Hot Potatoes Application in Class

There’s always something new to apply in class after having training. Well, last term break (term 3 to term 4 2010), all teachers got training about World Englishes and The Use of Multimedia in class. The training was held in LBPP LIA Semarang Candi followed by 25 teachers from two branches, Semarang Candi and Tendean. Ibu Sitha was the one who delivered the two-and-half-day-training. It started from 8 in the morning and ended at 3 in the afternoon. Some teachers were enthusiastic with the Use of Multimedia in class since they often use some materials gained from internet. Some others looked skeptical since multimedia is still something they are not good at ( I must be frank, right?). The other reason might be they are not familiar with the software used to create such activities. Take an example: the software to make Who Wants Be Millionaire, Mystery Guest (even using power point is simple, but not for me, though), Hot Potatoes (I can do some parts).

I applied once the activity in my EC 6 class. It was for vocabulary review of characters to decide what job suit for students. I prepared five questions in power point with options available. I divided the students into three groups (4 to 5 students in each group). As soon as I showed them the questions, without looking at the options, they competed to raise their hands even among their friends in group. The problem was it was hard for me to decide who had to answer the question since almost students raised their hands. But then I made it as a class activity, not as a competition. They had fun with the activity, though, especially with smiley emoticon every time they could answer correctly.

The second activity I applied was Cloze test from Hot Potatoes. There were three readings about jobs: translator, newspaper reporter, and veterinarian (provided by the book, New Parade 6). The readings were short but there were new vocabulary for them. After I explained the difficult words ( I showed them video showing 3 jobs previously), I gave them time to read by themselves. After sometime, they closed their book, and I showed slide with Cloze test to them. They were to write the answer on a piece of paper in groups (smaller groups). The next problem came was the font reflected on the slide was too small, even after I zoomed in several times. Some students went forward to read the problems closer. That means they need more time from the allocated time I gave them. I gave them five minutes to work in groups to answer the cloze test. Well, five minutes seemed to be too short for them. The 11-12 year-old students have a tendency to be perfectionist since they rejected submitting their work unless they finished all the questions. At that time, it was 16.50, therefore it was no chance of having the test checked on that day. By the time they had to hand in the answer paper, some blanks were still there. From the cloze test activity, I assumed that students of EC have difficulty to predict the words in blank, even they know the vocabulary found in the reading.

after several times zoom in

Over all, I can say that the first application of Hot Potatoes activity didn’t give enough satisfaction for me, compared to the work and the time I spent to prepare the activity. Well, there must another way of another class for the next application. I expect it will succeed, just like the trainer did during the training with teachers as students. Absolutely hilarious.

students found difficulty in reading the questions