Classroom Activities 

Students will need a piece of paper or a small whiteboard. Divide it into squares (F-2 = 4 squares, 3-6 maybe 8 squares). Students draw or write their favourite gestures/words in the boxes. Teacher or students to call out gestures and words until someone calls out “bingo”.

Students stand in a circle. The aim of the game is to not be the person who has to say the number 11/buzz. Each participant can say up to 3 numbers at a time, the student who says the number 11 is out and the counting restarts at the next person in the circle. Keep going until there is one winner. If need be, do an example round in English so students get the hang of it, have the Indonesian displayed to scaffold the students who need it. 

Have students stand in a circle and place an object in the middle. The students must keep their focus on the object for the duration of the activity (or a number list in their hands). The aim of the activity is for the collective of students to count as high as possible as a team. Starting at 1, one student at a time will say a number counting up. They are not to go around the circle, and need to keep looking at the central object and not each other, so they cannot prompt each other with gesture or facial expression. If two students say the same number at the same time or the wrong number, the group must start again at 1. To ensure all students are participating, use the number of students in the class as the goal for the class to reach and ask that students only say one number in each round of counting so everyone has the opportunity to contribute. 

Alone or in pairs, roll one or more die, saying the numbers. Keep a tally, in columns, of how many times each number appears. A time limit of (say) 2 minutes works well. Bonus points if you can say them all in your target language. 

One student stands on one side of the space with their back to the rest of the group. 

The group stands at a designated starting point and asks "Jam berapa pak gajah?" (What's the time Mr Elephant). The student with their back to the group will answer with the time on the hour "Jam tujuh", (7 o'clock) "Jam sebelas" (11 o'clock). The students then move forward the number of steps correlating to the time they have just been told. 

Once the student who is pak gajah has the group of students close to them, they can choose to say "waktu makan" (eating time), at which point the large group of students must run and cross the starting line while pak gajah tries to chase and tag them. The first student they tag will be the next pak gajah.

For an added challenge, introduce the word "setengah" and take half steps. 

Indonesian time is different to English time though. 'Jam setengah tujuh' would be 6.30 not 7.30. So you would take 6.5 steps, not 7.5 steps. 

Use "guru kata" instead of "Simon says" when playing the game. There are some Indonesian commands below to play in the traditional way, or you can ask students to do the gesture for the Indonesian word you say. Any student who does the incorrect gesture would be 'out' for that round, but allow students to come back in if they are doing the gestures while they are 'out'.

tepuk tangan- Clap hands sentuh kepala- touch your head berdansa- dance

hentak kaki- stamp feet ketuk lulut- tap knees tenlinga- ears

pertik jari - click fingers bahu- shoulders hidung- nose

mulut- mouth mata- eyes perut- tummy

Think of a word and write down as many dashes as there are letters 

Ask everyone to suggest letters and if they’re part of the word, write it down in place. If the letters are not part of the word, start drawing a hanging man. If they guess the word before the hanging man is finished they win, and if they don’t, they lose. 

A great game to have students leading. Use it to highlight current vocab or revise some older vocab. 

A word or words are chosen and for the remainder of that lesson only the Indonesian word can be spoken.

Each child gets 3-5 pegs for the lesson. If they use English for the word, then they remove a peg. The student(s) left with the most pegs by the end of the lesson are the winners.

Have students break up into groups of around 4. 

Give them the Indonesian phrase or some words from the week that must be included in a short performance (30 seconds) they are to create to show the class. 

Give them 5-8 minutes to come up with and practice a small skit. 

Make sure to go over proper audience etiquette before asking groups to perform to the class one at a time. 

Divide the class into four teams (house teams can work well). Divide the front whiteboard into four sections and have each team line up in line with their section. The teacher will do the gesture or use a flash card of a word and have one student from each group run up and write it on the whiteboard when they say ‘go’ or ‘mulai’. Their group can talk them through their spelling but may not write on the whiteboard if it isn’t their turn. The student writing goes to the back of their line and pass the marker to the next person for the next question. Leave all answers on the board to correct after each student has had a go and choral through each word. 

Alternately, you can give each group a small whiteboard to write down their answers if the class does not feel confident writing in front of everyone or there isn’t enough space.

Everybody stands in a space in the classroom. Leader to do a gesture/ask for the translated word, the first students to put their hand up guesses and if it’s correct they take a step. The student who is correct will lead a choral of the word with the gesture as ideally, all students also say the word and do the gesture. After taking a step, if the student is able to tap another student, that student is out. Those who are out could be brought back into the game for great participation in the choralling or raising their hands to answer questions if no one standing knows the answer.

Divide the group into teams and designate one person to draw. Switch drawers for each question ensuring everyone gets a go. Show a picture/gesture card to the drawers. They need to draw the word in a minute, while the other team members guess. For older students, have them use the word in a full sentence. 

Stick/write 6 words onto a large die. Roll the die, say the word(s) and put it into a sentence. 

For juniors, use matching pictures and stick them up around the classroom or an outdoor space. Go through each picture and choral the words for each. Roll the dice and have the students move to the matching picture and say the word and gesture as soon as they get there. If no students are correct, model the choral and have them repeat. If a few students are correct, choose one to lead the choral. You can put a time limit on this activity or play until the majority of students are using the gesture and corralling as soon as they get to each picture.

Have students stand in a circle and play a rap style backing track from your device. 

Going around the circle one at a time the students will say an Indonesian word to the beat with the gesture. The rest of the class will follow after repeating the word to the beat like the first student did. 

The faster the beat the more challenging to keep up!

Have the class stand in a circle. The first student will say “saya suka …” then the class will choral “dia suka …” they can code switch to English for their chosen like. If some students would like a challenge, ask them to find their word in Indonesian prior to playing the game.

After the class has choralled “dia suka…” then that student will ask the next student “kamu suka apa?” the process is repeated all the way around the circle. Make sure the students are using their choralling and gestures everytime and have them gesture with the person talking to practice.

Stand in circle 

Use similar rules to Zip Zap Boing.

Sini/zip- goes side to side to the people next to you, scooping motion with hand to pass the sound. You can henti a sini

Sana/zap- sent across the circle, person lunges forward and uses both hands to point at another person across the circle (can’t be directly next to you). You cannot ‘henti’ a sana.

Henti/boing- bounces the sound back to the previous person who must then change the direction of the zip. 

Students are ‘out’ if; 

• the action isn’t correct for the word

• The student is too slow for the pace of the game. 

• If they aren't loud enough/ action is not big enough 

• If they make a move that isn’t as above, i.e try to henti a sana, or henti a henti etc.

When only 2 students are left, they stand back to back in the centre of the room and do a ‘walk and draw’. The teacher or another student will say Indonesian words, and finalists will take a step on each word until they hear a predetermined word that indicates they should turn and try and ‘zap’ each other.

Secretly choose a student to be the ‘spy’ for the lesson/day. This students job is to listen out for the classmate they believe is using their Indonesian the most. At the end of the session the spy can either remain a secret and tell the teacher who they thought used it the most, or can reveal themselves to the class and announce it. 

Incorporate your class reward system to reward the student(s) who is/are chosen.

To play this game you’ll only have to write words on cards and each player will have a turn to choose a card and explain the word (without saying it) to get everyone else to guess it. (Use your colourful semantics or words of the week)

Players won’t be allowed to use synonyms or any other words that are directly associated to the word they have or the direct translation, for example if the word is 'selamat pagi' players could not say 'good morning', but could instead say something like 'it is what we say when we mark the role at the start of the day' 

The point is that the players must explain themselves by using other words, which is exactly what we must do if we’re in a foreign country and we don’t know the word for something. It will really get you using your brain and will encourage connections between concept and vocab. 

Pick a student to keep a tally of every time a classmate uses an Indonesian word in the lesson. Let them goal set at the beginning of the day/lesson and try to beat your target each day. 

This game works with miming actions/objects and can build to be as fast as the class can handle. Once students get used to the idea, a rhythm should develop that makes the pace easier. 

Class stands in a circle. The first student will turn to the next student  and mime holding an object, and say “Ini apel”, the next student will say “ini apa?” then the class will choral with the first student saying “itu apel”. The second student then mimes taking the ‘object’ from the first student and turning to the next student and repeating the same scenario but changing the object based on how they are miming holding it. 

Divide students into teams and whiteboard into sections to match the amount of teams, then have the students line up in line with these sections. Have them stand back a bit from the board, one at a time they will go up and write an Indonesian word in their teams section. Each student writes one word and then goes back and passes the marker to the next person. Teams can discuss words in line, but emphasise for them to keep it to a whisper so other teams cant hear. 

Alternately, you can give each group a small whiteboard to write down their answers if the class does not feel confident writing in front of everyone or there isn’t enough space.

This game requires a bit of preparation, but it won’t take you long. What you’ll have to do is write sentences and colour code them. 

Once the sentences are ready, cut them up and keep them in separate cups or bags. Once you have everyone gathered, split the players into teams and make sure that you have enough sentences.

They players will have to order the sentences in as little time as possible and the team that gets the sentences correctly ordered the fastest will be the winning team.