Week 3: Tutorial Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

a) Identify the theory behind communicative language teaching (CLT).

·         Spada & Savignon’s article

CLT is defined as a meaning-based, learner-centered approach to L2 teaching where fluency gives priority over accuracy which emphasizing comprehension and production of messages, not the teaching or correction of language form. In contrast to that, CLT is also said as an approach to L2 instruction which is primarily meaning-based and encompasses attention to both fluency and accuracy. Thus, the presence or absence of attention to language form is the main difference between the two definitions of CLT.

Spada’s article mentioned that CLT is influenced by Hymes' theory of communicative competence.  He believes that knowing a language includes more than a knowledge of the rules of grammar (i.e. Linguistic competence) but also a knowledge of the rules of language use (i.e. Communicative competence). This communicative competence theory is to broaden the current conceptualizations of language which is proposed by Chomsky (1957) on the linguistic competence theory. Communicative competence theory will focus on the accurate use of grammatical forms in L2 teaching because knowledge of a language (first or second) includes knowing how to use the forms appropriately in different contexts. Based on the linguistic theories of Firth (1957), Austin (1962), Searle (1969), and Halliday (1973), consistently involved formal and semantic features within their conceptualization of language and language teaching. The investigations on two related hypotheses of SLA which are the comprehensible input hypothesis (Krashen, 1984b) and the interactionist hypothesis (Long, 1983, 1996) also enhance our understanding about CLT. Both concentrate on the central role of meaningful communication in language acquisition.

Savignon’s article stated that Hyme’s communicative competence theory is to represent the use of language in social context, which means the observance of sociolinguistic norms of appropriateness. His concern with speech communities and the integration of language, communication, and culture is equal to Halliday’s as his focus is language as social behavior and not language learning. Savignon (1972) used the term communicative competence to distinguish the ability of language learners to interact with other speakers, to make meaning, as distinct from their ability to perform on discrete-point tests of grammatical knowledge. CLT is seen as to be derived from a multidisciplinary perspective that includes, at least, linguistics, psychology, philosophy, sociology, and educational research.

Four components of communicative competence:

a.    Linguistic competence (grammar, phonology, lexis)

b.    Pragmatic competence (cohesion and coherence)

c.    Sociolinguistic (formal and informal)

d.    Strategic competence (compensatory strategies)

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

Since CLT contained different definitions and interpretations of the communicative approach to second language (L2) instruction, this has created in several misconceptions on how it is implemented in the L2 classroom. There is no exact answer to what is communicative language teaching (CLT). It really depends on whom we ask regarding their ideas on what it is all about. Different individuals will come up with many different and supportive opinions. However, most experienced linguists will have the general answers where they are in the opinion that CLT is a meaning-based, learner-centered, and the emphasis is mainly on the comprehension and the production of messages, not the teaching or correcting language structure.

The implications of CLT towards the materials development is that it can depict the authenticity of the materials with the teaching and learning process that happens in the classrooms. Authenticity is one of the important elements as it shows the connections between the real-world situation and in the classrooms where teaching and learning occur. The theories of CLT help to guide in the process of developing the materials. Besides that, it can demotivate the learners as the materials involved might not achieve the level of suitability of the learners. The materials should suit the learner’s proficiency level to ensure the process of delivering the knowledge is successful.

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

The principle which supported the CLT theory in the KBSM English Language Curriculum is 7.0 – Preparation for the real world: The curriculum aims to prepare the student to be able to face the real world. This is done by preparing a more authentic material. It claimed that the learner will be able to communicate within their social context. However this is not really what had been achieved as the curriculum seems to be exam-oriented rather than learning-oriented.

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

The general categories in evaluation of chapters in a textbook are [1] Pre-use evaluation: during this time, we predict the potential value of the chapters. It would require the teacher to do quick observation of the chapters means that they need to come up with an impression regarding the particular chapters [2] While-use evaluation: This stage measures the value of the chapters while being used or observing it react in teaching and learning context. It would include the effect toward the learners and also the easiness of teaching the chapters. [3] Post-use evaluation: This is the most important yet forgotten stages. In this period, it will allow the actual assessment of the chapters; is it teachable by itself or do it require the integration of other side materials?

The item which may be applied to do an evaluation for the Malaysian English Language Textbook would include usage of the checklist. The checklist is useful as it suggests the criteria which should be exist in a textbook. It is holistic as it evaluates the chapter based on the objective aspect [systematicness] and also the subjective aspect [impression, feedback] of it. 

Reflection:

For this task, reading these two articles, Spada & Savignon’s, are not easy because there are many perspectives which need to be taken into consideration. Different perceptions of CLT really put me into a state where I must read the texts carefully to avoid misconception. As a pre-service teacher, I believe that communicative language teaching is an approach that should focus on language form other than both fluency and accuracy in second language acquisition. In the classroom, teachers should play their role to encourage students’ involvement in communication.

Since there is no perfect approach to teach, I suggest that we can actually apply two types of teaching by looking in depth into the level of language proficiency among students. In a communicative-based classroom, it is important to make sure that the designed activities are able to make the students understand important points in that particular topic through the negotiation of meaning and information sharing. In order to communicate effectively, I cannot agree more with Brown (1993) that one must have language accuracy because to be fluent, it takes into account of one’s ability to produce comprehensible utterances or output.  Authentic materials and tasks connect the classroom and the outside world but as a pre-service teacher, it is crucial to fit the materials to the learner’s proficiency level and interest, not to mention the social context.

Reflection: Week 4 & Week 5

Reflection

First of all, I think that this week’s task is quite challenging than the one in previous tasks. We were given a textbook which is needed to be evaluated using a current checklist. So, we decided to use William’s checklist as it is simpler and less complicated. As a pre-service teacher, I actually find it hard to do the evaluation because we are lack of teaching experience and we only able to make assumptions on what will fit the local classroom and what will not fit them. We evaluated all four skills in one of the topic and try out all the activities given to identify whether they are within the circle of local classroom proficiency level and here it comes where William’s checklist works as a guideline for us to examined what are the criteria available and absent in the textbook. Honestly, many things came across my mind when we were given this task. Why do we have to evaluate the textbook since it is already being used in the classroom, how to evaluate effectively using the checklist, should we really evaluate this according to teachers’ beliefs as what’s suitable for students or to follow what the education department has outline for the school? However, after completing this task, I believe that textbook evaluation is to enable teachers to find the weaknesses of the content, thus teachers can find ways to develop new materials to teach that particular topic so that the learning objectives are achieved at the end of the lesson. 

Week 7: DLLM

Week 7: Digital Language Learning Materials (DLLM) by CressidaHugo

Week 9: Reflection

REFLECTION

For this task, we were required to refer to extracts from a local English textbook which focused on listening section only. The objectives are to identify the listening process in that particular section and the effectiveness of the materials to be used to teach listening skills in the classroom. The topic FOOD FOR THOUGHT in chapter 10 was chosen for this purpose. In my opinion, I believe that Listening lessons should be supplemented with activities that required students to listen to other more natural spoken language because this will prepare them to respond appropriately to people outside the classroom. The visual support and the content of the message are relevant to local social context and it is quite easy for students to practice their learning skills in the classroom. After going through this topic in class, I finally understand that an effective listening process is actually affected by the speaker, the listener, the content of the message and any visual supports that assist the message. In order to make the message comprehensible to the listener, speaker has to make sure that there are awareness on the language used, the exposure the listener has to them, the rate of delivery and the practice that listener has as clues to decipher the meaning. It is also important that listener has interest in the topic and be able to use his/her negotiation skills so that the incoming message is becoming meaningful.

As a pre-service teacher, I strongly agree that we must have knowledge on the cognitive processes before teaching listening in the classrooms. It is crucial to understand the differences between top-down processing and bottom-up processing so that we can develop listening materials which are suitable with our students’ language proficiency levels. Teachers have to develop materials with bottom-up processing to fit those less proficient students and higher proficiency students will be exposed to materials with top-down processing  because at this stage, they are assumed to be able to utilize their schemata to derive meaning and interpret the meaning, unlike less proficient students.  I believe that all listening activities should teach students and not test them. It does not matter how fast or slow they learn the language but the ability to use the language through skills that matter. If activities are made to test the students, then I won’t be surprised that students will focus on memorizing the task than on the process of listening. This will never help them to develop listening ability of determining main ideas and details. 

Week 9: Tutorial Task (Developing Listening Materials)

Tutorial Week 9 Developing Listening Materials by CressidaHugo

Week 5: Workbook Evaluation

Week 5: Presentation on Workbook Evaluation based on Williams checklist by CressidaHugo

Tutorial Week 4

Tutorial Week 4: Developing Criteria for Textbook Evaluation-MD by CressidaHugo

Week 7: DLLM

Checkpoint 1: Examples of Digital Language Learning Materials (DLLM)

·         POWER POINT (Teaching Aid)

·         FACEBOOK (Discussion and Forum)

·         YOU TUBE

·         BLOG

·         MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching)

·         WISC-ONLINE (A digital library of Web-based learning resources called 'learning objects)

·         JORUM

Checkpoint 2: SLA Theories and Principles

Theories:

a)    Behaviourisistic

b)    Interactionist

c)    Innatist

Principles:

a)    Materials should achieve impact

b)    Materials should help learners to feel at ease

c)    Materials should help learners to develop confidence

d)    What is being taught should be perceived by learners as relevant and useful

e)    Materials should require and facilitate learner self-investment

f)       Learners must be ready to acquire the points being taught

g)    Materials should expose the learners to language in authentic use

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

i)       Materials should provide the learners with opportunities to use the target language to achieve communicative purposes.

j)       Materials should take into account that the positive effects of instruction are usually delayed

k)     Materials should take into account that learners differ in affective attitudes

l)       Materials should permit a silent period at the beginning of instruction.

m)  Materials should not rely too much on controlled practice

n)    Materials should provide opportunities for outcome and feedback

o)    Materials should help the learner to develop cultural awareness and sensitivity.

p)    Materials should reflect the reality of language use.

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

r)      Materials should help to create readiness to learn.

Checkpoint 3: Rough outline of own DLLM

1.     Blogging in character

·         Pick characters from a book, such as a history book. Then, have the students to journal in their new persona. Teachers assign identities for all of the books that the students have read and let the conversation begin.

2.     Art gallery

·         Take photos of student work (or scan and save as images), and then have students to add their artworks to blog posts. To encourage writing skills, ask students to describe their art and the creation process.

Checkpoint 4: Summarize explanation for each criteria

1)    Errors:

·         There are two types of errors which are serious and less serious. Less serious is referring to a situation when work of the users are disturbed while serious is when the users’ outputs are endangered.

2)    Efficiency:

·         It explains how well the experienced users can operate an application after they have mastered it.

3)    Learnability:

·         It refers to how long the beginners use the system before they learn the essential skills which are necessary for them to complete tasks.

4)    Memorability:

·         It explains the ability of an occasional user who has previously used the system to remember its operational principle.    

Pedagogical Usability

1.     Feedback

·         DLLM should provide students with encouraging and immediate feedback.

2.     Motivation

·         Support the direction of individual's general behavior.

3.     Goal orientation

·         The goal of LM should be clear.

4.     Learner control

·         Learner’s memory should be put into optimal.

5.     Applicability

·         The knowledge should be transferable to other context.

6.     Added value

·         Value acts as an additional function towards learning.

7.     Learner activity

·         DLLM plays an important role in students’ activity.

8.     Cooperative/Collaborative learning

·         DLLM enables collaborative work with the teacher as a control.

9.     Valuation of previous knowledge

·         Include previous knowledge as an advantage for the learners.

10.                        Flexibility

·         Contains diverse assignment, adaptable, suitable and fit learners’ need.

Reflection:

For this task, we are required to provide examples of DLLM and to identify the theories and principles related to DLLM. There are certain criteria and pedagogical usability that we must follow when we develop DLLM for students. We also indicate a rough outline of our own DLLM that can be used to teach English in the local classrooms.

            From my personal experience when doing this task, I get confused between both materials and tools. In my initial thought, my notion is that a tool is somehow the same with materials as long as they are in digital form. However, after listening to Ms. JC explanation regarding this matter, I can relate that DLLM are anything that learners can use to learn a language and digital tools will help learners to share and convey what they have learned with others whether online or offline.

            As a pre-service teacher, DLLM is really helpful to enhance the effectiveness of using textbook to teach a language. DLLM is created in a more visual manner to arouse learners’ interest towards language learning. However, teachers must make sure that designed materials must fit with students’ proficiency level and able to activate their schemata in the teaching and learning context. It is crucial for students to sustain what they had learned through DLLM because DLLM is not only meant to engage students with the learning environment but also to show their ability to apply the language in real life. 

Week 2-Tutorial

Materials Development:

Tutorial Week 2- Principles for Materials Development

A) Watch Jeremy Short’s presentation on his take of materials development.

Please take note on the reasons he created the materials and the characteristics of his materials.

Which principles for materials development did Short apply when producing his materials?

Answer:

     Jeremy created the materials after he found that his students feel that textbook is boring and also expensive. Later, he managed to create interesting, fun and engaging learning through visual and audio. Hence, he implements the story telling into narrative which known as the graphic novel textbooks. It is important to ensure that the learning materials are interesting in a way to attract learner’s interest and understanding.

     When producing his materials, Short applies the principle of Materials Development which found in Tomlinson’s Principle. Short believes that materials should achieve impact in order to attract learner’s curiosity, interest and attention through novelty, variety, attractive presentation and appealing content. Materials are created to help learners to learn the language with texts and illustration that relates to their own culture.

B) Design and complete the following diagram.

     The reason why we choose to draw our diagram in this manner is because we believe that these aspects are inter-related with each other. Country’s vision is placed on top of the diagram because it works as a mover in the society which leads the parents to set a goal in their children’s academic performance. Later, curriculum goal and objective are created to suit previous relation between parent’s goal and country’s vision. Learners are expected to be able to master all the learning skills such as listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary. Then, we can see the development of two principles which are the principles of teaching and learning and the principles of SLA. 

      In the principles of teaching and learning, the styles of teaching and materials play an important role in ensuring the effectiveness of pedagogy and getting into effective language learning materials. Teachers can vary the learning materials according to curriculum requirements and learners’ interest. It is best to create fun and engaging materials such as via flashcards, videos and ICT. Connecting SLA research to materials development, there are principles in SLA that affect the designed materials. Moreover, teacher’s belief and rational should be based on the principles. 

     From many perspectives, teachers believe that every student has different learning styles. Teacher sees the importance of creating effective materials to cope this problem. The rational is that teaching and learning process are influencing each other in a way that the teachers should be aware of learners’ proficiency level. Teacher is the key factor that influences students’ performance in school. The learners should be given tasks based on their proficiency level. 

Reflection

1.    How does it affects me as a pre-service teacher?

Materials development is formally designed to help teachers to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning using materials in class. As a pre-service teacher, I believed that the principles mentioned by Tomlin are really interrelated with each other. If I were to plan my lesson plans in the future, I can refer to the principles as a guideline for me to determine and decide on what are the most suitable materials for my students.

2.    How does it affects my current knowledge?

Education is really changing time by time and we have to change with it. Back then during school time, textbook is not really being used as a tool for teaching and learning in class. We seldom open up the book and look into the contents as what we must do now as a pre-service teacher. I did not see the importance of English textbook when I was in school because students are set to learn and practise on how to answer exam questions than learning the language. Learning the language and memorising the answers are two different things because when we learn, there are important skills that we need to master and acquire in real life. Moreover, I am able to understand the different principles that are related to materials development.

3.    How can I use that knowledge to improve myself?

I can apply current theoretical principles and research findings to the practical realities of developing and/or exploiting classroom materials and offer new ideas and directions in materials design that is suitable for the different types of learners in the future. In developing language teaching materials , it is important to make the materials fun and engaging so that learners are motivated to learn the language.

http://busyteacher.org/15490-5-things-say-to-your-class-every-day.html

Teachers to be, what say you?