Unit 3

UNIT 3 WORKSHEET

Task 1 – Based on your understanding of the unit, which four teaching methods do you think have most influenced current TEFL practice? Give a brief summary of each and give reason(s) for your choice.

1)                  Grammar-Translation: The main idea behind this teaching method is incorporating the student’s native language with English. The teacher tries to find equivalents between the two languages and relate English to the student’s language. It is fundamental to TEFL practices because it provides the basic building blocks for learning a foreign language and makes it easily accessible for the students. However, students may not learn the actual language itself, but rather just the similarities between the languages. In addition, not only does the instructor have to be knowledgeable about the student’s native language, but also sometimes there may not be an equivalent to English. For example, Japanese and Korean sentence structures differ greatly from English. Nevertheless, it is a great starting block.

2)                  Task-Based Learning: In this teaching method, the student learns the language through various activities. The teacher assigns the work that will aid the student in his/her acquisition of a foreign language. When the student completes the task, the teacher can then provide the necessary feedback and encourage the student to try to correct his/her mistakes. The teachers should refrain from correcting all of the errors so that the pupils have an opportunity to identify and correct their own mistakes while learning from them. When the students correct their own mistakes, they become more conscious of those types of errors. Additionally, teaching by assigning tasks also helps make the materials more relevant and entertaining since it is more hand-on. Task-based learning is an interactive approach that has greatly influenced TEFL practices.

3)                  Communicative Language Teaching: This teaching method emphasizes language function and situation. Most activities using this method rely on real-life situations, so role-play and dialogue practices are popular activities for this teaching method. By exposing the students to the foreign language frequently and utilizing the language in the students’ everyday speech, the students will naturally acquire the novel language. The various applications that this teaching method has in the real world facilitate the acquisition of the foreign language hereby, making it a significant contribution to current TEFL practices.

4)                   Presentation, Practice, and Production: In this teaching method, the instructor introduces the language situation first through various activities, such as drilling, creating sentences, or memorization. The students then practice the new materials while the instructor supervises their practice. The production stage allows the students to use their creativity to apply the foreign language in real-world situations. By allowing the students to express themselves innovatively, the materials become more personal and recalls easier. This method provides an interesting way for students to be more interactive with their studies.

Task 2 – State five ‘engage’, five ‘study’ and five ‘activate’ stage activities (also give the probable language level of the students):

Engage – 1) Play “I Spy” using the rhyming words with pre-intermediate language level students.

2) Anagrams could be used for elementary language level students.

3) One word linking stories would be ideal for intermediate language level students.

4) Play fizz-buzz with elementary language level students.

5) Student self-introductions are useful for any language level.

Study – 1) Hangman is a good game to develop spelling skills for pre-intermediate/ intermediate language level students.

2) Tongue twisters would be a good exercise for upper intermediate language level students.

3) Word search could be used for elementary language level students.

4) Doing language drills would be ideal for beginners and elementary language level students.

5) Gap fills would help pre-intermediate language level students.

Activate – 1) Elementary to intermediate language level students can conduct surveys for an activity.

2) Group debates would be helpful to upper intermediate and advance language level students.

3) Role play would be an interactive way to learn for pre-intermediate/intermediate language level students.

4) Producing their own TV ad for a made-up product would be entertaining for intermediate and upper intermediate language level students.

5) Writing and performing short skits would allow advance language level students to apply all their vocabulary and grammar skills.

Task 3 – Structure an ESA (straight arrow pattern) based lesson for an elementary level class in which the learners would learn the vocabulary of clothes and be able to use it when describing what people wear and are wearing:

Engage: The instructor points and labels various clothing articles that he/she is wearing and asks the students if anyone else is wearing the same piece of clothing. The teacher can expand by describing the clothing article by stating colors and numerous adjectives or even doing comparisons.

Study: The teacher gives every student a handout that has them matching a picture of a piece of clothing to its correct English name. Then the instructor would go over the answers and direct the attention of the students to different examples of people wearing various clothing articles. The instructor will then have the students describe what that person is wearing. The teacher makes sure the sentences are grammatically correct and the students are using the right vocabulary.

Activate: The teacher will have students split into small groups and decide who will be “model.” Then, from a pile of various clothing articles, the students will proceed to dress their model with scarves, jackets, accessories, and other various clothing. Then each group will have to describe what they dressed their model in. For entertainment purposes, the class could become a fashion show.

Task 4 – Structure an ESA (boomerang pattern) based lesson for a pre-intermediate class, teaching language commonly used for shopping, so that students can ask for, find the price for and purchase everyday food and clothing items:

Engage: Have the teacher start a one-word linking story with this phrase: “One day, I went to the mall/ (grocery) store and bought:” and have every student come with up one item that they could purchase at the mall/ (grocery) store.

Activate 1: Students role-play out a shopping scene. One student can be the cashier while the other student can be the customer. The teacher should allot time for everyone to plan their dialogue and keep notes of common mistakes.

Study: When the activate 1 stage is completed, the teacher reviews the mistakes and the key phrases. The instructor works with the students and provides feedback. The students would then incorporate the new vocabulary and language points into their role-play.

Activate 2: The students role-play the same scene again, using the corrections made during the study stage.

Task 5 – How, what and when would you correct mistakes/errors made during the following stages:

Engage stage – The teacher should try to refrain from correcting any mistakes during this stage because the focus of this stage is to have the students practice and speak the new material. Instead, the teacher should take notes of prominent mistakes that the students made and discuss some of these mistakes during the study phase.

Study stage – The teacher should make most of his/her corrections during this stage because the students are learning a new language point, so fluency and accuracy is the main focus of this stage. It is especially vital for the teacher to correct mistakes/errors when the mistakes are relevant to the language point and impedes understanding of this language point. Also, if a student repeats the same error continuously to the point that it becomes ingrained, it is very important to correct those errors as well. The teacher should make the necessary corrections at the end of activities, so he/she does not affect the flow. Also, the teacher should make sure that the students are listening to the feedback and not trying to finish their work. Before the teacher makes the corrections, he/she should give the students an opportunity to let them correct it first.

Activate stage – Correcting should be kept to a minimum during this stage but it does require feedback. The focus of this stage is communication and making sure the students understood the lesson. Teachers should monitor the classroom carefully and make corrections as needed. When the teacher has to correct a mistake/error, he/she should correct it after the activity, so he/she does not interrupt the flow of the class. The teacher wants to make sure that all errors/mistakes have been discussed before moving onto the next lesson.

Task 6 – Create or find a short sample piece of writing that a student might produce containing at least five of the errors mentioned in the page 23 table, and annotate the text using the codes in the table.

(Here is an example of how a student may write “Fred went to London with Jenny last week” and how you should correct it: Fred has gone(t) to l(p)ondon with ^ last week.)

In w(p)ashington [d^c^](p), [me(s/p) and my friends](wo) saw the White House. Than(na) we was(t) hungry and wanted diner(s). I asked, “w(p)here should we eat(p)” Everyone want(t) to eat at there(na)  favorite restaraunt(s). It was still a fun day.

Corrected: In Washington D.C., my friends and I saw the White House. Then we were hungry and wanted dinner. I asked, “Where should we eat?” Everyone wanted to eat at their favorite restaurant. It was still a fun day.