Week 7--designing a task

Date: 23rd Nov., 2011
Group members: Aziz, Hiroki, James, Mata, Peggy

Class Profile:
l They third year senior high school students who are preparing for entrance
exam of Japanese university.
l Their language level averages at upper intermediate.
l They are all boys.
l They are interested in girls, pop cultures, games, and comics, club
activities, university.

Task: University choice
Pre task:
The teacher firstly introduces their topic today—choosing their
future universities. Then he or she groups students into pairs and explains how
to conduct the task: the students have to analyze their strength and weakness
in order to match their target, accordingly, discussing the relevant questions.

Task cycle:
The students here need to set their target school, based on their preferences
and capabilities. They need to discuss what, where, why, when, how questions
about their future targets in spontaneous context. After that, they have to
come up with the results and report them to the class.

Language focus:
The teacher here provides the grammar usages of future tense and suggestion,
such as “I suggest/ recommend that” after students’ reports.

During the task cycle, some learners may
not be able to analyze themselves or decide which university they want to go;
thus, the teacher needs to facilitate them to set their goals and provide some guidelines
for them to discuss.

LC for Week 7: Designing a task

Group members: Deman , Noora, Yotah, Uzma, Khara, Janet, Evelyn , Kate , and Shaima

After our group discussion we viewed our all tasks and we combined all of them in one which is the following:

Class profile: students are in 6^th grade in elementary school( 26 of them, boys and girls are probably of the same age)

Level of English: medium

The Task: Shopping for finding a birthday present

The task starts with a role play that describe a shopping situation which the teacher create a small shop inside the class from their own stuff like, hat, scarf, pens, bags, jackets………etc. The teacher put a price on each thing. The teacher select two learners to play the role of customer( who is looking for a birthday present for his friend)and shop owner (seller) only by using body language and face expressions without speaking, and the other students will be the audience and work as groups and they should write (report)what they are doing step by step. After the scene comes to end, the group students should discuss what they performed and try to form a dialogue of their acting. Each group should report back their dialogue to the whole class.

Possible language arising:

The difficulties that they might encounter might be using tenses, sentence structure, needing more vocabulary so at that point the teacher might put a CD player which represents the same situation to listen and give them an idea of the right situation then the teacher will explain anything that it's unclear about structure or form.

LC for Week 7: Designing a task

Group members: Trang, Ebi, Zeo, Anna, Peach , Cindy

As for our group, we have a design for the task in the following:

Class profile:

   We take an example of a class from junior high school in China. In this class, the learners are around 13 years old, who are pre-intermediate learners and have different interest in learning English.

Task:

   The name of the task is “Draw and describe a house”

Step one:

Pre-task: teach them vocabularies outside the house on the board.

a.     Make a picture and label the parts around the house

b.    Ask students to work in group to name the parts.

c.     Teach the students the vocabularies.

Step two:

Task-preparation:

a.     Two students in a group.

b.    Draw their house.

Task-realization:

a.     Change groups and change roles

b.    Draw a picture again.

Task-report:

Let students to show how many parts of their house they draw in the picture.

Post-task:

a.     Choose a random picture from any group.

b.    Let students to pronounce the different parts of their house and emphasize the vocabularies.

c.     Reinforce students’ speaking competences who have difficult in pronunciation.


Possible language arising:

They should pay attention to communicate accurately and have an authentic pronunciation.

Week 6: Evaluating one of Willis’ tasks

Week 6: Evaluating one of Willis’ tasks
Group members: Gemma, Irene, Laia, Monica, Sean, Sunny

Summarising our overall discussion our group does not really believe that TBL is a significant alternative to the PPP model. We see these models as variations of the same base. Both approaches are divided into three main parts with similar objectives for each of them.
We disagree on TBL being genuinely learner-centred. Learners at the end do not get the chance to choose what to base the task on.
Regarding the second statement, we agree on TBL being a great communicative language teaching. However, we do think it is not based on sound principles but phrase usage. As Willis says the learner has “plenty of opportunities for real language use” but how realistic is that use? We see these opportunities more like those taking part in situational tasks or role play tasks rather than authentic conversations.
We agree of TBL being an approach that integrates very well the four skills (writing, reading, listening and speaking). But we disagree with Willis in the fact that it is concerned with both accuracy and fluency. As long as the teacher does not correct the mistakes that students make during their performances, they will not be aware of the form and will not have an accurate use of language. So we think meaning and fluency are given a higher importance.

Learning Circle Week 6 Group members: James, Hiro, Peggy, Mata and Aziz

1. 'For those who wish to adopt a genuinely learner-centred approach to their teaching [A framework for task-based learning] offers an alternative to the "presentation, production, practice" model'.

We felt that the task in question is learner-centred and does offer an alternative to the PPP model.

2. 'This book is based on sound principles of language learning and combines the best insights from communicative language teaching with a systematic focus on language form'.

This claim seems to be quite vague as we don’t know what is being referred to by ‘the best insights from communicative language teaching’. The task does allow for a systematic focus on spoken form though.

3. 'This approach allows the natural integration of skills and encourages in the learner a concern for both accuracy and fluency'.

The task does allow natural integration of different skills. There are lots of opportunities to practise speaking fluency, but we felt that there could be a slightly greater focus on accuracy. This could be achieved by providing more practice with the target language through task repetition, rather than potentially finishing the lesson after the language analysis stage.

4. 'This book on task-based learning (TBL) shows how tasks can be used as the central focus in a supportive methodological framework'

We all agreed wholeheartedly with this statement.

5. 'This task-based framework takes into account what we know about how people learn languages'.

We felt that there is still a lot of debate about how people learn languages, so found this claim a little bold. Having said that, we agreed that the task-based framework can certainly act as a guide for one approach to, or lesson shape in, language teaching.

6. 'We know that people cannot learn a language without plenty of opportunities for real language use'.

A key thing we discussed here was how to define ‘real language use’. We thought that the task offers learners ample opportunity to use language, but felt that the planning and report stages don’t necessarily mirror real, common language use,( though perhaps they do so as well as possible within the confines of the classroom situation).

7. 'We also know that too much emphasis on small-group communication without any call for accuracy may result in learners' grammar fossilising; some learners develop fluency at the expense of accuracy'.

We felt that the focus on accuracy comes very late in this task. Task repetition would allow learners the chance to use the language with greater accuracy, and would help to avoid learners developing fluency at the expense of accuracy.

Learning Circle Task 6

All the members of the learning circle were of the consensus that TBL does have a lot of similarities with PPP-“ presentation , production , practice ’’ model but it is not really an alternative of it . It is more like a variation of the model. However , all of us agreed that the task seems to deliver the promises made on the back of Willis’ (1996) book and follows the guidelines mentioned , like it gives the learners a chance or rather plenty of opportunities for language usage that in turn helps in encouraging their skills of fluency and accuracy . Although we agreed on most of the statements there was a difference of opinion on the last one; some said small- group communication is more effective if the learner is at ease in expressing his/her ideas vocally (as some learners might not feel confident enough being a part of a larger group) while others thought that this might result in learners’ grammar fossilizing.

In our Learning Circle we had lots of discussion on the topic but it led to more questions being raised than coming up with clearly defined answers. The members raised some question like:

a) When we talk of CLT and TBL all the focus is on communication then why is there an issue of focusing on language forms?

b) Difference between task and activity?

c) Clear distinction between PPP and TBL?




Group Members:
Deman , Kate, Janet , Noora , Shaima, Yiota , Evelyn, Khara & Uzma

LC for Session 6

Member: David, Trang, Peach, Zoe, Cindy, Anna

As to the first statement, in our group, we all think that it is delivered partially. The process of this activity does not follow PPP strictly, just share something, and it brings something new for the classroom. It really offers an alternative to the “presentation, production, practice” model, but not genuinely learned-centered. Throughout all the activity, we can see the subject is controlled by the teacher, and students should follow the model given by the teacher, and they cannot decide the topic, task and something they’d like to learn. So we all think this statement is partially delivered.
For the second statement, we all agree with that it is delivered in the task. As first, let students to think about which subjects they dislike or like, then listen to a dialogue for a while, after the input, the group discussion comes in. It encourages students to discover language themselves, so it is really based on sound principles of language learning. In the part of “language focus”, the focus on language form is delivered exactly.
Regarding with the third statement, in our group, we all hold that it is not delivered. Throughout the task, in terms of accuracy and fluency, the teacher does not supervise these points at all. In the part of listening, students even can copy each others’, so it is not natural at this point either. Totally, it is teacher- centered.
As for the fourth statement, we think it is delivered. In a broad sense, taking the whole process into consideration, we come to this agreement.
Taking the fifth statement into consideration, we think it is not delivered. Because the theory or research of second language acquisition doesn’t support this point, and if it doesn’t work., we can improve that.
For the sixth statement, in our group, we deem that it is not delivered. Since there is no other model can be compared, only from this one, we cannot draw such a statement. However, as to the “real language use”, it is indeed displayed in the listening part, but less plenty. Therefore, in this task, it doesn’t deliver the plenty of opportunities for real language use, but we all completely agree with this statement.
Regarding with the last one, we all think it is not delivered. Because in the small group activity displayed; students can complete the task without any accuracy, they just need to express themselves to others clearly, so only with fluency can they complete the task.

week 5

group memebers: Peggy,Hiro,James,Aziz,Mata

We thought that the Family Activity is very good but there are issues of time and how useful it is in some cases.  

For some of us, when considering the exams which students have to take, we ought to say that the ‘ACCESS to fluency’ is not really needed because the exams do not include speaking and fluency.  Therefore teachers have to focus on teaching the other 3 skills (which are tested) within limited time; besides, deviation from the curriculum is not that easy.  If we do not have to consider the time issue, The Family Activity can be used because we suppose that speaking and communicative competence can contribute to other language skills such as listening, reading and writing.

For others communication is very important since it is both required and tested.

The activities which we have used in our own classrooms are not so communicative as described in the article although they have some communicative features in, for example, role play, information gap task, jigsaw and even teachers’ questions in order to introduce new grammatical points.  

Using real language in the classroom and real situations are very helpful for students but the teachers should always adapt the context of CLT to students’ needs, cultural background , age, and  their interests .

Learning Circle Task: Read Maley (1986) carefully. Discuss the following question with your learning circle group. (Evison 2010)

Group members: Gemma, Irene, Laia, Monica, Sean, Sunny

1. This article was written 20 years ago. To what extent does it appear 'dated' or modern to you?
We think the whole concept of the article is quite modern because in the problem section he talked about how little is new about how language is learnt, and how difficult it is to carry out reliable research. It seems we are in a similar situation today.

2. Look carefully at the 'Implications for teaching' section on p. 89. Consider both your learning of English, and your teaching experience, and reflect on the extent to which Maley's predictions have ‘come true’ in your own learning/teaching context.
As the role of being a teacher, every prediction has come true; however, as a student, none of them have come true. We think the role of teachers and learners’ role will change simultaneously. Teachers have more freedom to choose the materials that they want to use and it reflected a various kinds of knowledge and evidently broaden the horizon of learners. The interaction among students is a common phenomenon that we could see in nowadays classroom.

3. To what extent do the advantages listed on page 90 outweigh the disadvantages? Choose one of the following and justify it in light of your own experience (1 – advantages completely outweigh disadvantages, 2 – advantages partly outweigh disadvantages, 3 – neither outweighs the other, 4 – disadvantages completely outweigh the advantages).
Most of us all think that advantages partly outweigh disadvantages: it’s good that students can actually have opportunities to use the language for purposes. If learners have their own purpose and strong motivation it would definitely help them to improve their learning, stimulate them to have the urge to learn and have passion to study further. Also, it would be more efficient not only for student but also for teacher to teach what is relevant and necessary. Besides, CLT requires much preparation for teachers, and it’s a little bit nervous that teachers have lack of security of the textbook.

4. Maley lists six problems (pages 91-2). In the light of your own teaching experience, can you rank these problems from 1 (most serious) to 6 (least serious).

Generally speaking, we group have two different ranking answers, one of our ranking answer is that No.5 (individual differences) is the most serious and No.2 (the difficulty of carrying out reliable research) is the least serious; the other ranking answer is No.1 (how languages are actually learnt) is the most serious and No.5 (individual differences) is the least serious one. Apart from that, in between the most and least, we have various orders but we all more or less agree the most and least rank as we mentioned above.

5. Look at Maley’s list of 14 'principled decisions' on pages 92-94. Choose the three which you think are the most important and rank them 1, 2 and 3 (1 being the most important).

Because there are 14 choices, so six members of us all have different ranking of this answer, but generally our group think that the No. 1, 8, and 11 are the most important decisions.

LC for 03/11/11

LC group members: Gemma, Irene, Laia, Monica, Sean, and Sunny

1. We think the Family Relationship activity is good, but probably cannot be used in the beginner level class and it is best used for intermediate students with some fundamental vocabulary knowledge. Also, it depends a lot on students who have been divided into adequate number of group such as the author mentioned around 8 to 10.

In addition, one of our group members mentioned about the activity that she used small cards to let students compare and teach them some set phrases as grammar activities. She also put some functioning formulaic patterns on board so that learners can practice more often. Another member also mentioned she may give students questionnaires as a warm-up activity and have students introduce themselves so that they can guess others’ names.

Furthermore, time management is important when holding a communicative snapshot activity.

2. The activities should be suitable for students from other countries. However, those activities should be considered for participants with different personalities. They can be adjusted a bit to make them fit for students in different countries.

3. The cultural background, class size, class atmosphere, students’ preferences, students’ levels, and diversity of age are vital factors for CLT content.

DEVELOPMENTS IN TESOL METHODOLOGY

LEARNING CIRCLE MEMBERS: Deman, Kate, Shaima, Noora, Yiota, Evelyn, Janet, Hara,Uzma

SUMMARY

The ‘Family Relationship’ communicative task is an activity, which if adjusted to the level and the age of the students, it will be really interesting and helpful for them as it will trigger their imagination, draw their attention and enable them to achieve fluency in speech as well as acquisition of the taught material. To be more specific, when this task is applied to learners of elementary level, it should focus on the teaching of easy topics, forms and structures of the language. Those could be the members of the family, the professions and their roles in society. Also, taking into consideration that the task addresses to young students, its aim should simply be the practice of the taught subject.

On the other hand, when the task is performed by adult learners, it should be modified in order to be compatible with their age and interests. As a result it should include topics like sports and politics and focus on the acquisition of more complex forms of the language. In this way, during the interaction that takes place, the students will exchange ideas and their knowledge will be expanded.

As far as our snapshot activities are concerned, they were quite similar to the ‘Family Relationship’ communicative task as most of them included role playing and the question-answer pattern. Moreover, their purpose was to promote communication among the students, who trough their interaction they would be able to achieve speech fluency and thus automaticity.

However, some members of the group were not sure if they could set this activity to the students of their country, as the government policies that affect the educational sector are quite strict, imposing a teaching line which must be followed by the teachers without any radical modifications. Another suspending factor is the number of the students within a class. The task might not be successful in classes with a large number of students because it would be difficult for them to interact and at the same time be relevant to the topic. This could only be possible if they were given certain instructions before the introduction of the task and if they were constantly monitored by the teacher.

In conclusion, the ‘Family Relationship’ communicative task is an activity the application of which in the CLT classrooms will have the desired effects only if it is transformed according to the age, the level, the interests and the number of the learners as well as if its use is allowed by the government teaching line.

Group members: Ebi, David, Trang, Peach, Cindy, Anna
1. Describe a communicative activity you have done with your students
Ebi: first day to school game
- Ss brainstorm vocabulary and structures to talk about their first day going to school, to describe their experience, feelings
- T consolidate language
- Ss talk freely to their peers about their first day to school
David: lottery money discussion
- Ask Ss how they would feel if they won the lottery and what they would spend that lottery money on
- Discuss in groups to find if they want to spend money on any local facilities e.g. hospital, stadium etc. and their reasons
- Present their opinions to the class
- Class vote for the best argument
Peach: role-play: job interview

2. Could you use the “family relationship” task in your classroom with your students?
Yes, we think this task can be used with all levels but needs modification
e.g. For elementary level: teacher needs to do more scaffolding ,e.g. pre teach a number of words and sentence structures, combine phase 1 and phase 2 to have Ss practice the input.
For higher levels, the complexity of task can be increased.

3. In what ways is the “Family relationship” task similar or different to your snapshot communicative activity?
Ebi: They are similar, but the free communication phase is delayed till the next lesson so that Ss have time to reflect the structures and vocabulary for the topic
David: similar. But the language consolidation phase will be done again after all three phases to emphasize the structures.

4. What conclusions can you draw about the importance of context in CLT?
Very important. Each classroom is unique. There is no best method or textbook can suit every single class. Thus, T needs lots of effort to make adjustments to suit Ss’ context and needs.

Week 4 Learning Circle---Developments in TESOL Methodology
Group members: Aziz, Deman, Evelyn, Janet, Kate, Noora

1. This article was written 20 years ago. To what extent does it appear 'dated' or modern to you?

Most of us think that it’s still “fresh” and we haven’t experienced lots of changes during these 20 years actually which appears a huge difference compared to the the period of 1960s and 1980s with sprouted new teaching theories or ideas every minute.

2. Look carefully at the 'Implications for teaching' section on p. 89. Consider both your learning of English, and your teaching experience, and reflect on the extent to which Maley's predictions have ‘come true’ in your own learning/teaching context.

By using communicative teaching approaches, Mayley claimed that teachers have to shoulder the responsibility of creating a learner-centred learning environment; meanwhile, students have to participate the class correspondingly- with more freedom and more responsibility.

Reflecting to Maley’s prediction, Demon was a well example of being a student who attended the class correspondingly. The story happened when she was in high school, she refused to be a passive learner and was trying to provide a better lesson for her class. After the brilliant performance, her teacher not only praised her with her work, but also gave her a chance to be a teacher for that lesson and she still remember every single word in that book even after such a long time. Moreover, some teammates also mentioned that sometimes a lesson leaded by students was more fun and the contents and examples given by present students were easier for their classmates to understand.

Those case and examples given shows that teachers and students could lead the class in a different and more efficient way by using communicative approaches which give students more motivation, freedom and space to practice and extend their abilities inside and outside of the classroom.

(achieving better learning and teaching results)

3. To what extent do the advantages listed on page 90 outweigh the disadvantages? Choose one of the following and justify it in light of your own experience (1 – advantages completely outweigh disadvantages, 2 – advantages partly outweigh disadvantages, 3 – neither outweighs the other, 4 – disadvantages completely outweigh the advantages).

We thought that the advantage of using the communicative approaches partly outweigh disadvantages because even if there are some drawbacks of it, but those ones are all changeable or can be modified and adjusted by authorities or teachers. For instance, the main problems will be the quality of teachers which obviously can be solved by providing more teacher training, workshops or seminars.

In contrast, the benefits maintained are essential and irreplaceable owing to the communicative competence is necessarily cultivated because we situate in the global village and the motivation generated during the process of using this approach is crucial for learners to become self-directed and gaining more interests to achieve higher proficiency in English. Furthermore, students can learn English relatively efficiently and happily which generally is hard to achieve by using the dated grammatical focused method.

4. Maley lists six problems (pages 91-2). In the light of you experience, can you rank these problems from 1 (most serious) to 6 (least serious).
   
   We decided to have 4 5 6 as our first 3, input and intake problem ranked first and individual difference and government influence placed at the second and the third one. 1,2,3 all ranked at the forth place.
   



5. Look at Maley’s list of 14 'principled decisions' on pages 92-94. Choose the three which you think are the most important and rank them 1, 2 and 3 (1 being the most important).

6 placed the first one cause most of us think that providing authentic samples is really important and left ones are hard to put a rank on because they are all important in some extent in different aspects.

Week 4 -- Developments in TESOL Methodology

Learning circle task (week4)
Developments in TESOL Methodology

Member: Almazidi Abdulaziz; Shimokawara Hiroki; Dede Magdalini; Lin Pei-Ru

1-The article was written 20
years ago. To what extent does it appear "dated" or modern to you ?
After reading the article we all found that it seems
really modern. We can see some of its principles applied in our schools today.
However, in Taiwan and Kuwait the teacher is still the center of the class.

2-Look carefully at the "Implications for
teaching" section on P.89. Consider both your learning and teaching of
English and your experience, and reflect on the extent to which Maley's
predictions have 'come true' in your own learning/ teaching context
1-The teacher's role has changed and teachers have to
provide more activities. Those activities should reflect teaching not learning.
2-The students like doing activities and love doing pair
and group work but in some countries students don't want to change and become
the center of the class, they always want the answers from their teacher and in
Japan students don't want to learn using a CLT approach because they feel it
won't help them pass their exams.
3-Teachers should use a wide range of authentic materials
and grade the task as appropriate.
4-The activities that the teacher gives to the students
should be a mix between task-oriented and exercises.
5-The layout of the students in the classroom has
generally been changed from rows to a way to help communication between
students, group work and exchanging information.
3-To what extent do the advantages listed on P.90
outweigh the disadvantages ? Choose one of the following and justify it in
light of your own experience. 1- Advantages completely outweigh disadvantages
2- Advantages partly outweigh disadvantages 3-Neither outweigh the other 4- Disadvantages
completely outweigh advantages.
We all agreed that the advantages partly outweigh the
disadvantages, though James felt that they could possibly completely outweigh
the disadvantages . In our discussion, we found that a teacher should accept
that he/she must know when and how to intervene. Also the teacher should be
familiar with the background of the students. On the other hand, the teacher
will have a lot of responsibility and
have to be in full control of the students. Therefore, the teacher should be trained
to a high level. What could help to make the teacher’s job easier is that they
should try to explain the method that they are going to use. This will help to
give the students an idea of what to expect from their teachers.
4-Maley list six problems P.91-92 in the light of your teaching
experience, can you rank these problems from 1(most serious) to 6(least
serious).
After our discussion we found that we couldn’t really
rank the problems because they appear to overlap each other quite a lot.
5-Look at Maley's list of 14 'Principled Decisions' on
P.92-94 choose three which you think are the most important and rank them 1,2
and 3
1-Peggy: We should really use the language in the
classroom and emphasise the structure and function. 11,6,3
2-James: We should try to mirror authentic language
communication as much as possible and expose students to this ‘real’ language
use whenever feasible. 6.8.13
3-Hiroki: Japanese students need more critical thinking
because they think that they only need to receive information.
4-Aziz: We should motivate our students and let them look
at language learning from top down and look at it as a complete unit not as a
sentence level structure.