Real-world Language Processes And Clearly Defined Outcome

By Author: carling
Total Articles: 129
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It appears that all of the lessons, both early and late, required either comprehension or production of language in ways that were, at the very least, typical of classrooms, and, perhaps more significantly, sometimes of other discourse situations. For example, in everyday life we are often required to follow instructions, as was required in the later chemistry lessons (spoken instructions) and maths and physics lessons (written instructions).

This is another area where the teachers appear to have taken up new information. Some activities appeared to have clearly defined outcomes in both early and late lessons. Grouping items into sets, as the maths teacher had students do, is one example. Elsewhere change was evident. The chemistry activity in the early lesson, where students were instructed to 'play' with cards, did not have a clearly defined outcome. However, in the later chemistry lesson, the 'listen and do' activity had a diagram which could be judged as correctly or incorrectly drawn. The second activity used by the biology teacher (mentioned above) resulted in the reassembly of a graphic organizer which was a clearly ...
... defined outcome. Performing small experiments which led to inducing a principle, as was done by the physics teacher, is another example. In these cases, the activities of later lessons more clearly met this task criterion than those of previous lessons.

In general, then, the teachers appear to have learnt about tasks and to have incorporated them into their peer microteaching lessons, although they could not be said to have mastered either the design or delivery of tasks. Furthermore, they appear to have grasped the reason why tasks are important: to promote language use through interaction. Even when activities fail to meet specific criteria for tasks, they often appear to have been designed with the intention of promoting language use.

The increasing use of English to deliver content in both English and non-English-speaking countries to ESOL students means that many content teachers with little to no language learning and teaching knowledge are thrust into situations where such knowledge may be essential. The programme discussed in this article attempted to address these needs by presenting content teachers with both theoretical and practical information on language learning and teaching. It aimed to raise the consciousness of the teachers about the value of exploiting the language learning potential of what they were already doing as well as offering new techniques. In doing so, it aimed to enhance confidence and allay concerns about English-medium instruction by offering a practical option that could be incorporated into the existing curriculum.

At the interim point, formal anonymous evaluations of the programme showed that all of the teacher trainers felt the programme was useful, with 88 per cent rating it as very useful. Suggestions for improvement were wide ranging, from spending more time on language accuracy, to more time on teacher training, to more time on task design. To some extent these comments were addressed during the second phase of the programme when the in-service workshop was designed, which 96 per cent of the teachers found useful or very useful. The second phase concluded with the successful delivery of the pilot in-service workshop to approximately 100 in-service maths and science teachers from different schools around Malaysia. The trainers presented five days of sessions that were strongly focused on tasks, including task design and peer microteaching sessions modelled on what they themselves had experienced in the first phase of the training programme. Formal anonymous evaluations from the teachers who underwent the pilot training indicated that the majority of them felt the pilot workshop was useful for teaching their subjects in English, especially for building their confidence. Studying short-term and long-term effects on the attitudes and practices of teachers undergoing the workshop would be a worthy topic for further research.Our Coach Replica Bags with detailed imitation, qualified materials and lowest price endow you the same dignity and elegance of the original one. You would love Coach small wallet 43211 Madison in purple at first sight.