The Learning Situation and Learning Environment - Essay Example

Running head: A UNIT OF WORK Customer inserts His/her name Customer inserts grade course Customer inserts Tutor’s name 24th October 2011 Introduction Teaching English is usually approached through involving several techniques and methods (Jones, 2000). While designing this unit of work, it will be useful to set up a selection of inter-related activities which will cover language skills such as reading, writing, listening and speaking since this will guide the students to develop ESL skills of reasoning and creative thinking. The paper will involve a 5 - hour discussion lesson plan as part of teaching ESL language skills which meets learner’s requirements as part of communication skill course that will assist adults students who are studying in secondary school in Saudi Arabia. At the same instance, it will be crucial that these activities will be varied and also interesting for the purpose of achieving effective purposes. The lesson will be aimed at analyzing ESL language requirements through analyzing and applying teaching approaches and strategies. The tutor will be required to teach learners English since it is the major language that the students are required to have in order to help them while communicating with other students studying abroad. Nonetheless, the teacher will be capable of handling students from different perspective, having different personalities, interests and with long-term and immediate goals, ethnic and having different language background. It will be thus very important for the students to understand English language since this will be the major language of technology and for this unit to excel the students will be required to have some English language for their future professional objectives. In this assignment, the tutor will be required to design a unit of work which will be introduced to a class of 2nd year secondary school students. Being the tutor who have taught previously in a class of ESL and gained certain learning preferences that the students require, it will be necessary to review the contents that involve this unit. It will be also very proper to start by reviewing the students learning contexts and the entire general framework entailing to the chosen class in Saudi Arabia. As the tutor, it will be necessary to provide general ideas of the status of English language in Saudi Arabia and later try and take an overall evaluation of both learners and other tutors characteristics in terms of their interests, age, personality, language back ground, ethnic grouping and sex. The purpose of the unit is to maximize learning through reducing teacher’s ratio to more effectively meet the learner’s needs. As the teacher teaching ESL to Arabic speaking students it will be my duty to use every expertise means provided by the school community to meet the student’s objectives. Nonetheless, as a teacher it will be best to create a statement objective for the unit lesson, create an objective that will drive the whole lesson and further ensure student’s achievement expectations are achievable and reasonable. The other aspect of teaching ESL language to the students will be for the purpose of helping the students speaking Arabic understand the means of using language for the media of different instances and functions. Also, the teacher will help the students understand various ways of using ESL language in accordance to the provided setting for example; through the use of an informal and formal speech or even while using appropriate written or spoken language. As the teacher teaching TESOL there is need to ensure that students maintains valid communication in spite of the facts that, there might arise limitations of an individual’s language in the knowledge of communication and understanding for instance, with the use of different communication levels (Thompson, 2007). The learning situation Learning environment This section of the paper will concentrate on the conditions of the classroom in the Saud Arabia high school class where the unit will be taught. The intended outcome for the unit will guide me as a teacher to provide learning outcomes that will be of benefit to the students. However, through establishing communicative language training and overreliance on express instructional processes this will guide the development of oral dexterities and thus ESL will be achieved extensively. The students will at the end of the lesson have knowledge that ESL educators will assist them by providing them with classrooms instructions which focuses on research that is based on instructional practices, language training to achieve effective ESL (Wolfe, 2006). The students will also be able to understand the cultural values and knowledge recognized and that is valued in the classroom and also understand the increasing opportunities for the oral language expansion. The other aspect that will provide effective ESL language to students is through providing Instructional Conversation. This aspect will give the students the opportunity to extend educational dialogue which encourages relation of school content to the students. Instructional conversion thus focuses on the students processes that comprises of forming, sharing and expressing. Nonetheless, through this process teacher’s guide in constructing lessons to the students, advice on ideas and experiences while using the classroom as a learning community. Instructional conversation further involves the teachers to connect knowledge and expressions by responding and using the students to contribute and create a major challenging yet a non-threatening environment (Jones, 2000). Through choosing a better learning environment, this will assist the students while learning ESL thus enabling them develops skills which will be of great help in learning ESL. Nonetheless, the students will be required to have a connection with ESL. Meaning that they will be required to have a feeling that through the teachers input they will have a positive outcome in terms of being confident to start speaking English effectively and efficiently without any difficulties. They will also have the urge of participation in a team work such that they can assist each other in attaining proper ESL. The topics and skills The topics that will used in this unit are thus in relation to the learners interests and requirements. Nevertheless, the learners will be supposed to try and develop communicative skills through the focused techniques such as speaking, reading, writing and speaking activities. In addition, learners by developing communicative skills then they will be able to develop discourse skills. However, the learners by being able to communicate with other students it will help the learners to thus develop the sociolinguistic competence. As the teacher teaching ESL, it will be proper to support the students through providing them with necessary assistance that will enable them to accomplish tasks while they are trying to develop an understanding which will not be quite substantial to manage on their own. However, it will not just be teachers assistance that will enable them accomplish certain provided tasks but this will help the learner accomplish tasks that they would have not been able to just manage on their own rather it will help with the intend to closely bring the learner and the teacher closely to the state of competence that will enable learner to do the tasks on their own (Gibbons 2002). In this task as the tutor of ESL it is my obligation to provide assistance and the support which is designed for helping the learner to go forward towards achieving new and modern skills, understandings and concepts. It will be also important as the teacher to come up with explicit planning so that the learners will get a valid awareness of meeting their demands of the tasks that are been set so as to meet the learners success. Again, it will be important as the teacher to actively monitor the learner’s progress by providing them with academic and immediate oriented feedback. More so, as the tutor it will be appropriate to create an environment which is task oriented and further relaxed since this will help in providing of the classroom structures that are meant for peer scaffolding (Gibbons, 2002). Classroom conditions The classroom that will be useful for teaching ESL students will be properly arranged to suit the needs and requirements of the students. As the tutor it will be proper to ensure that the classroom is well equipped both with teaching and learning equipments for example, blackboard and also a computer for the tutor. The classroom will be fully preserved at a proper condition and very spacious to hold the 25 students to be taught English language. Through application of analytical and critical skills, students learning ESL will not only gain insights on culture but they will also be able to understand Western conversation and meet demands of academic English which will guide them to understand and accept ESL while trying to put aside Arabic language. However, if strategies and skills provided for the purpose of acquiring critical literacy are not provided to ESL learners they will be less understanding of cultural insights and further the students will not be in a position to engage and interact with the text beyond literal and superficial interpretation of the tutor’s meanings. The other thing that will create an effective ESL language to the students is by building on prior Knowledge. This aspect guides the ESL language students while taking literacy tests. Teaching ESL requires a prior language since students have limited prior knowledge of thoughtful English reading channels. Jones (2000) found out that, prior knowledge was very important for Latino ESL taking literacy tests. Since the students used Spanish to understand English they further suggested that, Spanish literacy could be used for the purpose of improving English reading and comprehension (Jones, 2000). Nonetheless, teachers should provide explicit instructions since they are task specific and thus they demonstrate on the ways of completing the tasks. The consistent language and routine s that are used in explicit teaching provides ESL with specific, clear and easy to follow procedures since this helps in learning and not only for a new skill but for the language that is associated with it. It is also important for teachers teaching ESL to come up with opportunities to practice. This provide effective teaching of ESL to students in the sense that students are provided with multiple opportunities to use skills and further receive feedback by means of engaging the students in responses that are coral and other response activities of ESL (Harmer, 1991). The status of English in Saudi Arabia Since Saudi Arabia has no second language (L2) and the fact that all Saudi students speak, learn and write in Arabic language. Nonetheless, learning in ESL is thus compulsory for students of Saudi Arabia since the reason of studying this language is for reasons that English language was introduced for the purpose of attributing standard curricula to enable students establish better grounds for their future carriers. To understand English language in Saudi, the authorities of Saudi thus established English language to be a foreign language acceptable to be taught alongside the Arabic language. More so, the authorities had a vision that, through establishing English to students it would bring acknowledgement that with English language it would help students through opening up doors of knowledge to the students in attaining good career and through expressing themselves to other world where English is being used extensively. However, it is understood that English in SA has gone beyond being only a foreign language but, it is also a language that is being used in classrooms and also in several sectors for example, in health sectors, companies such as airlines and international conferences. The teacher’s characteristics The instructor of ESL will be a male who will be teaching English as the foreign language. Just like the learners the teacher will be from SA high school but unlike the other teachers he will be in possession of good command in English language and in addition he will be having a communication skills certificate as part of his study showing that he truly understands English and he has been in an English speaking country. Through, the aspects of experience and the background that the teacher will be sharing with the learners, this will assist the teacher to problems that the learners are having and what they are encountering while learning the new language. This characteristic in addition will provide a significant weight for teachers while coming up with plans of the lessons since the action will help the students to be more considerate and realistic. What are the learner’s outcomes in learning ESL? The teachers teaching ESL should develop various ways under which the students understands information provided in terms of expressing the ideas that are provided for the purpose of achieving equal and effective understanding. As the teacher teaching ESL, it is the duty to try and challenge and recognize how the students are positioning teachers in viewing what outcomes are being provided (Tileston &Walker, 2003). Nonetheless, the teachers should provide positive teaching skills that will benefit students develop and recognize the levels of objectivity in combination with subjectivity in both secondary and primary sources information’s. The outcome for the students will be for them to identify ideas and information’s that are expressed and influenced from the readers perceptions. The students also will have the ability to identify how tutors portray similar events provided in different perspectives by their teachers and thus get an explanation explaining their reasons for advancing the provided perspectives (Salsbury and Melinda 2008). Lesson about travelling Travelling to Mt Kenya will be my chosen topic for this lesson plan. The information that will be provided an authentic structure which will help the student understands the objective and further help by stimulating their interests. However, the students will be required to use both reported and narrative language while tackling the unit. The major significant for choosing this topic t o suit the unit is its flexible aspect which can be used by teaching any ESL class. The unit will comprise 25 students both male and female and will take time frame of 8 hours for 3 consecutive days. The aim of the lesson is for the students at the end of the unit understand:- The ways of expressing themselves in a narrative manner and by using language The way of analyzing of short stones and comprehending the texts appropriately. To distinguish major aspects of pronunciation of sounds such as /ch/ and /sh/ Be able to use related topics words between the sentences and finally understand ways of reporting speeches. First day Lesson 1: Grammar General objective In this lesson the students will be able to:- I. Be able to speak and listen to the other students learning together in a proper manner II. Be able to differentiate wh - questions, tag questions and reporting sentences III. Be in a position to report speeches in a correct manner The teaching aids that will be used in this lesson will comprise of Plain cards and White boards However, there will be a developed procedure that wil be used to achieve the goal of the lesson this will be:- Starting the lesson by turning the student’s attention. Advising the students on ways of reporting techniques for example about the trip, how it was and what happened. The students will be advised over the mechanism of reporting speeches. They will be required to show the tutor how to provide a sentence by use of a tag question and a wh-question. The teacher will be required to draft sentences on the board and further explain them in terms of seeking to portray how the sentences should flow in regards to reported speech and those that require grammatical changes. In the process of evaluation, the teacher will be required to formulate questions to the students to form them into reported speech. Second day Lesson: Listening Specific objectives In this lesson the students will be required to understand:- To understand several ways of extracting information helpful for answering the questions Be in a position of providing short relevant sentences by use of target languages Be in a position to pronounce different sh-words and also ch-words Be in a position of discovering new words from the learnt contexts. The teaching aids for the lesson will be:- A colored piece of paper A white board and A cassette for recording The evaluation procedure will comprise of the following:- Introduction to the unit topic by the tutor where he will required asking basic questions that are related to the topic for example who loves travelling so much. The tutor then will play to the students a recording from the cassette concerning a narrative of a young man who travelled to climb Mt. Kenya The students will thus listen the story without being interrupted or being paused at all. After that the tutor will then on the second phase pause where there are sounds of sh and ch in order to let the students try guessing the meaning using the context. The students thus will be divided into 3 groups and each group provided with different color of tape. The teacher thus will be required to use selective listening techniques will be assigned to answer the one of the questions that is written on the board while replaying the tape once more. After this the answers will be distributed to each group in the class for the purpose of verification and in order to see if every individual have understood about the whole context. The evaluation procedure will be, the tutor will eventually ask all the students to try and use new words emerging from the sentences while the other students are listening and also correcting. Third day Lesson 3: Speaking Objectives During this lesson, the students will be required to:- -To ask and also answer a few short questions -Write down the information they are given by their fellow partners -To produce correct narrative languages in a verbal manner. The teaching aids that will be used during the lesson will involve the use of a worksheet The procedure that will be followed will comprise of- a). Advice from the teacher over the lesson requirements b). the lesson will thus involve interviewing where by the students will be required to interview one of their classmates who travelled to Mt. Kenya recently. c). the interviews worksheet will be provided by the teacher d). since the interview will not be on TV the students will be required to jot down report that will be used the next day. e). the students will be required to understand how the dialog is flowing in terms of understanding such words as ch and sh how they are used. f). after the interview the students will be required to fill worksheets since they will be required to use them during the next lesson. The evaluation procedure will require a few students to stand up in the class and tell the rest what funny thing happened during their trip while the rest of the class ask the questions that relates to the trip. Fourth day Lesson 4: Reading Objectives The students will be required to try and:- Recall topics and related words Try and express reading preferences Try and make sense of the texts provided Use the pictures provided to understand the given texts The teaching aids that will be used in the lesson will comprise of; a projector a reading text three reading sheets and finally a reading attitude sheet The procedure will involve - Teacher will be required to revise together with the students what they have learnt - The teacher also will be required to display a projector with relevant topics for instance reading about different trips - After showing the pictures to the students he will then divide them into groups and with each group provided with a passage - The students will thus be required by the use of skimming technique decide what picture matches with what passage - The teacher will then authorize the students to read over the passages in a silent manner - After this the students will be required to collaborate together and come up with summary in writing on the worksheets that the teacher will have provided to them Fifth day Lesson 4: writing Objectives The students will be in a position of writing reports of the dialog of the previous day and also be in a position to correct the mistakes done by themselves. The teaching aids that will used in the lesson will comprise of a white board and a worksheet The procedure will involve:- a). Teacher reminding the students the mechanism involved when reporting a speech b). The students will be required to act as reporters of newspapers c). The students will thus be required to use the techniques learnt concerning reported speech while writing the tasks d). In order for the students to avoid facing difficulties they will be provided with worksheets containing skeleton materials of the required report which will enable them to fill the gaps with the correct answers. e). With the help of the teacher he will be required to make a follow up that each students completes the work before going to the next task. f). After completion the students will be separated into pairs and asked to correct the other groups worksheet. This aspect will be for the purpose of helping them discover their own mistakes and help them learn from this while listening to their partners arguments g). This aspect will thus involve four different skills that is writing of the correct answers, reading of the original answer, telling the rest of the partners the correct answer and finally listening to their partners arguments. h). After this the teacher will be handed with the worksheets for final corrections The evaluation procedure will involve the writing of question and procedures in the blackboard by half of the students in the class while others on the other part retelling them in an oral manner. Conclusion Vocabulary development In conclusion through developing vocabulary it will help the students to achieve comprehension and also increase learning techniques which the student does will require to be much familiar with in terms of vocabulary. This study thus will provide the study guides that will provide the range of daily life vocabulary within learners reach. Learners by understanding vocabulary, this will help the students to reduce anxiety which is usually a major factor which increases acquisition of language. The unit thus will also provide every major activity that will help the students to recycle and review the already learned vocabulary and further help them open up door that are necessary for building vocabulary knowledge. The pictures that will be provided in the unit will help the learners to understand and access situations which will help them to be creative and communicative. Learning how to learn is the fundamental aspect that teachers should guide the students learning ESL. Normally, this refers to the explicit way of learning and teaching technique, behaviour and strategy which enables the ESL learners to thus develop positive ways of understanding ESL i a clear manner. Usually, understanding how to learn is usually the most vital aspect since most learners have different cultural ways taking the example of the 25 students speaking Arabic languages with English, TESOL or ESL speakers they are different from each other. Since ESL learners lack confidence and do not participate in school education they thus require to participate fully in explicit teaching over how to learn behaviours given the four strands meant for reading, listening, writing and speaking across given learning areas (Jones, 2000). On the other hand, ESL learners may for instance coming from different back grounds thus they have limited exposure to the new schooling system. In that case, educators will be required to provide them with critical values that are related to their roles in the school, expectations, obligations, learning and assumptions of the teacher. As the teacher teaching ESL language it will be appropriate to provide model strategies that guide in checking or clarity and also checking the meaning of providing constructive and positive feedback. Also, as the teacher it will be important to develop several charts words to the class and also develop class phrases that are relevant for the unit for this will benefit the learners understand how to read the resources and the models provided to them by their educators (Tileston &Walker, 2003). References Gibbons, P. (2002), Learning To Learn in a Second Language, Primary English Teaching Association, Newtown, NSW. Gibbons, P. (2002), Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language Learning in the Mainstream Classroom, Heinemann, Portsmouth, USA. Jones, P. (2000) (Ed), Talking To Learn, Primary English Teaching Association, Newtown, NSW. NT Department of Employment, Education and Training (no date), ESL for Indigenous Students Teacher Development Course, adapted from ESL in the Mainstream Teacher Development Course 2000, Department of Education, Training and Employment, SA. Salsbury, Denise E., and Melinda Schoenfeldt. (2008), Lesson Planning: A Research-Based Model for K-12 Classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall Serdyukov, P. and Ryan, M. (2008). Writing Effective Lesson Plans: The 5-Star Approach. Boston: Allyn & Bacon Skowron, Janice. (2006). Powerful Lesson Planning: Every Teachers Guide to Effective Instruction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press Thompson, Julia G. (2007). First Year Teacher's Survival Guide: Ready-To-Use Strategies, Tools & Activities For Meeting The Challenges Of Each School Day (J-B Ed:Survival Guides). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Tileston, Donna E. Walker. (2003). What Every Teacher Should Know About Instructional Planning Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press Wolfe, Shoshana. (2006). Your Best Year Yet! A Guide to Purposeful Planning and Effective Classroom Organization (Teaching Strategies): New York: Teaching Strategies Read More