Production of a Teaching Material with Accompanying Commentary on Design Principles - Essay Example

Production of a Teaching Material with Accompanying Commentary on Design Principles Production of a Teaching Material with Accompanying Commentary on Design Principles Scope of the Assignment Grammar comprises of rules that govern the use of words phrases and clauses in any language. Good grammar language should posses little or no errors with the tense and proper punctuation being maintained within the sentence. Often, students make regular grammar errors due to syntax, pragmatics and phonetics. Second language acquisition is initiated since infancy times and most of it is obtained from observation of other speakers. Syntax involves how sentences are made. For every student to perform well the following skills should be mastered; reading, writing, listening and speaking. According to Syatriana et al, (2013, p.11), writing and speaking are termed as the productivity skills while reading and listening are both the receptive skills. Productivity skills are the fruits of receptive skills. Therefore, reading and listening skills within the students will always determine their overall performances. Our instructional material will focus the language skills for grammar improvement to be fully felt. The appendix will show the instructional materials that were used. Jolly & Bolitho in Tomlinson Model Design This model argues that the first stage in the development of teaching materials is for the teachers and learners to identify the current trends in teaching and learning respectively. Every time the material developer should ensure that they always introduce new materials. The next phase will be to identify the area of problem that the language subjects are experiencing since one neither can nor solve a problem that has no roots. Contextualization of the materials is the next stage whereby the locally available materials are used in language skills. Pedagogical realization will involve design of appropriate exercise, activities and assignments that will help the students to gauge what they have leant. Finally, the materials are physically produced in the form of course books inclusive of visual, book size and layout (Syatriana et al., 2013, p.15). I am going to apply the model in designing of the instructional materials. In the two hours lesson, the students are going to improve their grammar skills in usage of articles and comparative and superlative phrases. In conjunction with the intended lesson plan, the students will have a chance to refresh on their past learnt materials and apply them. For example, there will be use of punctuation marks and opposites. The punctuation marks to be used are comma, full stop and question marks. As a teacher, the usage of the articles will first be defined and their appropriate use made in vowels and consonant words. In punctuations, the marks will be used in relation to the sentence. For instance, full stops are to be used at the end of every sentence constructed by the students or the teacher. The question mark will be used after the end of the question. For clarifications, the students will always be aware that any sentence that starts with why, when who, what, how, which among others should end with a question mark. The exclamation mark will be used in the expression of a felling. Finally, the comma will be a resting phase within a sentence. Use of Articles Teaching Materials First the students will learn on usage of articles “a” and “an”. An introduction of vowels and consonants will be referred to. The students will be informed that the alphabetical letter composes of 26 letters that are a mixture of vowels and consonants. There are only five vowels in the alphabetical order mainly “a”, “e” “i”, “o” and “u”. The other remaining letters are all consonants. To simplify the lesson, some instruction will be given. For instance, article "an" is used to refer to a singular noun beginning with a consonant or consonant sound BESIDES THE VOWELS. Article "an" will be used in singular nouns starting with a vowel or a silent noun such as an hour. To simplify the lesson, images representing particular objects will be used. The class will be divided into pairs with each group being allocated a pile of pictures categorized into two parts. The first part will contain items that use the article "a" while the second group will compose of items that use article "an". The students will be required to study the images. Finally, the students will be required to mix the pictures and every student required to pick a single picture at a go. To make the lesson interactive, the student will explain to the class the correct article to be used with the chosen image. Following that, the student will be required to construct a sentence using the chosen picture. For illustrational purposes, the teacher will have to choose at least four pictures and construct a sentence from the selected pictures. For example, the teacher may have chosen a picture containing, a dog, cow, elephant and ox. In the construction of the sentences, the examples may be as follows with simplicity being maintained not to complicate it. 1. Marys home has a dog 2. A cow gives us milk 3. An elephant is a big animal. 4. An ox is used to pull carts by farmers. The images to be used will be as shown in the table below. Article “a” Article “an” man ox tree elephant dog egg book orange woman apple giraffe umbrella car antelope picture horse pen ink mango onion bicycle axe bottle envelope ruler ostrich chair olive You can note that the above used items are very common, and the majority of the children will have seen them physically may it be in the supermarket, their homes, televisions or magazines among other sources. The selection will bring a sense of reality and avoid complicating simple things. According to Tomlinson (Tomlinson, 2011, p.108), the teaching model of the teacher may not favour all students hence the variations in performance. A Brazilian teacher claimed that his students failed because they used materials that were not from Brazil, therefore; they were not familiar with them. Often times teachers are involved with students from diverse environments within a single class. Such students have different diversities within their environments. Setting of some context in the classroom tends to affect the absorption ability of the students so much. Based on Tomlinson (2011, p. 108), some teachers gives examples and exercises which are unusual for the students home ground conditions due to lack of contextual realisation. An Ivory Coast teacher claimed that some teachers used examples that were not available in their country. Imagine a teacher talking about lakes, ice, cold mornings and rains to a student from hot countries like Ivory Coast and the Saharan Diaspora. Such students will have little knowledge of such things, therefore, the intended idea that the teacher was delivering will not be clear to such students. Moreover, some virtual items such as an hour, environment, a failure, a blow and a difficult among others cannot be measures hence cannot be represented in the form of images. Therefore, in the designed lesson such words were avoided to ease the learning and ensure that the young students are dealing with familiar items. Comparative and Superlative Clauses In the last hour of the lesson, the students will learn about comparative and superlative clauses. This part will be taught in two forms. The first will involve the use of objects all around the globe. The students will be required to note the differences among the images and explain the differences. The second part will involve a video that will comprise of several items inclusive of animals, trees, insects among other nature items. From the pictures provided; the students will be required to note the difference observable in terms of various bases. In every case, the items to be presented will be comparable for the differences to be easily noted. For example, the students will have pictures representing an old man and a young school boy. From the picture, the teacher will have to set the basis unto which he want applied. Therefore, for such case, the teacher may base the two images on age. Therefore, he may ask between the two images representations, which is older than the other, the old man or the school boy? On the basis of size, an elephant and a rabbit may be compared. From the selected differences, the students will have to construct sentences in the comparative and superlative form. Owing that that in previous lessons the students have learnt about opposite, the exercise will be very easy, for example, if an item is not big, then it is small. If one is not tall, then he is short. Pictograms Basis Items Comparative Superlative Height Chicken and ostrich A chicken is shorter than an ostrich. An ostrich is taller than a hen. The ostrich was the tallest. Size Car and lorry A car is smaller than a lorry. A lorry is bigger than a car. The lorry was the biggest. Page numbers Exercise book and a dictionary A dictionary is wider than an exercise book. An exercise book is smaller than a dictionary. The dictionary was the widest. Beauty Hyena and butterfly A butterfly is more beautiful than a hyena. The butterfly was the most beautiful From Video Moving speed Tortoise and tiger A tortoise is slower than a tiger. A tiger is faster than a tortoise. Tortoise was the slowest. water volume Red sea and pacific ocean Red sea is smaller than the pacific ocean. Pacific ocean is larger than the red sea. Pacific ocean was the largest. Length River Nile and river Euphrates Flying Speed Aeroplane and Eagle Body Size cow and goat Length of horns sheep and buffalo Height Mt Everest and Mt Olive Rationale for Developing the Instructional Materials According to Karakas (2005, p. 352) language is one of the means of communication may it be spoken or written. Currently, students do not only learn their mother tongue, but an additional international language that will enhance their communication with the external society now that globalization has made the world as a village. As a result of technology and communication advancements, language teaching has drastically changed besides becoming more tedious and complex. In the past, people learned external languages to study their literature but now things have changed in that not only is it for literature purposes but for personal, economic, cultural and educational purposes (Karakas, 2005, p. 352). According to Kitao and Kitao (1997, p. 1), language instruction has five categories all of which should be encompassed for effective language learning. These elements are the students, teachers, teaching materials, teaching methods and finally the evaluation. In designing of the materials, the student seems to have little effect in that they are under the authority of the teacher and the teaching materials. Therefore, I shall select instructional materials that will suit them all. Allwrights (1990, p. 20), claimed that textbooks are very poor in teaching an argument that is in contrast to O’Neil’s one. According to O’Neill (1990, p. 3), all materials are suitable for students learning even if they were not designed for them. Textbooks enable the children to review and make their own lesson plans. Moreover, ONeil claimed that course books are convenient in terms of time and costs; therefore, they should be used. Allwrigght claimed that teaching material control the teaching of the teachers and the students learning (Allwright, R. 1990, p. 25). Students will always learn what the textbooks contain. Moreover, the teachers will disseminate what they learn from the textbooks. Textbooks play an important role in teaching languages; therefore, the teacher should always ensure that the right textbooks are chosen (Kitao and Kitao, 1997, p. 5). During the teaching, the teachers disseminate their knowledge to suite all the students in the classroom. Early levels of learning especially nursery and primary levels require extensive teaching and elaboration in that the students are not fully developed besides possessing full experience. Such students need deeper explanations in understanding of simple items. All in all, after the teachers performing their roles, the outcome is totally different in that some students will have performed better from others (Mandhuri, 2013, p. 118). According to Mandhuri (2013, p. 119), sometimes teachers assume that ideas that are clear and easy for them are clear to the students too that is not so. We will design instructional material that can supplement what the course books are providing in a more student-friendly way. Analysis of the Instructional Materials In our lesson plan, another teaching material other than a set program books has been applied. However, it should be noted that our context was within the syllabus only that the application of a simpler and interactive method has been applied. According to Syatriana et al., (2013, p.11), the course books and the instructional materials should act as frameworks and guides for the teachers in preparation of their lessons. In fact, the course books are used to supplement the needs of specific lessons and classes besides the practical needs especially in a non-English environment. The course books provide a very straight and forward academic map that can be applied by both the students and the teachers to gauge what they have covered and what to be done in the next lesson (Syatriana et al., 2013, p.11). Lack of the teaching facilities, monotonous teaching methods, ineffective instructional materials, linguistics incompetence, learning habits, attitude and interest have been blamed as the key aspects for the poor performance (Syatriana et al., 2013, p.10). Therefore, in my design such problems are to be avoided completely. In our materials, videos and pictograms have been applied as the teaching materials. The materials besides improving grammar seem to help improve reading, listening and writing skills. Listening is the effort of understanding what has been said verbally from a person or use of an audio device such as that to be produced from our video. A good student uses retrieval skills to record what has been said through notes taking. The process of hearing involves interpretation of what has been said, evaluation, deciding on how to use the information and finally responding to the absorbed information. Often times students listen to what they want but not what they are required. This means if a lesson is boring; the likelihood of the students listening is very low. However, certain points made of which may be within the lesson plan or not may make them pay their attention towards the lesson. Listening to enjoy is simpler than listening to understand in that one will be unfamiliar with the key terms in conversation. Since in education what the teacher does is dissemination of knowledge; most of the time the listening becomes difficult in that it requires understanding. Therefore, the pictograms and the video will remove the monotony of a teacher and give the students a chance a room to study and respond to what they want. For example, a student will construct a sentence using the selected pictogram. (Syatriana et al., 2013, p.11). As the students mix and choose the pictographs, the boredom of classroom is avoided. Moreover, since the class work has been designed for pairs and then chances of equality have been balanced. In addition, now that every student will be given a chance to select and construct a sentence using the selected pictogram, and than the students’ participation will be uniformly distributed, and every student will have a chance. Therefore, the teacher will have room to gauge the different weaknesses of every student and the assumption that all students are academically equal will be disapproved. According to Howard and Major (2005, p 101), teachers use a variety and range of materials such as video tapes, textbooks and internet to support their teaching. However, despite the diverse sources of teaching materials, some teachers produce their own materials. Therefore, production of our instructional materials in the form of visual and pictograms and other forms can help in teaching a lot. Teacher-produced materials are highly contextualization in that they are aimed at specific group of learners within a particular cultural context. Modern course books are claimed to be full of information that, in most situations, foreign students will have no encounter. The books have seemed to recognise English as an international language, therefore, not drawing on the local varieties of English available. Designing of our materials using simple and familiar items I think it is an advantage to the students who want an improvement in their grammar. Teacher-tailored materials have the benefit of meeting individual needs of the learners owing that classes are heterogeneous with different students from different cultures. A teacher can design materials that incorporate culture and students first language besides provision of opportunities that can be used alongside teaching. For sure, it would be very easy for a student who owns a cat as his pet to construct a sentence about rather than asking him to explain about the Malaysian plane that went missing within the month of March. It has been found that affective and emotional environment is critical for students learning. Students who are exposed to smile, joy, laugh and comic are likely to acquire more skills than students who are used to neutral and safe materials that have no emotional stimulation (2013, p. 12). In English lessons, the students should be highly skilled in listening to the phrases, words, conversations and oral texts. Application of physical description that is familiar during teaching improves students learning in that they will be familiar with the terms. For example, a student living near a forest with so many rivers has a high probability of knowing more about the ecology. He will be aware that fish and frogs stay in the water but not an elephant and monkeys. Therefore, during a lesson about such environments, the student will be able to respond or answer the question about forest. In our lesson plan, the created materials have been made familiar to the students as possible. I did not like to borrow more of international or external works that may complicate the children leading to worsening the students learning activity. Teachers should always use description examples that are common and familiar to the students for better understanding (Syatriana et al., 2013, p.11). How to Use the Instructional Materials The created materials will be applied in conjunction with teacher-tailored notes. This will help the student to be familiar with what they are going to learn besides preparing them for questions and clarifications. In addition, after the class presentation, the students will have their shallowly understood areas re-visited. A projecting machine will be used to display the video in front of the classroom for all to see the (University Of Waterloo, 2012, p. 1). To avoid any form of inconveniences to the students, the video will be tested before the class begins. Moreover, the card will be counted to ensure that every group receives the same number of pictogram cards. Academic Purpose of the Materials Application of a variety of teaching materials provides the teachers and the students with an alternative form of it which they can use in understanding of the context in a better method. The materials should serve the following purposes as follows. First, they should improve grammar; create a conducive learning environment with much interactions and support of every student. 1. Improve grammar The materials should make grammar a simple course, but not complicate it. That is the reason as to why familiar examples have been used to ensure that one has consent with at least some of the objects or all of them within the materials. Use of simple materials will make it simple for the low level students, therefore, improving their grammar. According to the University Of Waterloo (2012, p. 1), lower levels of teaching are very significant in that one deals with students who are green and less exposed. Lower level students are not fully developed, and they encounter many problems in that they are used to the first language only. Development of a second language becomes a potential problem that affects most of them especially from the non-English environments. One may have spent the whole time using the materials and in the end the students having acquired nothing. More instructions in teaching are not enough. According to (Karakas, 2005, p. 354), 50% of the students will remember what they saw and heard while 90% will remember what they saw, heard, told and touched. Therefore, various learning stimulants should be applied to increase the students remembering ability. Illustrations in the form of visual materials help learners to create a sense of learning. According to Karakas (2005, p. 352) students are able to remember what they saw through visual hence enabling students to earn language in a realistic and authentic mode improving their learning. 2. Create a conducive environment The conducive environment will be created through a good teacher and student relationship. The teacher will have to go around the class and interact with every student. The class number intended is small comprising of 20 students a number that any teacher can afford to access. With every student being involved, the class will be lively, and chances of boredom will have no room. Speaking is a way of conveying information and ideas to the speaker. According to Syatriana et al., (2013, p.12), a teacher should provide with in-depth explanations and clarifications of the made points. Moreover, the sentences to be used should be used within the level of the students. Incorporation of gestures, intonations and other body movements such as eye contacts helps the listeners to understand the speaker therefore; they should be applied in teaching Shortcomings of the Materials In general, the advantages of the materials are more than the disadvantages. The future problems to arise from the materials are that the teacher will always consume much time creating such materials. In our case, the materials have been created for grammar use only. This means that other language skills to be taught will require setting up of new materials. In the future, this may lead to bulking of materials within the schools offices provided that such materials will be designed for all classes within the primary level. However, this will apply to the pictograms only in that the videos will be stored electronically in a computer. Conclusion Based on our two-hour lesson the students will be able to upgrade their grammar skills. The two section of the lesson plan is inter-related in that the first section sets a basement for the second part. This is evidenced by the fact in the first part; the students will learn on the proper use of articles “a” and “an”. In the second part, of comparative and superlatives, the articles are applied in the sentences made. Moreover, the past learnt materials will be refreshed through the lesson in that the students will have a remembrance and application of what they had previously learnt in opposites section. The use of opposites will be re-visited in that its application in the second part uses them whereby different words and their opposites will be applied. In spite of the shortcomings of the materials, they will play a huge role in students learning. Therefore, the students besides learning more about grammar will have improved their language skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing. Bibliography Allwright, R. 1990. What Do We Want Teaching Materials For? In Rossner, R. and Bolitho, R., (Eds.), Currents in language teaching. London: Oxford University Press. Howard, J. And Major, J. 2005. Guidelines for designing English language teaching materials, [online]. Available at < www.paaljapan.org/resources/proceedings/PAAL9/pdf/Howard.pdf‎> [accessed on 29 April 2014]. Karakas, A. 2005. Use And Importance of Illustrations as Materials in Foreign Language Teaching, [online]. Available at < http://www.academia.edu/1753909/Use_and_Importance_of_Illustration_as_Materials_in_Foreign_Language_Teaching> [Accessed on 29 April 2014]. Kitao, K. and Kathleen, K. S. 1997. Selecting and developing teaching/learning materials, [online]. Available at < http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kitao-Materials.html> [accessed on 29 April 2014] Mandhuri, J. 2013. Use of Audio-Visual Aids in Teaching and Speaking. Research Journal of English and Literature, 1 (3), pp. 118-122. McGrath, I. 2013. Teaching Materials and the Roles of EFL/ESL Teachers: Practice and Theory. Bloomsbury: A & C Black Copyright. ONeill, R. 1990. Why use textbooks? In R. Rossner and R. Bolitho, (Eds.), Currents in language teaching. London: Oxford University Press. Syatriana, E., Husain, D., Haryanto, B. and Jabu, B. 2013.a model of creating instructional materials based on the school curriculum for Indonesian secondary schools. Journal of Education and Practice, 4 (20), pp. 10-19. Tomlinson, B. 2011. Materials Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Tomlinson, B. Ed. 2013. Applied Linguistics and Materials Development. New York: A &C Black copyright. University of Waterloo, 2012. Centre for teaching excellence, [online]. Available at . [Accessed on 29 April 2014] Appendix Basics of English grammar-animated movie for kids. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjv-TccnSk8 British Council on Grammar. Available at https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/grammar ‎Children’s videos. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrEtFGgtQbI Kids English grammar teacher-articles. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqYY7QYyPQU Read More