Production

It is nearly always best to have students working in pairs on a learning object, in order that they can support each other and discuss their learning. However Kata-kata dasar also lends itself to individual student use. In a computer lab situation you may decide to allocate scenes so that students at adjacent computers are not working on the same screen.

To minimise noise levels, it is possible to buy small jacks or stereo splitters that allow two headphones to be plugged into one computer.

It is often useful to introduce a learning object to the whole class using a data show. This allows you to quickly explain the layout and model how to use the learning object. An alternative is to introduce it to a small group of students who become mentors to introduce it to other students later.

When first introducing Kata-kata dasar, take students through one animation making sure that they are clear about what is happening. Briefly tell them what happens in the aturan, kuis and kamus sections. You don't need to demonstrate.

It is important that students know that Kuis A relates to the scene they are working on and has an 'aturan' button that provides a reminder about those rules; but Kuis B tests verbs from all three scenes (so may be best left until they have visited all three) and doesn't have any help. 

Encourage students to aim for, and record, 'personal best' scores on the quizzes.

At the end of each session, ask students to reflect on what they have done as language learners. Did they improve their times? What strategies did they use to remember the base words or the rules? See the Reflection section.

More about Me- verbs: Not all verbs are Me- verbs. It is not necessary to go into great detail, but students may be interested in a simple introduction. One way of doing this is to:

• Explain to students that Me-prefixes indicate a type of verb called a transitive verb, and that transitive verbs usually need an object after the verb.
• Write up the example sentence Rini membaca buku. Ask students Who or what is doing this action? and explain that this is the 'subject' of the sentence, and write 'subject' above 'Rini'. Ask students What is the subject doing? and write 'verb' above 'membaca'. Then ask What is she reading? and explain that this is the 'object' of the sentence, and write that above that part of the sentence.
• Have students suggest some other simple sentences and identify the subject, verb and object.
• You may want to give students some simple examples of intransitive verbs that don't need an object, just so that they can see the difference eg tidur = to sleep.

Using the Kamus (dictionary): Students can go through the tutorial for using the kamus at any stage. You may like to instruct them to check it during one lesson, and then discuss the use of the kamus further. See the Kamus Extension activity.

Assessment: To assess students' ability with identifying base words and using the kamus, see the Assessment section.