Today, let us take a journey outside of the Languages classroom and into a real life situation, where students can learn interactively and gain a new insight into authentic language learning.
I believe it’s really important for Languages teachers to incorporate excursions {and incursions} into their Languages curriculum. Why should classroom teachers and other specialist subject area teachers get all the fun of taking their students out of school for the day on an excursion? Not only that, but I think it’s important for Languages students to see how their Languages study can be used usefully and authentically in and out of the classroom environment.
Whilst working as Indonesian Language Advisor for the Department of Education, one of my goals was to develop an Indonesian Languages Resource Kit for one of our main stake holders in Melbourne, so that teachers could incorporate authentic language learning tasks into an excursion. After a lot of research and networking with our main stakeholders, I decided I would start a resource project with the Melbourne Zoo. I worked with a great group of Primary and Secondary Indonesian teachers and the wonderful Education Staff at the Melbourne Zoo, and we began the work of developing a new resource kit to incorporate Indonesian Languages Education with a visit to the Melbourne Zoo….and thus ‘Link to Lingkungan Kita‘ was born.
It was the perfect project for me as I have a personal interest in Indonesian endangered animals, and have spent past holidays visiting and learning as much as I can about some of Indonesia’s endangered animals. You can read a past post on my adventure to Tanjung Puting National Park to see the oranghutan here and my visit to see the komodo dragon here. I’ve also written a post on the not so well known Binturong here.
So, it is here, that I would like to share with you all the Link to Lingkungan Kita Resource Kit, so that you can access it easily and use it readily with your students. All links are provided to download all of the resource components in pdf format.
Link to Lingkungan Kita enables teachers and students of Indonesian to make their class visit to the Melbourne Zoo a combined environmental, conservation, cultural and linguistic experience.
The purpose of the kit is to:
- Investigate Indonesian animals with a particular focus on endangered animals and conservation in Indonesia
- Develop language skills and intercultural understandings about Indonesia
- Demonstrate in Indonesian their understandings related to this topic
The kit comprises:
- Teacher Notes
- VELS Grids {Levels 4, 5 & 6}
- e5 connections
- Task Grids of student focused activities
The ‘Task Grids’ – the Cultural Task-Based Approach is designed to allow students in a class to achieve success in their own preferred learning styles.
The activities included in the Task Grids are a blend of
- Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences {horizontal} and
- Bloom’s Taxonomy {vertical}.
The Task Grids have been developed with the possibility of being used flexibly in the classroom and inclusive of integrated KLAs. There are a variety of possible approaches that can be used.
Task Grids Activities for:
– Lower Primary Years – Prep to Grade Two
– Middle to Upper Primary Years – Grade Three to Grade Six
- Additional tasks/resources
–Additional Stand-alone Primary Tasks
–Indonesian Animal Poetry Forms {Examples}
–Banyak Binatang Mini Book Template
–Binatang Indonesia Terancam Punah {Whole class activity}
- Indonesian Podcast
The Indonesian Podcast – ‘Anak orang hutan kehilangan ibunya’ is a listening component of the Indonesian Educational Resource Kit – Link to Lingkungan Kita and is available for student use, to download as an MP3 from the link provided {Link currently unavailable – coming shortly}.
The podcast provides an opportunity for students in upper primary and lower secondary school to listen to Indonesian native speakers whilst following the oral directions to visit a variety of different animals around the zoo. The student’s aim is to try to help the baby orangutan to find his mother. After completing the listening trail, students can choose to complete the activity sheet relating to the task; Pertanyaan Investigasi.
Alternatively students could be given a copy of the transcript to assist them on the listening trail. Teachers are provided with the podcast transcript in a PDF and a Word document, available for download, making it accessible for teachers to block out the underlined words in the transcript for students to fill in themselves as further extension for the activity whilst completing the trail.
Further extension of the podcast task could be for students to write their own script, using similar language structures, however providing the inclusion of other animals at the Melbourne Zoo, which are not included in this task.
A map of the Melbourne Zoo is also available for download and is to be used in conjunction with the audio podcast.
– Podcast transcript {PDF doc}
– Podcast transcript {Word doc}
– Map of Melbourne Zoo for Podcast
– Podcast – Pertanyaan Investigasi Worksheet
There you have it, the Link to Lingkungan Kita Resource Kit. I do hope that the resource kit and activities provided here are useful for you whether you are planning an excursion to the Melbourne Zoo or whether you are just focussing on a topic of Indonesian animals, particularly with a focus on endangered animals and conservation. A lot of time and work went into the development of the activities and ideas in the resource kit and there are various possibilities of the flexibility of using the tasks making it a valuable resource for both primary and secondary Indonesian Language curriculum.
Do you incorporate excursions into your Languages curriculum planning?
Where’s your favourite place to take students on an excursion?
Have you taken your students to the zoo?
What language activities did you incorporate into your Indonesian Language Program after an excursion to the zoo?
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