainstorm for a gesture for the structures (e.g. girl = hand pretending to puff up hair & boy = stroking beard or drawing a moustache)
6. Do one more comprehension check.
Here’s my script from my 2018 reception classes:
Jett (student name) laki-laki.
Jett laki-laki? Ya Jett laki-laki.
Julie laki-laki? Bukan. Jett laki-laki.
Jett laki-laki atau Julie laki-laki?
Ya Jett laki-laki.
Repeat for a female student. Repeat using SpongeBob. SpongeBob laki-laki atau SpongeBob perempuan? Comprehension check. and move to incorporating laki-laki & perempuan:
Perempuan berdiri.
Jett perempuan atau Jett laki-laki? Ahh, Jett laki-laki! laki-laki duduk.
Perempuan duduk.
Laki-laki berdiri.
Jess laki-laki? Jess perempuan? Ya! Jess perempuan! Jess perempuan duduk!
Laki-laki duduk!
**Comprehension check often**
TCI Activity # 5: Circling – ‘Siapa Nama?’
From a bag, take out 2 puppets and begin a puppet show:
Bert: Halo kelas!
Bert: Nama saya Mr Banana.
Teacher says: Is that right? No!!
Bert: OK! Nama saya Bert!
Bert: Siapa nama? (to puppet 2 – SpongeBob ). (Comprehension check)
SpongeBob then asks a student sitting at the front, Siapa nama? (comprehension check).
SpongeBob (to Bert): Nama saya Jett (repeating name given by student).
Bert: Bukan!! Bukan Jett.
Bert points to Jett and says ‘Jett’ while nodding head. Points to SpongeBob and shakes his head saying, ‘Bukan Jett’. Points to Jett again and while nodding & waving says, ‘Halo Jett!’
Repeat for several students.
SpongeBob: ‘Nama saya Bu Cathy?’
Teacher: Bukan. Nama SAYA Bu Cathy!!
Bert: Siapa nama (to SpongeBob). (Ramp it up by being theatrical!!)
Teacher: Siapa nama? (to SpongeBob & again to the class)
Encourage class to answer.
Bert & SpongeBob say together: SpongeBob!
SpongeBob: Ya, Nama saya SpongeBob
TCI Activity # 6: Fun Target structure Repetitions
1. Raja Monyet (monkey king).
Students sit in a circle, with
one child in the middle with his/her eyes well covered. Select another student who will be the ‘Raja’ (king) and give them a name, which is familiar to your students. For this story, the ‘Rajas’ name would become Pak Taylor or Taylor Swift! The student in the centre is then invited to choose 3 different students (one at a time) and ask each, “ Siapa nama?”(What is your name?). All students except for the ‘raja’ answer with “Nama saya & their own name”(My name is _______) but the Raja answers with ‘Nama saya Taylor Swift.”(My name is Taylor Swift) With this answer, everyone must swap seats. Teacher can then choose a new ‘Raja’ and a new person to sit in the middle.
2. Last year I wrote a song that uses a very slow ‘skip skip, skip to my Lou‘ tune:
Siapa nama?
Siapa nama?
Siapa nama?
Siapa nama?
Nama saya Bu Cathy!
3. I also created a new game which is perfect for reps on siapa nama & nama saya with junior primary students:
Students walk together in a circle around the room in the same direction with music playing. When the music stops, each student has to drop to the ground like a rock with their eyes closed and their face facing downwards. ( It is important when explaining how to play this game that students understand that if they are not tucked up like a rock, they can’t be covered with the sarong, so I recommend before playing, ask a student to demo curling up like a ‘rock’ beforehand with their face facing the ground.) I walk with the students while the music is playing and when the music stops, and all the student are curled up like a rock, I cover one student with the sarong. As soon as I ask, “Siapa nama?”, students can sit up and walk over to the student covered by the sarong and stand around him/her without touching the sarong (or student) and answer my question. I restate every answer with ‘Nama saya (suggestion)?’ and if I say the right name, the student under the sarong jumps up! This became one of the most requested games last year!! Over the year, I gradually phased out the music and incorporated TPR language into the game and sometimes, I even covered two students with the sarong!!
TCI Activity # 7: Farewell Song; (Tune: If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands)
Sampai jumpa, Sampai jumpa, Sampai jumpa
Sampai jumpa, Sampai jumpa, Sampai jumpa
Sampai jumpa murid-murid/ anak anak (or simply kelas _______)
Sampai jumpa Bu/Pak_______,
Sampai jumpa, Sampai jumpa, Sampai jumpa
LESSON 3. Target Structures: berkata – said
TCI Activity # 1: Roll
At this stage, I simply say their name and when they answer, I just greet each person with ‘halo (+ name). At this stage of the year, this is purely for me to start attaching names to faces.
TCI Activity # 3: Introduce the target structure ‘berkata’
1. Write ‘berkata’ on the board. (except for reception/prep classes)
2. Explain/translate ‘berkata’ is Indonesian for “say/speaks”
3. Students echo the teacher with various voices. Voice ideas include growly, squeaky, opera, whisper, very slowly ( I really love saying the structure slowly because it provides youth the opportunity to clearly enunciate it!).
4. Brainstorm for a gesture for the structure and choose one that replicates the one you personally want or was chosen in a previous class.
5. Do one more comprehension check, (close your eyes and do the gesture for….).
TCI Activity # 3: Circling
Create a powerpoint of characters who have saying that are well known for your student cohort. What worked well for me was adding an animation for the ‘saying’ to delay the text until after you have brainstormed as a class and included heaps of reps of ‘berkata’. If students can’t remember exactly what the character is known to say, I prompt with ridiculous suggestions. e.g. Dory berkata, “Let it go”? And I don’t just say ‘Let it go”….. I sing it theatrically!! Boy, does that get a great response!!
For my junior primary students the following were very successful:
Spongebob berkata ‘Krabby Patty’.
Elsa berkata ‘Let it go.’
Pikachu berkata ‘Pika, pika.’
Bob the Builder berkata ‘Can we fix it? Yes we can!’
Dory berkata ‘Just keep swimming!’
TCI Activity # 4: Target Structure Reps Activity
To get more repetitions of the target structures and provide students with a chance to move around, use games or fun rhythms that only contain familiar vocabulary or cognates. e.g.
Students stand in a circle. Teacher says a sentence from the powerpoint and the students each mime it. Teacher then regards the selection of actions while repeating the sentence over and over before celebrating the students who have demonstrated it creatively and theatrically. Incorporate comprehension checks when necessary.
This activity is excellent for priming students for ‘All the World’s a Stage’ which benefits from OTT actions.
TCI Activity # 5: CI Activity – Tell the Story “Pleased to Meet You’ using puppets/soft toys/actors Using the props that you feel most comfortable with, tell the story, circling & triangle each new detail for which students require repetitions. Remember the most important tip that Blaine shared with us at the conference; add characters not new sentences! Note:With reception aged students, I recommend telling the story and save co-creating for older students.
TCI Activity # 6:CI Activity – All the Worlds a Stage In pairs, students act out the story as it is told to them by the teacher.
Here is how I introduce All The Worlds A Stage to students for the first time:
1. Students stand in a circle. I say the sentences in order, starting at the beginning. Each student mimes that sentence exactly. I acknowledge the students who do a brilliant job of this, encouraging creativity and exaggerated actions.
2. Then I ask students to duduk before explaining that “Cari satu teman dan duduk” means “Find a friend and then sit down’ and that the last two people standing will automatically become partners. (If there is an odd number, either I will offer to be that persons partner of they will be told to join in with a pair and make a group of 3. This depends on the activity. For ATWAS – I invite the student to be my partner.) We practise finding a friend a few times to both review the language and the process.
2. Once the class is sitting down with their friend, I ask the class to watch my demo. I turn to my ‘friend’ and say in English, do you want to be SpongeBob or do you want to be Bu Cathy?” I answer their response with ok! Then I ask my ‘friend’ to do another demo. Again I ask them ‘Do you want to be SpongeBob or Bu Cathy?’ Whatever they answer with, I say sadly and pretend to cry, “Oh, I wanted to be that.” We then discuss as a class what to do when both want to be the same character. I usually model saying to my ‘friend’ you be Bu Cathy this time and I’ll be Bu Cathy next time. OK? The best thing about doing ATWAS twice is the REPETITION!! Score!
3. Partners choose who they will be. I then say in Indonesian, SpongeBob berdiri. SpongeBob duduk. Bu Cathy berdiri. Bu Cathy duduk. (This is largely to double check that there is one of each character in each partnership as well as being the perfect opportunity to sneak in some sneaky TPR).
4. I then say very slowly, sentence by sentence with as many reps as possible & acknowledging awesome acting;
“Bu Cathy berdiri.
Ada perempuan.
Nama perempuan Bu Cathy.
Bu Cathy di MacDonalds.
Bu Cathy duduk.
Spongebob berdiri.
Ada laki-laki.
Nama laki-laki SpongeBob.
SpongeBob di MacDonalds.’
Bu Cathy dan SpongeBob berdiri.
SpongeBob berkata, “Halo! Nama saya SpongeBob” (pause for students to echo).
“Siapa nama?” (pause for students to echo).
Bu Cathy berkata, “Halo Spongebob.
Nama saya Bu Cathy.” (pause for students to echo)
SpongeBob berkata, “Bu Cathy? (pause) Bu Cathy? (pause again) Bu Cathy from Port Elliot Primary School? (pause again).
Bu Cathy berkata, “Ya. Nama saya Bu Cathy.”
SpongeBob berkata, “Astaga! Autgraf!”
Bu Cathy autographs (I encourage students to write on their friends hand with a finger!)
SpongeBob faints.
The above is repeated once more from step 2 but before we start, I explain that each pair needs to check if either wants to swap characters. If one person wants to swap, they must swap but if no one wants to swap, they can stay the same!
TCI Lesson Activity # 7 – Nakal/Pandai Menghitung! comprehension check! Count the tally in Indonesian and then if the pandai tally is more than the nakal tally, remove the stick from the board and ask the class, “Siapa nama?” Restate suggestions with ‘Nama saya Jett?” Bukan! I also throw in laki laki & perempuan here to give clues.
eg Nama saya Jett? Bukan. Saya bukan laki laki. Saya perempuan.
Once we have guessed the name of the student on the stick, they can choose an item from the Treasure Box.
Farewell Song; ( Tune: If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands)
Sampai jumpa, Sampai jumpa, Sampai jumpa
Sampai jumpa, Sampai jumpa, Sampai jumpa
Sampai jumpa murid-murid/ anak anak (or simply kelas _______) Go
Sampai jumpa Bu Cathy,
Sampai jumpa, Sampai jumpa, Sampai jumpa
Lesson 3 & Beyond…
This lesson’s main focus is the parallel story. I love to make PowerPoints from my parallel stories using well known characters and then record myself telling the story. This can then be uploaded to YouTube for students to listen to firstly in class and then repeatedly in their own time at home.
Here is an example of one of my adult co-created parallel ‘Pleased To Meet You’ story.
I haven’t uploaded a junior primary one yet. The one I made last year was not successful because I used Ronald MacDonald & sadly in every class there were students who were familiar with an M rated film about an evil clown, so it won’t be used again let alone uploaded!
From this point, I usually base my lessons on TCI activities suitable for preliterate students that are fun ways to get. more repetitions on the parallel story.
I also highly recommend continuing to incorporate TPR to build up a classroom context vocabulary with words such as putar (turn), duduk di kursi (sit in a chair), berjalan kaki (walk), antri (line up), berdansa (dance), stop, melompat (jump) & berlari (run). Restrict this list of words to those that will help you minimise the use of English in the classroom and also words that you know will be necessary for future stories! There is no single list of TPR words because we all teach differently!!
Assessment:
At this level of schooling, open assessment of preliterate students will be based entirely on observation due to students inability to read and write.
Here are a few recommended closed assessment strategies perfect for this age group:
Listen & Draw – Teacher says a sentence from the story, students listen to the sentence and then illustrate the sentence to demonstrate comprehension. While the students are drawing, teacher observes who is drawing and who is not. By asking one of the students who is drawing to translate the sentence into English, provides evidence that the sentence was comprehended successfully while also providing a comprehension check for those who had yet to begin drawing.
Simon says – Teacher says a word (eg duduk) but precedes it with ‘Simon says’ (replace this with Bu/Pak & your name) if the students are to do the action. If the word is said alone, the students do not move.
Note: Traditionally, all students who do the incorrect action are asked to sit or stand out. I try to avoid this if possible and permit the students to continue playing the game. Much more enjoyable for everyone and also ensures all students are participating; thus providing more observation data!
Create a class book – Organise the story so that one sentence is on one page. Print the pages on A3 and distribute randomly to students – if more students than pages, arrange duplicate copies. When the illustrations are completed, reduce them on the photocopier to A4 (you’ll be amazed at how much this improves the illustrations) and then bind.
Optional – laminate each page. Credit Annie Beach & Amy Vanderdeen for this strategy.
For older JP students other assessment tasks could include:
Unjumble words from a sentence taken straight from the story.
Create individual book copies – Use the booklet setting on the photocopier with a sentence from the story on each page. Students illustrate one page at a time while the teacher reads the text out. It becomes very clear very quickly which students have acquired the language. (Students can then take the booklet home to read to parents, siblings and pets!)
If you have any other CI activity ideas that could be added to this unit of work, please add them to the comments below!! All contributions gratefully accepted!
I have been focusing on this folktale this term with my year 1-3 classes. The first and last time I taught this story was back in 2015 and it has been fascinating looking back over my lesson plans from that time as it was the first year I taught using TCI.
I’ve been having so much fun with this story that I want to share with you a few of the pre story ideas I came up with for the story. Probably though, before I go any further, I should share with you the TCI version of the folktale that is based on the one that Annie, Sharon & I co-created in 2015.
Ada kancil.
Kancil tinggal di hutan.
Di hutan ada sungai.
Kancil berjalan kaki ke sungai.
Kancil lapar.
Kancil lihat mangga dan mau seberang sungai.
Kancil tidak bisa berenang.
Kancil lihat buaya di sungai.
Buaya lapar.
Kancil berkata, “Halo buaya. Ada berapa buaya di sungai?”
Buaya berkata, “Kurang tahu.”
Kancil berkata, “Ayo buaya, antri. Saya mau menghitung.”
Buaya antri.
Kancil seberang sungai dan melompat dari buaya ke buaya dan menghitung.
Translation: There’s a mouse deer. The mouse deer lives in the forest. There is a river in the forest. Cancel walked to the river. Mousedeer is hungry. Mousedeer saw a mango and wanted to eat it. Mousedeer can’t swim. Mousedeer saw that there were crocodiles in the river. They are hungry. Mousedeer said, “Hallo crocodile. How many crocodiles are in the river?” The crocodiles said, “Don’t know!” Mousedeer said, “Line up so that I can count you.” The crocodiles lined up. Mousedeer jumped from crocodile to crocodile and counted. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Mousedeer turned and looked at the crocodiles. Mousedeer laughed. Ha! Ha! The crocodiles were cross. Grr. Grr. Mousedeer happily ate the mango. Mousedeer is too clever!
Prestory telling:
My structures for this story have been:
Kancil- mousedeer
bisa – can/able to
seberang sungai – cross the river
Other structures that were covered through TPR & brain breaks include:
berenang – swim
tertawa – laugh
antri – line up
structures not covered; just translated whenever it was said;
kurang tahu – don’t know
To introduce the kancil/mouse-deer, I googled pics of them which I shared with the classes. There are also a few great youtube clips. This is one of my favourites:
Easily the best fun I had was introducing the structure ‘bisa’. My first lesson was a hoot thanks entirely to Ibu Anne. I added to my powerpoint, pictures of people doing things and then asked the class, “Siapa bisa….” ( Who can…?) When students put up their hand to indicate that they could do the said skill, I stated, “Bu Cathy mau lihat!” (I want to see it), Students happily got up and demo’d their skill in front of the class. The actions included playing violin, playing drums, gymnastics, singing (I gave them a microphone for this!), dancing (firstly waltz, secondly floss, thirdly line dancing) and then finished with flying! The flying was hilarious. In between 2 lines of students, I placed a chair at one end and I stood at the other end with my arms out-stretched, asking, “Siapa bisa terbang ke Bu Cathy?” (Who can fly to Bu Cathy?) Everyones hand went up! Students then one by one, volunteered to stand on the chair and fly to me! After each effort, I would sadly state, “Oh, tidak bisa terbang! (Oh, can’t fly!)” This was such a great lesson! The creativity of students to fly to me was awesome!
For the followup lesson focusing on ‘bisa’, I struck gold when I popped into the performing arts classroom and discovered receptions students learning how to do pair balances with our brilliant Performing Arts teacher, Natalie Bond. Here are a couple that I have used successfully:
Google ‘simple pair balances’ and there are heaps! I have to add here though, that I was very fortunate in that Natalie did all the teaching of how to do each safely, how to work out who does what and that they each needed to take it in turns if one partner had to do a different action to the other.
My next target structure that I introduced was ‘seberang sungai’ (crossed the river). I intentionally added this into the story because it is a phrase that is so easily adaptable. It could become seberang {ruang} kelas (cross the class {room}) or even seberang jalan (cross the road). After much thought and research on the internet, I knew I wanted to have the students crossing a make believe river. Most ideas I found required equipment/props I didn’t have or would be bulky to pack up & store between lessons. I hit upon an easy yet successful substitute by fluke during one of the lessons. I noticed that as students stood up to move to one side of the ‘river’, there were cushions on the floor! Light bulb moment! I asked my star student (the one sitting on the Kursi Luar Biasa) to spread the cushions throughout the river and then told the remaining students they were all kancil who wanted to ‘seberang sungai’. I explained that they had to jump from cushion to cushion and if they fell in the river, they became a crocodile. (kancil melompat dari cushion ke cushion. Kancil jatuh di sungai, jadi (become) buaya di sungai). I add the English after words not yet acquired. This was so engaging, that students sat quite patiently waiting for their turn to seberang sungai! It also gave me heaps of opportunities to say ‘seberang sungai’ over and over again.
My follow up for ‘seberang sungai’ was to show a few pictures I found on the internet of Indonesian students crossing rivers to get to school which provided great opportunities for intercultural PQA.
I also found a few pictures of crocodiles crossing rivers at Cahill Crossing in the NT and then cheekily finished up with this picture:
Students were indignant when I circled ‘kancil seberang sungai’ and laughed when I explained that there is a make of car in Indonesia called a ‘kancil’!!
Look what I have also just found!! How cute!
I enjoyed introducing ‘berenang‘, ‘antri‘ & ‘tertawa‘ – via TPR & Brain Breaks.
‘Tertawa’ (Laugh) is in a great Indonesian song/rhyme that has been a huge hit with students of all ages. I found it on youtube originally but have adapted it significantly from a CI perspective. It goes like this:
Here is my 2017 year 2/3 class demonstrating it:
Antri (line up):
For this, I incorporated ideas I learned while observing Annabelle Allen at iFLT 2019. I simply ask the class to ‘antri, tinggi sampai pendek’. (line up, tallest to shortest). This is very hard for students to do without talking, so once again, I used Annabelle Allen’s technique of stopping them and demonstrating ways in which they could achieve this using the Indonesian they know, then letting them go again. The first time I did this, I had to stop them several times to give kudos to those students who were using Indonesian – such a positive way of getting in those sneaky reps! Other ‘antri’ ideas include;
-hari ulang tahun (birthday months) – although I did have quite a few students who didn’t know theirs!
-mau punya buaya (wants to own a crocodile)
-nama, A sampai Z (by name, A to Z)
If you can think of any more – please add the ideas in the comments below. One I planned to do but abandoned because I anticipated too much English discussion was foot size. I think this would work better with older students!
Berenang (Swim) is easy to incorporate into TPR & mata-mata (spy). In terms 3 & 4 for mata-mata I have been trialling a variation of this to keep it novel. Students love this part of the lesson and woe betide if I forget it! It isn’t strictly great TCI as it is largely listen and repeat, but for junior primary aged students, I have found it a terrific way to begin my lessons and get them thinking in Indonesian and can also be an impressive demonstration for visitors of just how much these young’uns have acquired!
So this term, I have a slide in my powerpoint of the language we are focusing on currently. It looks like this:
I limit the number of words so that it isn’t too overwhelming for the students with poor literacy. I then ask them each to choose one word for which they know the gesture. I remind them that they are not to speak, the class speaks. The mata-mata take it in turns to gesture and the class calls out the Indonesian word that it represents. Overall this has been a successful adaptation however there have been a few students, generally those with poor literacy skills, who misunderstand the instructions and make up their own gesture. Unfortunately this results in everyone calling out a random word, often in English! I am hoping that with lots of modelling and student demonstrations, this will gradually decrease!
Storytelling:
I told the story towards the end of the term several times. The first time using pictures on a powerpoint and the second using student actors. The best thing about this story is that it easily accommodates an entire class of actors. I randomly choose the kancil using my class collection of paddle pop sticks, and the remaining characters in the story are acted out by whoever wants to. The remaining actor parts include:
hutan (forest)
sungai (river) &
buaya (crocodile).
I do not limit the. numbers of any of the above parts because any variation becomes an almost parallel story!! The first class acted out the story so well, I asked them to do it again the following lesson do that I could take photos of them to make a class book. The book looks amazing! My kancil was very expressive.
It’s now the school holidays, and I am looking forward to planning fun activities based on this story for next term that will provide plenty of opportunities for assessment ready for the upcoming term 4 reports.
Lupa, Lupa Ingat (also know as Lupa Lupa tapi Ingat) is a brilliant song for using in the Indonesian Language classroom because of the minimal number of words in the lyrics as well as the constant repetition. The two main target structures are ‘lupa’ (forget) & ‘ingat’ (remember) – two very useful words!!
The song is sung by a band originally called Kuburan (The Grave – as in cemetery grave) however in 2011, they changed their name to The Kubs. They are a Gothic band and were originally heavily influenced by Kiss which is very obvious when you watch their official clip! While the song itself would be appropriate for all year levels, I tend to use it only with year 6/7’s because the clip could be a little too confronting for younger students.
Teaching this song using TCI/TPRS has been heaps of fun. Whereas previously I relied on the quirkiness of the clip to engage students, it hasn’t been at all necessary this time. In fact, most classes have yet to see the clip! I am planning to save that for the finale. Instead of the song clip, I’ve been using a karaoke clip that just has the lyrics written up on the screen. The beauty of this, is that the focus is purely on the lyrics with no visual distractions. There are quite a few posts around with activity/lesson ideas and here are a few of the suggestions I have trialed successfully after pre-teaching the 2 main target structures. I decided to do this using tongue twisters as they are good fun and yet tricky to remember! It was awesome too, providing opportunities to those clever 4%-ers to shine!!
The tongue twisters I chose were:
and
I chose these 3 because they were short, quirky and each contained at least one familiar word. The final one in particular was chosen because it could be expanded to include the word ‘kunci’ which is one of the words from the song lyrics!
The above images are from a PowerPoint I made using images from Google images. I then incorporated a slow fade for the text, so that when students felt that they could ‘remember’ the tongue twister well enough to repeat it, I tapped the board and the text vanished slowly giving them the opportunity to restate the tongue twister from memory!
After this, I found a few blogs that had ideas for teaching songs. The best (as usual) was Martina Bex‘s The Comprehensible Classroom, I found this post with heaps of ideas. Admittedly the majority of the ideas in this post are aimed at more complex song lyrics and also for older students, but none the less, I still got quite a few terrific ideas here.
Following are some of the successful ideas I used for teaching this song:
Group singing: Put the students into groups of 4. In their groups they had to nominate one part of the song. (I divided up the song into 3 parts – firstly the verse about lupa, secondly the verse about ingat and finally the chorus) I then played the song and asked each group to focus on just singing their verse lyrics. We did that a few times and then I ramped it up by asking each group to stand and sing when it was their verse! If there was a verse/chorus that no one chose, then we all sang together! This song is so catchy that it is impossible not to join in!!
Song Cloze: I did this today and it was very successful for getting heaps of repetitions. The cloze was handed out to individual students. They were asked to each fill in as many of the blanks as possible by themselves without asking for help from anyone. When they had done as much as they could, they had to turn their sheet over and doodle. This showed me who was finished and also kept the noise level down! I then asked them to get into pairs to compare their answers and then when they had all agreed on the correct answers, to turn their sheet over and doodle again. Finally I asked pairs to combine with another pair and again go through the lyrics and check their answers. When this was finished, I then played the first verse of the song. I asked students to circle the incorrect words and tick the line if they got all the words correct. Each group then had to reconvene and erase the incorrect words and replace it with the correct word, again from memory! This part was awesome. I loved listening to the discussions – talk about focused debate!! I played the verse once more and each group listened again and by this time they had all lines correct. We then repeated this process again for the second verse and then the chorus.
Divide the students into teams. Play the song and stop at a random spot. Groups have to confer and agree on what the next line is in the song. The first team where everyone puts up their hand gets to sing the next line. After they had sung it to the class, we listened to the next line and decided if they were correct. If so, they got a point. With the 3 classes I did this with, I was gobsmacked at how well the boys did with this activity. Whether it was the added level of competition or just that they were less shy about singing, I’m not sure, but it was delightful to see boys fist pumping when they got the song line correct!!
Here are a few more of the ideas from Martina Bex’s blog that I hope to try next:
Give students a list of lines from the song with a few imposters, and have them mark off lines as they hear them. The end goal is to identify lines that DON’T appear in the song.
Give students a lyrics sheet with mistakes in it, and have students correct the errors as they listen.
Give students a brief list of words that may or may not be in the song, and have them skim the lyrics to see how quickly they can identify which ones appear and which ones do not.
Draw a mural while you listen–draw any concept that you hear and can illustrate!
Physically arrange cut-up lines from the song on desks to put them in the correct order.
Cross off words from a sheet as they hear them sung in the song. (As the word count in this song is very low, a word cloud wouldn’t work!)
PS: A great tip for avoiding pesky/ inappropriate advertising that we get when using YouTube clips in class – ViewPure is your answer. I have a ‘purify’ tab bookmarked and it is awesome. When I find a video I want to show in class, I just purify it, save to the appropriate folder and then its ready to go. The other bonus of this, is that I can load it up at the beginning of the day, and it sits waiting for me to push play. After showing, it also stops right there – it doesn’t go on to play another clip which is another potential hazard with You Tube!
Our Inaugural SA TPRS conference has just finished. It was 3 days full of information, explanations, demos and coaching. My brain is full to bursting and my body is absolutely shattered (note to self: participating in a language class is a physically and mentally exhausting brain workout) I am now in a particularly weird emotive state where I would just love to be heading back again this morning for another day of listening to Terry & Lizette and yet on the other hand, I am so excited to have some time to start thinking about the ways in which I can incorporate the skills that were demonstrated over the past 3 days into my teaching.
What an outstanding team Terry Waltz & Lizette Liebold are! They work together seamlessly and complement each other beautifully. Terry skills as a presenter dovetailed nicely with Lizette’s coaching skills. Combined they have countless years of TPRS teaching, in fact Lizette is one of the original pioneer TPRS language teachers who hopped on the TPRS train right back when it first began and has consequently attended all NTPRS conferences bar one!
Terry’s skills as a presenter are remarkable. While this was her 3rd consecutive Australian conference, delivering (I assume) exactly the same program, at no time did I feel that it was rehearsed or a repeat of a previous presentation. Terry’s manner assured us that she was genuinely enjoying her time with us and that we in no way compared poorly against previous cohorts. Which is exactly what happens in a TPRS classroom! While the target structure may be the same with consecutive classes, each class provides different details which lead us in different directions each and every time.
My brain is reeling with all that I heard throughout the conference and thank goodness I took notes, because right now it is still aching and overwhelmed. If I reflect on the biggest take away for me from my 3 days at the conference, it would without a doubt be the clarification of the 3 steps of TPRS. I now understand that the stories I’ve been using for the story asking are in fact the final reading text.
Terry demonstrated this with two very different languages; Hawaiian firstly and then on day 3 with Mandarin. Being unfamiliar with both languages, I was incredibly fortunate to experience the 3 steps of TPRS as a student twice. This really helped me consolidate my understanding and appreciation of the 3 steps which are:
Establish meaning
Story asking
Reading.
Prior to the conference, step 3 for my classes was the story the class had created and revolved around various TCI activities to keep it engaging while achieving repetitions within that one story. I completely understand now the value of reading a different story (the original story or maybe another modified class’s story) for step 3.This enables students to consolidate the acquired language in a totally new setting. Depending on the level of your students, this final step also has the potential to provide your student with longer stories with a variety of the newly acquired target structures in it, each targeted separately prior to the final reading in steps one and two. This understanding is going to turn the way I plan upside down and I am sooo excited. Can’t wait to get started to experience it!
To clarify:
If the story is this one with the Lucy wants a jacket story
(credit Judith Dubois):
Ada perempuan.
Nama perempuan Lucy.
Lucy dingin.
Lucy mau jaket.
Lucy tidak pakai jaket.
Lucy lihat laki laki kecil.
Nama laki laki kecil Will.
Will punya jaket tetapi jaket Will terlalu kecil.
Lucy lihat Pak Hudson. (principal’s name)
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 first task is identify the target structures your students will need to acquire to read and comprehend this story. When I do this story, the target structures are grouped and ordered like this:
Group One
topi
sepatu
jaket
Group Two
dingin
panas
Group Three
terlalu besar
terlalu kecil
pas.
Because my students have acquired the remaining language from previous stories, I can incorporate it into fun songs and TPR activities to target each group of target structures one by one. I usually begin with panas/dingin which is easily incorporated into the roll call if the weather is extreme and the students come in hot and sweaty or conversely wet and cold! My lessons generally begin with a roll call asking “Apa kabar?” This in itself is an awesome opportunity for circling. Kelas, Joe panas! Joe dingin atau joe panas? Joe dan Mary panas dan Betty dingin!
If you look back through this blog, you’ll find various songs that I’ve made up which my students have enjoyed singing and then acting out. The one I love the most is sung to the tune of baa baa black sheep:
Lucy dingin.
Lucy mau jaket.
Will panas.
Tidak mau jaket.
Will kasih Lucy.
Lucy pakai jaket.
Lucy berkata, “Terima kasih Will.”
(NB names are substituted with the names of the actors)
These type of activities are then repeated for each list of target structures. which are each targeted separately because each set may take several weeks till acquisition. For target structures like the ones in group 3, I love looking for weird and wacky pictures on google images that incorporate familiar and popular characters from recent films/books/tv programs and then use them to create a powerpoint. Harry Potter is reliably popular and easily identifiable by all year levels at my school so one powerpoint had a page with harry potter wearing a tiny hat, the next page with him wearing an enormous hat and the following page showed Harry wearing a hat the perfect size! Thus I was able to consolidate ‘topi’ while introducing new structures! The following pages were pictures of familiar characters or cognate animals (orangutan, komodo) wearing oversized, undersized or perfectly sized jackets, hats or shoes. My students are generally riveted to the screen, wondering what kooky picture will be next. It also provides opportunities to circle using mau and punya. Billy punya topi pizza besar? Billy mau punya topi pizza besar?
After the structures have been acquired to my satisfaction, I move on to step 2 – story asking – using actors. The actors help in a variety of ways; they make the story engaging for the class (& me), they help me circle each part of the story (especially if the acting requires more expression – I love OTT acting – sneaky way to get reps), they can also be a tool for me to measure class acquisition. Story asking is incredibly important as it allow classes to create unique stories through collaboration, its how students buy into the story. Afterwards, the class story can be written up to be used in a variety of ways as listed on the TCI activities page.
Then finally step 3 (the one I will work on this year) is reading together the original story as printed above. I loved how Terry did this. She had a powerpoint ‘book’ that the class could read together and each page had a line of text with a quirky picture that provided opportunities for circling, popup grammar, funny stories/gestures to help students remember conjunction words (eg. tetapi = point to your but) or other useful words that need a boost. (imagine the ‘cultural’ story you could create for bercakap-cakap!!).
For me as a student, this final step was incredibly powerful. It made me feel super confident that I could read it and understand the story even though the characters and setting were not familiar. With those changes, the story felt foreign yet still achievable. Soo cool. It truly demonstrated for me the concept of i+1. Fully comprehensible yet stretching my acquisition just the right amount.
With this text, there are a variety of reading activities that can be done with students to further consolidate acquisition. With Terry, we choral read the book on the tv screen, firstly in pinyin and then with Chinese characters. Boy, did this hit home for me how fortunate both my students & I are that Indonesian is a roman alphabetic language!!
Here are a list of the reading activities & games that Terry shared with us:
kindergarten reading
whole class choral reading
group reading
Echo reading (teacher reads in TL and students read in English)
volley ball reading
paired repeated reading
readers theatre
Reading games:
Musical readings – students in pairs each reading a sentence each one by one with each student double checking the sentence was read correctly & if not, the sentence is reread. The teacher plays music and when the music stops, whoever is not reading gets a point.
Reading Bingo – each student has a 3×3 =grid. In each box, the student writes a different word from the story in each square. Students cross out the word when they hear it.
Stupid Teacher (Guru Gila?) teacher reads the story and deliberately says a word not in the story or changes one word. Students in pairs, competing against each other, tally up the mistakes and compare tally at end of reading.
Comprehension Questions – to measure comprehension, ask the questions in English. They could include true/false questions, short answer questions, multiple choice questions, cloze from story with multiple choice options for each cloze empty space.
Now all I have to do is decide which story I want to begin with this term!! What story are you using?
For the second year in a row, I finished with a cooking recipe instead of a story for the year 6/7 classes. This cooking unit is a tradition with my year 6/7 students and it is the only pre TCI/TPRS unit I haven’t binned! This is for several reasons: Firstly it is a food based theme which students constantly love and therefore hopefully is becomes a memorable final unit for my year 7’s before they head off to high school and secondly it ties in nicely with our annual end of year school pasar (market).
As this is a unit I have done with my upper primary students for as long as I can remember, it has been tweaked significantly over the last 2 years as I continue to make it more TCI friendly. Last year was my first attempt which you can read about here. This year’s tweaking though was much more successful (in my opinion) which I can only put down to my ongoing reading and listening to all things TPRS/TCI.
The biggest improvement came quite simply; tweaking the recipes that the unit is based upon.
I always begin this unit by asking each class to brainstorm for recipes they would like to cook. Then the class votes on them all, knowing that the recipe will be cooked twice; once for students to eat and enjoy themselves and then again to sell at the pasar. Students suggested dishes are usually based on food they have enjoyed at previous pasars’ or dishes they enjoyed eating that had been made by visiting Indonesians. This year the 3 6/7 classes chose 3 totally different recipes; mie goreng telur Ala Ibu Mia (yummy savoury noodle pancakes), dadar gulung and klepon.
Once each class has decided on what they want to cook and sell at the pasar, I find a recipe for it because the unit of work for each class is then based on that recipe.
This year when I dug out the recipes, I was horrified with the amount of unfamiliar vocabulary each recipe uses! This became my first job – to pare down the recipe to its most basic form and to incorporate as much acquired language where ever possible. Unfortunately with recipes, what cannot be altered, is the list of ingredients and one recipe had 10 ingredients, most of which were unfamiliar!
Here are the stages that the method part of the dadar gulung recipe has changed over the past 3 years:
Pre TPRS Dadar Gulung Recipe:
2014
Aduk kelapa, gula jawa, air dan garam. Goreng sampai air hilang.
Taruh tepung, telur, pewarna, santan, garam, santan dan air. Aduk sampai halus.
Panaskan wajan. Mengisi sedikit minyak.
Tuang 2Tb adonan dadar. Goreng sampai dadar kering. Angkat.
Ulangi sampai adonan dadar habis.
Ambil satu dadar. Mengisi satu sendok makan intinya. Terus lipat dan gulung.
Ulangi sampai dadar dan intinya habis.
Selamat makan.
Post TPRS Dadar Gulung Recipe
2015
Campurkan air, garam, gula dan kelapa. Goreng dan aduk. Angkat.
Campurkan tepung, gula, garam, telur, pandan dan susu di mangkok besar. Aduk.
Panaskan minyak.
Kasih satu sendok besar campuran dadar dan goreng dua menit.
Balik dadar dan goreng satu menit lagi.
Angkat.
Ulangi.
Taruh campuran kelapa/gula di dadar. Lipat dan gulung.
Selamat makan!
2016
Aduk kelapa parut, gula merah, air dan garam di wajan. Goreng, sampai tidak ada air. Angkat dan taruh di piring.
Aduk tepung, telur, pewarna pandan, susu dan garam di piring.
Panaskan wajan. Kasih sedikit minyak.
Kasih 2Tb dadar. Goreng. Angkat dan taruh di piring.
Lagi
Ambil satu dadar. Kasih satu sendok inti. Lipat dan gulung. Taruh di piring.
Lagi sampai tidak ada dadar atau inti.
Makan
With the 2016 recipe adaptation, my focus structures became taruh (place/put), aduk (stir/mix), piring (plate) & wajan (frypan). Words like ‘inti’ are not high frequency, so I simply had the translation for that and other such words posted up on the baord to assist comprehension and reduce confusion.
My second task was to introduce the list of ingredients. With dadar gulung, there are 10 ingredients! In order to get as many repetitions on each ingredient, I created power points, showed students the ingredients, let them taste, smell & handle the ingredients where appropriate (tasting coriander was not very successful but it sure helped them to remember it), Plickers & played the drawing/matching game I outlined in my 2015 post.
I love using PowerPoint when introducing new target structures. I go crazy with the transition features whereby you can have a picture/word on the screen and then with a touch something is added or changed to the page in a quirky way. Most pages have 3 items which with a touch are layered onto each page. This included the English and Indonesian word for each ingredient and a picture to clarify meaning. The order that each came up on the page varied but generally the English word appeared last. The PowerPoint is then not only useful for introducing a list of new words but also for reviewing the list. To keep up the interest, pictures can be changed, slides rearranged and transition styles altered. Including pictures of past students is popular although can be distracting! Here is a link to the PowerPoint I used for dadar gulung.
While the main target structures for all 3 class recipes was ‘aduk’ and ‘taruh’, ‘piring’ and ‘wajan’ were purely support/minor target structures, I was amazed to discover at the end of the unit how the acquisition of the former was sketchy and needed a few gesture prompts yet wajan and piring needed no such prompts. In fact students were using them in their English discussions while cooking!
For the first time ever, on the day of cooking, I only handed out the Indonesian version of the recipes to groups. The only person who received an English version was the group support person if they had one. Groups that invite a support person (older family member/friend) are permitted to cook elsewhere in the school which I encourage as it reduces the power load in my classroom and hence the overload switch cutting off power! I was so impressed with the groups that remained in my room and their successful comprehension of the Indonesian recipe.
Unlike last year, I was extremely pleased with how the cooking unit progressed this year, especially considering it is such a busy time of year. Reducing the unfamiliar vocabulary down to just aduk & taruh made such a difference. While aduk isn’t high frequency at all in the classroom context, ‘taruh’ certainly is and consequently I have already started incorporating into my lessons with the younger students.
I’ve also thought about the idea of having a year 6/7 cooking text that younger students work towards in Indonesian class during their 7 years of primary school, so that many of the words like ‘taruh’, ‘lipat’, ‘gulung’ can be built upon in a more challenging text.
Over the weekend, Bu Annie, Ibu Sharon & I attended 2 conferences; 1. MLTASA (Modern Languages Teachers Association SA) in the morning and 2. CLTASA (Chinese Language Teachers Assoc) in the afternoon. When we first heard that both associations were holding their annual conference on the same day, we were incredibly disappointed as we were committed to present at MLTASA while Ian & Caitlin (2 TCI Chinese teachers from QLD) were presenting at CLTSA. Luckily our presentations did not clash and we were able to get from EDC to Napier House in good time. However the locked door into Napier House cut short our celebratory hand pumps and thankfully Ian had his phone on!
The MLTASA conference began with a plenary by Sean Keenihan, who spoke about ‘the role and value of Languages education in schools – a business perspective’. Sean wears many hats and most relate to his Chinese proficiency, dating back to his high school days. When asked how to encourage students to learn a language he reflected with this: after graduation as one of hundreds of lawyers, he was the first from his year to be employed and this was entirely due to his bilingualism. His graphs illustrated recent growth figures in the SA tourism sector and he also talked about the growing state of global business. These two sectors are a just 2 of many that have a huge and growing demand for bilingual employees and thus being bilingual is giving many job seekers an X factor, making them highly desirable in a competitive job market. Apparently only 30 of the 700 2015 SA lawyer graduates were employed! I wonder what their X factor was?
Our workshop, ‘Teaching Languages with TCI/TPRS’ was to be held in the larger room at EDC due to the large number of participants who had signed up for it. What an awesome way to begin!! We began by asking participants to bring their chairs to the front of the room and to sit in a semi circle facing the screen. As this was our first ever presentation and indeed our first ever attendance at MLTASA, we had no idea what to expect. One thing we were looking forward to was an audience of largely non Indonesian speaking teachers, who would experience our demo lesson from a student perspective and therefore hopefully feel the power of TCI even more dramatically than our Indonesian speaking colleagues. Our presentation began with introducing ourselves, outlining our TCI journey, and giving a brief explanaton of the acronyms TCI, TPRS & TPR. Due to the short amount of time we had available and that we were a little late starting (domino effect of the 2nd plenary speaker running over time), our introduction was minimal. We felt that a demo would be more powerful than heaps of information.
Our demo focused on the Pleased To Meet You (written by Jim Tripp) story. We began with establishing meaning of the target structures (siapa nama, nama saya, astaga, berkata – what’s your name, my name is, OMG, said), before giving a circling demo on siapa nama & nama saya. Sharon then established the ‘Stop – I don’t understand!’ gesture before telling the story. Afterwards she did a comprehension check and everyone gave her a thumbs up!! We had a little time for questions and we were very relieved that attending MLTASA was a high school French TPRS teacher!! It was awesome to connect with Zelda who has been working alone for 2 years – we take our hat off to you! Zelda was able to respond to questions that came from secondary language teachers – a cohort we have had the greatest difficulty connecting with as we have no secondary experience. Our promise to them that TPRS was designed initially for secondary students by a secondary language teacher rarely helps. Zelda’s contribution and support was invaluable.
It wasn’t till much later, that Sharon realised that in our nervousness, the reduced workshop time and our determination to leave punctually, we forgot to mention anything about the unit of work we had created around this story to help participants trial a unit in their classrooms!! Oops. So if you were one of those participants and you would like a copy, contact me via my learn link address on the handout and I’ll happily forward it to you.
We arrived at Napier House just before the post lunch conference sessions were about to begin, to our relief. Ian & Caitlin opened the locked doors which gave us time to quickly introduce ourselves to each other and chat briefly while heading upstairs to the auditorium. The entire afternoon schedule had been assigned to Ian & Caitlin! Imagine your only time constraint being getting to the airport in time for your flight home! We were slightly in awe and also a teeny (OK- a lot) envious!! Maybe next year, we need to ask for a double workshop session?
Ian & Caitlin spent the first hour talking to a powerpoint which introduced TCI/TPRS to their audience of Chinese teachers. The powerpoint thoroughly explained TPRS, outlined how it differs from traditional/currrent language teaching methods, included several short videos of Ian teaching highly engaged year 7’s, year 10 free writes (290 words) , cold character reading , students talking positively about learning Chinese via TCI methodology, students reading unfamiliar texts fluently and a short yet highly engaging demo by Caitlin establishing meaning for ‘wants to eat’. As a student, I could immediately see the value of having the target structures clearly written on one side of the smartboard page and on the other side were other necessary vocabulary just as Diane Neubauer does.I hadn’t actually understood the beauty of this until that point! I also think I need to investigate buying a clicker gadget next year – it would be so convienent to turn the powerpoint pages from wherever I am in my class room!
Ian & Caitlin stopped talking after an hour to give everyone a break and they were immediately swamped with people asking questions! The amount of interest was brilliant. During their presentation, I could hear teachers around me commenting to each other quietly but unfortunately it was all in Chinese.
During this break, it suddenly became clear, that the next session would have to be shortened significantly to prevent Ian & Caitlin missing their flight home to QLD. Particiapants were quickly called back into the auditiorium to answer any last minute questions. In no time at all, they were being presented with bottles of SA wine and the mad dash to the airport began.
Thankfully we had offered to take them to the airport as this provided us all with a precious window for solid 2017 planning. We all acknowledge the need to arrange high quality training in Australia asap and are keen to collaborate on this by inviting a guest out to Australia next January to provide us all with much needed expert training before the 2017 school year begins! It would be awesome if the person who comes out, is happy to travel as then we could offer training in a few states which will be much more affordable to participants! If this all happens, would you be interested in attending and how much would you be prepared to pay to participate? Considering our only option at the moment is a flight to either America or Europe ($$), it would be considerably cheaper and so much easier if this eventuates! Please comment below with any thoughts. We need your feedback! The more interest, the better!
The following screen shot comes from a video which was shared a couple of weeks ago on the Ohio TCI Facebook page and seems not available anywhere else!
As soon as I watched it, I was determined to give it a go. I love trying new TCI activities!
The first time I tried it (week 5), it became quickly apparent that I had not prepared my students well enough by providing them with sufficient reading opportunities because for this activity to succeed, students must know the story very well. So, to achieve this, students did a listen and draw and played strip bingo which provided students opportunities to hear the story repeatedly.
Then this week we attempted paper plane reading once again and it was a hoot. Giving the instructions was largely done in English, which was frustrating, however one class did not give me permission to speak in English, and we didn’t do too badly, even though with the final instructions and clarifications, we did use English!
The two best things about paper airplane reading, is that movement is interspersed with reading and that students are asked to make paper planes; something which has never been encouraged in my lessons befre!!
Here are the instructions that I used in my year 3 – 7 lessons:
Hand out a sheet of paper to each student with the class story printed on one side, as well as a clipboard & a lead pencil.
1. We first chorale translated the story together. My instructions to students were: Bu Cathy membaca pakai Bahasa Indonesia dan murid murid membaca pakai Bahasa Indonesia. Murid murid ekho Bu Cathy. (Ekho – one of the new words I learned this week from our visitors Yoedha, Dian & Zvana!!) I then read the sentences one by one and asked the students to choral read once I paused. If we came to a word I knew would be tricky or if students were skipping a word then I broke that sentence up into a phrase.
2. I then asked the students to read the story and choose one sentence from the story that they could translate easily but not to mark in any way the location of that sentence on the sheet of paper. They then had to turn the sheet over and at the top, write in ENGLISH the translation for that sentence. I then gave an example using the first sentence in their story. I chose the first sentence (Ada perempuan dan nama perempuan Harry Potter) because students are often muddling up the word ‘ada’ (there is) with ‘apa’ (what?) and we translated it together. I then gave everyone time to choose a sentence and write its translation on the blank side of the sheet of paper.
3. While students were finishing step 2, I explained, “Kalau sudah, clip board dan pensil dibawah kursi” (clipboards & pencil under you chair) and then asked them to make a paper airplane from their sheet. It was surprising both the variation of paper airplane designs we got and that there were a few in every class who did not know how to make a paper airplane. It worked well to encourage those who knew how to make a paper airplane to help those who didn’t by demonstrating the steps with their own paper so that their friend could do the same with theirs. This way, we all finished about the same time.
4. “Murid murid, berdiri kalau sudah punya airplane.” (Stand if you have a plane) I decided not to teach the word for plane as it is not a cognate and these days, the word plane would be largely understood in Indonesia anyway. While we waited for everyone to finish up and stand, I explained the next step in English to ensure that students understood completely and every lesson, there were a few who did not. I drew their attention to the loud speaker outlet in the ceiling which is in the very centre of the classroom ceiling. I explained that I would count to tiga and on tiga, students would launch their planes at the speaker and that we needed to do it together for safety. I pointed out that only those wearing glasses had eye protection (which chuffed those students!) so we needed to ensure we aimed upwards. Then, students had to find an airplane that was not their own. They had to buka kertas (open the page) and read the English sentence on the back before turning over the sheet and locating the Indonesian translation in the story. They then had to translate into English the very next sentence of the story before recreating the plane and launching again. Continue reading →
Indonesian Teacher Reflections 