Vazquez Daniel. Methodology Task 3 BC UAT CD VICTORIA[1]

,&(/7 Centre: MX 030 BC Ciudad Victoria UAT

 METHODOLOGY TASK 3 Evaluating and supplementing materials

Candidate: 023 Orson Daniel Adrián Vázquez Sandoval Tutor  Ma. Antonieta de Silva.

Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas Tamaulipas March 2010

1. A  So far we have spoken about the language and its systems as well as some basic management tools that contribute with the better selection and arrangement of topics in order to be presented to our learners. This paper is about how to evaluate the tools to use within a classroom to help our students generate better meanings throughout their English learning process.

Our job as instructors is to decide what materials will better depict what we want to teach t aking into account our learners´ personalities as well as our own. The general scope that we should carry in mind is to provide variety and help our learners acquire new knowledge or recycle  previous items with as wide a plethora o f teaching tools as possible. T   HE TOOLS  I HAD

For this lesson, I decided to put into practice ³Role Playing Dialogues´ in order to teach my students key vocabulary for ³Travel´. I wanted to expand on the topic because I knew that students at this level were au fait already with some of the terms but required to get more insight. The recycling of the topic was hopelessly short and visually unappealing. I wanted to   bring something wildly imaginative to the class that students would thank. I only had a mind map that swiftly moves into a reading activity without consolidating vocabulary, so I wanted to expand: 1

1

( ³Attitude 2´ Tim Bowen et al: 2008: pg42. Editorial Macmillan )

1.B

The tools I needed  So two main problems were about to be tackled:

1. Is what I am going to teach relevantly depicted to come across and be acquired in some way by my learners? If not, 2. How much of a chance do I stand of being cheerfully successful at trying to make meaning out of a chalk-and-board situation when facing the daunting challenge of  recycling knowledge effectively?

In practice, the reality is that we have enough material to teach but we are unfamiliar as to how to properly exploit it. Personally I believe that the course book package with which I teach is fairly good and I have learned that through teaching with different course book packages an instructor raises his possibilities to better implement basic items for other lessons. For this  particular occasion I needed:

1.

2

A visual

or flashcard

that helped me warm up the class and set a context to elicit some information. I got this chart depicting a hotel to elicit about the different reasons that may   bring a person to check  into a hotel room and the numerous situations that might be lived at o nce. 2

A picture of my board in the middle of the class. after having elicited situations. Students were working on the dialogue while this picture was being taken.

2.

A dialogue to act out (I attach a copy as APPENDIX) This dialogue was absolutely optional. Students were given the chance to write their  own dialogues and to act them out, on the condition that the language they used and the context they set themselves in were Hotel/Travel-like. They focused on basic request formulae and data completion. Dialogues needed to remain short without losing effectiveness communicatively. 3

3. A set of  realia items to spice up

the

role-playing

and

to

simulate the lobby of a hotel which consisted of :

3

y

A tie

y

A pair of shades

y

A bag

y

Two paintings

y

A tablecloth

y

A credit card

y

A computer 

y

A projected scenario

How many can you spot!? The computer, the tie, the paintings, the shades. Keep going!

2 Lesson Plan Methodology Task 3 Class Profile This lesson was taught at an elementary level at A2 in the Common European Framework of  Reference. It is composed of 19 students from which 10 are male and 9 are female. They have had approximately 150 hours o f effective English practice. At the beginning of the co urse they were given a test to find out what their learning styles were. Research suggested that the class was to be adapted to a visual and kinesthetic approach. This does not, by any means, signify that they need to be looking at material or playing all the time. According to my experience, it only shows that they have certain preference towards those activities and that any well-prepared class containing one or both of the aforementioned aspects stands a higher chance of becoming a major success to them. This class was carefully prepared following those indications in order to tackle the problem of  the form leaving only the contents to learn. With this I mean that I can be sure that they will enjoy the activities but I am not sure that they will really learn what they are supposed to learn. I can always test them later. Let¶s start

Class Contents General Scope: Vocabulary Language skill: Speaking

Material: y y y y y y y

Hotel Flashcard Image projector  Computer  Dialogue handout Speakers Board, markers, eraser. Realia simulate a dialogue between a vacationers and a receptionist: a tie, a pair of  shades, a bag, two paintings, a computer, two chairs.

STAGE 1 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE ESTIMATED TIME LANGUAGE FOCUS INTERACTION PATTERNS CONTEXT PROCEDURE

Warm-up To greet and start the class 10 minutes Vocabulary Teacher  Students Hotel/ Travelling/ Vacation T. greets the class and writes on the  board:

³Hotel _____´ T. asks: y

³What are the reasons for a person to check into a hotel?´

T. writes on the board the answers. T. sticks on the board a visual aid. T. completes the cue with a name given  by SS. ³Hotel *California*´ for  instance (The visual aid shows several rooms with different people performing dissimilar  demeanors) T. asks : y

³What are they doing?´

Students come up with answers. MATERIALS Board, markers, Visual aid. ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS/SOLUTIONS

Students are to recall certain items of  vocabulary to successfully combine them with the modal of deduction ³may

STAGE 2 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE

ESTIMATED TIME LANGUAGE FOCUS INTERACTION PATTERNS CONTEXT PROCEDURE

Mind map To construct further knowledge on vocabulary 6 minutes + 2 minutes to check with  partners. Vocabulary S S  S Hotel/ Travelling/ Vacation T. will project the image of the mind map with some missing  blanks and the following pool of  items: Drop you off at Cancel Check into Arrive at Leave for  Confirm y y y y y y

MATERIALS ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS/SOLUTIONS

Interactive board, computer, digital marker, course book student¶s book  Students might mix the words and fill out the blanks erroneously. Teacher asks them to work in teams and compare.

STAGE 3

Dialogue rehearsal. Controlled stage

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE

To present students with the dialogue they were going to act out and to help them train with intonation. 12 minutes Speaking and intonation TSS // SSSS Hotel/ Travelling/ Vacation T. drills chorally the dialogue between A and B: Teacher ± A Students ±B T. swaps roles T-B SS-A T. has students drill in pairs the dialogue Hand-out Students might have problems with long sentences. At this point the teacher has the option to backwards chain construction

ESTIMATED TIME LANGUAGE FOCUS INTERACTION PATTERNS CONTEXT PROCEDURE

MATERIALS ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS/SOLUTIONS

STAGE 4 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE

ESTIMATED TIME LANGUAGE FOCUS INTERACTION PATTERNS CONTEXT PROCEDURE

Shooting of the videos. Once students are acquainted to the dialogue they start practicing to dress up and act it out for the camera. 12 minutes Speaking SS Hotel/ Travelling/ Vacation T. calls students to the stage to practice actively what they have been rehearsing. Hotel Flashcard Image projector  A digital handy-cam Computer  Dialogue handout Speakers Board, markers, eraser. Realia simulate a dialogue between a vacationist and a receptionist: a tie, a pair  of shades, a bag, two  paintings, a computer, two chairs. Students might forget their lines. Students might be subject of bloopers. y

MATERIALS

y y y y y y y

ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS/SOLUTIONS STAGE 5 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE

ESTIMATED TIME LANGUAGE FOCUS INTERACTION PATTERNS CONTEXT PROCEDURE

MATERIALS

ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS/SOLUTIONS

Video clapping competition To decide which video was the best through popular applause 8 minutes. Listening T SS Hotel/ Travelling/ Vacation T. plays the video clips continuously and after playing them thoroughly shows the names of the participants on the board and ask students to clap excitedly for the video they enjoyed most. Projector  Computer  Speakers Board and markers Students might have divided opinions towards the final decision.

3 U se

of visual aids at the ³Warm-up´ stage

At the beginning of the lesson students responded well to the reasons that brought a person to check into a hotel. The reason to this was to create a context so that students could welcome the visual. They got engaged when they were given the chance to actually give a name to the hotel. Once they were deep into the matter working on their own hotel, they started making sentences to describe what the characters were doing. It is a remarkable comment to emphasize that without the visual, the teacher  would have had to draw a similar structure on the board consuming more time from the class without guaranteeing enough meaningfulness. After a while, they seemed to have got some enjoyment out of deducting the  possible situations with sentences such as:

y y

He might be there because he is on vacation. He could be there because he is visiting his grandmother.

U se

of a page in the course book at the ³Presentation´ stage

I consider this stage was particularly important. Personally, I believe that the course book is a very powerful tool if used properly. This time it was used to  present the core vocabulary items and for this we used a mind map cloze exercise that was in it. Firstly, the teacher made sure he checked for meaning and recalled on the context  by asking a student: Where are they? What are they doing? Why are they there?  based on the visual aid. The teacher then made sure he asked randomly ensuring most of his students gave similar answers. Having done this, the teacher asked his students to open their student¶s book on a given page and found then this mind map. The teacher asked them to fill out the mind map using the words in the pool.

U se

of a dialogue hand out at the ³Practice´ stage

At this stage the learners were ready to take in more knowledge. They were given the cut outs and then they were asked to put t he pieces in order of events. Through doing this the teacher ensured the analysis of the contents and presented some of the vocabulary in context. After exploiting it a little bit in terms of structure and contents, the teacher moved on pronunciation and intonation. He drilled the class in total control and then had pairs play out the dialogue. Students look contented when they were told that they would dress up and act out to be recorded in a video to be finally chosen as winners. U se

of realia at the ³Practice´ stage

Finally the moment arrived. Students were ready after  having practiced their dialogues for next to 8 minutes and the teacher called out the names of  the first couple. They were given the items and started dressing up.

The role of realia at this point was of most importance because it would encompass a higher degree of  commitment to   produce better  language in students. It would build a relaxed environment and spice up the contents to further  check in whole class when the videos were filmed in the end.

If I wanted to use this material again I would make sure that the students learnt the dialogue well in advance. Students seemed to be a little bit dubious about their lines and this is because they were given short time to fulfill the task. The dialogues were amazingly accurate and hilarious at some points. Students behaved spontaneously and this gave the whole situation more credibility. The next time I wanted to use a visual aid I would draw on the board a grid and something similar to a hotel but I would bring stickers of characters¶ faces. This would help them think of more reasons as to why the characters are there. Examples of the characters: y y y

Albert Einstein Marylin Monroe Etc. varied characters.

In conclusion the activity was delivered successfully and the students left for  home with knowledge of new vocabulary, intonation in phrases and lots of  shining smiles.

Appendix 1 Hand out ICELT 2009-2010 Candidate: 023 O.Daniel Vazquez Sandoval Centre No. 030 MX BC CD VICTORIA UAT

Dialogue I¶m glad I finally arrived at your  beautiful hotel!

Good afternoon! Why are you so late? We expected you by 11 this morning.

 Yes, but nobody picked me up at the airport!

Can you please give me your  full name to confirm your  number of reservation?

Of course! My name is____________

Should I also confirm your  flight back tomorrow morning?

 Yes, please! And call a taxi. I need somebody to drop me off  at the office meeting I have this evening.

Sure. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Not at all right now. Thank you very much

Enjoy your stay!

Bibliography ³ Attitude 2  Bowen et al. Editorial Macmillan de Mexico Pg.42 ´

Visual aid Hotel poster  Editorial Macmillan de Mexico Teaching resources series ³Learning teaching  SCRIVENER.Jim Macmillan publishing house. Exploiting an activity pg 47 ´

The TKT Course´

SPRATT et al. ESOL Examinations st 1 Printing, 2005 Cambridge University Press ³ 

³The practice of English language teaching Harmer, Jeremy Longman Pg 45 Learning differences