In the closing lessons of the first semester, ETA Neelam and her co-teacher Ibu Wiwik focused on verb tenses. In the midst of the end of the semester when moral can be low and final exams are around the corner, they knew that teaching grammar lessons would be challenging. Still, they worked together to create lesson plans that kept motivation high while still ensuring students learned the rules for the past and present perfect tenses.
Neelam’s monthly highlight was watching students work together in games like “Stop the Bus”. In this game, a letter was chosen by a student and groups rapidly brainstormed words beginning with that letter, each falling into specific categories. Categories included irregular past tense verbs to check student understanding as well as those that could serve as review for what students had learned earlier in the semester, such as personality adjectives. The group that finished filling all the categories first would (loudly) yell “stop the bus!” and time for rest of the groups ended. Points were counted and it was only a matter of time before competition became heated, each group wanting to find the most unique word (more points!) and finish the fastest.
Neelam Vohra is currently teaching at SMKN 3 Pangkalpinang, Bangka-Belitung
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