Teaching Material Analysis

Instituto de Enseñanza Superior en Lenguas Vivas “Juan Ramón Fernández”

TEACHING MATERIAL ANALYSIS Materials Design 20th November, 2014

Lucía Scaramuccia

INDEX TEACHING MATERIAL ANALYSIS…………………………………………………………………..… 2 ANALYSIS OF TASKS……………………..……………………………………………………………..3 EVALUATION OF TEACHING MATERIAL..…………………………………………………………….7 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………….………………………………………..….8

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TEACHING MATERIAL ANALYSIS TITLE: Digital Corner (Rincón Digital) TYPE OF BOOK: ‘Cuaderno de trabajo para el aula de 1er año de Inglés de Educación Secundaria’. E-book especially designed for the teachers of secondary schools from the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

PUBLISHER: Dirección General de Cultura y Educación.

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2013.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: 1st year students in secondary school from the Province of Buenos Aires.

TOTAL ESTIMATED TIME: One year.

DESIGN & LAYOUT: Four-colour paper back.

DISTRIBUTION: List of contents.

SUDIVISIONS: Five ‘paths’.  Path 1: Introduction  Path 2: Language in freedom  Path 3: Being young around the world  Path 4: Hands  Path 5: Blue treasure

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UNIT 4: BLUE TREASURE Save our water School project option 1

THE PROCESS OF MATERIALS WRITING A) Analysis of tasks IDENTIFICATION OF NEED This task is presented to the teacher as an activity to bear in mind when dealing with the unit ‘Blue treasure’ which is linked to creating awareness on environmental issues, how to take care of the planet and how to save water. Therefore, before dealing with this task, students have supposedly been exposed to a lot of vocabulary and information regarding this issue. I believe that if the teacher feels the need to add this activity to her sequence of activities, it is due to the fact that she wants her students to practice: writing skills since students have to create a poster explaining how to take care about the environment, speaking skills as students have to carry out this task in groups and therefore give their opinion on this issue and listening skills for they would be listening to what their classmates have to say on this topic.

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EXPLORATION OF LANGUAGE/NEED Students should already be familiar with the language used in order to carry out this task since this would the final task of the teaching sequence. Consequently, language should pose no problems for students and would be able to fulfill the task effectively. As regards the exploration of need, two poster creator webpages are suggested: www.en.linoit.com and www.glogster.com. Both webpages allow users to add notes, images and videos to the poster.

CONTEXTUAL REALISATION This activity was planned to be carried out by 1st year students in secondary, state schools from the Province of Buenos Aires.

PEDAGOGICAL REALISATION Students have to create a poster using the words, phrases and structures they have been exposed to previously. They have to think of ways of saving water, search for more information on the Internet, books or other resources available and then create a poster. Finally, they have to share their work with their community.

ROLE OF THE STUDENT:

Task 1.

WHAT IS THE LEARNER EXPECTED TO DO?

A. Turn-Take

X

Initiate

X

Scripted Response Not Required B. Focus on Language System (Rules or form) Meaning

X

Meaning/ System/ Form relationship

X

C. Mental Operation

X

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Decode semantic meaning

X

Select information

X

Hypothesis Retrieve from LTM Repeat identically

2.

Apply general knowledge

X

Research

X

Express own ideas/ information

X

WHO WITH? Learners individually simultaneously Learner to whole class Learner individually outside the class Teacher´s choice In Pairs

3.

X

WITH WHAT CONTENT?

A. Input to learners



Form

Extended discourse: written

X

Extended discourse: aural

X

Words/ Phrases/ Sentences: written

X

Words/ Phrases/ Sentences: aural

X

Graphic b. Source Materials Learners

X

Outside the course/ Lesson Page | 5



Nature

Fiction Non-fiction

X

Song B. Expected output from learners



Form

Words/ Phrases/ Sentences: oral

X

Words/ Phrases/ Sentences: written

X

d. Source

X

Materials

X

Learners

X

Outside the course/ Lesson e. Nature Fiction Non-fiction

X

Song

PHYSICAL PRODUCTION As regards legibility, a Sans Serif font is used throughout the booklet. As for readability, in unit 4, contrast is present since the title of the unit stands out from the rest of the text by using a bigger, bold font and capital letters and by having it underlined and in a different colour. Also, the activities are presented with a subtitle with a style similar to the title with the exception that it is not underlined. Then, there is repetition of the word ‘option’ in order to make the teacher aware of the activities she can do in class. Finally, alignment is present by having the title and subtitle on the left side and the tasks indented on the left side. This was done to lead the reader through the design by having a clear contrast between title, subtitles and task.

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B) Evaluation of teaching material I believe this task is a great way of summing up what students have learnt throughout the unit and can be perfectly carried out as a final project. Also, I think this is a very rich activity since it makes students practise three skills at the same time: speaking, listening and writing. What is more, communication and interaction among students is fostered which is a vital feature in a communicative classroom.

Also, this task is not a mere language task as it teaches students to listen to other people’s opinion and to agree and disagree on an idea. Plus, the topic selected for this unit clearly bridges the gap between what happens outside school and inside it since saving water is an issue present in our everyday lives in newspapers, on TV or in magazines. Therefore, by having this task in the teaching sequence, the teacher is clearly going beyond a linguistic purpose and tries to link what happens in the English classroom to what happens in the outside world.

Nevertheless, I would make some slight changes or add some steps to the task proposed. First, I would make students plan what they are going to include in the poster. Therefore, while speaking and exchanging opinions, I would make students jot down their ideas in a sheet of paper so that when they have to create the poster, no time is wasted on trying to decide what to include. Moreover, I believe that having students create an online poster is a good way of including technology in the classroom. Still, there is no difference between creating a poster online and creating one by handwriting it since students would be doing the same activity but on a computer. Consequently, I would go a step further and tell students to surf the Net to include images and at least one video that they find relevant to the topic to the online poster. Then, they would have to account for the video they chose. In this sense, by including videos and images, the online poster would not resemble a traditional poster and the use of technology is justified. Finally, I would also make students add suggestions or tips to follow to save water at home or at school so that they can see a real purpose of first, creating a poster and secondly, of saving water.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Dirección General de Cultura y Educación. (2013) Digital Corner (Rincón Digital) Cuaderno de trabajo para el aula de 1er año de Inglés de Educación Secundaria.

 Jolly, D & Bolitho, R. (2011) A framework for materials writing en Tomlinson (ed.) Materials Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge: CUP.

 Littlejohn, A. (2011) The analysis of language teaching materials: inside the Trojan Horse in Tomlinson (ed.) Materials Development in Language Teaching.Cambridge:CUP.

 McGrath, I. (2002) Coursebook-based teaching: adaptation in Materials Evaluation and Design for Language Teaching. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

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