Reflection on Tutorial Task Week 9

In this week’s tutorial task, we were required to evaluate whether the activity in the Form 2 English textbook teaches listening skills or not. We found that most activities are divided according to the various skills such as listening, speaking and writing. This allows us to easily identify which activity focuses on listening skills. However, from what we determined, it is actually not adequate enough to fully help learners learn the skill. As an overall, we came to a conclusion that not all activities may serve the purpose of teaching effectively. Thus, it is the teacher’s job to adapt or use the activity to its highest potential to teach the language. 

Reflection on Tutorial Task Week 8

We were required to compare and contrast the adaptation techniques between McDonough and Shaw, Tomlinson and Masuhara as well as Makey. We noticed that the technique mentioned by all three were similar except for the organization of the steps as well as using different terms for the same technique. For example, in Maley’s article, reduction was mentioned while in Tomlinson & Masuhara, it is called as subtraction. Both meant the same thing which is shortening of an activity/material.

I think a teacher should know how to adapt materials properly. This is because it helps the teachers to place the material in its full potential to help learners learn. It also helps the teacher to decrease useless activities or materials that bores the learners and is not helpful at all. Being able to adapt materials, teachers can suit the materials to their learners’ needs as all classes have different types of learners.

From my experience, it was always fun when teachers add in some games that not only helps learning, but also is fun. Thus, in my opinion, to truly grasp a learner’s attention, teachers must be able to use the techniques in adapting materials in order to suit the learners’ needs and also learning capabilities. Adapting materials does not mean that the materials are changed but it is just to construct the materials in order to present it or conducted with a better effect for learning to occur. 

Reflection on Tutorial Task Week 7

In this week’s task, we are required to develop a language learning material using any forms of media using technology ranging from videos (with sound and visual) to texts (with graphics).

Our group had decided to use ‘MakeBeliefsComix’. This is because it is easy to use and can be accessed by anyone without registration or sign ups. They just have to create their own creative comic strip based on any topics given by the teachers. However, there is one downside to this which is the requirement of internet connections

At first, we could not decide whether or not it was a language learning material or a language learning tool. Our group had a hard time deciding on whether it was what our task wanted. In the end, we decided to proceed with the little knowledge that we got from the internet. After our lecturer clarified the difference, we were even clearer on what are language learning materials and language learning tools. We were also relieved that despite what we knew, it was a right choice to search a little information on the differences of the 2 concepts.

From this task, I realised that tools are what you used for the learners to learn a certain language which is a form of media or applications for them to use in order to help the learners learn such as facebook, online grammar dictionaries, etc. For materials, it is an activity or exercise to be carried out together with the learners in class in order to help them learn a language. I learnt that it is difficult to create materials for your learners compared to using a tool. Thus, being able to fuse both tool and material is essential to help learners learn better.

MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT WEEK 8 LECTURE TASK

 (a) Compare and contrast McDonough and Shaw, Maley and Tomlinson and Masuhara adaptation techniques. Are there are differences or are they similar?

Adaptation Technique

McDonough & Shaw	Maley	Tomlinson & Masuhara
McDonough & Shaw’s Techniques •Adding – Expanding & Extending •Deleting – subtracting & abridging •Modifying – re-writing & re-structuring •Simplifying •Re-ordering	Techniques for materials adaptation 1. omission: the teacher leaves out things deemed inappropriate, offensive, unproductive, etc., for the particular group. 2. addition: where there seems to be inadequate coverage, teachers may decide to add to textbooks, either in the form of texts or exercise material. 3. reduction: where the teacher shortens an activity to give it less weight or emphasis. 4. extension: where an activity is lengthened in order to give it an additional dimension. (For example, a vocabulary activity is extended to draw attention to some syntactic patterning.) 5. rewriting/modification: teacher may occasionally decide to rewrite material, especially exercise material, to make it more appropriate, more “communicative”, more demanding, more accessible to their students, etc. 6. replacement: text or exercise material which is considered inadequate, for whatever reason, may be replaced by more suitable material. This is often culled from other resource materials. 7. re-ordering: teachers may decide that the order in which the textbooks are presented is not suitable for their students. They can then decide to plot a different course through the textbooks from the one the writer has laid down. 8. branching: teachers may decide to add options to the existing activity or to suggest alternative pathways through the activities. (For example, an experiential route or an analytical route.)	divided into three main categories in terms of quantity: Plus (+), Minus (-) or Zero (0) Plus: Techniques- Examples Addition- Teachers may add different text or activities Expansion- Teachers may expand texts and activities by increasing the length, difficulty, depth, etc. Minus: Techniques- Examples Deletion- Teachers may delete some texts and/or activities together Subtraction- Teachers may decrease the number of sentences in a text or part of an activity Reduction- Teachers may reduce texts and activities by decreasing the length, difficulty, depth, etc. Zero: Techniques- Examples Modification- Teachers may make changes to instructions Replacement- Teachers may swap one activity with another Reorganization- teachers may change the positions of texts and illustrations Resequencing- Teachers may change the sequence of activities Conversion- Teachers may change the genre of a text (from narrative to poem), or move the content from one medium to another (e.g. from print to a web page)

By thoroughly comparing and contrasting the adaptation techniques suggested by all three (McDonough&Shaw, Maley, Tomlinson&Masuhara), we noticed that all three techniques are fairly similar eventhough the terms are named differently.

Differences
The only difference between them is the organization of their techniques. For example, in McDonough & Shaw and Maley , the techniques are just organised in a simple and direct manner from ‘adding’ to ‘ re-ordering’ and ‘omission’ to ‘branching’. As for Tomlinson & Masuhara , they divided their techniques into categories which relates by the type of adaptation they are using. In our opinion, Tomlinson & Masuhara’s choice of organisation is useful whereby it can be easily be chosen by teachers based on what they would like to do with their materials.

Similarities
All of the techniques used are similar even if they have different terms. They can be categorised based on what is done to the materials when using the techniques. For example, the common technique found between them is addition. In all three techniques, they suggested that teachers can add and expand the materials using activities or exercises. The same goes for reduction. In McDonough & Shaw’s techniques, the term used is ‘simplifying’ while Maley uses the term ‘reduction’ and Tomlinson & Masuhara categorises it into ‘Minus’. All three terms share the same usage or adaptation which is removing or subtracting the unnecessary parts of the materials. Eventhough all three techniques are not organized the same, the usage or ways of adapting a material are fairly similar.

(b) Compare and contrast McDonough and Shaw with Tomlinson and Masuhara’s materials  adaptation procedures. Are there are differences or are they similar?

	McDonough and Shaw	Tomlinson and Masuhara
Materials’ Adaptation Procedures		i.Profiling of teaching context ii.Identifying reasons for adaptation iii.Evaluating iv.Listing Objectives v.Adapting vi.Teaching vii.Revising

Generally, the first move of materials’ adaptation procedures in both the McDonough & Shaw and Tomlinson and Masuhara are the same. They are only different in terms. In McDonough & Shaw, the first thing need to be identified in adapting a material is to match certain internal and external criteria to the material. External factors comprise both the overt claims made about materials and the characteristics of particular situation. Internal factors are concerned with content, organization and consistency. In this context, the matching and congruency is needed in order to localise (as in bringing in the local culture into teaching), personalise (relating the material to learners’ personal schema as in interpersonal use), individualise (relating the material to learners’ background information) and modernise (incorporate IT into teaching)the material used. This is the same as the one in Tomlinson & Masuhara’s procedure which is profiling of teaching context. It is same as there is the need to collect information about something so that later, a description about it can be done. This is important as it helps to identify the reasons/needs for adaptation. After identifying the reasons, evaluation will take place. The material will be evaluated to determine how it should be adapted in order to fit the learners’ context.

In term of differences, McDonough & Shaw do have something which is different compared to Tomlinson & Masuhara. It is that McDonough & Shaw provides specific techniques used in the material adaption. The techniques are adding (expanding and extending), deleting (subtracting and abridging), modifying (re-writing and re-structuring), simplifying (as in simplify the sentence structure) and re-ordering (putting parts of a coursebook into different order). These techniques will be applied into content areas such as language practice, tests, skills and classroom management. In other words, the material will undergo addition, deletion, modification, simplification and re-order to ‘fit’ the tests, language practice, skills and also in creating more effective classroom management.

As for Tomlinson & Masuhara, the listing of objectives comes after the evaluation. The objectives are important as it affects how the adaption to the material is to be done in the next step. However, there is no specific ‘techniques’ stated on how the adaptation should be done. In fact, the next step proceeds straight to teaching and lastly revising.

(c) List and discuss the levels of materials adaptation.

Textbook adaptation can be done at three levels. The first level is macro adaptation, which is ideally done before the language programme begins. After comparing what is covered in a textbook and what is required by the syllabus or examination, the teacher may find that certain areas or even whole units of the book can be omitted, and certain contents need to be supplemented. Macro adaptation is very important because it helps to avoid waste of time and energy of the teacher and the students as well. It also helps the teacher to see in advance what he or she needs to supplement so that he or she can keep an eye on materials that could be used. Based on Malaysia education context, finishing every syllabus of the English textbook is a prerequisite and the teachers are not allowed to choose another textbook. Having options to selecting textbook for teaching is not encouraging in Malaysia. Thus, it is impossible for English teachers in Malaysia to pick another textbook based on their thought in order to teach their students. On the other hand, teachers should evaluate the whole unit in the textbook and make selections on what chapters they should emphasize or less emphasize on based on the probability of the questions which will be asked in exams. For example, the topic’ pollution’,  ‘health’ and ‘technology’ are very common and popular that it have higher probability of coming out in exams. So, teachers should emphasize on those chapters.

The second level is of adaptation is adapting a unit. This could be reordering the activities, combining activities, omitting activities, rewriting or supplementing exercise material, etc. Unit adaptation helps to make the classroom teaching more smooth and cohesive. It also helps the teacher to better fulfil the aims of a unit. Before entering the class, the teacher must go through the textbook units and make decision about which activity or task is applicable in the textbook. The activity or task which are not very useful and does not give students much comprehensible input and new information, then activity can be omitted and teacher needs to replace or modify the omitted activity with a better one.

The third level is adaptation of specific activities in a unit. Occasionally an activity is regarded as valuable, but it is not well-designed or it is not feasible in a particular class. If the teacher does not want to give up the activity, he or she needs to adapt it. For instance, the activity is hard to be integrated in the classroom but it is crucial for students’ understanding in the certain objective of that particular task. Hence, the teacher should put more effort to modify or conduct and give students a clearer picture about that particular activity so that students can carry out this activity in a more efficient way.

(d) Without going in-depth into your 2nd part of your assignment (adapt and create), discuss in general what level of materials adaptation you will be using (it can be all three levels but used at different areas in the materials) and techniques you will employ to enrich the chapter you have evaluated. Briefly state the types of tasks which will accompany the current material. Please mention if there are media accompaniment with that task.

In chapter 9, there are two roles play activities where students have to work in pair. The situation of the roles play given is a conversation between a mother and a son and the other one is conversation of a doctor and his patient.  

Activity:

Firstly students have to choose either one of the situation given. They have to type out their conversation in not less than 120 words and the content of their conversation should include vocabulary and points related to their situation. This means that they have to do this task just like how they usually do in their exam for the writing/ essay section.

They then have to act out the situation in a very authentic way and record the whole process. Their conversation has to be based on their dialogue that they have typed.

After doing both the writing and roles play part, they have to post their outcome into their tumblr account.

Each pair also has to “check out” what the other pairs have posted on their tumblr wall by giving likes and comments, and each pair has to give likes and comments to at least 5 of the other pairs. 

One of the techniques that have been implied in this activity was Maley’s adaptation techniques of branching. Maley suggested that “teachers may decide to add options to the existing activity or to suggest alternative pathways through the activities. (For example, an experiential route or an analytical route.) “. So, for the roles play activity, students can either choose the conversation between the mother and son or, the conversation between a doctor and his patient. By choosing different situation, the content, vocabulary and points that need to be included by students will be different.

Other techniques that have been included in this activity are the addition and expansion techniques proposed by Tomlinson and Masuhara. For the addition technique, Tomlinson and Masuhara stated that “teachers may add different text or activities”. Hence, there is a writing task added into the roles play activity to let students practice in their writing skill. As for the expansion technique, Tomlinson and Masuhara stated that “teachers may expand texts and activities by increasing the length, difficulty, depth, etc.” The difficulty was increased when students are required to prepare a conversation that must include certain types of language features based on the situation that have been chosen., which include points that are related to their topic. On the other hand, students are also required to memorise their dialogues and act it out in front of a recording video and show authenticity in during the roles play. This means that students have to practice few times so they can perform this task more efficiently, and this can help them in their speaking skills.

Media material accompaniment: Tumblr and Video Recording

Make Belief Comix DLLM

http://www.scribd.com/doc/194357429/Make-Belief-Comix-DLLM

Reflection on Tutorial Task Week 6

My group received the task; Evaluating the English textbook in the US for Intermediate level using Cunningsworth’s checklist. We were required to pick 2 chapters in which we have decided after a brief discussion which is  chapter 4 and 6. In each chapter, it was further divided into 5 sections each. For each section, there were 3 to 4 exercises namely A, B, C and D. We had decided to evaluate each section which would be 10 sections altogether. From our evaluation, it can be seen that the coursebook did not have an “outline” indicating that communicative is one of its aim.

Through our discussion, we discovered that there are small parts of the activities that require learners to discuss in a small group or do pair works. From the whole section, there might only be one small part that emphasises on CLT. In this task, we evaluated the coursebook using Cunningsworth’s checklist. It was easy to analyse and evaluate as the checklist only focuses on CLT. However, we found out that only some parts of the coursebook chapters are communicative. This makes it harder for us to evaluate as we were limited to only CLT. Furthermore, our understanding of ‘communicative’ varies among us. Thus, we faced a clash of opinions when we need  to evaluate based on the checklist

In conclusion, I find the checklist to be suitable if we were to look at the coursebooks based on CLT only. However, my group came up with a suggestion that Cunningsworth’s checklist is suited as an additional checklist for other checklist. This means that, it is an important checklist but the full use and potential of this checklist can be portrayed when it is used as a part of other checklists.

After doing this task, I now know how difficult it is to find a good coursebook. It is important to evaluate a coursebook based on what we want but we should not be biased in evaluation as not all parts of a coursebook is deemed unusable. Furthermore, everyone has their own opinion on how a coursebook should be as well as the types of checklist suited to be used. Thus, it is important for teachers to equip themselves with various materials and activities in order to adapt the coursebooks as well as to be able to use the coursebooks to their full potential.

Reflection on Tutorial Task Week 4 & 5: Cunningsworth's Article (Materials Development)

For this task, our group were required to present/analyse Cunningsworth's checklist and create a powerpoint presentation. We encountered numerous problems analysing the checklist as we had no idea at all that all checklist are actually different. Due to that, we gt confused. An example of the problem or confusion was we thought the checklist was comprised of 3 checklists, which are; Design and Content, Interactive Communications and Style and Appropriacy but they are actually 1 checklist.

Our powerpoint presentation was confusing as we analysed it as 3 different checklist. Thus, we were unable to show how effective or not effective is the checklist. It was also hard to show the points we analysed as we analysed it individually but in actual fact, it was 3 different criteria which actually complements each other to form a checklist.

As an overall, we analysed and knew that Cunningsworth’s checklist was all about Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). So, it was easier for us to analyse the checklist as it was specific in the terms of CLT. We discussed and identified what we like and dislike about the checklist. The criteria are helpful and specific enough to determine the effectiveness of a material or taskbook based on the CLT. However, it is also limited as it only focuses on CLT. 

To me, I feel that this checklist is very good in determining the communicative criteria of a book. This is because the criteria are easy to understand with minimal confusion. In my opinion, this checklist is suited to be used by teachers to evaluate a material or coursebook. This is because a material or coursebook that is shows communicative properties provide opportunities for learners to communicate with others which also allows them to practice the language as in daily lives. However, it is not advisable to only use this checklist alone as it only focuses on one aspect which is CLT.

Evaluating English for Intermediate Levels Coursebook Using Cunningsworth's Checklist

Evaluating English for Intermediate Levels Coursebook Using Cunningsworth's Checklist

Cunningsworth's Article Presentation

Cunningsworth's Article Presentation

Tutorial Task Week 9

Preview extracts from a local textbook

CHAPTER 8

Instruction: Get into groups. One member reads aloud the extract. The other members mime the scene.

We kill two more savages and wounded several others. By now, the savages were all screaming in panic. Many of them had started running towards their canoes. So we ran forward, firing our guns. My first task was to free the white man. I gave him my sword and he joined us in our attack. Friday, meanwhile, ran among the cannibals with his axe and killed everyone in his path.

At the end of the battle, seventeen savages lay dead around us. Four others had escaped in one of their canoes and I was content for them to get away. But Friday wanted to chase them in one of the canoes that they had left behind. We ran towards the canoes and were surprised to find another man, tied with ropes, in the bottom of one of them. When we cut the man’s ropes, Friday went wild with joy! He danced, he laughed, he cried. The prisoner was, in fact, his own father.

CONTINUATION FROM FIRST ACTIVITY

1. Characters in this extract: Robinson Crusoe, Friday, savages, white man, a man tied with ropes in a canoe

2. The scene: At the beach

3. Props such as sword, axe, guns 

SECOND ACTIVITY

Dictation: Read the paragraph below. Then write it out as your teacher dictates it.

Be yourself. Open up and tell your friends how you feel. When your friends know your feelings they will understand you better. You may think that if you allow your friends to see your weaknesses, they will not like you. But it may not be true. You may be surprised to find friends who are willing to help you overcome your weaknesses. 

How closely do you feel that the listening process is mirrored in these materials?

•BOTH ACTIVITIES ARE FROM CHAPTER 8 (FORM 2 ENGLISH TEXTBOOK)

•1st exercise, students really have to listen in order for them to mime the scene. The listening skills of the students are tested in carrying out this activity. The mime by students can show whether their listening skill is good or not. This is because the details in this scene can only be mimed if students did get the gist of it.

•2nd exercise is solely focusing on listening as it is a dictation. Students will have to listen attentively to the teacher in order to write them down. However, it is boring as students only need to write down what their teacher has dictated to them and there is no further activity. 

To what extent do they assist in developing the listening skills of our students?

•1st activity, students need to learn to listen to the gist and also the details at the same time. This is because they can only mime accurately if they get the whole picture of the whole story by listening to them. To the students, this exercise could be like listening to a story and they will have to learn to interpret and ‘insert’ the ‘feeling’ from listening to it into their mime. 

•2nd activity, it is really focusing on the listening skill as students have to listen to each and every word read out by the teacher. This will definitely help students to improve their listening skill. Dictation is an exercise that required students’ full attention in listening.

CHAPTER 9

•Chapter 9: Looking Good Feeling Great

•No specific activity to sharpen listening skills

•Students already prepared the script for this activity.

•They just have to listen to what their partners said and respond with the prepared script.

•Students just have to listen to what their teacher dictated and fill in the blanks and listen to it again to answer the multiple choice questions.

 To what extent do they assist in developing the listening skills of our students?
•Answer: To recognize the word and know how to spell those words, to widen their lexical density

Tutorial Task Week 7 Materials Development

CHECKPOINT 1

EXAMPLES OF DIGITAL LANGUAGE LEARNING MATERIALS

Facebook

Online News

Twitter

BLOG

Prezi

Garageband

Tumbler

Youtube

Skype

Email

Second Life

Glogster

Wordcharm

Comic Strip

Checkpoint 2

SLA Theories

-Behaviorist theory

-Interactionist theory

-Innatist theory

Principles

-Materials should achieve impact.

-Materials should help learner to feel at ease.

-Materials should help learners to develop confidence.

-What is being taught should be perceived by learners as relevant and useful.

-Materials should require and facilitate learners’ self- investment.

-Learners must be ready to acquire the points being taught.

-Materials should expose the learners to language in authentic use.

-The learners’ attention should be drawn to linguistic features of the input.

-Materials should provide the learners with opportunities to use the target to achieve communicative purposes.

-Materials should take into account that the positive effects of instructions are usually delayed.

-Materials should take into account that learners differ in learning styles.

-Materials should take into account that learners differ in affective attitudes.

-Materials should permit a silent period at the beginning of instructions.

-Materials should not force premature speaking in the target language.

-Materials should maximise learning potential by encouraging intellectual, aesthetic and emotional involvement which simulates both right and left brain activities.

-Materials should not rely on too much on controlled practice.

-Materials should provide opportunities for outcome and feedback.

-Materials should help the learners to develop cultural awareness and sensitivity.

-Materials should reflect the reality of language use.

-Materials should help learners to learn in ways similar to the circumstances in which they will have to use the language.

-Materials should help to create readiness to learn.

Checkpoint 3

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wideo.co%2Fview%2F739651382507431223-untitled&h=NAQHBzHdJ

What is wideo?
An animated online video creation tool that allows you to create, edit & share online videos for free

How to use it?
Teacher can create an animated video based on the topic they want to teach in the lesson. Teacher can create the character and storyboard based on their creativity.

Visual design and outline of why we use wideo

a)    Balance and symmetry

-We can bring balance to the elements of different sizes by either moving them closer or

further from the center of the page.

-Symmetry is when one half of a visual display is a mirror image of the other half.

-Types of symmetry: horizontal, approximate horizontal, radial and asymmetry.

 b)  Emphasis

- Create dominance and focus in their work.

- It emphasize on colour, value, shapes or other design elements to achieve dominance.

-For example we are using Wideo, so if the background is too colourful or catchy, so the

color of the words in the dialogue must be contrast than the background.

c)    Alignment

-Alignment of elements within a screen is important part of organizing and grouping.

-Should visually maximize differences between text, label and pictures.

-For the Wideo, the character and the dialogue must be well organised in able the students

 to understand the contents. 

d) Unity

- Relationship among visual elements that helps all elements to work together.

- Gives a sense of closure or oneness to a visual image.

- Can be achieved through use of similar shapes, common pattern or use of a common

  background.

Checkpoint 4

CRITERIA OF PEDAGOGICAL USABILITY:

1.Learner control

Break down the material into meaningful units in order for them to memorize.

2.Learner activity

Teachers as facilitators producing scaffold medium for students.

3.  Cooperative or Collaborative learning

-Studying with others to reach a common learning goal.

-The members gather and structure the information.

-Communication and negotiation happens when learner tools are offered.

4. Goal orientation

-Best results can be attained if goals of teachers, students, and learning material are closely related.

-Students should have chance to make choices with respect to their course in relation to goals.

5. Applicability

-learned knowledge should be transferred to other contexts.

-should be of appropriate level of the point of view of learners’ learning process.

6. Added value

-In the form of creative use of possibilities that computers offer.

Computer assisted learning:

(i)                  adaptability to individual needs.

(ii)                numbers of flexible options.

(iii)               learning is controlled by learner, initiated and in the form of learner desires.

(iv)              Consist of interesting contents.

(v)                Promote development of communication.

(vi)              Active participation of students.

7. Motivation

-talks about intrinsic and extrinsic orientation.

8. Valuation of previous knowledge

-favour elaboration, contemplation or new issues and analysis of their relationship with learners earlier knowledge constructs.

-learning material review central concepts from earlier studies that are important for understanding present material.

9. Flexibility

-have diverse assignments in material.

- adaptable, broadly defined, hence it is easier to fit students’ individual needs.

10. Feedback

- should provide encouraging and immediate feedback.

-from computers- can have immediate response of students’ action.

-from peers- support reflection given, depends on the quality of interaction.

Tutorial Task Week 3 Materials Development (REFLECTION)

For this week’s task, I was able to attend this tutorial. Despite the fact of being there, I have zero understanding on what is going on. My brain went all blank as I went through the tutorial class. We had to read 3 articles regarding Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which is like a dictionary to me (Big, Thick and Wordy!!).

However, as I went through the articles briefly, I found out that teachers have it hard when it comes to teaching students. Learning about CLT is one thing, but to be able to implement it into classes and lessons. I used to hate when we were told to participate in classes especially when there is correction to be done. We were to discuss with each other and come up with an answer. I felt that this wasted time and was not really into discussing with my peers. Now that I’ve learnt about CLT, I can see why my teachers did that and how would it actually helped students.

For the elements of competence which are discourse competence, pragmatic competence and strategic competence, I can relate to what and how my teachers taught during my schooling days. The memories are a bit hazy but yet, the important parts are still there. Well, most of it anyways.  For instance, the element of discourse competence is implemented when my teacher taught us how to write an essay. She focused a lot on getting us to remember the organization of the essay or the so-called ‘format’. For pragmatic competence, we did a lot of group works based on certain topics and also discussion or feedbacks among out works. Strategic competence is the usage of verbal or nonverbal strategies such as hand gestures or replacing words with phrases. During my younger years, school doesn’t seem as boring as my teacher would teach us different movements in order for us to learn more efficiently. For example, when we create a sentence or writing a story-based essay, we were prompted to act out or do some actions to present our works.

In my opinion, I feel that the curriculum in the English language in Malaysia is constructed to implement CLT in the lessons. However, the effectiveness does not help as there are a lot of students who lack the confidence as well as competence to really communicate and participate in class. This will create a huge gap in the students’ proficiency level whereby the less participating ones would be slowly left out. In my opinion, it is up to the teacher to adapt the curriculum and try to get all students to learn equally as well as participate in class. Thus, having new and different teaching materials will help a lot in teaching various types of students. By being able to adapt accordingly, the teacher is able to bring out the most out of the students especially through communicative English.

Group discussion

Our group discussion did not go so well at first. Each of us were facing problems as we do not really understand what the question needed as well as having 3 articles to read is very straining. As we discussed, we came up with conclusions that everyone agreed.

During tutorial class, Mdm JC’s explanation made us realize some part of our work was not really correct. With a bit of guidance, we did another discussion and in the end, managed to finish our task. We learnt that by using the textbook, activities can be carried out to suit all the four competences namely linguistic, pragmatic, discourse and strategic. But sometimes it also depends on how the teacher relates and adapts the textbook.

Tutorial Task Week 3 Materials Development

Audio-lingual method- learning chunks of sentences and words.

a) Identify the theory behind communicative language teaching approach. (Spada and Sauvignon)

Audio-lingual method is introduced and applied to the language learning classrooms before the existence of different approaches and methods which are more engaging. This audio-lingual method is based on the behaviourist theory. The learners are required to listen and imitate in order to learn the particular language. They will listen to a CD and do some selection repetition to a certain phrase. The learners will be learning chunks, sentences and words. There will be the occurrence of negotiation of meaning through the use of language.

Hymes stated that each human being needs four competences namely discourse competence, pragmatic competence, linguistic competence and strategic competence. Communicative competence means the ability to communicate and ability to negotiate with meaning. The focus was not on language learning but language as social behavior.

Linguistic competence is the ability to put grammatical functions and items into place. It is also about the knowledge of application of linguistic knowledge. The area covered under linguistic competence could be spelling, grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. A communication without linguistic competence could lead to communication breakdown. This is because learners do not have the syntactic knowledge to express themselves. They might utter some sentences or words that are meaningless as they are unable to choose the appropriate lexis.

As for discourse competence, it is the ability to produce meaningful speech by focusing on the structure of spoken and written discourse. It is metacognitive and talks about how language is used in a particular context. When it comes to discourse competence, IRF (initiate, respond and feedback) is explained. It is about the organization of sentences, linguistic and context. For instance, discourse in classrooms; it will be started with greetings from students to teachers. Then, teachers will ask students about what they have learnt for the previous lessons. Teachers will list or state out generally what the students are going to be taught for the present lessons. So, it is basically about how to use a language to tell students what the context are and producing texts with cohesion.

Pragmatic competence is important as it help learners to deliver and interpret intentions with the usage of appropriate language or context. It is also vital as it determine the ability of learners in avoiding anxiety. Basically, it is about how you understand the language is being used in certain situation as in whether it is formal or informal. For example, a teacher asked one of the students to switch on the light and he or she is using a word please- ‘please switch on the light’. In this situation, students need to realize that the teacher has a higher authority and they will have to obey her regardless of whether the teacher uses “please” or not. Students have to be able to differentiate or identify formal, neutral and informal conversations. This is especially important in multi-racial country like Malaysia to avoid miscommunications among the different communities.

Last but not least, strategic competence which refers to the ability to maintain communication. There are several ways to achieve it. For instance, by using gestures, nonverbal or verbal conversations, cues, pictures, elaboration, and also by raising your voice to get your point to cross. There will be learners who have a limited range of vocabulary especially beginners. In this situation, non-verbal gestures may play an important role to them in helping them to deliver their point across. For instance, they can use body movements to indicate actions like running, eating and singing. Each learner will or may adapt different strategies in maintaining interaction between interlocutors.

b) State the implications of communicative language teaching towards materials development.

In communicative language teaching (CLT), learners are encouraged more to speak with fluency rather than accuracy. It is important for them to be able to communicate or relay their message to others despite having grammatical errors. There are two communicative approaches namely weak and strong. The ‘weak’ approach stresses the importance of providing learners with opportunities to use English for communicative purposes (role play) and the ‘strong’ approach stated language is acquired through communication.

In a communicative-based classroom, activities are designed to promote language production that is creative, unpredictable and purposeful to improve learners’ fluency through sharing information and negotiating meaning, compared to a traditional classroom where focus is on mastering linguistic items

Learners’ should look at what message they should convey, rather than how it should be spoken. Materials promoting fluency focus on the outcome instead of the process, for example information-gap, opinion-gap and reasoning-gap. Also, language skills help learners communicate effectively. For example, vocabulary helps learners develop their ability to perform in the language. When reading a technical passage, learners have to use their scanning and skimming (reading skills) to infer or extract information, summarize (reading and speaking skills) the information and produce a report (writing skills). Learners have to utilize their linguistic, discourse and pragmatic competences to help them understand the technical passage. This helps develop learners’ understanding of the English language system.

An implication of the communicative approach towards methodology is that materials and tasks should reflect authenticity, as they bridge the real-world and the classroom. Rogers and Medley (1988) defines authentic as language reflecting “a naturalness of form, and an appropriateness of cultural and situational context that would be found in the language as used by native speakers”. Authentic sources would then reflect text (spoken or written) used in native or target language speaking context. However, the suitability of the materials (difficulty, cultural and social relevance) could actually be a problem in terms of the learners’ proficiency level and interest. Learners could be unmotivated by the materials, affecting focus on learning. Learners in my context find English materials challenging, so the teacher needs to adapt the activity in the coursebook around the authentic sources to make the materials understandable.

In the communicative approach, the role of teacher and learner has evolved. Nowadays, teacher has the role of facilitating learners’ language learning progress by designing, executing and managing activities in the classroom. This puts demands on non-native speaking teachers confidence, skills and knowledge as classroom situations become less structured. The learner takes on a more active role of becoming “communicators and autonomous learners” in language learning. Teachers would need to incorporate or make learners more aware of language learning strategies to help learners attain autonomy in their own learning. For example, strategies employed when reading a text: skimming for ideas, scanning from content, and identifying key vocabulary. Nevertheless, non-native speakers often reflect a more traditional role of learners in the classroom. In certain contexts learners are not familiar with being proactive with learning due to the exam-oriented education system influencing different social factors e.g. entrance to tertiary education level indirectly affecting learner’s kudos in society (Gupta, 2004). Teachers face a challenge in guiding learners from the traditional to a more active role in the classroom.

Reversing the learners’ role is easier if teachers are supported by policy makers, empirical evidence from research in a non-native context and materials such as coursebooks to help teachers overcome this problem. The communicative approach should not be accepted as a packaged method, but should be context-dependent to benefit the teachers and learners to achieve its goal – to become communicatively competent. The social context in which learning takes place has become an important factor in determining the whether implementation of communicative approach is succeed or not.

c) Locates principles supporting CLT within the KBSM English Language Curriculum and F1 English Language Syllabus.

1. Form and maintain relationships through conversations and correspondence; take part in social interaction; and interact to obtain goods and services

~ Principle 1: Teach communicative competence (linguistic): Linguistic competence includes the ability to use grammar appropriately. This is because grammar (noun, adverb, verbs etc) needs to be taught and be part and parcel in learning outcomes. Although students might have a low proficiency in the English language but, their knowledge in grammar is vital especially in allowing them to interact effectively with people. So, teachers need to construct a task or activity that can emphasize more on grammar. While constructing that kind of task or activity, teachers need to relate it with current or real life situation, so the students will be more familiar with it as well as can learn better.

Principle 2: Practice functions and forms in context-rich environments.

The discourse competence can be brought into this context as students are to be taught to produce meaningful sentences. They may do so by practicing the different functions and forms of words. For instance, the word “please” is used when asking for favours from someone. In context-rich environments, students can learn and practice cohesion in sentences. That way, they may identify the ‘semantic relationships’ using discourse markers and connectors.

2. Obtain, process and use information from various audio-visual and print sources, and present the information in spoken and written form;

Principle 2: Practice functions and forms in context-rich environments (discourse and linguistic competence).

This is also more to the discourse and linguistic competence context. Students will assemble and use the information they get from various sources to produce texts in either spoken or written form. A text with cohesion allows readers to get the gist and understand it.  In terms of linguistic competence, students need to learn the correct grammar and vocabulary. By having them, it will definitely help the students in delivering their message more clearly and accurate.

Principle 4: Give priority to fluency over accuracy.

The linguistic and pragmatic competence will play their parts in this context too. Teachers need to teach other words when dealing with topic and syllabus to enhance the students’ vocabulary. Teachers also should adapt and change the words according to the proficiency level of the class so that the students will have a variety of word choices. The students can “play” with words as well as use them in writing and speaking. The educational system emphasize on fluency over accuracy to make sure students are ready to take field works and facing the real world (social life). Having pragmatic competence allows them to converse and communicate using the simplest words. For instance, they will learn the basics in greeting people such as ‘Good morning’, ‘How are you?’ and many more. Students may have problems in pronouncing certain words but as long the sentence structure or cohesion is there, the listener will somehow get the idea of what is being said to them.

3.Listen to, view, read and respond to different texts, and express ideas, opinions, thoughts and feelings imaginatively and creatively in spoken and written form

Principle 5: Adopt a learner-centered attitude

Teacher regards or treats the students as partner. So, in order to achieve the vision, teacher’s role need to change. According to the principle, the teacher’s role changes in the three stages of the language teaching operation. First, teacher acts as an informant in the presentation stage, then in the practice stage, teacher plays the role as a conductor and lastly in the production stage, teacher will be a guide and a co-communicator. Through these stages, the students will be more comfortable in learning and slowly established their own attitudes in learning.

Principle 7: Promote Collaborative and Cooperative Learning

Learning tasks should be designed to require true and active communicative interactions between learners and should involve both input and help in learners’ production. Learning tasks also should encourage negotiation of meaning – changes in language will happen. This is because students who have low proficiency level cannot accomplish a task for higher level students, so they need guidance in doing the task step by step while slowly achieving the high level of proficiency. Collaborative learning enables students to interact more among themselves and at the same time, sharing knowledge with each other. It also triggers peer feedback which may lead to positive impacts. For instance, they might discover new idea while discussing certain topics and clarify certain grammar rules when they faced confusions.

Principle 8: Provide Error Corrective Feedback

There are three types of feedbacks which are positive feedback, negative feedback and both feedbacks. Positive feedback is to confirm the accuracy of learner’s response whilst negative feedback is more to error correction. As for both responses, they are to facilitate learning when delivered effectively. By giving feedback to students, they will be motivated and will learn better because they know their mistakes and the reason behind them.

d) Identify general categories and specific items to evaluate chapters in a Malaysian English Language textbook.

In the Malaysian context, it is undeniable that we are not users of English as a first language. However, we do share similarities in the context of EFL learners in other countries such as the differences in proficiency levels of the learners.

The general categories to evaluate chapters would be:-

a) Educational context- In terms of the educational context, it is important to determine whether the context is relevant and provides proper education. The contents in the textbook should reflect what a second language learner is ought to learn or know. Besides that, the context should also be based on the culture of that particular country. For instance, the culture in Western and Eastern countries will definitely be different given that the English language has different ‘stand’. In Western countries such as America and England, English is their L1 while in countries like Malaysia and Brunei, English is their L2. So, the educational context should be focus more on the function of the English language in that particular country. 

b) Learning Theories- The chapters should be designed based on the learning theories such as the SLA theories and the principle of teaching and learning. Activities in the textbook can be designed to create more interactions among students (interactionist theory) and encourage teachers to apply the principles they had learnt into the activities. For instance, teachers can actually create new activities using new materials in order to enhance students’ learning as long as the learning objectives can be achieved. The principle in materials developments suggested teachers to focus on authenticity in usage of materials and linking them to students’ everyday lives.

c) Curriculum- The textbook is all based on the curriculum. This is to suit the ‘target’ the country intended to achieve. The curriculum will be the base or guidance in determining the context (chapters) in a textbook.

d) Methodology- So far, we believed that the methodology used in nowadays teaching is all based on the principles of teaching and learning and suited according to the curriculum goals and objectives. Since the methodology is based on the curriculum, that

-Does it help in teaching methods?

e) Facilitate learning- The main function of a textbook is to facilitate learning in classrooms. The chapters in the textbook are divided into several different topics and it may help students to understand them better. For instance, the chapter ‘Friends and Family’ will teach the students more about family in the Malaysian context. The textbook provide pictures and exercises to further their understanding.

f) Learner’s diversity- The topics/chapters in the textbooks are different according to the students’ level. For instance, the chapters in a Form 1 English textbook are different with the chapters in a Form 5 English textbook. The words or terms used in the textbooks are also different as the proficiency level of students in different Form differs. 

g) Teacher’s beliefs- So far, teachers in schools all teach the English language by using the textbook as the main source. In order for an effective teaching of English to occur in class, that will have to depend on the method the teachers used and whether they have the intention to hold on to their principles. Their beliefs are what may change the students’ learning process. It can be said that the teacher himself know what is the best method to teach the students in their own class. Different teachers have different strategies and beliefs in teaching. However, their beliefs are often shaped by the curriculum and the schools’ vision.

h) Psychological validity- The contents of the chapters in a textbook should be rational and creative. Students should be able to answer the questions either independently or through cooperation with peers. It is important for their self-development as well as helping them in developing good characters.

i) Pedagogical validity- Another important criterion is that the textbook should act as guidance to both the students and teachers. There should be choices of activities that teachers can conduct in class. As for the activities, it will be better if students are able to do their very own reflection by the end of the activity. This is to ensure that they will remember what they had learnt and be able to identify their mistakes or errors. 

j) Process and content validity- The contents should be relevant to the students. Contents that students can relate to their daily lives are often easier for them to grasp. Besides that, creativity plays an important role in the textbook’s contents. They should appeal to the students and trigger their creative thinking.