Weekend TESOL Materials Development

Week 14 class notes:

Evaluating ELT Materials (workshop), SLO Writing &

Choosing Keywords Workshop,

Warm-up & Opportunity for outcome feedback:

Think about the following Qs:• Teachers use three different types of questions

to help with classroom management, elicitation of prior knowledge and checking Ss understanding, what are those questions?

• Can you give me an example when you might use those questions and what the question might be in that situation?

• The Holidays in the Fall reading lesson was designed for reluctant readers, how did the T modify the tasks to make them appropriate for his Ss? Why were they appropriate? Why are some Ss reluctant readers?

Holidays in the Fall

• Left over issue:– How do we teach the Holiday in the Fall

lesson to a different group of Ss. For example how would I have taught this same reading text to a group of Ss in Ilsan in which the class had two native speakers? Could I have used the same lesson plan and materials? Why or why not?

Pre-Teaching VocabularyWord List Rather than Pictures

• Holiday• Ghost• Throw• Trick or treat• Trouble• Celebrate

• Harvest• Pray • Temple• Growth• Traditional

Groups gets some post it notes.Ss put post it note next to word they know

T has Ss explain words to each other

Pamphlet Style Graphic Organizer

• On the front is a general type Questions– What is the passage about?– What is the best title (Multiple choice)

Mind Map Graphic Organizer

• Ss would organize: – When – Where – What – Who

• The organizer and stories would be color coded, so Ss would know where to write what

How could T have used chunking in this lesson?

• big PRE– little pre– little during– little pre– little during

• big DURING

• big POST

Chunk 1

Chunk 2

Warm Up:

• Think about this:

• Why do teachers need to evaluate ELT materials?

• What are the three stages of evaluation that are addressed in this article?

• What are the three stages of evaluation that are addressed in this article?

1. External

2. Internal

3. OverallPlease, take a moment to describe

what happens in each stage.

External evaluation

• Offers a brief “overview” of the materials from the outside (cover, introduction, table of contents)

• What is the purpose of doing this? to find out what the books say about

themselves

External Evaluation:The ‘blurb’

• Reach into Backpack and discover a course packed full of exciting activities and bursting with opportunities to get your young learners using English! Your pupils will love the lively approach of Backpack, with its fun illustrations, real-life photography, chants, songs, games and project work. (more deleted for space)

• You’ll find the course clear and logical to teach, with plenty of support in the Teacher’s Guide.

• Develops reading, writing, listening and speaking skills in a balanced way that reflects the way your pupils will use English in real life. This is achieved through a wide variety of projects, games, role-plays, songs and puzzles.

• Gets your pupils interested in reading from an early age, with pull-out Little Books  Starter to Level 3 and theme based magazine pages Levels 4-6.

• Extra practice and revision on the CD-ROM.

External Evaluation:Table of Contents

• Contents• Fun in Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2• My Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14• All About Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26• My Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38• At the Toy Shop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50• People Around Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62• Swinging and Sliding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74• Animal Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86• Food I Like . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Workshop: Evaluating ELT Materials

• The online class requires that you take responsibility for your learning.

• Again, I am going to give you a set of task and I expect you to do them.

• These tasks take time, but if you only watch the lecture without doing the task, you miss important learning opportunities

Task

• Define your context: Who and what are you teaching

• Choose some ESL/EFL course books to examine.

• Examine the course books by looking at the “blurb” and the introduction.

• What kind of information about the materials does it give you?

• What are the “key words” that help you determine this?

• Which parts of the “blurbs” and introductions would you want to investigate further for your evaluation of the material?

• What about the “blurb” and introductions made the course book seem appropriate for your target Ss?

• Once you have selected a course book that is potentially appropriate based on the external evaluation, the next step is to do an internal evaluation of it.

Internal evaluation

• In-depth investigation into the materials.

• Analysis of the extent to which the factors addressed in the external evaluation actually match up with the content of the coursebook.

• In order to perform an effective internal inspection of the materials, what is the suggested minimum number of units of the course book that should be examined? Why?

Sample Content: Backpack Series

Task Continued

• Investigate if the claims made actually match the content of the course books.

• Give yourself time to do a thorough evaluation, try to skim over a couple of units and investigate the factors.

• Which factors do the materials address? Were any factors missing? Would this be a major factor for not adopting this course book? Why?

Overall evaluation

• According to this article, after doing an external and internal evaluation of a course book, you can then make an overall evaluation based on four factors.

• What are these four factors and what do they mean?

1. The usability factor How “usable” is it for your course? Does it fit in with the syllabus? Is it level and age appropriate for your students? Could you use it as a “core” material or would it serve better as “supplementary” material?

2. The generalizability factor Is the material generally useful? Can you use most of the material?

3. The adaptability factor Is the material in the course book adaptable to your particular group of learners and/or for your specific course?

4. The flexibility factor Can you use different parts of the course book at different times, or is the course book very rigid and you have to follow it exactly the way it is laid out?

Final Task: Overall Evaluation

• Look at your findings from your internal investigation

• Use the four factors to help you summarize your findings and make your recommendations

– The usability factor– The generalizability factor

– The adaptability factor

– The flexibility factor

Lesson Plan and Materials 2

• This assignment is due in TWO weeks (week 16)

• You will be required to hand in a FULL lesson plan and ALL materials for a receptive skill lesson (reading or listening)

• Next week I will meet you individually to review your lesson plan and materials

• Please make sure you bring:– Write your SLO (make sure you describe your target

students age and level)– Choose keywords and brainstorm how you will do

initial assessment, elicitation and comprehension of the new words

• Next week also bring:– the listening or reading text (in written form)– a rough lesson plan of ideas for activities and

materials to show me and other members of your team.

Create Your SLO Using This Formula

By the end of the lesson, SWBAT demonstrate their understanding/comprehension of the __________ (text/passage/story/dialog/conversation/article/etc.),_________ (title of text) BY ______(doing something)__________.

Choosing Keywords

• What are keywords? How do know which words to pre-teach?

• How many words are appropriate to pre-teach? Why?

• Look at listening script for the “Korean Food” lesson. Underline all the difficult key words and then circle 6-10 key words

List of Difficult Words

• tasty• texture• chewy• beef • pork• vampire• bugs• marinated• slurping

• squid• octopus• blood sausage• blood soup• silk worm larvae• miso soup• buckwheat noodles

What words would I teach?

• The “Korean Food” lesson is interesting because the words for the food have been made strange by being expressed in English.

• I would teach this lesson in the PRE stage differently than the way described in the course packet

• I would use a collaborative discovery activity, so Ss could discovery the meaning of the Korean words made strange

Activate schema and assess prior knowledge with the menu activity

재승’ s World FamousKorean Restaurant

Choosing Keywords

• Now look at your texts: – How many difficult words are there? – Are all the difficult words keywords? – If you have more than 6-8 keywords, is the

text too difficult for your learners? – How will you scaffold Ss learning if the text is

too difficult?

Lesson Planning-Pre

• Questions to ask your self:• What is your text? • What is your SLO?• How will you motivate the Ss to engage in the

lesson? • How will you encourage the students to

predict/anticipate the reading/listening lesson? • How will you check their prior knowledge?• Which words will you pre teach? • How will you teach/assess their understanding of

new words?

Lesson Planning-During• What simple question can I ask to have

my students notice the …

form, setting, genre, mood, gist (see end of reading on PDP framework)

• How will my students show that they have understood the story or listening text?

• What materials will I use to support them?How will I include VAKT? Peer learning?

• Do each of my activities have a purpose given before the Ss listen/read?

Lesson Planning-Post

• What aspect of this lesson can I transfer to another skill? Is there a language point, a theme or a topic which will lend itself to

• Will it be a speaking or writing activity?

• What materials do I need to support this?

Materials• Remember, “[materials] refers to anything which is

used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a language”

• Possible materials: • Pictures, PowerPoint, realia, drawing of the white

board, teacher talk (for example: CCQs, guiding questions, focusing questions, instructions and anecdotes) a game, worksheets, (SARSed) course book pages, drawing of the seating arrangement,

• Must be age-appropriate (Tom. A-6)• Must support/match the lesson.• Must be labelled to match the lesson plan.• Must follow Tomlinson’s guidelines, (for example, A-2

help the learners feel at ease, A-10 different learning styles)

Aspects of Tomlinson’s Features not in Receptive Skill Lessons

8. Draw learners attn to input

9. Communicative purposes not required

13. Silent period – will happen naturally

15. Not too much controlled practice

Planning for Clear Instructions

• What info do Ss need to know?– page # or materials– task– purpose– groups– time– special considerations

such as turn taking, not showing your paper, etc

• How will T convey that information?– using focusing Qs– previewing– short & simple instructions– chunking– CCQs– modeling– providing visual as well as

verbal instructions