Bisa = Can/ be able to do……..

26 Jul 201526 Jul 20153 Comments

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

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

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

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

1. Look

2. Listen

3. Respond to questions

4. Signal when unclear or too fast

5. Respect everyone and the process

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

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

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

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

How compatible are ACARA & TPRS: Part 1

9 Jul 20159 Jul 20158 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Band Descriptors

(most common word: language)

Content Descriptors

(most common word: texts)

Achievement standards

(most common word: Students)

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

Consider the 3 basic steps of TPRS:

Introduce the target structures
Story telling/ story asking
Reading

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

Learning how To Circle

1 Jul 2015Leave a comment

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’:

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]

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:

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.

My Deskless Classroom…

14 Jun 201514 Jun 20152 Comments

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

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

Why are Frequency Lists Important For Language Teachers?

10 Jun 201525 Jan 2017Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Student Jobs – A Truly Engaging & Useful Tool

30 May 201530 May 20151 Comment

My students love the jobs that help me with TPRS/TCI and are very disapponted when none are needed. The variety of jobs and what they entail is constantly evolving as we fine tune what works and what supports student learning. For each job there is a laminated card with the title of the job and a matching picture. At the start of each lesson, I ensure that each job card that will be needed is blue-tacked to the white board. This sounds more complicated than it actually is because so far, only the middle and upper primary classes do jobs and as the MP & UP classes are mostly all covering exactly the same story, it only needs a tweak here and there. I have a display folder now for each class and they all are stacked on a small table near the white board. In the first page of each folder is a sheet which on one side has the year and teacher name for that class and on the back is a class list. All students who are nominated to do a job for the lesson also have the choice of sitting in first class (kelas satu) in the larger chairs along the back wall or with everyone else in kelas dua (normal sized chairs) atau ekonomi (on the floor).

IIf you are interested in reading more about student jobs, Ben Slavic has a very comprehensive list on his website that I highly recommend.

Here are the jobs that I have tried so far:

Sekretaris – At the start of each lesson, I nominate the sekretaris by looking at the notes made on the class list by previous sekretaris’ to see who has not yet been sekretaris or who has not done as many jobs as everyone else. The job of the sekretaris is to write a student name against each of the jobs on the board (with a few exceptions), again choosing students who have yet to complete the same number of jobs as everyone else. (I used to do all this, but it was so time consuming and led to a lot of unnecessary blurting in English) Once this has been completed, the sekretaris sits in kelas satu (sekretaris has the most luxurious chair) and then completes the checklist by writing against the students name the jobs that they were allocated to do. The sekretaris is also responsible for collecting any student work (quizzes, freee writes ect) fromm the lesson and putting it neatly in the class folder.
Penghitung Waktu – The person who does this job uses the timer on an ipad and records how long the class can stay in Indonesian. The timer is stopped each time a class member (or Bu Cathy) uses English. This job is awesome because it lends itself to so many student repetitions of – ‘Boleh saya pakai Bahasa Ingriss?’ (to which the other students invariably shout out “Tidak boleh!”) and also the asking of the time keeper, “Berapa minut?” and then listening for the answer which must be given in Indonesian.
Polisi – This student sits next to the penhitung waktu and every time someone uses English, they squeeze a plastic pig dog toy (not the most appropriate object for oh so many reasons….) to inform the penghitung waktu to stop and reset the timer.This job lends itself to the questions, “Siapa pakai Bahasa Ingris?” and then “Harry pakai Bahasa Indonesia atau Bahasa Indonesia?” to which the student generally asssures us all that it was in fact Indonesian!! Yeah right! These two jobs complement each other and in particular because it keeps the penghitung honest!
Twitter – The twitterer has to move to the PC 5 minutes before the end of the lesson and then write a 140 character (or less) sentence about something significant/memorable we covered in our lesson. While we get the hang of the job, I am accepting English, but next term I will be insisting that all tweets are written in Indonesian.
Penulis – The penulis has to keep track of the class story for me!! The story I receive from the penulis invariably isn’t complete for many reasons, but it’s usually enough for me to remember by the end of the day the gist of their story. This person usually focuses so intently and acquires so much more than anyone else!!
Penghitung kata – This job counts the number of times I say the target structure we are focusing on during that lesson. It is a very popular job as they get to use a hand held counter (or if more than one, they tally on a piece of paper but this is nowhere as accurate) and I love it because it helps to keep me focused on what I should be repeating. I will check in with the penghitung kata by asking ,”Berapa?” and from their answer I know whether I have covered the structure enough or not. It is fascinating how quickly the count skyrockets when a class gets hooked on the discussion!
Mendistribusi pensil dan kertas – Responsible for distributing pencils and paper for quizzes. Two names go against this job and then I ask each of them, “Harry mau mendistribusi pensil atau Harry mau mendistribusi kertas?” while miming handing out things to the students sitting in economy. There job is to check that the pensils are sharp and that there is enough A5 paper for each student ready for the quiz.
Pembaca – This is my reader leader. Their job is to use the microphone and lead the class in the reading of the story.
Pembantu – This job was only introduced recently and is still being honed but so far it has been a huge hit. The job of the pembantu is to echo me each time I say a specific TPR phrase. At the moment we are focusing on ‘angkat tangan’ so I bought a hulk hand at Savers especially for this. Every time I say ‘angkat tangan’ the pembantu has to echo me loudly (silly voice encouraged) and thrust the hulk hand up into the air. It is hilarious and has been very successful for sneaking in extra repititions. I also incorporated the concept of auditions after reading about them on Ben Slavic’s website. The person auditioning is given the microphone and the hulk hand and we get some reps in while students audition for the job! Ingenious isn’t it! Now that students understand the job, I think it will work better and smoother without the microphone.
Mengabsen – This job is chosen by the random option on class dojo. This student has to call the roll using class dojo while I time them. I introduced the timing aspect to keep the roll call succinct and also for the added spice of interclass competition. The current chamapion, Cambell (year 6/7 Turley) called the roll in 33 seconds last week. Calling the roll provides me with useful data and for students it provides them with a comfortable routine that helps them transition into Indonesian.
Penulis Quiz – The quiz writers job is to choose 7 or 12 sentences from the story that the class is currently working on. The number is 7 if the quiz is out of 5 or 12 if the quiz is out of 10, with a couple of spares in case one or two of the sentences are not suitable. The quiz is a true/false quiz (benar/salah) and thus the sentences written by the penulis ujian can be either taken directly from the story (benar) or tweaked (salah).

Here are a few quizzes some of the penulis ujian’s wrote this week based on our current story:

Term 2 Story – Lucy Mau Jaket

24 May 201525 May 20151 Comment

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

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

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

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

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

Thus I introduced the structures:

pakai topi
pakai jaket &
pakai sepatu

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

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

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

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

Movietalk in the Primary (Elementary) Classroom

21 May 201521 May 20153 Comments

Most CI teachers rave about Movietalk. Movietalk is using a short video/film as an engaging method of sneaking in repetitions of specific target structures. Martina Bex has a very detailed explanation on her website. Catharina mentioned in our last Skype call that her students (junior primary) absolutely love movietalk and constantly ask for another one. It was a technique that I was both been very keen to try and yet was also apprehensive about trying it. While I knew students would enjoy watching and talking about a movie clip, I am aware that my students only have a very small pool (puddle) of acquired structures and also that I am still a real TPRS beginner!! Circling, PQA etc are TPRS techniques I am still developing and the idea of doing them all on the fly about a video was slightly intimidating. So, I read up about it, looked at video clips recommended by other teachers and put it in the ‘maybe later’ basket. Then on the moretprs listserve, this Mr Bean video was posted as a good Movietalk option. As soon as I saw it, I was struck with how perfectly it supported:

terlalu besar – too big
terlalu kecil – too small
pas – just right.

So on the weekend I watched the video and took some screen shots to make up a smart notebook file. This way unfamiliar vocabulary eg towels, bathers, shirts, toothbrush, toothpaste etc could be labeled and thus be easier for us to talk about them without needing to lapse into English.

I also wrote up on the board some vocabulary that would help the discussion but is not a focus:

libur – holiday
tas – bag
mengepak – to pack

Finally I felt comfortable enough to dive in the deep end and attempt a Movietalk.

On Wednesday, the year 3’s were the first class to do a Movietalk with me. Together we went through the notebook file, talked about the screenshots and then watched the movie. Thank goodness it was the year 3’s who were my guinea pigs!! For various reasons, the notebook collection of screenshots was not that successful. Mostly because the quality of the pictures was poor which together with a fading smart board bulb meant students had difficulty grasping what we were talking about! I realised towards the end of the lesson while we were actually watching the video, how much better and easier it would be to watch the video and just stop it when needed.

So with the year 5’s, I did just this and it was brilliant. Students really became involved in the discussion and the repetitions of the above structures were brilliant. The story line was much clearer and students got far more involved with the craziness of Pak Bean.

So if you too, are keen to have a go at Movietalk, read up about it on Martina Bex’s blog, watch a few YouTube clips of teachers demonstrating Movietalk (watch this or this) and then search for the perfect clip to try it with. If you have trouble finding a clip for specific target structures, I recommend asking the moretprs listserve or joining Ben Slavic’s website. Both provide awesome TPRS support.

PEPS’ First Ever Bilingual Assembly

20 May 201520 May 20155 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PQA & Direct Instruction in the TCI Classroom

8 May 20158 May 20151 Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Category: TPRS/CI