Finally I have a chance to sit and write a blog – my first since the beginning of this year! I feel like this year has been very hectic and overwhelming.

The first story I asked this year with my Year 2s and 3s was an adaption of Blaine Ray’s kangaroo story as told to us at the conference in January. I used an elephant, mainly because 1) it is an Indonesian animal and 2) I had a very big one and a very small one handy!

It went like this (underlined words are characters students came up with):

Ada laki-laki. Nama dia John Cena. John Cena tidak senang. John Cena mau gajah.

Ada perempuan. Nama perempuan Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift punya gajah besar. Taylor Swift tidak senang. Taylor Swift mau gajah kecil.

Ibu Anne punya gajah kecil. Ibu Anne senang!

Taylor Swift beri John Cena gajah. John Cena senang. 

Ibu Anne beri Taylor Swift gajah kecil. Taylor Swift senang. 

Ibu Anne senang? Tidak!

The beauty of this story is that kids expect that Taylor Swift will be happy because she has a big elephant. But she isn’t! It really hooks them in!

‘Punya’, ‘beri’ and ‘mau’ were revision words from last year. I wanted to see if my students had really acquired them. We had used ‘senang sekali’ but not senang, so I began by telling students what it meant, then asking PQA, ‘Susi senang?’ ‘Ronald senang?’ ‘O, kelas, Ronald tidak senang! Kenapa tidak senang, Ronald?’

I then began asking the story, getting names of characters from the class. I brought actors to the front and used the giant and small elephant. It was very engaging! Afterwards, I gave the students a quick quiz 10 Q and was happy to note most scored 9 or 10.

The following week, I asked the students as a group to retell the story as I drew pictures, cartoon style, on a large piece of paper. I carefully questioned them to elicit correct details. Then I asked if anyone wanted to ‘read’ the pictures. Here is a sample year 3 video of the result. I was stoked! I realised some of my pictures needed improving because when students hesitated it was because they couldn’t remember what my picture was or it did not contain enough cues.

I also prepared a powerpoint cerita 1 2017 story about a principal who wanted chocolate, and then converted the powerpoint to a movie. We read the story together in class and I gave it to students as year 3 HW. Not all students completed the activity, but for those who did it gave me some valuable feedback, as I asked for comments from the parents as well as a signature. I made it into a class competition – the year 2 winning class would have a special treat (we haven’t decided what yet) as well as the winning Year 3 class. I placed the movie on my youtube channel Indonesian Fun for Juniors as extra support for those students who may have struggled with the reading.