This year I am making an effort to include songs in my TPRS teaching, especially if they contain vocab clumps that I have used, am using or going to use! Music sticks! I still remember songs from my French lessons 40 years (gulp) ago.

From year one to three, we have been learning ‘Naik, Naik’. Pretty song and easy to learn. I sing it and play the ukulele, then show students the actions for each line. As I gesture, I explain what it means in English. Then I show students a series of pictures that match with phrases in the song. They volunteer to stand out the front and hold up each line as we sing it. By the time everyone has had a turn at holding a ‘Kartu’ and we sing a final time with actions, students have heard the song about 7 times and (most) are not bored yet!

eg.     Naik, naik                                                    ke puncak gunung

When ‘naik’ comes up in a story, they already know it!

The song below is the next one I will learn on the ukulele, the kids love my ‘little guitar’! I have a book called ‘Koleksi 100 Lagu Anak Indonesia Terpopular’ that I bought in Indonesia. It came with a CD but the book has music and guitar/ukulele chords, so it is great!

Heli is an easy catchy little ‘lagu’ that also happens to contain one of the super 7 verbs ‘punya’ so it will be great for my students. We can also substitute the ‘aku’ for student names and change the ‘anjing’ to pets my students have. See link below for youtube version of the song.

Heli – song with ‘punya’