On November 13, ETAs Allison Cwikla and Anna Ringheiser were given the opportunity to present as guest speakers at “Enhancing Joyful English Learning”, a full-day conference for senior high English teachers located throughout Central Java. Allison and Anna shared and practiced a few of their favorite engaging classroom activities from the first semester. Allison shared one of her favorites, “Find the Owner”, which she and counterpart Pak Imam used in the 10th grade English classrooms at SMAN1 Temanggung the week prior.

At the end of a lesson covering the topic of expressing intention, Allison had each student pull out a piece of paper and write five intentions they had for themselves for the upcoming five years. Students were instructed to give the paper to Allison when finished without writing their name. After receiving all of the papers, Allison randomly distributed the papers throughout the class, and each student had to find the rightful owner of the intentions in hand before returning the assignment to Allison. The classroom broke out into laughter as they realized that their peers would be reading their intentions, as about half were well-developed and half were rather humorous. Regardless, the students had a blast and Allison was delighted learn of the goals, hopes and dreams of all 400 of her wonderful students.

Allison Cwikla is currently teaching at SMAN 1 Temanggung, Central Java