The 11th-grade students at MAN 1 Payakumbuh are an utter joy to work with and the four classes throughout the week in which ETA Nicholas Navin teaches them often end up being little highlights from that day. As the studying frenzy of midterms began wrapping up by the middle of October, a different kind of frenzy began taking place in class. To learn about invitations, Nicholas decided to incorporate one of the energetic activities the ETAs learned at their orientation in Jakarta, running dictation.
In a nod to the quickly approaching holiday, students were tasked with dictating an invitation to a Halloween party into their practice books. But, after splitting into pairs, only one student was allowed to come up to the board and read the invitation. Following that, they would then run back to their partner and recite what they remembered to their listening and writing partner. From sleepy morning classes or students dozing off from the perpetual summer heat, rooms now overflowed with excited shouting, moving bodies, and a different way of learning for the students.
And then the activity leveled up for week two of the unit, now tasking students with running around the room to dictate a dialogue that had also been cut up and was in need of rearranging as well. This activity was a great example of how learning really can come in all shapes and forms and a lively, active classroom is by no means a barrier to effective learning.
Nicholas Navin is currently teaching at MAN 1 Payakumbuh, West Sumatra.
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