Category: Storytelling

How ‘Talk for Writing’ Works with Preliterate Learners

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Every time I used parts of Talk for Writing (TfW) in my Language lessons, watching my preliterate students experience success with retelling stories in Indonesian was so rewarding. The beauty of this strategy is the way in which it offers ways for preliterate learners to successfully ‘read’ and ‘re-read’ a familiar story and because learners are ‘reading’ images, the retelling is not limited to the text as it would be in a written story; it is limited only by the learners level of acquisition! Doesn’t this blow your mind when you take into account the young age of preliterate learners!

So, I would like to now take you through a breakdown of how this is done this over a ten week term, with one lesson per week. I really hope you can see that teaching our preliterate learners, our most enthusiastic and fearless cohort of learners, should not be limited to colours and numbers because they too can benefit enormously from Acquistion Driven Instruction (ADI).

Before I start though, it is important to undertand how the story I am using for this post fits into my Indonesian program. In my Scope and Sequence, this story, Elsa Makan Elsa (Crocodile eats Elsa), is the third I will teach the students in their first year of Indonesian. The preceding stories are Pleased To Meet You (Jim Tripp) and The Spongebob Story (Linda Li). Both can be found here.

As limiting vocabulary is vital for language acquistion, you may be surprised to read through my yearly list of Target Structures (TS) for the my reception (prep) learners. However the most significant aspect of my scope & sequence is that each story builds on from the preceding one with all structures being either high frequency (top 10) or vital for a story (eg buaya/crocodile). Thus, my students will already have encountered several of the TS’s before beginning this story.

Buaya Makan Elsa:

The story ‘Buaya Makan Elsa’ (The crocodile ate/eats Elsa) is based on a Carol Gaab story.

Ada buaya.
Buaya lapar.
Buaya lihat Elsa.
Buaya mau makan Elsa
Elsa berlari ke (your town/city/suburb).
Buaya berlari ke (your town/city/suburb).
Elsa berlari ke (your school).
Buaya berlari ke (your school).
Elsa berlari ke kelas Bahasa Indonesia.
Buaya berlari ke kelas Bahasa Indonesia.
Buaya makan Elsa.

Translation:

There’s a crocodile.
The crocodile is hungry.
The crocodile see Elsa.
Elsa berlari ke (your town/city/suburb).
The crocodile runs to (your town/city/suburb).
Elsa berlari ke (your school).
The crocodile runs to (your school).
Elsa berlari ke kelas Bahasa Indonesia.
Buaya berlari ke kelas Bahasa Indonesia.
The crocodile eats Elsa.

Target Structures (The vocabulary I will target this term)
buaya/crocodile
lapar/ hungry
lihat/sees
berlari ke/runs to
makan/eat



In lessons 1 – 3, I introduce the target structures and through Total Physical Respsonse (TPR), Kursi Luar Biasa (Special Person Interviews), Picture Talk, and calling the roll asking, Apa Kabar? (How are you?) learners receive fun and compelling repetitions of each.

For example, in lesson 2, I will introduce the Target Structure ‘lapar’ (hungry). I will do this firstly before I call the roll. I will point to the poster on the wall, say the word, do the gesture (rubbing my tummy with big eyes) and tell the meaning. I do not ask students to guess the meaning as sometimes this has led to future confusion. Its so much better to establish the meaning clearly and then get as many reps saying it with the gesture throughout the upcoming lesson. I always begin lessons calling my class roll on class dojo, asking each student, “Apa Kabar?” (How are you?) If a student hesitates, I might ask them, “Jenny lapar? Kelas, Jenny Lapar!” If Jenny shakes their head, I restate, “Jenny tidak (not) lapar!” Then again check in with Jenny, “Jenny tidak lapar?” Sometimes I will also award pandai points for students using the structure confidently in context – especially if the pandai points need boosting!


After sitting listening to the roll, we immediately head into TPR to get students moving. Here I get reps on past target structures eg stand, walk, dance, jump, and then add lapar, and then introduce makan. Again by saying the word, showing the gesture and then establishing meaning. I will include phrases like makan (students mime eating), makan es krim (students mime eating an ice cream), makan hotdog, makan buaya (Aduh Bu Cathy!) Sneaky rep for buaya and follow up with a comprehension check for meaning!!


In Kursi Luar Biasa, I will have a huge bag of cognate food props eg hotdog, hamburger, ice cream, avocado, broccoli, buaya, etc and will include in the individual student interview input based on hungry and eat. Eg Jenny lapar? Jenny mau makan hotdog? Jenny tidak mau makan hotdog? Oke. Jenny mau makan es krim? Ohh, Jenny mau makan es krim. Pete, kasih Jenny es krim. Wow, Jenny pandai!! Jenny berkata, terima kasih Pete!! After I have found several food items that Jenny wants, I take a photo of Jenny pretending to eat one or all and that photo will be used for next lesons picture talk to get more reps on hungry & eat!

Depending on time, I also like to include a series of quirky pictures I’ve found on Google images for additional reps on the lesson target structures. I begin with a photo of someone holding a food cognate eg pizza. I will ask questions about it eg laki-laki atau perempuan? (boy or girl?) Laki-laki lapar? Laki-laki mau makan brokoli? and so on. I usually have 4-5 pictures ready in case any fall flat and then next, I ramp it up by having a shape covering the item the person/animal is holdiing/eating in the picture. This leads to questions including; anjing (dog) atau buaya? Buaya makan apa? Buaya makan apel? Ya, Buaya tidak makan apel. Buaya makan stroberi atau hotdog? Then removing the shape and celebrating with the students who guessed correctly! Young learners absolutely love guessing games and they are perfect for repetitions of target structures.


By lesson 4, the students are ready to listen to the story. I love story asking with student actors and the class love watching the acting especially if there are quirky props involved. Dont forget to remind your students that if they are not comfortable wearing, saying or looking funny, they might prefer to be in the audience. Using the actors, I tell the story slowly getting as many reps as possible, doing lots of comprehension checks (with the audience, not the actors), and asking actors to redo their acting if it did not clearly demonstrate meaning. It is important not to rush through the acting. It is the first time the class has heard the story and it is critical they comprehend it completely. Also, with colourful wigs, funny clothes, huge hats, &/or masks, the audience will definitely not complain watching a scene several times! They will be so engaged, they won’t realise they’ve been sitting still and fully focused on the story!


Straight afterwards, allowing the actors to choose whether they continue with the props or not, the entire class is asked to stand in a huge circle for part 2 of All The World Is a Stage (ATWAS). I have blogged about this here (scroll down to (variation # 2). Students now have the opportunity to not only get moving but also demonstrate their own amazing acting skills.

After students have watched the story with actors and acted it out themselves, they get their first taste of the story told with images. I firstly read it to them while pointing to the images that represent the target structures of the story. At this stage I encourage my students to only listen and understand; I do not want them choralling with me as it’s important that the first telling is accurate. The second time I read it, I invite students to choral read with me if they’d like to.
Note: The story below is technically a parallel story which should NOT be used for the first read through if sticking to the original version. It is though, a story I have used previously and demonstrates how stories can be adapted easily to include certain curriculum items.


Lesson 5 includes the third and final ATWAS variation where students in pairs act out the story one more time. This variation is quite time consuming but well worth it. The way in which I do this can be read in this post (scroll down to Variation 3) which serendipitously is based on the Elsa story!! It’s worth reading to the bottom of that paragraph to discover a popular twist on ending this TPR variation!!
After the final ATWAS variation, I show a YouTube clip of the story. I absolutely love making these clips and uploading them to my youtube channel for students to access after school or in the holidays. Thankfully students thoroughly enjoy watching them because showing the clips gives you the teacher, a little breathing space!
Below is the clip for the Elsa dan Ortangutan story version:

The last part of this video is a read through of the story using the Backwards S from above. I try to consistently point to the images that represent each target structure as I am telling the story. Directly after the video, I project a copy of the Backwards S up on to the screen to use for more repetitions of the story. This time I encourage students to join in with me for the retell. The initital retell is told at a slower pace, including repetitions & comprehension checks as needed. Celebrate student engagement and effort with pandai points!! After a few slow run-throughs, I like to invite a student to come out the front and demonstrate their awesome reading skills. This offers students an opportunity to shine and you will be amazed at just how well they can retell the story through reading. I like to record my superstars – not only is it impressive evidence to share at parent teacher evenings, but it can also be shared with theirs and other classes for bonus repetitions! Watch them puff up with pride!!
A final note about the student retells; because they offers valuable story repetitions, it is ok to softly choral read with the student if they require it and its also totally ok to provide the target structures if they look for support. It is all about building confidence through success!

During Lesson 6, in preparation for the assessment task next lesson, I hand out a copy of the Backwards S story to all students. I encourage them to find a comfy spot and try to read the story quietly to themselves. I circulate checking in with students, encouraging them to read through as often as time permits. Then following this, students swap the complete Backwards S of the story for an edited version where one aspect of the story is replaced with a blank circle. For example, for this story, the circle shape could replace one of the characters plus give students the choice at the end of who will eat who. If using the circle for a new location, I advise being sneakily prescriptive with young’uns, ensuring that acepted suggestions are ones that have simple representations/logos eg golden arches, otherwise students will spend too much time with their masterpieces and a perfect product is not what this is all about. Here are some images from a different story (similar to this one) with the circle replacing the food used in the original story.

Aren’t the illustrations gorgeous? I love that some of them food illustrations are puzzling however as they are only for the creator, all that matters is that the illustrator can identify their illustration during the retell that follows the task completion! Here I encourage students to maximise their lesson time reading and re-reading this story to themselves during this lesson in preparation for next lesson when they will be recording themselves reading the story independently.

In Lesson 7, students will complete an assessment task whereby they will read either their created story or the class story (student choice) while recording themselves on a device. If not recording their face, remind students to begin with their name and class for future reference!! Some students will inevitably struggle with this task and need support however, those who complete it independently, must on completion, complete a silent activity (FVR, DEAR, colour by number) with the emphasis on silent so as not to drown out those still on task.
A video clip of a paralell story can be shown as everyone finishes up and moves to the front of the room in preparation for the lesson to continue.

Here is a few sound bite of a 5 year old student’s retell assessment:


Inevitably, there will be several students who for a multitude of reasons were either absent or did not complete the assessment task the previous week, so lesson 8 offers them time to rectify this and as would have been done in the previous lesson, before beginning the task, invite students to join in the choral reading of the story several times as a class before inviting students who have completed the assessment task, to read it independently for all to enjoy.
Then to celebrate the end of the assessment, play a post story game, Duplo. This is always a winner with my students and not only does it offer multiple opportunities for story reps but it also encourages discriminating listening. Students sit in a circle with a huge pile of Duplo pieces (or other brands of connecting large blocks) in the centre. Students listen carefully to the teacher retelling the story sequentially. If the sentence told by the teacher is incorrect, they cannot touch the duplo. Instead we together discuss why the sentence was incorrect and ask students to offer the correct sentence. When the sentence is correct, students may each take one piece of Duplo. I love this game because by the time students have more than a few pieces of Duplo, they enjoy listening while their hands are busy creating using the Duplo. This game is also the perfect opportunity to talk about kindness, sharing and accepting compliments.

With the end of term, Lesson 9 and 10 focus on editing and illustrating mini booklets of the class story. Each student receives a mini booklet and at the end of week 10, are encouraged to take the mini booklet home to read it to as many people as possible, plus their pets, any garden statues and a tree in their garden! These booklets offer learners opportunities to demonstrate their awesome Indonesian proficiency to impressed family members and also for MORE input during the holidays!
Before they start illustrating the booklet, they will be instructed to write their name on every page wherever there is a blank line. This gives them practice writing their name and in doing so, makes them the star of their story!! Once this is completed, students illustrate each page with each illustration matching the text. This doesn’t take up the whole lesson unless the students are exhausted and anything else is beyond them. Otherwise, games like Siapa Nama? (guessing who is under the sarong?) or senam penguin are my students goto favourites.


A student self reflection survey is a good way to finish the term. It is a tricky concept for preliterates who find it challenging to reflect back over the term. Consequently, I usually only set a few questions which we read together and they ‘respond’ by colouring either a happy emoji, a ‘lumayan’ (ok) emoji or a kurang baik (sad) emoji. The hardest concept to explain though is that there is no right or wrong answer unless you are copying your friends sheet!

I really hope this post has been helpful although, I am horrified at how long it is!! Kudos to all who made it this far!!
Please drop me a comment if there is anything that needs a clearer explanation or if I have skipped something totally!! I do have a week by week term outline for this story which I am happy to share with anyone who would like a copy! Either email me, message me through facebook or comment below!!

How to sustain interest with young learners?

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I subscribe to the Edutopia newsletter which occasionally has excellent articles. I particularly like any dealing with aspects of memory however this article – Getting (& Keeping) Young learners Attention, caught my eye.

After reading the article, right down the bottom was the option of asking the AI tool to summarise the ideas from the article!!

Below is the edited version of the AI summary so that it targets language teaching specifically:

  1. Visual Hooks: Use video clips, picture walks, and images to capture students’ attention. For example, show a quirky image or a photo taken of a student in a previous lesson and use it for circling & thus repetition of target structures.
  2. Interactive Hooks: Engage students with activities like Kursi Luar Biasa, where a student is invited to sit on the special chair and be deferred to throughout the lesson. The joy of this is immeasurable with egocentric young learners.
  3. Audio Hooks: Incorporate songs, jokes, riddles, or rhymes to make lessons more engaging. Use or adapt song lyrics or nursery rhymes to ensure comprehensibility.
  4. Environmental Hooks: Use props and puppets during lessons. For example, use puppets to tell a story, to speak to & interact with students using repetitions, or to use props to support classroom expectations, for students to demonstrate comprehension (ie asking in the TL, do you want the big hamburger or the small hamburger?) or to ramp up story acting.
  5. Board Messages: interesting inclusion for pre literate students however we will have students with emerging literacy and any opportunity to celebrate this should be grasped with two hands. Instead of messages though, I have consistent behaviour management signs that are always on display in the exact same place & I refer to each when necessary by tapping on it with my finger & saying the word (eg making eye contact with someone doing the right thing, pointing to the pandai sign & saying clearly ‘pandai’) whenever needed. Never fails both as a positive classroom management tool & a way to sneak in repetitions.
  6. Adaptable Hooks: Customize these hooks to suit different grade levels, cohorts, and student groups, ensuring they are relevant and engaging for your specific classroom needs.

Link to original article: https://www.edutopia.org/article/getting-keeping-attention-early-learners

What Makes A Perfect CI Story?

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A perfect CI story has several critical features:

  1. Based mostly on target language that your students already know and understand.
  2. Only includes 2-3 unfamiliar words which become the target structures.
  3. Incorporates repetitions of the target structures.
  4. Has a quirky & unexpected ending.
  5. Characters are ones your students recognise – either one they love e.g. SpongeBob, or ones they detest e.g. Elsa (Frozen).
  6. Settings are well known places from their local area e.g. MacDonalds, Sydney Opera House, Horseshoe Bay. Don’t translate places; Proper names are the same regardless of the language.
  7. Incorporates cognates. This will depend firstly on your target language, secondly on your story and importantly, thirdly on your student’s prior knowledge. e.g. durian is not a food that my students would recognise whereas stroberi (strawberry) is instantly recognisable.)
  8. The story length is appropriate for the age of the students. This is critical for maintaining engagement during the student acting and to cater for their reading levels when reading the story.
  9. Incorporates high frequency vocabulary.

The reasons these are critical for a great story is that it ensures our stories cater for:

To ignore any of the 8 features, will inevitably disadvantage your students. I’ve discovered it’s better to start too simple and then while co-creating with students, add any known language that students contribute and add it to the both the current version and the parallel story.

‘Scope And Sequence Stories’ page (link).

For examples of great stories, check out the list of stories by clicking on the link above. When looking at these or other people’s stories, adapt the language for your students. It is important you only use them exactly as they are if it suits your context. There is no single way to use CI as we all have unique students, unique school expectations and unique teaching styles. When sharing stories based on any of the stories listed, always credit the original author!

Note
I firstly apologise that the stories listed in the Scope And Sequence are mostly only available in Indonesian.  I am slowly translating them into English! If there is one that has potential and Google translate isn’t helping, please get in contact and I will happily translate that story for you!

Teaching Spanish w Comprehensible Input- Haste Not Waste

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An awesome blog written by Señora Hitz. The blog includes many awesome suggestions and those I believe are appropriate for Aussie teachers can be found on my TCI activities pages found on the home page in the top right hand corner. 

Posts like this, for me, help me to stop and reflect upon an important aspect of TCI/TPRS teaching. They help me to remember and appreciate what second language acquisition is truly like for my students. I hope it helps you too not only with understanding SLOW but also the many facets of SLOW. 

Read and contemplate the truths of ‘Haste a Not Waste’. 

IFLT/NTPRS/CI Teaching- How To Involve The Whole Class When Storytelling

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A great thread appeared overnight on the iFLT/NTPRS/CI Teaching Facebook page Have you joined yet? If not, I highly recommend it. It is a global  community totally dedicated to all levels and aspects of TCI. Your own personal PLC where you can comment on other posts or ask questions about teaching with Comprehensible Input and TPRS. For those of us here in Australia, where TCI is only just taking off, this group is awesome. Whether you prefer to be a lurker or a contributor makes no difference because the other teachers here bring a wide variety of experiences and the knowledge they share is impressive. They too cover the spectrum of experience and once you take the first step and. join, you will discover what a warm and generous community it is. My only word of caution though is: go with your gut feeling. Remember that we Australians aren’t the only ones frustrated by the lack of training available here and thus interpretations of TCI vary. If a suggestion sounds a little off centre, don’t worry or stress; it is most likely because of a different understanding of what TCI actually is. If you need clarification, ask openly on the page and no doubt an experienced practioner will chime in and clarify. There are certain names to look out for and you’ll recognise them from all your readings. 

The thread I enjoyed reading this morning asked how to involve more students when reviewing a story. It was posted by a parent/teacher who has a child in one of her classes.  I remember the pros and cons of teaching my own children and this was definitely one of the pros. I totally appreciated the insights into both my teaching and the students in the classes. 

Here is her question: 

 
The answers to the question were awesome and most of them are worth sharing becausse they would work very well in our primary classrooms. Interestingly though, is that secondary teachers have also shared here!  

   
The answer below by Karen Rowan actually fits in after Grants initial comment above.

  

  
 
So many great ideas here to not only gets heaps of repetitions but also to keep our students engaged in the story.

Week 3 Reflections

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Week 2 is always a disappointing week for me. Students are usually amazing in week 1 when they are so thrilled and excited to be back at school which is always delightful. However I then plan lesson plans for those enthusiastic students only to discover that by week 2 they did a ‘Jekyl and Hyde’ over the weekend and my lessons do not turn out quite the way I had envisaged. 

Week 3, thus is a great week by comparison! I am prepared, in fact usually over prepared, but at least this time it is strategic over planning unlike week 2 where it was head in the clouds over planning. I can’t believe I tried to do a movie talk last week with the combined year 6/7 left overs that focused on entirely unfamiliar structures! What was I thinking?? Not surprisingly it was a huge flop. Still, I learned a huge lesson from it – doesn’t matter how engaging the video  is, if it’s not comprehensible, it will not be engaging.

This week with another group of year 6/7 left overs, I showed Laskar Pelangi which was far more successful for several reasons.  

 Firstly, it was purely an English culture break and considering the film went for 3 lessons and students were engrossed right up to the end, I was happy with that. I also have to confess that it was my first time watching the movie so maybe in future years I may consider using it as a MT now that I can see the potential. The lessons progressed well in that we began with a single lesson and then 2 days later had a double. I said very little before the movie started yet before continuing with the movie in the double lesson, I talked about several aspects including a little Belitong history and providing a bit more information about the main characters. Yet it was the discussion about the symbolism that students enjoyed the most and then commented on during the movie. I spoke about the symbolism of fences (dividing communities), crocodiles (obstructions) and rainbows (happiness, togetherness and positive hopes for the future).  

This term with the other classes (ie all but the year 6/7’s), we are looking at the kancil & Buaya story. At the end of term 3, our hub group met and we simplified the story to ensure the story only incorporated a few unfamiliar structures as well as revised many of our known structures. Last week I introduced the word ‘kancil’ and largely in English we talked about their body shape, their diet and where they are found globally. Naturally it was only their diet that lent itself to circling! Kancil makan apa? This week I introduced the word ‘buaya’ using both a picture of a buaya, a soft teddy buaya and a hilarious crocodile hat I found at Savers last Sunday. As usual, using Annie’s voices, I introduced the word encouraging the students to repeat buaya over and over in a variety of ways including singing, syllablising, weird voices and generally having fun. I then held up the buaya soft teddy and circled buaya.  
 

Buaya! 

Buaya? Ya buaya. 

Kancil? 

Bukan. Buaya. 

Kancil atau buaya? Buaya.

I then opened a bag of soft teddy animals including the crocodile hat. I held the buaya soft teddy in one hand and with the other dug into the bag. I pulled out random animals and asked, ‘Buaya?’ The students loved the suspense of not knowing what was coming out of the bag and all screamed with delight when I finally pulled out the crocodile hat!  

 The hat is great because of its large mouth and which allowed me to revise makan. Buaya makan sepatu? I walked around amongst the students stating sentences like that and then having the crocodile mouth the shoe. Or I would point at my nose and say a couple of times ‘hidung’ before saying buaya mau makan hidung Joey. They just loved it and were all begging to be eaten!! It was chaotic and loud with lots of laughing. I actually had a parent looking for their child, knock and put their head in the door while I was bent over a student ‘makan sepatu’ and I’d love to know what she made of what she saw! Hopefully she asks her son! It was strange though because I felt guilty that I was having too much fun! That I should have been more serious! Oh well…. 

I did a ‘kindergarten reading’ with the story with the year 4’s where I had them sitting on the floor in front of me and I read a big book version with large colourful pictures. They were totally engrossed yet when I asked afterwards whether they preferred acting out the story or listening to it, the majority said they much preferred acting it out!! Didn’t see that coming. 

This story incorporates the numbers 1 – 10 which has been a great. Early in the week I suddenly remembered a counting song from Languages Online. Unfortunately it goes way too quickly for my younger classes, but then I had a brain wave! Instead of singing satu, dua, tiga bunga (not a familiar word), I changed it to satu, dua, tiga buaya!! Then I got even more creative and sang about kancils, penguins, orangutans and finished with murid murid! The more repetitions I can get with this song the better to cement number acquisition. 

And speaking of songs, I also ‘wrote’ this song on the weekend for later in the term:

Kancil, kancil di hutan

Tidak bisa berenang

Datang banyak buaya

Hap! Tidak ditangkap!

Can you pick the tune? Lifted from cicak cicak di dinding!

Hope you had a great week too.

Sharing Awesome Links – Membagi Ide Luar Biasa….

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One of the blogs I follow is Brilliante Viernes by Maris Hawkins and often she shares links to sites she  has discovered. It is such a cool idea!! Lately I have found so many brillant posts and sites, that I really want to share them with you. If you like this format, let me know in the comment section below!

  1. My student teacher, Hannah, is keen to try a movie talk this week with our junior primary classes to introduce the target structures ‘bisa berenang’ and ‘bisa melompat’. We found a funny video of a dog (link to be added soon) jumping into a pool which will be the basis for the movie talk. Just by chance there is a current thread on moretprs about movietalk which included a link to this amazing video of Eric Herman giving a movie talk demo. I love the way he tells the story as well as seemlessly asking questions. I can’t wait to try another movie talk now!
  2. Other movie talk links include a handout by Eric Herman and posts by Chris Stoltz and glesismore. Sharon Hellman has also recommended a lovely video which I love.
  3. Look at all these amazing demo videos by Eric Herman! The reason I recommend Eric Herman is that he teaches both primary level students as well as high school students.
  4. Senor Fernie has recently published a post about story telling & writing with primary students. It includes some awesome ideas I can’t wait to try next term.
  5. I love this number lesson idea on the Adventuras Nuevas blog.
  6. This is a video demonstrating a story telling technique that I want to watch in full when I have some time because I think aspects of it could be applicable in the primary classroom!!
  7. The Indoinspired blog post about kancil’s. There is also a facebook page you can follow/like which I recommend  because  you’ll find all sorts of gems there!! You can also follow indoinspired on Twitter! 
  8. Did you hear about the tiny ‘dragon‘ discovered in Indonesia?
  9. I read this article about traveling by angkot on Twitter and Facebook. It’s a great read!
  10. Margaret & I head off next week to Sumatra to visit our partner school in Medan for the first time. We aim to develop ways our students can connect via the internet as well as explore the feasibility of organising a staff trip in 2016. Follow my travel blog (written for my students) to read about our experiences! We will be staying a week in Medan before heading off on a study tour to Jakarta & Jogjakarta. Ayo….

    Observations of TCI in The Indonesian Classroom

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    What a day it was yesterday! I was incredibly nervous, because I was going to be observed by an Indonesian teacher colleague who was curious to see TCI in action after attending the TCI workshop we’d run at the Intan conference earlier this month.

    The previous day I’d attempted to ask a story for the first time. I chose one of the year 7’s classes because the older students have really blossomed with TCI. Yet it wasn’t  that successful, for reasons which are so much clearer in hindsight. I wanted the class to rewrite their own version of Catharina’s story, “Tidak ada Mulut” (No mouth). We began as I usually do by asking, “Ada perempuan atau ada laki laki?” (Is there a boy or is there a girl?), yet this class didn’t want to have a gender, so instead I introduced the word, ‘orang’ (person) which is a great word to know.  We next decided upon the names of the two characters, Lesley (a name which could be either gender) and Big Jezza.  Here is how the story began…

    Ada orang. Nama orang Lesley. Lesley tidak punya kepala. Lesley tidak bisa minum dan makan. Lesley tidak bisa menyanyi dan Lesley tidak bisa…. (There’s a person named Lesley. Lesley doesn’t have a head. Lesley can’t eat or drink. Lesley can’t sing and Lesley can’t….)

    At this stage, I was expecting them to suggest verbs from the word wall. Yet with circumlocution, one of the students pointed out (in Indonesian) that if Lesley couldn’t eat or drink, then Lesley also wouldn’t be able to pooh. The class was all in agreement. I was torn! Was I asking the story or was I telling the story? I then remembered a fellow TCI junior primary teacher saying that the most popular story topics that hook JP students are blood, teeth & selfies. As this was student led, and the word they wanted was a word that, one could argue, could be very useful when traveling in Indonesia, I gave the word a parent would use with their toddler – eh eh  (each pronounced ‘e’ as in egg). It immediately became the word of the day and became very difficult to complete the story! It wasn’t till the next lesson that I was able to guide them to finally agreeing on an ending to their story which included a little more than just ‘eh-eh’.  I had great difficulty keeping them inbounds – they were determined that there was a blockage – and unfortunately this meant the story contained a lot of totally unfamiliar vocabulary; yet the students were thrilled with the end result.

    Here is how we finished it:

    ….dan Lesely tidak bisa eh-eh.

    Ada satu lagi orang. Nama orang Jeza Besar. Jeza Besar punya tiga kepala. Jeza Besar bisa makan tiga es krim. Jeza Besarkasih Lesley dua kepala.

    Tenggorok Lesley tertutup dengan eh-eh. Lesley  mau minum kopi es. Lesley berkata, Saya mau minum.” Lesley makan kepala kedua. Tenggorok Lesley tidak tertutup lagi.

    IMG_0799

    So with that story experience fresh in my mind together with the pressure that comes from being observed, I was not totally confident to try asking a story with the other year 6/7 class. To make the story asking process smoother, I used a story I wrote a few weeks ago called “Tidak ada Kaki”. Whereas with the first class, I encouraged them to choose the missing body part, this time I stated it, which meant the level of ‘asking’ was minimised because I imagined it would be safer! Here is the story they created:

    Ada perempuan. Nama perempuan Barbie dan Barbie tidak punya kaki. Kasihan Barbie. Barbie tidak bisa berjalan kaki. Barbie bisa minum. Barbie bisa makan pizza. Barbie bisa menyanyi. Barbie tidak bisa berlari tetapi Barbie bisa bermain bola basket dan Barbie bisa merayap. Barbie bisa bermain golf.

    Ada laki laki. Nama laki laki Jonah. Barbie tidak punya kaki dan Jonah punya empat kaki. Jonah bisa berjalan kaki. Jonah bisa berlari. Jonah bisa merayap.

    Jonah baik hati. Jonah kasih Barbie dua kaki. Barbie bisa berjalan kaki. Barbie bisa berlari dan Barbie bisa merayap.

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    illustrated by Ruby

    Translation: There’s a girl named barbie and Barbie doesn’t have any legs. Poor Barbie. Barbie can’t walk. Barbie can drink. Barbie can eat pizza. Barbie can sing. Barbie can’t run but Barbie can play basket ball and Barbie can crawl. Barbie can play golf.

    There’s a boy named Jonah. Barbie doesn’t have legs and Jonah has 4 legs. Jonah can walk. Jonah can run. Jonah can crawl.

    Jonah is kind hearted. Jonah gave Barbie two legs. Barbie can walk. Barbie can run and Barbie can crawl.

    Beforehand, we had organised some props: a wheelchair, a sarong to cover Barbie’s legs and a pair of stuffed stockings. The story progressed beautifully. As usual, I had no trouble sourcing volunteers for the actors. Firstly Cooper was Barbie and he happily sat in the wheelchair with a sarong covering his legs. He acted his part beautifully. Beth (not her real name)  then jumped at the chance to be the second actor. Her face dropped slightly when I brought out the stuffed stockings, yet she bravely continued and helped tie them around her waist. The girls were madly gesturing to her to pull the ‘legs’ to the side so they didn’t hang in front of her legs. The boys meanwhile, were in hysterics. Beth was such a good sport; she continued to act out her part even though she realized that the whole class (and teachers) were laughing so hard, we all had tears in our eyes. With 2 long shapes swinging around her legs, she walked and ran back & forth on the narrow catwalk through the audience, but it was the demonstration of the crawling that undid the audience. There is no way I can describe it to you and do it justice. I was just so happy I had 2 other adults in the room who can verify just how funny this acting of this story turned out!!

    After the 6/7 lesson, the day continued well with all classes beautifully demonstrating why I love TCI. Students gestured whenever I said something they didn’t understand (& also when they did understand because they enjoy the attention they get for gesturing!), students of all ages asked, “Boleh saya Bahasa Indonesia?” if they wanted to say something that was beyond their level of Indonesian and in particular, that all classes can now respectfully greet visitors in Indonesian.

    I was on such a high afterwards. It was brilliant that the lessons had all gone smoothly and also that Kay was so impressed with what she’d observed. Her feedback was generous and very encouraging. Yet, I do wonder just how my interpretation of TCI compares with officially trained TCI teachers in the USA. I hope I’m not too far off the mark and until I can attend one of the conferences, I console myself with the famous TPRS quote; “Bad TPRS is better than no TPRS”!!

    Learning how To Circle

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    At our (Indonesian Teachers Hub Group) last meeting, Annie mentioned that she is focusing on the skill of circling at the moment. Circling is an integral skill in TCI and I suddenly realized that it had not been a focus lately in my recent lessons. I then decided that I too needed to hone my circling skills and so determined to incorporate more circling into my lesson plans.

    I refreshed my understanding of it by reading various sites and as always, I started with Martina Bex’s website. There she has a link to a pdf she created about circling. Here are 2 great sentences from the pdf to clarify the definition and purpose of circling:

    DEFINITION
    Circling is the instructional practice of asking a series of prescribed questions in the target language about a statement in the target language.

    PURPOSE
    Circling is used to provide students with contextualized repetitions of target structures.

    Circling has a recommended format yet it is not set in stone. It must be driven by the students so that teacher input is compelling (i.e. truly interesting) and thus relevant to the students. Here is a recent moretprs post from Dr Krashen about ‘compelling’ and ‘relevance’:
    krashen pic

    Circling is a powerful TCI strategy which ensures students are engaged and acquire language totally without realising!

    The circling format includes the following:
    Statement
    Question
    Either/or
    Negative
    3 for 1
    Ask a detail
    [Optional are:
    Who, What, When, Where, Why]

    circling

    courtesy Martina Bex’s Website


    Using this format, I wrote circling questions into my lesson plans focusing on each of the above steps to prompt my memory and help develop my circling proficiency. I tend to find that when I am in front of a class, my mind goes blank whenever improvisation is needed!! Hopefully this is something that will reduce as I gain confidence and experience with TCI methodology.
    I initially had the above poster up on the back wall but it didn’t help. For example I would see the word ‘interrogative’ and just freeze like a rabbit in the spotlight! So instead I incorporated a circling mini block into each lesson:

    Circling # 1 –

    Junior Primary

    a) Indie perempuan. (statement)
    b) Indie pakai sepatu? (ya) Ya, Indie pakai sepatu.
    c) Indie pakai sepatu atau Indie pakai jaket? (either/or) Indie pakai sepatu.
    d) Indie pakai topi? (ya/tidak) Bukan. Indie pakai sepatu.
    e) Indie minum/makan sepatu? (3 for 1) Bukan! Indie pakai sepatu, Indie tidak minum sepatu!

    Middle Primary & Upper Primary
    1. Flick berkata. (statement)
    2. Flick berkata? (ya) Ya, Flick berkata.
    3. Flick berkata kepada Ella. (ya/tidak) Ya. Flick berkata kepada Ella.
    4. Flick berkata kepada Ella atau Flick berkata kepada Thomas? (either/or) Flick berkata kepada Ella.
    5. Kenapa Flick berkata kepada Ella? (extra detail) Flick berkata kepada Ella karena ? (mau ke McD, dingin,)
    6. Circle new detail.
    This amount of detail was so helpful. I could refer to my notes at any point to ensure I covered all aspects when/if necessary. Writing it too helped clarify in my mind so that my response should always be either the initial sentence or include the initial sentence!
    I felt that at last I was getting a handle on circling! Then with brilliant timing, several TCI teachers wrote blogs posts specifically about circling. Keith Toda posted on his blog, Todally Comprehensible Latin, Circling – The Art of Questioning and Chris Stoltz posted on TPRS Q & A his post  ‘What is Circling and How Do I Do it?’ Both are great and I highly recommend you read them to grasp the finer details of circling.
    After reading Chris Stoltz’s post I asked him a question and he replied:

    tprs q a

    When I first read his reply, I was taken aback by its brevity and once I had recovered,  I started to think about his point. If I was to circle only what students didn’t understand, then I was going about “circling” the wrong way.
    The next thing that happened was again by coincidence. I had emailed Ben Slavic about micro stories suitable for primary (elementary) students. He replied with an attachment of his draft chapter called Super Mini Stories. In this chapter, Ben focuses in great detail on the skills needed to tell a story. Reading this with my trusty highlighter was illuminating. Chris’ statement ‘Circle what the students don’t understand” suddenly gelled.
    Circling has to be done in context and more importantly, stories must have input from students. This is what makes TCI compelling.

    Last week I trialed it and discovered the truth of the above statement. This is how I did it:

    With the classes 3-7, I arranged the chairs into a circle and in the middle of the circle I put a pile of clothes for this story: (underlined words signify where I asked for student input.)

    Bobby dingin. Bobby berkata kepada Ibu,”Saya dingin.”
    Ibu kasih Bobby satu jaket.
    Bobby pakai jaket di kaki.

    Bobby masih dingin. Bobby berkata kepada Bapak, “Saya dingin.”
    Bapak kasih Bobby satu baju.
    Bobby pakai baju di kepala.

    Bobby masih dingin. Bobby berkata kepada Kakek, “Saya dingin.”
    Kakek kasih Bobby dua sepatu.
    Bobby pakai sepatu di tangan.
    Bobby tidak dingin lagi.

    Prior to last week, I’d told the story with actors and the other students just watched and listened. However, this week, I used circling to ask for student input and it was highly compelling. Here is why:
    I began with:
    Siapa mau menjadi assistan Bu Cathy? (Who wants to be Bu Cathy’s assistant?)
    I looked around the circle and chose someone who would be a good actor, someone who could be a ham if necessary and not get embarrassed. I then asked them to ‘berdiri’ (stand.)
    Next I asked the class, “Caden perempuan atau Caden laki laki?” The class invariably answered “Caden perempuan.” To which I checked in with my actor, “Caden laki laki atau Liam perempuan?” If he answered, “Caden perempuan”, I would then confirm, “Caden perempuan!” Next I asked students, “Siapa nama Caden? ‘Caden’ nama laki laki!” Sometime, classes came up with a hilarious female version of the name (Luke became Lukette, Kody became Kodella) and sometimes they would come up with a name that has been bandied around lately. For some reason Jeff and Bob are hilarious names!! Go figure!
    I then began the story:
    Ada perempuan. Nama perempuan Delilah.(students decided that Caden would become his twin sister!)  Delilah dingin. Delilah berkata kepada???? Delilah berkata kepada siapa? (laser pointer to ‘siapa’ poster up above the whiteboard) If students suggested the name of a fellow student, I would answer, “Bukan nama murid di kelas ini.” Because I wanted them to come up with some quirky suggestions. I would settle on the suggestion that got the most catcalls!! Justin Bieber and Tony Abbott were up there!! I next asked, “Siapa mau….. Justin Bieber?” That actor was also asked to ‘berdiri’.
    I would then recommence my story from the start to throw in some sneaky repetitions.
    Ada perempuan. Nama perempuan Delilah. Delilah dingin. Delilah berkata kepada… Delilah berkata kepada Justin Bieber, “Saya dingin.” Justin Bieber kasi Delilah???? At this point I rummaged through the pile of clothes on the floor and repeated the sentence several times adding the word for the article of clothing I held up, looking at ‘Justin Bieber’ to gauge both his/her reaction and the class’. “Justin Bieber kasi Delilah jaket? Justin Bieber kasi Delilah sarong? Justin Bieber kasi Delilah topi? Justin Bieber kasi Delilah jilbab?” OOnce the class agreed on the item of clothing (majority rules), I then handed the item of clothing to “Justin Bieber” and then turned to the class and asked, “Justin Bieber kasi Delilah satu jilbab atau Justin Bieber kasi Delilah dua jilbab?” Depending on their collective answer (if too noisy, I asked ‘Angkat tangan kalau Justin Bieber kasi Delilah dua jilbab”, repeated sentence again or satu jilbab, while counting in Indonesian the number of hands) then we continued the story:
    Justin Bieber kasi Delilah satu jilbab.
    I then stopped the acting, asked Justin Bieber to ‘duduk’ then turned around to face the class again and asked, “Delilah pakai jilbab di kaki (pointing to my foot)? Delilah pakai jilbab di tangan (pointing to my hand)? Delilah pakai jilbab di leher (pointing to my neck)?” etc until I got a popular consensus. I then repeated the sentence and the actor acted out the story. In this case it was:
    Delilah pakai jilbab di kepala. Delilah masih dingin.
    We continued till the end of the story this way. It was hilarious and totally compelling!! I love that TCI provides me with ways in which I can laugh with my students while teaching!!
    During the day on Monday, I wrote a few notes in my notebook that I keep handy to record my reflections and this is what I wrote:
    1. Circle what they don’t know!!
    2. Don’t forget to ask quantity of clothing! E.g. dua sepatu!!
    3. Go SLOW!! Don’t rush!! Slow and steady is how students comprehend and acquire the target structures. Make the most of each repeititon.
    4. Try to make circling sound like natural speech using familiar vocabulary while incorporating all the facets of circling. E.g. negative, either/or, 3 for 1, asking for extra detail. 

    Term 2 Story – Lucy Mau Jaket

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

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

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

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

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

    Thus I introduced the structures:

    pakai topi
    pakai jaket &
    pakai sepatu

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

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

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

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