The content of this artifact is a map tracing a journey from my apartment in Carytown to the Richmond International Raceway.The goal of this task is to enhance my overall interpretive listening skills and develop the vocabulary surrounding relative and compass directions. This skill achieves this goal by giving me a set of instructions in Bhasa Indonesia once when I start and then once again if I was to get lost. I must then use these directions until I reach my destination or start again with a different destination if I were to get lost a second time. The skill to understand directions is an important part of a “survival language.” Furthermore, this task is doubly important to me because relative and compass directions and an overall developed vocabulary about spatial information is critical when surfing.
For the successful attempt when the destination was the Richmond International Raceway, I provide the audio files and a document containing the transcript of the two set of instructions that I received in Bhasa Indonsia. The transcript of the correctly interpreted instructions in English, along with a map tracing the journey at a smaller scale is included where necessary on the map using the tag feature of ThingLink. Upon seeing it, one learns that this journey is a little longer than 5 miles and is set in Richmond, VA. The red line represents the journey made using the first set of instructions. Once it became clear that I had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the highway, I took the first exit off the highway and asked for the second set of instructions. The blue line represents the successful journey made using the second set of instructions.
I evaluate this task to be successful at accomplishing its objective in two different ways. Firstly, in the repeated process of trying to reach my destination I picked up phrases such as utara laut (northwest), putar balik (U-turn or turn around completely) and tempat tujuan (destination). The examples of the vocabulary that I picked up pertain to spatial awareness and goes further than relative and compass directions. Secondly, I managed to complete the journey without expressing myself to the person giving the directions. This lack of communication that did not give me the chance to say “Please speak slowly” or “Can you repeat that” made the task more challenging.
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