THE MIND GAME

DREAM CATCHERS are one of the most fascinating tradition of Native Americans. It was so fascinating that a famous thriller author wrote about it.


          DREAM CATCHER is a book by Stephen King, which years later is made into movie. I enjoy both version, I prefer the book, though. In this book, the author visualized the mind is like a library, our memories are like books they are stored in files and folders in orders. What is interesting about this storing management is that we can trace our memory. Our mind is a nature wonder. It can store millions and billions of data. And the capacity is unknown.
       

          I would like to underline the library part. I believe that we still in an worshiping books era. That's why we still need libraries to store them. Have you ever heard about Dewey Decimal System? It is a system used to categorize and find books easier. But we don't use that system in our mind. One thing I can suggest is mind mapping.

          Well, mind mapping has everything to do with our mind and drawing a map, of our mind ,of course. Tony Buzan has a wonderful way in teaching mind mapping and its usage, he even wrote mind mapping for kids. Picture on the left is one example of the most interesting ones. So, I suggest that we should apply content based learning. Start with something within the students' comfort zone, i.e. their hobbies, pets, favorite holiday destination, favorite movie or song or reading material. Just check out the link at the bottom of my post.


          Mind mapping is only one of many ways in improving vocabulary acquisition. non-native teachers like us can practice with this activity. The point is we have to know more and better even love the material we are teaching to ensure the students. Well, next post, I'm going to share about other thing. Thank you for reading my post. God speed.

With Love From Malang



http://www.giftediam.com/early-education/5-simple-ways-to-get-your-kids-started-with-mind-mapping

DIGESTING THE VOCABULARY

ECALLING THE QUESTION OF USING THE VOCABULARY SIZE TEST, IT IS PRETTY AWESOME. IN MY CLASS, MY STUDENTS LOVE IT! THOUGH THEY HAVE DIFFICULTY IN MOST OF THE PARTS, THEY ENJOY DOING IT, OF COURSE, AFTER THEY ARE TOLD ABOUT THE OBJECTIVES OF THE TEST.

     

o you know what objective did I tell them? I told them: having a test is the same with playing a game; we just repeating the same methodology that we already know but in a different platform. What is easy to guess when it comes to students? We know it well that they love to move, love playing, doing something "unimportant". What they think "unimportant" is actually just a lure that I design for them to be willingly involved in the learning process.

       

hen I asked them what their opinion would be if I gave them bilingual test, they said that would be a waste of time. So, based on the the response of 65% of total students, time allocation and arrangement at  school, and also government limitation, we conclude that a bilingual test won't be useful.

         

       

As for the sense of learning vocabulary itself, we can take a look at the picture on the left. Many wise people say that we can not put anything into a full bottle. As to people, we will not eat anything if we don't feel hungry or empty. First, we have to eat the food, chew it in our mouth, swallow it, sometimes we need water to moist our throat. Next, our digestion system will process it with the enzyme. After that our blood and O2 will carry useful nutrition and other things all over our body.

If we assume that the food here is vocabulary, chewing means observing (reading or listening or watching). Our mouth is like the eyes or ears or senses. Water is like the learning design which help them get the material or food. The digestion system is like the habit of the students in daily life. Having the food all over our body means that we can apply the vocabulary in everyday usage.
          

o, I have an idea! I would share with you about anything you want to ask about conducting a fun test and not losing our time too much on checking the test.

Feel free to contact me via this blog and I will help with open arms. Just remember one thing that our target language is English and English is a foreign language to most of our students. So, don't get tired reminding them every time we meet them, but do it in different ways. So that both of the students and the teachers won't get bored.

Learning Vocabulary is like having a beautiful pony.
Hard to get, difficult to tame but
worth to keep.

Week 1 December 2013

Good morning teachers,

Thank to those of you who posted their ideas on assessment in November. I could see that you not only wrote your ideas but also put an effort to provide comments of your colleagues’ writing. It was fantastic to see more people posted in November. It is also lovely to have more people who tried to catch up with other participants. It would be superb to hear from more of you in December. I am eager to see the rest of your posts and comments on the readings soon!

This December I have one of my supervisors posting for you all. Once you have written your own blog post, please read other posts on the topic and continue the discussion by adding comments, or even creating another blog post.

Please remember that your active participation in this blog will be used to issue a certificate of participation at the end of the study. You also go in the draw to win one of four autographed-books by Professor Paul Nation - a world-renowned TESOL scholar. The winner for November is Ibu Agnes Endah of SMAK Kolese Santo Yusuf Malang.

If you have any problems or questions, please do not hesitate to let me know!

Cheers,

Anik Wulyani

Averil Coxhead

Kia ora tatou/greetings to everyone

My name is Averil Coxhead and I am writing to you because I'm interested in vocabulary teaching and learning in your context.  I thought it might make an interesting discussion for your blogs.  I think vocabulary is one of the most important aspects of learning another language - you could say vocabulary is a passion of mine.

I have found a text about vocabulary and language education written by Professor Paul Nation - one of our professors here at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.  In this short article, he discusses learning and teaching vocabulary through different kinds of classroom tasks and from different approaches.  For your blogs, I would like you to read the article and comment on Nation's ideas and their connection to your classroom, your learners, and your context. For example, you might like to comment on the five principles he outlines later in the article, or you might like to discuss aspects of vocabulary such as fluency, learning through listening, and learner responsibility. Please visit this link: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/publications/paul-nation/2006-Language-education-vocabulary.pdf

Another thing you could try is Nation's Vocabulary Size Test - take the 20,000 version on this link - http://my.vocabularysize.com/.  You could test your own vocabulary size and consider your results, and then perhaps test some of your students and see how they do. How useful is this vocabulary size test in your context?  Do you think a bilingual Indonesian/English vocabulary size test might be more useful?  Why/Why not? 

Best wishes and I look forward to your discussion.

Averil Coxhead

Response to Less Teaching More Learning & PjBL (Project Based Learning)

Dear Mrs. AnikWulyani (sorry for being late),

I have just read the articles entitled “Less Teaching, More Learning” and “Project-Based Learning.” In my point of view, these articles tend to give information about the education in other countries. Therefore, we can compare it to Indonesian education which used to apply “More Teaching, Less Learning.” It was just like when I still became a student of Senior High School. I often heard the teachers’ explanation instead of doing presentations, projects, etc. Nothing wrong with the teachers at that time as they just did what the government ordered, just like the recent timeJ That is why, personally I agree with the concept of “Less Teaching, More Learning”. Here I give my reasons why I said so.

                Firstly, I think the concept of “Less Teaching, More Learning” has a close meaning with the words “Learning by Doing”. By doing something by the students themselves means there will be three steps of it, those are planning, doing, and evaluating. The students can feel, hear, see, smell, and remember even every step they have taken. If it succeeds, sometimes the students will feel that they once had the best experience in their life and it will become an unforgettable moment.

                Secondly, there are three kinds of learning styles such as auditory, visual, and kinesthetic styles. Auditory students can grasp easily anything related to sounds or voice. Visual students can grasp easily anything related to objects, pictures, drawing, and so on. Kinesthetic students can grasp easily when they share and discuss anything with others. So, it seems that “More Teaching, Less Learning” concept is only suitable with the students who have auditory styles. On the other hand, the other types of students will feel difficult to grasp the materials. They will feel bored or sleepy listening to the teachers’ explanation.

                However, there are some challenges that Indonesia will have faced if the concept of “Less Teaching, More Learning” and “Project-Based Learning” are implemented, such as minimum facilities and human resources. Just imagine if the students want to conduct some presentations but the school has no LCD or do some projects but they have no money for buying the stuff that they need. Teachers also take an important role here. They should be able to manage the class well when they are teaching because “Less Teaching, More Learning” does not mean the teachers do not do anything in the classroom. They should be a good facilitator for the students to grasp what they need in learning process.

                Fortunately, various innovations and improvements have been conducted by the Indonesia government since long time ago. It means that the government actually wants the education in Indonesia to be better and better. This high motivation becomes a good support to implement the new concepts of “Less Teaching, More Learning” and “Project-Based Learning” as we can see them in the government’s new product this year, Curriculum 2013. Designed by many education experts, Curriculum 2013 has implemented the learning process activities called 5M (Observing=mengamati, Questioning=menanya, Exploring=mengeksplorasi, Associating=mengasosiasi, and Communicating=mengomunikasikan) and it has been developed until next year. It also uses some learning approaches such as Project-Based Learning, Discovery Learning, Problem-Based Learning, etc within the learning process activities. Until next year, there will always be improvements, developments, and evaluations during the implementation of Curriculum 2013. I think there is a new hope that Indonesia education can be better than before.

Students Are the Master of Their Own Grader

In learning English, students have their own ways and methods. Some students think that they enjoy learning English through doing some exercises related to grammar or writing skills. Other students might think that by practicing English in terms of speaking will enhance their ability. On the other hand, the tests done in school will cover all skills which are reading, listening, speaking, and writing. That means students have to deal with this situation in class. As the consequences, students who realize that they are weak in one skill would feel insecure on how they should deal with the tests they do not really master at. There must be a solution for this.
 

Since the teachers will grade the students, they should do it wisely. Teachers should not just take the score from written tests but also from the students’ performance in class.  Some actively-speaking students should get some appreciation from the teacher because they often dare enough to speak up, while others do not. Although that speaker-kind-of student has weakness in writing, their performance in speaking should cover their English comprehension in so-called a “unique way”.
 

In Indonesia, the use of scoring rubric in class is getting popular. Especially in English subject, teachers should develop a fine and appropriate rubric which later students use to grade one another. This is quite fair since students will be assessed based on the students’ judgment and the teacher’s rubric as well. These two considerations in scoring will benefit students. First, students will know how well they are performing since there are some criteria that they should achieve based on the rubric. Second, students will experience how to score someone’s performance based on the rubric given.
 

This is the actual matter that we, the English teachers, should focus on. We should not let the students down just because they are weak in some skills. Moreover, we should enhance and facilitate their excellence to be even better. Of course we have to make them be sure that other skills are also important to master. It can be done by giving the material that they find it attractive. 

STUDENTS AS HUMAN BEING

by Agnes Endah Ayu Winarni

Being a teacher is just like experiencing a two-sided knife cutting through jelly pudding. It should be easy, isn't it? On one side a teacher should fulfill the school's demand, good academic records. On the other hand, a teacher should concern about the students' well-being, taking students' side.

         A very delicate situation is happening while a teacher is teaching in a classroom. The lesson is one thing, the readiness of the student is also important. I believe that teachers are good, kind, and patient people. Sometimes teachers just forget that students are not objects or topics. They are human. They have families, they have problems; small ones and big ones. They have expectancy and dreams, too, just like teachers. In order to meet the so called many aspects of teaching let alone educating, teachers have to make A-class preparation. Otherwise, we'll ruin it.

          Finished with the preparation, teachers have to teach well to carry out the A-class preparation. To check the competency retrieved by students from teachers, an examination is provided. In making the test unit used for examining, teachers compile the materials based on what teachers have shared with the students.

          On this stage teachers should be cautious with everything they plan and remember this. It is more important to prepare the students have high self-confidence in doing anything than to drill the students with material as much as water in the ocean.

          At this phase of life, I agree about the state of the students of being afraid of being tested. That's why there is a difference between having a test and performing a good competence. That's why teachers should tend to have correct classroom design (how to invite the students willingly to do things). A suitable classroom design will help teachers a lot in managing their classrooms.

          Please take a good look on the link below. Teachers all over the world need this kind of assurance in their lives. No matter how hard the material, no matter how much time and energy consumed, if we do it with heart and love, we can do it easily.
       
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/caring_teacher_student_relationship


Thank you for reading and concerning my writing.

Less Teaching More Learning

Students’ competence to grasp knowledge, skill, and behavior is a standard for teachers to give point or as a plan to manage their students. Therefore, they can focus in directing the process of teaching and learning as well as giving evaluation.

                Besides teaching, educator should be able to apply research in order to know their students competence by analyzing the results of the students’ tests. Based on the results, the teacher can determine which students should get some remedial and which one should continue to have another programs.

                Teacher should also be able to create such evaluations, which are proportionally focused on the students’ level of thinking scoop from low to high level. For high school level, applying evaluation to measure understanding should get more portion than application and analysis based on the characteristic of subject (Kurikulum 2004).

                A kind of tests that teacher should perform are multiple choice, structured essay, essay, short answer questions, matching, performance, and portfolio, a kinds of assignments (tagihan) are quiz, oral test, daily test, individual task, group task, block test, practical report or practicum, and practical examination.

                Based on the above fact that teacher, as an educator does not need much talk to give lecture in front of class, when the teacher is already prepared with his or her all-teaching preparations he or she just applying as what should be done. In this case, the teacher does as facilitator or evaluator in the teaching and learning activities. The orientation of the class activities is students’ center, but not teacher.

                In class activities, the students should do actively individual or in groups to attend the learning process. They are preparing the tasks their teacher given. They should be active to join the discussion under the teacher’s control. He or she reminds every student who does not take part in the discussion. This teaching model will make the learning participants grow more active. So less teaching and more learning are more appropriate way of teaching nowadays.