Since I have been blogging for a little bit, I find it can be cumbersome to visit all of the archives to get ideas. This is my attempt to consolidate these ideas bit by bit. First up are 15 games for the FL classroom. I have this as a Google Doc link, so I can modify it as time goes on. Most of these are not my ideas, and I tried to give credit where credit was due. I also added on some extra games that were not originally on my blog for those that have read all of my games. Enjoy!
Last term, the middle primary classes continued their focus on our school with the aim of creating a digital book about PEPS for our sister school. After listening to recommendations from other teachers about the best app to use, I settled on Book Creator for several reasons. A main one being that one of the teachers who recommended it was also using it, so it made sense that we explored it together.
Each of the 4 classes had specific areas of our school to focus on, to ensure that each area was covered. Then, from those, students could chose one for their own writing. Each class then brainstormed for ways in which to incorporate a verb in a very simple sentence about school areas. I wrote them all down and then as a class, we translated each of the sentences. Most classes ended up with a sentence similar to, “I like playing in the gym” which translates nicely: ‘Saya suka bermain di aula’. Each class then voted on the sentence they preferred and they then had to write a sentence about their area using the model that they had both chosen & translated! This worked very well because it gave the more capable students scope for imagination and creativity and for those struggling with aspects of literacy, provided them with a sentence they could either use entirely or change very slightly.
I then introduced the iPads that I had bought with my grant monies. With the first class, I walked them through the basics of Book Creator, but luckily the following day we had a student free ICT focus day where we discussed how students can develop 21st Century skills by working it out by all themselves. So with the next class, I gave out the iPads and the only heads up I gave them was the name of the app and what had to be included in their book – a front cover, their sentence written in English & Indonesian and a recording of them saying their sentences. I encouraged them to firstly try themselves, if that failed, then to try 2 more things before asking a friend. I was the absolute last option – mainly because I was also learning how to use it. For the first Book Creator lesson with each class, I finished the lesson with the students all sitting on the floor in a circle with the iPads. This allowed those still working to continue working while listening. In this forum, students who either were still stumped on an aspect had the opportunity to ask publicly or even better, for students who had discovered something really cool, to share it with the others. I remember vividly one class where a student had worked out how to enlarge the text, change the font and change the colour of a page and as that student shared, everyone was following along and experimenting with their own ‘book’! It was so exciting.
Students very quickly grasped the finer points of Book Creator. Students originally were in teams of 2-4 as there are only 5 iPads in the Indonesian classroom. I did this mainly to encourage collaboration, but with a task such as this was, more than 2 students to an iPad meant that the waiting time was too for some of them, so I ended up borrowing the recently purchased bank of 8 which improved the student/iPad ratio significantly.
It wasn’t till the holidays that I had a chance to look at the final products. I then learned that one of the features available in Book Creator is that the books can be combined, so I had this great idea where I could amalgamate all the books into one large book, but this great idea was disbanded very quickly when I discovered that to combine books, all books had to have the same page format and be on the same iPad. I also discovered that to combine, the first book has to include the front cover for them all as all subsequent front covers are not included.Still, it is a great idea and one that could be very useful.
Following are some of the things I love about using Book Creator in the classroom:
– If project has sound, it can be exported entirely to ibooks, the camera roll or even emailed (the quality deteriorates with this last option)
– airdropping to another iPad’s camera roll is possible & very easy
– If exported as a PDF, sound is lost
– Not only can students record their voices, they can also video themselves and import that into a project!
-Students can import photos or draw pictures
– to add to a blog, upload straight to Youtube!
If I could change aspects of Book Creator, all I would do is:
-To export projects from iPad to iPad so that projects can be combined
Finally here is a note to self for the next time I use Book Creator in the Indonesian Classroom:
1. Remind students not to use their surnames
2. Have students using the same iPad to use the same page for each project, so the combine pages is an option.
3. The title of a book must reflect the content of the book and the title and author names also need to be written underneath each project.
4. Each project would look finished with a back cover – maybe incorporating a kenalkan!
Have you used Book Creator in the Indonesian classroom successfully? My students all absolutely loved it and have repeatedly asked when we are next using iPads again!
This semester, much to their delight, junior primary classes are learning about volcanoes. It is a topic that students have asked to do for quite a while. When I first covered this topic many years ago, I bought a plastic model of a volcano.
It used to sit on a shelf behind my desk and was constantly drawing comments and requests from students. It now sits in my cupboard with my enormous dice which also piqued student curiosity!
Can you imagine their delight when it emerged from the cupboard and not only that, I opened it (not easy as the tabs fit so snuggly) and we then talked about the parts of a volcano. My students are full of questions about volcanoes and for the first time, I am not being the font of all knowledge. I am trialling the idea of putting our questions up onto twitter or putting the onus back on the students to help find the answers. With the first batch of questions, I have recorded them and we should be able to tick off a few now. Here are the questions from one of our reception classes:
After tomorrows lesson we should be able to tick off some.
This week, I wanted to incorporate some Indonesian language into a topic that has been largely conducted in English so far. We revised the terms we learned last week (magma chamber, vent, ash cloud & lava) through a great youtube video (Geography lesson: What is a Volcano) and then students worked collaboratively in groups to create a volcano using construction paper & Brenex squares. I explained that they had to decide as a group how they created the picture, the only thing that had to do was correctly affix the labels ‘gunung api’ & ‘lahar’.
The results are amazing and make a very colourful display!
What fantastic advice! Last year while traveling around Indonesia, I gave several speeches in Indonesian, all of which were nerve wracking. In each case, I wrote out my speech and then read it to my audience (which was usually the staff and students from an entire school!) verbatim. It is definitely a skill I need to perfect and one I actually want to perfect. >
6 Must-Know Tips for Giving a Presentation in a Foreign Language
Posted on 14. Oct, 2013 by meaghan in Language Learning
Speaking in a foreign language can be a challenge in and of itself—giving a presentation in a foreign language makes that challenge even more…. well, challenging. Whether you’re presenting to your classmates, your co-workers, or your community, you’ll want to practice a little harder than normal. These tips will help you perfect your presentation, leaving minds blown rather than tongues tied.
6 Must-Know Tips for Giving a Presentation in a Foreign Language from Transparent Language, Inc.
1. Don’t script yourself.
Practice, practice, practice—but don’t memorize. Scripting yourself is a terrible idea for any presentation, regardless of language. It doesn’t make for a very compelling or natural presentation, and you might panic if you forget or veer away from your script, especially if it’s in another language!
Instead, narrow your focus. Acquire the specific vocabulary you need to discuss your topic, but rely on what you already know to fill in the gaps. Practice speaking about your topic out loud to yourself, so you’ll be prepared to improvise when all eyes are on you.
2. Prepare notes.
Didn’t I just tell you not to script your presentation? Yes I did, but here’s the loophole: prepare notes! Add speaker notes to your slides or jot down major points on a set of notecards. Do not read directly off these notecards! The less you look at them, the better.
The placebo effect of notecards is powerful—knowing you have an important statistic or difficult word in the language written down in front of you should make you less nervous that you’ll forget it. And just in case you do forget it, voila, there it is.
3. Practice speaking.
This is an obvious one, but seriously, if you’re preparing to speak in front of people for an extended period, you need to be comfortable speaking in the language in general.
You want to be comfortable speaking about your specific topic, but also in using the language fluidly and confidently. Talk out loud to yourself in your second language as much as you can—around the house, in the shower, while driving, etc. Say whatever it is you want! Rage about that guy who cut you off on the drive home, talk about what you want to do this weekend, make up a story about your neighbors who just walked by. Get comfortable pronouncing the language and speaking it fluidly. Then practice the specifics of your presentation.
4. Keep it simple.
When you present, you want to sound intelligent and compelling. There’s nothing wrong with that. But when you present in another language, focus first on being understood and making your point.
Trying to sound sophisticated only works if you actually sound… sophisticated! But if you mispronounce the big words you insisted upon using and mumble through those prolific examples you just had to include, you’re actually hurting your cause. Keep it simple and within the reach of your current language skills. Impress people with your message itself, not the way you phrase the message. Besides, giving a presentation in your second language is impressive enough as it is.
5. Don’t apologize. (In Indonesia, disregard the first part of this. I learned that it is considered good manners to begin speaking with a rider – Mohon maaf kalau ada yg salah)
Do not start off by apologizing for your language skills (or lack thereof). Instead of making that excuse for yourself, be aware of your shortcomings and address them without drawing attention to them.
If you have a thick accent when speaking in your second language, speak slower than you normally would so your audience can understand you. If you mispronounce a word, don’t get flustered or laugh it off—say it again once or twice so your listeners can catch on. Writing off your mistakes to the fact that “this is your second language” won’t challenge you to get better and do it right.
6. Be culturally appropriate.
This isn’t related to the language, but it’s just as important as the advice above. Unless it’s a class assignment, chances are you’re giving your presentation in another language because you’re abroad. If that’s the case, research the culture of your audience.
Be aware of hand gestures or facial expressions that are potentially offensive. Figure out if humor is well-received, or if you should show your personality in another way. Speak to colleagues or native speakers who are aware of the culture—and while you’re at it, practice giving your presentation to them!
I recently bought 4 iPads using the SA e-partnerships with our sister school grant monies and these have increased my total number of iPads in the Indonesian room to 5, which although is awesome, still means a 1:6 ratio of iPads to students. Our one Skype session with our sister school was very successful and after reading about one class having several Skyping conversation happening simultaneously in a classroom, I have visions of that happening in the Indonesian classroom before the end of the year with our sister school, Bakti Mulyar 400, using the iPads!
But in the meantime, I began exploring another way to use Skype in the Indonesian classroom. Early this term, 3 fellow teachers and our principal attended the EduTech conference in Qld and their tweet about mystery skype appealed to me. I immediately went online and read up about it.
How exciting. Asking yes/no questions to discover the location of another class! I could instantly see the benefits of undertaking this with students or an individual in Indonesia. It sounded brilliant, so I began the next step of finding a Mystery Skype partner.
I firstly looked at the pages of those in Indonesia who had listed themselves as being interested in Mystery Skype. 
I chose all up about 10 and sent them all either an email or a tweet. Not one replied.
It seemed that finding someone in Indonesia to mysteryskype is not straight forward and that is for many reasons. Foremost because I began as the Indonesian school year was about to finish hence all schools, staff & students were caught up with national exams, report writing and end of year functions. Then, as soon as the school year finished, Ramadan and school holidays began!
Selamat menjalankan bulan suci Ramadhan untuk semua keluarga saya yang beragama muslim dan untuk semua temanku tersayang.. semoga kalian semua mendapatkan berkat terbaik dibulan puasa ini.
Thanks to the wonderful Ayu Ambrini for the awesome translation.
So, to get around this, I next wrote a generic invitation on Twitter using the hashtag #mysteryskype.
And again no one except for @MysterySkype replied and they were just reminding me where to look for partners, but that was all. So disappointing but I persevered.
At this point I realised that I probably should consult with the 2 upper primary classes I had in mind for mystery skyping and determine their level of enthusiasm. They agreed it was amazing and are very keen to try it but you could have knocked me over with a feather when both classes unanimously decided to delay mystery skyping till term 3 so that they could complete their current project! My constant reminders of time management must have had some impact!
This took the pressure off, but I continued to stalk @mysteryskype on Twitter and finally I made contact with a teacher in Beijing which was sooo exciting. No sooner had I shared the exciting development with colleagues, it fell through. That teacher is off to Poland now, so unless his class are happy to mystery skype at some ungodly hour, I will have to sadly pass on his offer of giving it another go.
I then had the brainwave of finding an Indonesian class somewhere else in Australia. I contacted Penny Coutas, a high school Indonesian and ICT teacher in WA, only to discover that WA and many other state education departments block Skype!! Here is a QLD Languages teachers blog post about this.
It is now the mid year holidays in Australia and it feels teachers all around the world are currently on holidays! While Australian teachers are busy with midyear planning, American teachers are busy preparing mysteryskype sessions for their new school year. So strange!
On appsgonefree today I found the time.is app which is fantastic for discovering the cities and countries that are the best time wise for us to mystery skype with. Interestingly Vladivostok would be perfect!! Wonder what their internet connection is like! 
So I am going to continue my search for classes or individuals who are not on school holidays and hopefully have the opportunity to organise a mystery Skype lesson for later in the term.
One of the aspects of mystery Skyping that I just love the sound of and am so keen to explore is that it relies heavily on student collaboration. The idea of having all students working together in ‘committees’ with a student supervisor overseeing it all is something I can’t wait to both witness and experience. I also acknowledge that this is not something that all students will comprehend nor be entirely comfortable with, so am prepared to work with classes beforehand to ensure its success. If only I could be more confident about locating people to mystery Skype with because, I could easily do a whole terms work on it. It fits in beautifully with the Languages Curriculum in regard to creating global citizens.
I am really interested to hear from other Australian teachers who have successfully Mystery Skyped.
As I was checking my Twitter account, I followed a link leading to an EdTech’s (Must Read) K – 12 Blog Honor (sic) Roll.’ ‘ Here it is.
I looked at a few of the blogs on the list and they are amazing but with a definite North American view.
It really started me thinking. Firstly do we have quality EDTechies blogging to create an Australian Honour Roll? Of course we do!! While I love the enthusiasm of the USA blogs, I would prefer blogs relevant to me, to my teaching and most importantly based on the Australian Curriculum.
So I tweeted to ask just that question and within minutes had my first reply!:
I next thought about what criteria I would consider to be of value to someone like me; i.e. a practicing teacher. What would I find of value to read about in blogs?
Following are the dot points I came up with:
-Australian
-High focus on using technology to support Australian Curriculum
-current practicing teacher or one who is working with teachers
-focus on global learning
-creating digital citizens
-grappling with the Australian Curriculum
-A Languages & Culture focus (would be awesome!)
-Great ideas on how to achieve all of the above
So maybe if I am searching for such a blog, others are too? Could this be the direction this blog could head in because surely I am not the only (Languages) teacher out there searching for blogs that include all of the above dot points! While I am in no way an EDTech guru, I am happy to share my explorations but would love to share with others at the same skill level but more importantly would love to read blogs from those with more EDTECH skills and knowledge and working in the classroom.
Any other ideas to add to my list of criteria? Add a comment!!
My head is still spinning after a fantastic day full of pedagogically challenging ideas. Congratulations and kudos to Kathy Turley, Sandy Warner, Brenton Hudson & Jodie Allsop for their efforts and organisation.
The day was divided up into 3 sessions. Selena Woodward led the first 2 sessions which left me totally exhausted physically and mentally! She began with a prezi presentation which I especially enjoyed as it is the first time I have seen one ‘in action’. The main focus of the first session was Google Earth and how to use it in the classroom to support the Geography and History curriculums. We learned how to create a tour, how to tweak the available properties, how to save it and then enjoyed sitting back and looking at the tours made by others. Writing it down like that makes it sound so straight forward and easy, yet I was totally washed out at lunch and could barely summon the energy to enjoy the delicious wraps provided!
During the 2nd session, we had planned to explore timelines, yet all agreed it was better to use the time to better master Google Earth. Right at the end of her session, Selena introduced us to AR Media Player which gave most of us our first ever opportunity to explore ‘augmented reality’. It was soooo cool. Using the ARPlayer app, we viewed this graphic
and suddenly on top of the graphic, a beautiful alfa romeo appeared.
Here is a photo of Sandy holding it!
Turns out there are a variety of options available, yet sadly none are directly authentically Indonesian however there is also an option to create your own, so that would have to be the next obvious direction worth exploring! The shark one was awesome and we discovered that once the shark image is on the screen, you can rotate the image using your fingers!
The afternoon session was led by our PEPS team fresh back from the EduTech conference and all bursting with wonderful experiences to share with us all. We began with a drawing exercise which demonstrated very well how teacher can sometimes unwittingly stiffle creativity. Next we watched a Sugata Mitra video from TedTalk (totally recommend that you google this) about his computer hole in the wall experiment which naturally would be fascinating to replicate in Indonesia! We were also given the opportunity to think about our classroom spaces and how we could improve them to further foster creativity & collaboration.
However it was the session run by our principal which really hit the spot for me. He posted a quote in last weeks staff bulletin:
which really challenged me as a language teacher. How can a language teacher not teach content? How do we develop student proficiency without teaching content? He then introduced the concept that teaching today is not about imparting information, it is all about teaching 21st Century skills.
We were then invited to look at the General Capabilities, focusing on the Key Processes. We underlined all the key processes and I ended up with a list of words like:
reproduce
recognise
develop
understand
observe,
imitating
describing
predicting
comparing
translating
connecting
experimenting
reflecting
monitoring
performing.
Focusing on these words, it became clearer for all of us that any program based on these skills would be incredibly engaging and far more relevant for todays students than purely focusing on the content. It also ties in beautifully with globalisation and creating world citizens which is what underpins the entire Australian Curriculum.
What a fantastic day and perfect timing for me, with our time spent with Andrea only a few weeks ago!
A couple of Sundays ago, three Indonesian teachers from the Fleurieu Indonesian teachers Hub Group met with Andrea Costen, an Indonesian teacher currently working in 2 Adelaide High school settings.
The 3 of us have, for varying reasons, been impatient to begin our investigation of the Languages Curriculum and therefore have been planning this meeting for months. While INTAN has/had a curriculum forum planned for later this term, we invited Andrea to come and give us an introduction beforehand and now we are so glad we did.
We met at one of our homes which was lovely because while we were learning, we could listen at times and lift our eyes to the beautiful grounds and views that surrounded her home. It was a glorious day, and the view simply was the icing to the cake and just added to the discussion that was happening inside.
We each had a copy of the revised draft Australian Curriculum: Languages Indonesian.all 93 pages of it! I had forgotten that it actually includes 2 pathways and we only really needed the first – Foundation to Year 10 Sequence however it was valuable to also have a copy of the Years 7 – 10 (Year 7 Entry) Sequence too and understand where it fits in!
We began the workshop by peppering Andrea with questions mainly about programming and other nuts and bolts aspects of applying the curriculum in the classroom. With 2015 looming fast, we explained our urgency. All 3 of us will have or have had significant amounts of leave over 2013-2015 and we each are concerned about the resulting gaps which will impact on its application and implementation in the classroom.
However Andrea immediately put us at ease by informing us that it was recently brought to her attention that 2015 has been identified as being a year of familiarisation and at this stage the Languages Curriculum will not be mandated until 2016. Music to our ears!
Andrea next introduced us to the language in the curriculum, the layout and illustrated her points with examples from her own teaching. It was so inspiring.
We began our journey through the Languages Curriulum at the very beginning with the Band Descriptors which describe the learners.
There are 2 major strands
– Communicating &
– Understanding.
The sub-strands for Communicating are:
Socialising
Informing
Creating
Translating
Reflecting
& for Understanding are:
systems of Language
Language Variation and Change
Role of Language & Culture
Content Descriptions are the compulsory and required content elements whereas the Content Elaborations are purely illustrative suggestions.
I emerged from the workshop busting with enthusiasm to trial some of her ideas the following week! I also emerged with pages and pages of notes which I will edit and include because I am hoping others will find them interesting and thought provoking too.
‘Identity’ is a concept underpinned throughout the entire Curriculum. This helps remove the ‘strangeness’ & foreignness’ from language teaching which in turn increases tolerance. Teachers use language & culture ‘hooks’ to connect their students.
Intercultural teaching is big picture thinking and not the 5 F’s. It promotes deeper thinking and understandings.
Instead of having a set task for each class to complete to represent and measure the learning covered during a term theme, could we at the primary level instead pose an inquiry question based on what teacher and students believe to be the most important understanding we want to know as a result of the term theme? For example, What role does schooling play in the community? Or, How do we take care of ourselves and others? How do we promote good health?
Language teaching should be about encouraging thinking rather than about providing answers.
This can be achieved by asking students about what we need to know and then listing the points which can then be ticked off as they are each covered. It could also include asking students to contribute to the list of key vocabulary to be introduced/revised. I love this idea. I do begin each topic with a list of vocabulary which is often targeted through flashcards and games. I have in the past simply added any student initiated words however I realise that this in itself demonstrates how teacher centric my teaching is. This is going to be extremely challenging for me with my current stye of teaching yet also very exciting and leads perfectly to my next dot point.
In learning about the new Languages Curriuclum, Indonesian teachers should play with the shift in thinking rather than in the shift in programming. The shift is in pedagogy.
Know your students. Andrea gave examples of how she had surveyed her students to discover what other languages they had learned or already spoke. This is definitely something I would like to investigate further with my students. I asked my upper primary classes the following Monday about this and discovered that not only did we have students who spoke Punjabi and Greek, but one of our recently returned students from the APY lands speaks Pititjantjara! That was very exciting because a group of Year 6-7’s are currently preparing for a 10 day school bus trip to the AYP Lands! It also gave students the opportunity to consider what level of fluency gives you the right to say you speak a language. Being able to say “Aloha” does not make one fluent in Hawaiian!
Andrea then finished off with some homework tasks for us. Here they are:
1. Look at the ACARA website and familiarise ourselves with it. Look through one of the subject areas and explore how everything is set out because that is how the Languages Curriculum will be.
2. Design a profiling tool to get to know our students. Andrea shared hers, a survey she asked all students to complete.
3. Look at the achievement standards and look at how they are sequenced and build in complexity.
Once again, a huge thanks to Andrea for meeting with us down here on the Fleurieu and providing us with so much information on the revised Curriculum- Indonesian.
Last weekend I posted on the Indonesian class blog about the vocabulary students have been focusing on this term. One of my colleagues commented that she too would like to learn some of this vocabulary which immediately set me thinking about the ways in which I could achieve that.
I am very impressed with my brainwave, as were the students who were only too happy to assist me with my plan.
Here it is:
I ran off a black and white copy of certain flashcards and then handed them out to students. Their task was to illustrate one of the words clearly so that their classroom teacher could ‘translate’ them immediately on sight. Students did a brilliant job and when they were laminated, the colours became even more vibrant.
I had great pleasure delivering the first set to Sandy W. on Thursday with a packet of blutack so that she can now label classroom objects around her room eg, the clock, the door, the white board, etc.
I now look forward to hearing the feedback from students about Sandy’s efforts of using and understanding these words in her classroom!
This idea could word well with the prepositional language I am planning to introduce this week to uper primary students! as well as reviewing classroom objects. Imagine a picture of “pena diatas lem”
This is one of my favorite party games, which Ashley VanHemert so brilliantly reminded me to use in the classroom! She heard of the idea from Amy Wright at UAF. This is an excellent activity for Preferred Activity Time.
STEP ONE: Give each student one side of this form (I put two forms/page to save paper):
Write, Draw, Pass *Updated on 03/26/2012
STEP TWO: You have several options. In Box #1, in the target language, …
**Make sure students only include colors if you are planning to use crayons or colored…
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Indonesian Teacher Reflections 