Songs are a great way to get students to learn new words and sometimes, add some intercultural understandings via the clips.
The bibitsku songs are not an example of great intercultural learning via native speakers singing, however, they are a lot of fun and my students have enjoyed using them to learn and reinforce vocabulary. The bibitsku animation features pixel created characters which in some ways relate to pokemon and other popular animation characters. Whatever they are, currently, they are in!
It all started with the Jam berapa? clip. The Bibitsku characters sing their way through various times of the day. Upon further googling, I discovered many bibitsku song clips, some in Bahasa Indonesia, and some with English translation. The Apa kabar?, warna and berhitung songs are great for the JP classes.
The Bibitsku site has heaps of songs, from traditional Indonesian kids songs like “Cicak, cicak di dinding” and “Naik kereta api“, to traditional English nursery songs, sung in Indonesian. As I said, maybe not great for intercultural learning, but a fun way to get kids reading and listening to Indonesian…if you can put up with songs that get stuck in your head for ages!;-)