ELLA: building a BRIDGE between Tasmania and Indonesia
Bicheno Primary School and St Helens District School has been part of ELLA program since since it was first trialled in 2015. The use of ELLA apps in their schools has led to the confidence to develop and foster a stronger connection with their BRIDGE partner school.
Bicheno Primary School and St Helens District School
Indonesian
Written by: Alison Jones
Bicheno Primary School and St Helens District School in Tasmania have been a part of the ELLA program since its inception. Bu Ali works across the two schools as the Indonesian teacher, bringing with her a strong belief about the importance of a positive bilateral relationship with our neighbouring country Indonesia.
Bicheno PS has joined St Helens District School to partner with the Australia–Indonesia BRIDGE school program to work with students from SD Unggulan Hamzanwadi in Lombok.
As part of the program, two teachers from Lombok visited the schools and used the ELLA program with the students. Through this visit, students were able to share what they know and communicate with the Indonesian teachers in a non–anxiety inducing way, allowing curiosity about diversity to develop naturally and informally. The ELLA apps were the comfortable conduit for this connection.
Bu Ali:
At our schools, we have a strong focus on ‘listening’ when we use the ELLA apps. We try and be ‘ear detectives’ to find the kata kunci (key words). For example, in Kinder, we may need to find the word tangan (hand) and when we have found it, we wave to the teacher. In Years 1 and 2, we may also try to write what we hear from the ELLA apps and identify words from the apps in other contexts. Another focus is on learning to communicate with our teman-teman (friends) and have students learn that the world is bigger than them.
The ELLA apps are the backbone of the Indonesian language program from Kinder to Year 2, and the confidence of students to use the language gained from ‘repeated listening’ to phrases drawn from the play-based setting builds the foundation for their learning through to Year 6. The ELLA resources and the sound library are used throughout the program and the ‘I can’ statements are used in assessment and to provide evidence of learning.
The ELLA apps do not wear out their welcome for the upper primary students. Any chance for them to revisit this world is met with excitement. The songs in the sound library from the ELLA apps are used up until Year 6 as a strategy for maintaining foundational language.
The use of ELLA apps in our schools has led to the confidence to develop and foster a stronger connection with our BRIDGE partner school.
