Speaking Through The Vocamino Game

STUDENTS' lacks of confidence, fear of making mistakes, and disinterest in English are the challenges Drs. Herdiyanto, an English teacher, has to face. He invented a game called vocamino to address the problem. Vocamino is a combination of the words ' vocabulary ' and ' domino '. This Vocamino game is intended to help students to practice speaking English by using new vocabulary Pak Herdiyanto uses dominoes, which have words or phrases on the back of them.

The game is intended to help students to learn English in a fun way and it helps students enrich their vocabularies. The game was created so that the students could learn to express their thoughts, communicate in English, and interact with each other in English. More specifically, the game was used in a lesson on instructions and shopping lists.

Here are the steps to play game:

(1) students are divided in groups of six;
(2) each group receives 24 vocamino cards (12 in English, 12 in Bahasa Indonesia). Each group receives different cards, with      different words/phrases;
(3) Six students from each group each hold four cards, two in English and two in Bahasa Indonesia;
(4) Students play the game according the following rules:
      (a) All students must communicate in English.
      (b) One student lays down a card with the word in English, and another student must respond by laying down a card with the            Indonesian equivalent of the English word. Before laying down a card, a student must pronounce the word correctly.
      (c) When a student mispronounces a word, the others correct him or her.

At the end of the game, each group constructs sentences from the words they have. They write down the sentences in a table prepared by the teacher on a large piece of paper displayed on the white board.

The vocamino game lasts for 10 minutes for each group. The game helps students to enrich their vocabularies, improve their pronunciation and enhance their ability in constructing sentences. The student also learn news phrases from this game, such as: now it's my or your turn; I'm looking for the meaning of this word; here is the meaning; O.K; sorry, pronounce it correctly; you're right. The game can boost students' confidence in communicating in English.

Learning Biotechnology Through Tape

AMRAN MUHYIDDIN, S.Pd assigned his students to make tape ketan (fermented sticky rice). The assignment was a project for 9th grade students of SMPN 4 Pinrang on the topic of biotechnology. The purpose of the project was to help the students to understand the role of micro organisms in biotechnology. To make sure that the students undersood the types of micro organism involved in the process of making fermented food, Pak Amran chose tape ketan. Tape ketan is a traditional food made of fermented sticky rice. The food is well known to the students and the ingredients to produce it are easy to obtain.

To make this kind of food, students needed one liter of sticky rice (black or white rice) and 10 grams of yeast. First, the rice was soaked in the water for four hours. Second, the rice was rinsed and steamed. When it's done we call it sokko (steamed sticky rice). Third, the sokko was cooled down for two hours and then the yeast was spread on it. Fourth, the students put the sokko with the yeast on it in a container to ferment.

The sokko was left in the containers for three days. The teacher instructed students to store sokko in three different containers:
(1) sokko wth yeast in a closed container,
(2) sokko with yeast in an open container,
(3) sokko without yeast in an open container.
(4) The students observed and analyzed the sokko.

The 2 x 45 minute periods were used for students to explain the project to the class. They did the process at home and explained the findings in the classrooms. During the presentation and discussion, students were able to explain about the types of micro organisms which made the sokko sweet or spoiled it. They also explained about a kind of bacteria which boosts the fermentation process in tape ketan.