For ETA Natasha Anis, the month of November was filled with student hang-outs, Teacher’s Room movies, and even an Indonesian Thanksgiving Celebration! In the classroom, she and her co-teacher Ismi finished up the last of the new material for students, leaving them almost three full weeks for review. Natasha was thrilled about having extra time to review the new material, remembering the importance of different study methods for different learners. She and Ismi’s lesson plan for these final three weeks hoped to encourage different students to participate in the review process based on their learning strengths. First, Natasha designed a Jeopardy! review game that students played in small teams. Students could pick a unit and the difficulty level they wanted – activities targeted all four skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

The next week, students practiced with rotating board games – in order to move forward on the board they would have to correctly say a sentence in response to a prompt on the board game. Natasha and Ismi slightly modified board games to fit with each unit they wanted to review! For example, to practice “Description” students would roll and dice and land their playing piece on a particular place: “A car” or “The beach” and then they would have to describe that place in English. For the final week of review, students were divided into groups of five, and each student was tasked to create a Study Guide for a particular unit. They were encouraged to use visual diagrams, colors, and examples to explain a certain concept – all to fit on one piece of paper. Then, Natasha and Ismi collected the study guides and made copies for each student, so they received a review packet of all the five-unit topics to consult while they studied.

Natasha Anis is currently teaching at SMAN 10 Samarinda, East Kalimantan.