I divided my class in 6 separate group of 3-4 students, and gave them colours; merah, putih, etc.
I called it a competition with 4 rounds, because I couldn't think of what else to call it. They all had a sheet of A3 paper, all students had a pen/pencil. There were no textbooks or laptop access. Teams that cheated were penalised at least 2 points. Throughout the lesson, I had a timer going for each round.
Round 1. List was many Indonesian words as possible. Team with most words wins. 5- 7minute time constraint.
Round 2. Team with most words read out loud their list of words, other teams cross their words off. Team with most left over words wins points. All teams awarded points of varying degrees.
Round 3. Make a silly story with all the vocabulary you know. I modelled one; "Bob suka makan orang. Bob makan Billy."
Points for:
Best Teamwork
Best sentences
Most Sentences
Most Creative story
Round 4. Best Acting
Swap stories with other like standard for students to read (that is, if there were any lower ability writers, I'd give the story to another low ability group).
Act out another group’s story with one of the student’s in their team narrating. Points for best acting. I'm sure I could've given points for best pronunciation as well.
Bonus points for answering basic questions in Indonesian about the role-play after each role-play.
Round 4 was particularly hilarious.
There were many language mistakes, but today's aim was engaging and using the language. Today the students needed the boost that they HAVE been learning, and can have fun with Indonesian.
In reflection, my main mistake was one particular group of students was not the best mix. I put too many weak students in the group, and should have spread those 3 out. I also could have used more target language input for the students.
Attached are some samples of their work.