Lesson 3 & 4 Reflections

6 Feb 20157 Feb 20151 Comment

Overall, the lessons ( see previous post) this week were awesome. I had a brilliant week and thoroughly enjoyed telling the story, ‘Pleased To Meet You’ with my middle and upper primary classes. The junior primary classes though, focused purely on ‘nama saya’ and Siapa nama?’, so I could get photos of my reception students and also because unlike the older students, they only have one 50 minute lesson per week.

Storytelling Reflections:
As it was the same lesson repeated 8 times in all, I had to constantly remind myself to talk SLOWLY. While I was very comfortable with the story, students were encountering both the familiar and unfamiliar vocabulary for the first time ever in this context.
The stop sign came up many times and that everyone joined in, made it easier for both the students to initiate it and for me to see it. Really helped me remember to go slowly and ask for comprehension checks.
My 2015 timetable has worked out so well. I teach mostly middle primary classes on Monday which gives me the opportunity to iron out any potential kinks in it before facing the upper primary classes the following day. This week I was ready for them. I stayed upbeat and we all enjoyed a great lesson. So much so, that with the class before recess, when the bell rang, no one moved because we were mid way through acting out the story! They wanted to see it through to the final scene!
Student reactions to the story were hilarious! The responses ranged from incredulous (Taylor Swift/Will.i.am was at McDonalds yesterday?) to disbelief (It wouldn’t have been Taylor Swift fainting!!)
Acting out the story was very popular and there were many volunteers. I tried to avoid choosing students who usually hog the limelight and gave the quieter students a chance to shine a la Ben Slavic advice.
I introduced jobs this week during the first lesson with the upper prrimary classes mainly because I wanted to film each 6/7 lesson so that I had a record of the lesson. Had it gone haywire, I would be able to watch the video and pinpoint where I’d lost my students. I am also really curious to discover what I missed! So much happens with large classes, that I either miss things totally or suddenly realise that a student I believed to have been totally focused was successfully staying under my radar by timing his/her asides well. I haven’t had a chance to watch the films yet (partly because I am dreading watching myself in action/but mostly because I haven’t had the time!) but I did have a quick look at the photos. I had hoped to use the photos for lesson # 4 to help with retelling but unfortunately the photos were largely useless: out of focus and too far away from the action. The few that were in focus were not enough. Interesting assumption on my part that all older students know how to take photos with an ipad!
The filming of one 50 minute lesson filled up an ipad, so instead of having a ‘tukang film’ for the year 5’s and 5/6’s, I introduced ‘Penghitung’, the counter. Unfortunately I forgot to introduce the jobs until too late with the year 5/6 class and the poor counter barely made it into double digits, so with the year 5 class I made sure to do it first up! I asked Sienna to count each time someone said, “Nama saya” and the final count blew us all away! In 50 minutes, Sienna counted 310 reps!! I wrote it on the board for future reference:

Story Retell Reflections:
-The look of panic on students faces when during the second lesson, I asked for the retell to be in Indonesian was in retrospect, to be expected. But once someone made a start, the panic evaporated and it all came together. I was delighted with how students collaborated to retell the story.
-I had 2 visitors during this segment of my lesson; Marg, the year 5/6 teacher (who incorporates Indonesian phrases into her classroom day where ever possible) & Brenton, PEPS principal (& in a past life, was a Spanish teacher). I haven’t had a chance yet to ask for feedback, but I will….
-I have several year 6/7 students who rarely engage with my lessons. I successfully targeted 2 of them this week and gave them each an opportunity to shine while learning the importance of staying focused during lessons. Jesse rarely looks up, so during bola kenalkan, I firstly reminded everyone that they need to constantly watch. I then threw the ball to Jesse while he was looking downwards. He fumbled, grabbed it, responded and then returned the ball to me. After a few more students, I noticed that Jesse was once again not focused, so I gently threw the ball to him again. He looked up puzzled, returned the ball to me and said, “But I have already had the ball!!” To which I responded, “You need to watch ALL the time!” and pointed towards the expectations. I returned it to him again and asked, “Siapa nama?” and this time he caught it and returned it answering my question. I then targeted other students and if I noticed Jesse was again unfocused, I again gently passed him the ball. He loved it!! It was so lovely to see a smile on his face as he reveled in the attention. The icing on the cake was when one of the sporty boys complained that it wasn’t fair, Jesse had had the ball 10 times and he’d only had it once!!
-The other student, Drae, is one of those students who pretends he doesn’t understand so that he doesn’t have to contribute. I’m sure you all have one of those students. We had just started retelling the story and I asked him what came next. He baulked and stated he had no idea, so I asked him to translate what we had written so far. Again he baulked, so I reminded him about the stop signal. I then returned right back to bola kenalkan and passed him the ball, while asking, “Siapa nama?” Of course he could answer, so I did a comprehension check and naturally he could tell me what both sentences meant. So returning to the story, I again asked him to translate. Again he balked, so once again, I grabbed the ball and repeated the whole process. By this time, it finally dawned on him that there was no escape! He took a deep breath and proceeded to translate everything. The loveliest thing was that when he’d finished, the class erupted into a genuine and spontaneous applause! With impeccable timing, Brenton then entered the Indonesian classroom, so Drae received even more kudos!
– I introduced the job of ‘reader leader’ with all classes. Luckily I have a sound field system in my room which incorporates a microphone. This makes the job of reader leader so much easier. The reader leader reads the story at a pace that we can all read along together. Great way to get extra repetitions of the story & target language. I did have one student who had difficulty with pronunciation. At first, I corrected him and then I stopped. I suddenly remembered a post on tprsquestionsandanswers. This post included research and information about just this! I need to acknowledge that not only does it take confidence to get up and read in front of the whole class, the last thing a student needs is to be embarrassed and have his/her confidence undermined. Speaking in the target language is the most anxiety provoking form of communication. Anyone who has attempted communicating in a foreign language can relate to that! Here too is a quote from Chris Stoltz from the moretprs yahoo group:

Since I started TPRS, I stopped both pronunciation and spelling instruction . This year, I didn’t say a single word about anything in Spanish– and I got the best spelling (and pronunciation) ever. If they hear/read it and they get it, their brains seem to soak up the rules and conventions. The same is broadly true of grammar.

Free Write Reflections
-What a range of writing abilities! I was blown away with the stories students wrote. Even one of the year 3 student wrote a few sentences amongst his word list!! (see below)
-I love the concept that students can write anything as long as it is in Indonesian and they understand it. It’s simplicity appealed to all students and is a great example of how TCI differentiates for all levels of ability and confidence. The more capable wrote stories while others were challenged finding words around the room they knew.
Here are a selection of free writes beginning with a year 3 and finishing with year 7’s:

I love the way the above student wrote a sentence structure and then focused on it! What great repetitions!

I love how Harriet incorporated kenalkan vocabulary from previous years into her story!

Look how Illiana (above) added to the end of the story! Not an ending rewrite as such but a great example of what others could do too.

Miranda also took the structure and built on it using vocabulary from previous years! How awesome!

Look how Eli used dengan and suka!! Brilliant!

Georgia has used the story structure to rewritte an entirely original story! In 5 minutes!

Winter has used this opportunity to experiment with all the sentences and phrases she has learned over the primary years! How great is that!!

Look how the above student has spent the entire 5 minutes writing solidly!!

Aren’t they amazing! Reading through them has given me an idea! How cool would it be to read them to classes and have students illustrate them as they are read??? The drawings then would make awesome ‘Look & Discuss’ pictures. I only read about L&D recently and this could be the springboard I need to give it a try!

Lessons 3 & 4: Pleased To Meet You

6 Feb 20156 Feb 20154 Comments

There are 3 steps for TPRS, according to a fantastic handout written by Susan Gross in 2007. They are:
Step 1= Establishing meaning
Step 2 = Story
Step 3 = Literacy
and this week I aimed to cover all three using the story Pleased To Meet You.

My years 3-7 lessons this week were based on a simple adaption of the Jim Tripp’s story, Pleased To Meet You. This adaption was suggested to me by my amazing mentor, Catharina. The beauty of her adaption is that the story is pared down to a level whereby it contained just a small amount of vocabulary with the fun twist at the end clearly understood.
While I did essentially the same lesson with all middle and upper primary classes, I did tweak it slightly for the older students. Here is an outline of the two 50 minute upper primary lessons.

Lesson # 1
Roll using class dojo

Introduce the jobs of ‘tukang foto” (photographer), “tukang film” (Filmer) (year 6/7’s) or ‘tukang foto” (photographer) & “penghitung” (counter) (yr 5/6’s)

Target Language focus – (1,2,3)
1,2,3 =
1. introduce the words
2. Say, repeat and discuss gesture to illustrate meaning
3. translate

siapa nama – what’s your name?
nama saya – My name is….
ya – yes
bukan – no
pak – Mr
bu – Mrs/Ms
senang sekali – very happy
dari – from
bertemu – to meet (right hand shake)
dengan – with (hands come together in a clasp)

Brain Break – piccadilly circus extension: as the ball is handed to another person, one student asks siapa nama & the other replies with nama saya (and their name). Time and record lowest score on board.

Storytelling –
Before the story, point to and go through quickly, the extra vocabulary and their meaning: (helpful extra vocabulary)
kemarin – yesterday
juga – also
di – in,at,on (with at circled)
berkata – said

Kemarin Bu Turley (class teacher) di Macdonalds.
Kemarin Will.i.am di Macdonalds juga
Will.i.am berkata, “Halo. Nama saya Will.i.am. Siapa nama?”
Bu Turley berkata, “Nama saya Bu Turley.”
Will.i.am berkata, ” Bu Turley? Bu Turley dari PEPS? Astaga!! Senang sekali bertemu dengan Bu Turley! Autograf?”
(after accepting Bu Turley’s autograph, Will.i.am faints!)

Tell the story using monyet as the class teacher and the laminated picture of Will.i.am, hand gesturing/pointing to word list when using a word with the meaning on the board. Stopping for frequent comprehension checks and encourage students to use the stop sign.
Retell the story using actors who only act it out physically, following along with my retelling.

Lesson close – sampai jumpa murid murid/ sampai jumpa Bu Cathy.

Lesson # 2
Roll using class dojo

Target Language Review
Bola kenalkan – using a soft ball, throw to each student one by one asking, “Siapa nama?” as they return the ball to me, they answer with “Nama saya ….” encouraging complete answers and stopping for comprehension checks (What does ‘Siapa nama?’ mean?)

Storytelling –
With a completely blank board except for the 4 extra words & their translations,
kemarin – yesterday
juga – also
di – in,at,on (with at circled)
berkata – said,
ask students to retell the story in Indonesian. Write it up on the board as they go, constantly checking for comprehension.

Reading
1. ‘Echo Read’ the story with me. I say a line at a time and students echo it.
2. I say a sentence in Indonesian and students repeat it in English. Bu Cathy Bahasa Indonesia, murid murid Bahasa Ingriss.
3. Introduce the reader leader job. Do several read throughs using the microphone.

Free Write
Rub out the story completely, but NOT the 4 extra words.
kemarin – yesterday
juga – also
di – in,at,on (with at circled)
berkata – said
Introduce the concept of Free Writes and explain that today’s free write is purely a practice to make sure students understand the procedure. Outline the aim is for students to write non-stop for 5 minutes and there will be 10 bonus points for each sentence written!
Choose a few helpers to distribute paper and lead pencils while everyone else finds somewhere to work. Set the timer on class dojo for 5 minutes. Name and date at top of page.
Afterwards students count both the number of words and the number of sentences, the totals of which I will collect and collate on the smart board.

Lesson close – sampai jumpa murid murid/ sampai jumpa Bu Cathy.

Reflections on my week will be in my next post! I am looking forward to getting some feedback on my two lesson plans!! What do you think of them? Would they work with your upper primary students? Have you taught Please to Meet You and do you have some ideas on how I can extend it further next week?

Salam dari,
Bu Cathy

First Week Reflections of Introducing TCI to all Classes

31 Jan 201531 Jan 20151 Comment

Wow, last week was a baptism of fire! I went home Thursday afternoon and it took Trixie till 7, before she could convince me that a dog walk would actually be a good thing! Thank goodness for daylight saving! Until that point, I was comatose on the sofa trying very hard not to fall asleep! Needless to say it was a very short dog walk and I crashed into bed an hour later! Boy, did I sleep well!

I learnt so much last week and here is my summary:

Week 1 – what did I learn?
1. Don’t try to cram too much into a lesson. It’s much better to go slowly and deeply than complete everything in the lesson plan. Keep it simple, short and engaging.
2. Be confident and failing that, pretend to be confident!
3. Be consistent across all classes. I had a few hiccups with my behaviour management plans when I came down heavily on disrespectful students in one of my classes. At the point of almost holding the phone to contact their parents, students in one class quickly reminded me that I had promised them a weeks grace! Be very interesting now to see if that close call makes any difference compared with the other class where 3 students parents were contacted! Another area of inconsistency was the new toilet routine. I only talked about it with the classes in which the need to go to the toilet came up. Maybe if I continue this way, it will avoid a focus on going to the toilet, which with the younger students, follows with a steady stream (oops) of students suddenly desperately needing the toilet.
4. The pictures of staff and pop celebrities were a huge hit – looking forward to adding photos of siblings and students!! I am still blown away with how effective the pictures were for getting in repetitions, although next week, I must focus on maximising the repetitions by speaking much more slowly and also throwing in a comprehension check!! eg what does ‘siapa nama?’ mean?
5. JP & MP students were far more receptive than UP. I have been thinking about this constantly and think it could have been for many reasons. Were the JP lessons more engaging or was my apprehension about the introduction of the new pedagogy with the older students coming through in the delivery? I also went too fast, covering too many new target structures in each lesson, when I should have heeded Catharina’s advice; deep and thorough! I should have stayed with nama saya/siapa nama saya for second lesson, not CWB (circling with balls). Students looked bewildered and then I stressed, overthinking the process. So next week, I will leave CWB, return to nama saya & siapa nama, leaving CWB for another week.
6. Following through with parent calls made a huge impact (3 from one class). It was the first thing students talked about when they returned to their class!! They couldn’t wait to tell Kathy, their class teacher!! I made the 3 phone calls during the last lesson to ensure I spoke to all parents before the students left school. All 3 parents were very grateful for the call, especially when I pointed out that I have taught these boys, the entire time they have been at PEPS. I explained that the call was about recognising patterns in their bahaviour and disrespect and wishing to work as a team to put a stop to it early in the year so that they are successful with their learning. The first parent was happy to deal with the issue himself whereas the other 2 parents have agreed to come in and meet with us all (class teacher, performing arts teacher & me) next week. Hopefully this gets around and the other students realise that I am going to be very tough this year with non compliant behaviour.
7. Personalising takes so much longer with our large classes. May need to revisit this briefly each lesson to ensure all students experience their time in the spotlight.
8. MP students used the stop sign very well; even when I was explaining in English!! How great is that! Wonder if the stop sign will be used in their own classrooms?
8. Monyet talking and gesturing was hugely popular with all classes!! I deliberated quite a bit about using him with UP classes considering he is a JP prop but they all thoroughly enjoyed his input and also enjoyed revisiting the JP siapa nama song.
9. Comprehension checks were fantastic! Asking “nama saya’ means ….. (puzzled look on my face) is a much more effective way of getting repetitions in than by just asking what does that mean?
10. One lesson of nama saya is not enough for reception students!! I will need to revisit it next week.
11. The first lesson for all classes included completing the sentence at the top of their front cover; nama saya……… Students throughly enjoyed this for several reasons. It was a familiar task ( we used to begin each and every term with this), it was an opportunity for students to catch up with each other while working and it got them moving after a long time seated on the floor (brain break).
12. Piccadilly circus (Play is The Way) was more successful with the second 6/7 class because
a) they were familiar with the game (Natalie also did this game with them!) &
b) they had a time to beat! Competition!! May be beneficial to repeat this brain break to see if scores improve further now that they have all played it at least twice!

What I had trouble with:
1. The reception class contained a number of students presenting a huge range of emotions. Some were confident, one boy was so terrified that he stood the entire lesson (luckily he has an older brother who was very similar so I confidently continued knowing that by next week he should be slightly more acclimatised to the overwhelming institution of school), while most looked only slightly shell shocked! It was their first day at big school; they’d just bonded with their teacher and then she accompanied them to the other end of the school and left them in a totally unfamiliar classroom with a largely unfamiliar adult! I knew a few of the students through their older siblings but on the whole, I don’t think they remembered who I was. Poor darlings! Once they relaxed and realised they were going to have fun, most of them got totally carried away and were extremely silly! I always forget just how silly they can get and it is so difficult to bring them down gently without terrifying the student still in flight mode! I hate to think about what they’ve told their parents about their first Indonesian lesson! The highlight for them and lowlight for me, was with the focus on nama saya. In anticipation of the many,many years of reception students being at first convinced that my name is Blue Cathy, I included many repetitions of saying nama saya Bu Cathy and then asking Siapa nama saya? (What’s my name). Together they decided that Bu Cathy was too boring and named me Bu underpants!! I just focused on repeating, nama saya BU CATHY and hope like heck that next week they have forgotten my ‘new’ name!!
2. Talking so much makes me thirsty! I really must make a much greater effort to stay hydrated. I only achieved this on Tuesday!
3. Beginning with a new pedagogy requires considerable energy and focus – I was exhausted by Thursday (my Friday). Consequently Thursday was not a good day to begin using an unfamiliar strategy (CWB) for the first time, especially with classes that I really needed to be on my toes with.
4. I only used my new laser pointer (huge thanks to Annie for organising this) once this week with one of middle primary classes. I felt uncomfortable and this was largely because I knew it would cause a sensation with students. I think I will be more comfortable when I need to point to something around the room rather than something on the white board!
5. Having ‘bukan’ & ‘tidak’ both written on the board was confusing. Would be considerably less confusing to just have the one word needed on that day.
6. I MUST remember to keep my pop up grammar brief. Pop up grammar is intended for the 4%ers and is not a mini lesson!
7. Not stopping to do comprehension checks when responses became automatonish. Stopping will get their focus back to the target structure by giving the meaning one more tweak.

What to incorporate into my week 2 lessons
1. I want to film one of the 6/7 lessons both for student and teacher evaluation.
2. MP & UP lessons on Wednesday & Thursdays need to take into account end of the week teacher & student tiredness, especially in the early weeks of term 1.
3. I need more practise with circling – will put up a poster on the back wall for handy reference when my mind becomes blank!
4. I need to move on, have a bail out activity up my sleeve or use other ways to get reps if something is not working.
5. I must revisit nama saya and siapa nama saya to ensure enough reps are achieved.
6. Maybe introduce the laser briefly to cut down on its novelty when it is eventually needed
6. Focus on the ‘Pleased to meet you” script. Mime first with monyet and me with monyet being the celebrity. Take photos using the ipad and discuss using ya/ bukan.
7. 5 min lesson chunks may help with all grades to keep it moving and engaging.
8. Having selected students sit in ‘first class’ (one of Catharina’s suggestions) on seats behind the students seated on the floor.
9. Reduce students seated for long times on floor. Look for active ways to include increasing reps.
10 Time to write daily student and teacher reflections!

How was your first week at school? Was your learning curve as steep as mine?

My First TCI Coaching Lesson Over Skype

18 Jan 201518 Jan 2015Leave a comment

Online TPRS/TCI blogs and websites are largely written by and for secondary teachers, so it has been brilliant discovering a forum on Ben Slavic’s website specifically for ‘elementary’ teachers. One of the contributors to this forum is Catharina, an early childhood French teacher who lives and teaches in the USA. Her knowledge and experience of teaching with comprehensible input (TCI) is impressive and I am truly fortunate that she is so willing to share and inspire particularly those of us just beginning our journey. My comments or questions about her posts are received so warmly and with each question/comment, I was further encouraged to ask again! Catharina is a guru in every sense of the word.

Shortly after my initial requests for further clarification on points that Catharina had raised on various threads, Ben asked everyone for details about the training members have had access to, I outlined how my training is limited to online blogs, his website and the moretprs listserve. This lead to the acknowledgement that those of us in countries where there is no training available are extremely isolated and disadvantaged. Those who have attended any TCI training speak highly of both the training and the presenters and most consider it absolutely essential to understanding the finer details of this pedagogy. Consequently I had been seriously wondering how I could get to the States for one of the major conferences. This is still a pipe dream but so far, it remains just that! One day…..

Taking up this point, Ben asked Catharina & myself if we’d be interested in trialling the concept of 1:1 online coaching! This would involve us each giving demonstrations of our lessons to each other as well as learning from any following discussions. Thus I would experience a TCI lesson given by a highly experienced practitioner of a language I do not speak as well as having the opportunity to demonstrate my understanding of TCI so far to gain valuable feedback on both the content and delivery of my lesson incorporating advice on how it could be improved. While the idea of demonstrating my embarrassingly basic grasp of TCI was nerve wracking, I was thrilled that Catharina happily agreed to be my coach and so it was with pleasure I also agreed to be involved.

The initial discussion happened just before Christmas; a short break for teachers in American schools but part of the larger summer break for Australian teachers. Once Catharina was ready, she emailed me and we arranged an initial Skype video call just to meet each other. This was brilliant. We were able to see each other for the first time and put a face to the online name!! We chatted about aspects of our teaching situations which will impact on our lessons, eg. class sizes, year levels, student ages, etc., Whereas I teach all the primary grades, Catharina teaches what we term, junior primary. My junior primary students have one weekly 50 minute lesson, whereas Catharina’s students have 2 weekly 30 minute lessons. We arranged the time & date for our initial coaching session in which I would teach my initial JP lesson to Catharina for the following day; 5:00pm Wednesday (USA) & 9:00am Thursday (Australia).

This initial contact has been so exciting. With the Australian school year just about to begin, 3 of us local primary Indonesian teachers (all equally keen to learn the skills of TCI) have been meeting weekly to share and plan for this. We are all at different stages of Ben’s book Stepping Stones to Stories thus each with different sections foremost in our memories! We all agree that our junior primary lessons are the ones that will be the most challenging and consequently have spent the majority of our meetings focused on this. We initially agreed to focus our very first lesson on ‘suka’ (likes) because we all love the circling with balls (CWB) lesson that Ben outlined in his book. However, later while mulling over this idea, I returned to Catharina’s post on Ben’s website about where to start with junior primary. Catharina firmly believes that it is best to begin with vocabulary useful for classroom organisation and instructions. As this is the part of the lesson I have the greatest difficulty staying in Indonesian and is language that is repeated in each and every lesson, I can truly appreciate the wisdom of this. So I wrote out a detailed lesson plan for “nama saya” (My name is) as an alternative and also to start thinking about the nuts and bolts of this lesson. My thinking behind this change was twofold. Firstly, I will need to introduce myself to the new receptions, who unless they have older siblings at the school, will find my name (Bu Cathy) unusual by comparison with other female school staff who mostly use “Mrs/Ms”. “Nama saya” is also a phrase which will come up frequently in future stories.

So, in our first Skype coaching session, I taught this lesson (very woodenly, I confess) to Catharina who willingly responded when required. During my delivery, Catharina checked for pronunciation (speech was slightly distorted in transmission) which allowed me to slow down and find my place in my lesson plan. While I felt like a total goose, presenting a lesson to an adult instead of a room full of active 5, 6 or 7 year olds, it highlighted for me just how overwhelmed past reception students must have been in their initial lesson where so much vocabulary was introduced quickly in an unfamiliar classroom by an unfamiliar teacher. All students at my school attend 3 specialist classes, so the first week must be quite intimidating for them meeting 4 new teachers with their 4 totally different subject areas (PE, Performing Arts, Geography & Indonesian) and teaching styles! . Another realisation also hit me. I am used to junior primary students sitting and listening passively during lessons; participating only when they are invited to e.g. during songs or when asked to echo. Catharina though, participated fully in my lesson; stopping me when I went too fast, when I went out of bounds or when my speech was unclear. I found this both unnerving and exhilarating! A weird combination! Unnerving because it was so alien and exhilarating because I love the idea of students having the confidence to stop me when I am going too fast so that they don’t become overwhelmed.

After the lesson, Catharina kindly complimented me and then proceeded to read through her notes. Her feedback was encouraging, practical and genuine. I took copious notes and later rewrote the lesson plan thoroughly incorporating them all. Her ideas were all brilliant (who’s surprised about that?) and demonstrated her deep understanding and vast experience. The advice that came through loud and strong was that I need to incorporate many more repetitions of ‘nama saya’ into the lesson. Ideas she gave me on achieving this included:
1. clapping – clap hands twice and then thighs twice while saying nama saya (insert name of student in class)
2. when introducing monyet (my cuddly offsider), instead of introducing him outright, make a game of it. E.g. nama saya Big Bird? Nama saya Elmo? Nama saya Biu Cathy?
3. Have pictures of celebrities, staff and students and hold them up asking, Nama saya Billy? Nama saya Bu _______ (their teachers name).
4. A great adaption of one of Jim Tripp’s stories called, “Pleased To Meet You.” 2 people meet. The first (a celebrity well known to students) says; Nama saya Lady Gaga. Siapa nama? The second says: Nama saya Billy. The celebrity then says with an amazed voice: Billy? Billy from (dari) ________________ (insert town/suburb or school)? Astaga!! (OMG) autograph?? (holding out their hand & miming holding a pen) then faints!

Other suggestions Catharina shared include:
1. including yes/no in this lesson while simultaneously getting more nama saya reps by using the pictures (of staff, students etc,) again. They are all handed out to students and then ask a question about each one; nama sama Lady Gaga? If yes, it is put in the ya pile and if no put in the bukan pile. (As I am focusing on names initially, we decided it was best to start with bukan rather than tidak) Catharina also suggested using the Indonesian flag – with the colours of red and white for the ya and bukan pile.
2. watching the circling with names youtube video by Dianne Neubauer which not only demonstrates a beautiful introduction for students to their first ever language lesson but also a explanation circling with the vocabulary similar to that which I used.
3. keeping activities limited to 5 minute chunks to ensure the very young students (receptions) stay engaged and focused.
4. When singing the song, stretch out each of the words.
5. Start the next lesson with learning ‘Dimana’ and make that the first question word to focus upon. Do this by pretending that monyet is missing. Make it playful and visual. Look in cupboards, behind curtains, under chairs etc constantly asking, “Dimana monyet?” Then when he is found, scold him, growl at him and make it as entertaining as possible!
6. Constantly check that students understand. A good way is asking: bukan means what?
7. Ask students to translate what the teacher says. The teacher says a sentence/phrase in Indonesian and the students choral answer the translation.
8. Have 3 small colourful boxes with lids. Put a 1 on one, a 2 on another and a 3 on the last. Put something into them and then use them to ask yes/no questions. eg shake the box and ask, monyet?, Bobby?, Bu Cathy? staying inbounds.

All up, the session went for an hour but we did not stop sharing the entire time! Had I not had another meeting to get to, I’m sure we could have continued for a lot longer. It was brilliant. We have set a date for our next Skype session and this one will be even better as not only will I be joined by my 2 local colleagues, but we get to experience our first ever TCI lesson as students! Fittingly, it is set for the final day of the SA school holidays! What a way to celebrate the end of school holidays and prepare for using TCI in 2015!

Preparing For the 2015 School Year

5 Jan 20155 Jan 20152 Comments

With the onset of the 2015 school year approaching, I have been preparing for my formal launch into TPRS. While I did put my toe in the water last term (2014), it was more like a young visitor on their first visit to Disneyland with only a limited amount of time; having to race around franticly trying as many attractions as possible before the time was up!
The 2015 school year by comparison, will be the start of an infinite time period and thus my approach will be entirely different. Instead of my frantic, ‘try anything and everything ‘ approach, I hope to take very small steps and enjoy having the time to savour each one, to thoroughly appreciate and grasp the skills of TPRS/CI.
I teach Indonesian to all students at my school – reception to year 7. Reception in South Australia is the year between kindergarten (preschool) and year 1. These year levels are broken down into 3 bands – junior primary (R-2), middle primary (3-5) & upper primary (6-7). Frustratingly, the Australian Curriculum regards the year 7 as middle school, i.e., secondary school, but in South Australia, most year 7’s are still located in primary schools and are thus considered upper primary, even though their curriculum differs significantly from the year 6 curriculum especially in areas of time allocation for subject areas. Still, that is another issue…
In 2014, my experimentation with TPRS/CI was with the middle and upper primary classes. This was for many reasons, the main one being that most TPRS/CI methodology is aimed at secondary students and teachers. Just about all of the pedagogy is applicable in the middle and upper primary setting which is why I am super excited about beginning TPRS/CI formally this year.
These holidays I have been reading voraciously about TPRS/CI. While time consuming, I totally recommend this to anyone interested in learning more about this pedagogy. Blogs and the yahoo group moretprs are a truly great place to start. If you are still keen to take it one step further, then without a doubt I recommend joining Ben Slavic’s WordPress website. It costs about AUD$5-$6 a month (depending on the value of the Australian dollar) which a paltry amount considering the breadth of resources this gives you access to. For me, so far, the most valuable thing has been ‘meeting’ Catharina, a junior primary French teacher. Her posts are insightful, practical and so encouraging. It is no wonder everyone speaks so highly of her. Already I have gleaned many useful pointers about how I will start off with my junior primary students. Probably the most useful advice she has given so far regards the vocabulary to focus on with these year levels initially. The vocabulary includes; yes/no, thank you, hello/goodbye, there is/there are (ada), as well as classroom management language eg. sit/ stand/ talk/ to name a few. While I do cover the initial list, it is the 2nd list that I am most excited about teaching because it includes language that is repeated over and over in all classrooms, so therefore it makes so much sense for it to be taught early on thoroughly.
While American teachers return to school tomorrow, Australian teachers have another 3 weeks of summer holidays. In this time I will;
1. Finish reading ‘Stepping Stones to Storytelling’
2. Finish setting up my classroom
3. Begin reading ‘PQA in a Wink’
4. Blogging – reading and writing
5. Set up Skype coaching workshops with experienced TPRS/CI teachers
6. Plan my first unit of work with all band levels
7. Fleurieu Indonesian Teachers Hub Group Meetings

What are your plans for the rest of the holidays?

Class Dojo in The Indonesian Classroom

22 Dec 201426 Dec 20143 Comments

I have been using Class Dojo in my room for about 2 years now and while the program has had some bad press lately ( see here) I have loved it.
If you are not familiar with Class Dojo, here is a brief outline:
1. It is an online behaviour management tool which can be either accessed through your pc or by tablet/phone through an app. The app syncs constantly with the pc, so it is cool walking around with your ipad giving verbal feedback while simultaneously giving points. The points immediately are added or subtracted to the students score with an audible noise and are visible when projected up onto the smart board. The noise isn’t intrusive, just enough to prod those students who need that gentle reminder to return to task!
2. The student point tallies can either displayed with the positive tallies separate from the negative tallies or both can be combined. I prefer the latter, to reinforce that behaviour can be turned around.

3. Each student has an avatar which previously could tweaked (to change the colour, body features etc) but now the only option available is a completely new avatar. Still, this feature is incredibly popular with all ages.
4. Access codes are available for parents so that they can access their childs data if they wish and just as importantly, all behaviour data is stored and would be useful data for parent interviews.
5. The teacher decides on the behaviours to be included (how great would that fit in with discussions about class rules at the beginning of each school year). I love this feature because I can use either Indonesian or English!
6. Class Dojo is completely free!

There, I think that is a basic explanation. More details can be found on their website https://www.classdojo.com
At first, I found using class dojo time distracting; familiarising oneself with anything new is incredibly time consuming! It was clunky and seemed at first to distract both students and myself from our focus, but as we all got used to it, the benefits far outweighed the negatives. It is particularly useful for the really young students as it is a short sweet behaviour management tool. In the past, I would have to stop and address the negative behaviour, now I just give that student a negative and keep going. The ding/dong sound generally is enough to put a hasty stop to the behaviour especially considering it is usually accompanied by disapproving looks from peers!
One of the best features of class dojo for me is that it helps me focus on the ‘good’ behaviour instead of the negative. I give points for participating, using Indonesian, helping others etc, and for some students this really gives them the opportunity to shine. One quiet student loves asking, “Boleh saya pinjam pensil/penyerut/penghapus?” and at times she must have up to a dozen pencils on her table!! Usually this use of Indonesian is unrecorded. The result has been a huge increase in students using these phrases repeatedly and appropriately in the Indonesian classroom!
At the start of term 4, 2014, I began using class dojo for students to call the roll. In the past, I have called the roll at the beginning of each class to instill “Apa kabar?” (How are you?), a phrase I believe every student learning Indonesian needs to know and be able to respond to automatically. However, I realised recently that I needed to hand over this routine to students (middle and upper primary) if they are to successfully and completely internalise this specific phrase. Being able to answer “Apa kabar?” is only half of the interaction.
To ensure this part of the lesson did not go any longer than it absolutely needed to and also to really push for an automatic response, I added the complexity of a timer. Students would call the roll very quickly and the rest of the class would be encouraged to answer instantly. I recorded the scores for each student and then dangled the best scores in front of other classes to encourage them to achieve an even faster result. The record score by week 8 was 27 seconds! Not bad considering initial scores were well over a minute! Out of all the MP & UP students, I only had 2 students who flatly refused to call the roll! Both had very good reasons, so I didn’t push them. One of my other students, a real struggler in Indonesian, dug deeply and gave it her best shot and was the first student in the school to get a score in the 20’s!! That result gave her such a huge boost that her confidence in all other aspects of language learning totally backflipped for the rest of the year. It was awesome!
Towards the end of the year, I gave roll caller the option of being timed and what I really enjoyed seeing was that responses remained short and sweet even when the timer wasn’t being used. It will be interesting to see if that continues after the summer holidays!
With my use of TPRS/CI in the classroom, I want to encourage students to stay in Indonesian as much as possible, I am planning to investigate using the timer on Class Dojo to again harness the competitive nature of my students in 2015. Senor Howard’s blog and video (see here) shows how this is done and I am looking forward to investigating this using the class dojo timer this way.
Telling stories and using class dojo, for me, are tricky to combine, so now in each lesson, I have a designated helper. Whoever called the roll is asked first and to be honest, this person has yet to refuse! Their task is to record any positive behaviour (i.e. participation). (I record negative behaviour separately with the warning that 3 strikes and that student is ‘out’ – off to buddy class.) The best thing about having a recorder is that it ensures I SLOW down so they can keep up and it also tells me at a glance who I need to do a comprehension check on. Students love having their input recorded and at times it can be a bit hectic if someone’s input was over looked. Hey wouldn’t that be a perfect mini story to start with next year to ensure students can fix this without lapsing into English.
Have you discovered Class Dojo yet and if so, how do you use it in the Languages classroom?

A Chance Encounter

13 Dec 201415 Dec 2014Leave a comment

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

We’ve Written a Great Class Story; Now What?

28 Nov 201428 Nov 2014Leave a comment

This was my question last week and now I am despairing because I don’t have enough time left this year to get my teeth into any more of the many ideas I have discovered. I would like to begin to list ones that I have tried which have been successful.

Popcorn Reading: Give a copy of the story to each student. In pairs, they make a double circle. For a given time limit (1 minute worked well for middle primary) the student in the inside circle would read aloud the first sentence to their partner who would then translate it. They continue on doing this until time is called. The outside circle then moves one person to the right and in the time it takes for me to reset the timer, the new pair should be working out where they each got up to and then be ready to start again from the sentence that was closest to the beginning of the story. This continues until you as the teacher feel that enough repetitions have been completed.

Word Chunk Game– Divide the class into small groups and have each group choose an Indonesian name for themselves and a gesture which will become their war cry. Write the group names up on the board. Read out a sentence from their story (or sentences similar to their story but tweaked slightly eg the who/what/where) and as a group they have to translate the sentence. When they are sure that everyone in their group can translate the sentence, they all put up their hands. The group that did this first, must then do their war cry. If any members do not participate in the war cry, then move to the next group. This is important because it helps develop group solidarity. It is also lots of fun! Then it is up to the teacher to choose one group member to give the translation who can not be assisted in any way by anyone else. If the translation is correct, the team gets a point and then they can boost their points with each group member having a bonus ball toss from a free throw line into a bin (I used my paper recycling bin).

Running Dictation– Divide the students into teams. Put copies of the story out the front. Students take it in turns to run out to the front of the room to read and memorise a sentence which they then run back to their team and tell their team, one of whom will write it down.

Class Books – make the stories into class books and create a class library. Students from other classes will also enjoy reading the stories.

Bring on 2015……

22 Nov 201422 Nov 20141 Comment

I am so fortunate to ‘work’ with such a wonderful group of Indonesian teachers. “Work” is in inverted commas because as Senorfernie puts it, we are largely “departments of 1″and work at different school sites. Fortunately the primary Indonesian teachers down here in our neck of the woods are just as passionate about teaching Indonesian as I am. All the more impressive as they also manage family commitments and businesses on top of their teaching load! I salute them.
Our hub group meets every holiday to plan upcoming units of work, to share ideas and resources and for Australian Curriculum training & development. We have noticed how our sharing has changed significantly over the past few years. Originally we would come to our meetings laden with text books, worksheets and video/DVD’s. Now we bring laptops and/or iPads and everything we swap is digital! Sharon introduced us all to the beauty of hard drives and now we can’t imagine how we coped previously without one!
We met yesterday (mid term!) for ACARA T & D. Our mission was to plan a unit of work that aligns with our new curriculum for term 1 2015, so that we can collect work samples from our students for moderation. When Annie first raised the plan, I had misgivings because I was unsure how it would fit in with my TPRS plans for 2015. I was worried that I would have to choose between collaborating and TPRS. Then I changed my mind and considered the possibility and benefits of being able to collect data to compare TPRS methodology with traditional non-TPRS methodology.
Imagine my surprise and delight when all teachers present at the hub group meeting yesterday expressed interest in learning more about TPRS and are really keen to start incorporating it into their teaching in 2015!! A fellow teacher who has also recently discovered TPRS has described our passion for TPRS as bordering on obsessive and that we are more like evangelists. Even though I was severely sleep deprived yesterday, advocating TPRS proved to be an instant antidote!
Together we planned an 8 lesson unit which will lend itself beautifully to a TPRS introduction as well as consolidating the language students will need for introducing themselves during skype sessions with our sister school that we are hoping to participate in ahead of their visit in September. The assessable task we have planned is for students to create a dialogue using specific targeted language and then in groups of 3 make an iMovie which will be assessed by their peers.
It aligned beautifully with the Indonesian Curriculum and the discussion we had finalising this was useful as it helped us all refresh our knowledge of the new curriculum terminology as well as sharing pointers we have picked up recently at either conferences or from school based training.
The day flew by and when Sharon mentioned she would have to leave soon to do the school pick up run, we all were amazed to realise that except for a very brief lunch interlude (thank you Annie for the delicious chickpea salad) we had been working solidly for 5 hours!

A Brief Introduction to the Guru, Stephen Krashen……

9 Nov 20149 Nov 2014Leave a comment

Last week, in my step 9 review meeting with my principal, we discussed my use of TPRS/CI in my Indonesian Language classroom and my desire to further develop TPRS proficiency in 2015.

He alikened TPRS with immersion, which was a light bulb moment for me. I suddenly realised that so far in my blogging, I haven’t introduced you to Stephen Krashen or his theories which underpin every aspect of TPRS.

Who is Stephen Krashen?
Stephen Krashen is professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, who moved from the linguistics department to the faculty of the School of Education in 1994. He is a linguist, educational researcher, and activist.
Source: Wikipedia

Watch this short clip taken from a lecture Stephen Krashen gave university students demonstrating the difference between ‘immersion’ and ‘TPRS/CI’.

Krashen’s theory of Language Acquisition is based on the following five hypotheses:
1. The Acquisition-Learning hypothesis
2. The Monitor hypothesis
3. The Input hypothesis
4. The Natural Order hypothesis
5. The Affective Filter hypothesis.

Across the Internet, many people quote Krashen:

Source: http://thelanguagedojo.com/2012/09/7-awesome-dr-stephen-krashen-quotes/

I hope you have found this post interesting. Hopefully this major jigsaw puzzle piece contributes to your understanding of TPRS and also helps clarify the big difference between ‘immersion’ and TPRS/CI; two entirely different pedagogies.

If you are interested in learning more about Stephen Krashen, I highly recommend this article:
http://www.teslcanadajournal.ca/index.php/tesl/article/viewFile/951/770

Indonesian Teacher Reflections

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Category: TPRS/CI