TASK 3: WWW Lesson Plan

LESSON PLAN: ALIEN AND MONSTERS

(an integration with Pixar Feature Film website)

Form: 2 Cempaka (Intermediate)                                                                Date: 23 March 2010
Subject: English                                                                                            Day: Tuesday
Theme: People                                                                                              Time: 7.00 – 7.45am
Topic: Alien and Monsters                                                                          No of students: 30

LEARNING OUTCOMES: 2.1   Obtain information for different purposes by;   (a)  listening to spoken texts such as talks, speeches, and from other multimedia sources 2.2     Process information by; (a)    Skimming and scanning for specific information and ideas. (b)   Extracting main ideas and supporting details.

LEVEL: 2.1 Levels 1, 2, 3 I. listening to and understanding a variety of texts of suitable length (e.g. instructions, descriptions) ii. reading silently and aloud with understanding a variety of texts of suitable length (e.g. simple passages, instructions) 2.2  B. Processing texts read by: Level  1 ii. scanning for details Level 2 vi. Identifying main ideas in simple text. vii. Identify supporting details or ideas in simple text.

BEHAVIOURAL OBJECTIVES:
By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
1. choose appropriate phrases describing the characters
2. write appropriate phrases to describe the characters

PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE:
Shapes, human body parts

LANGUAGE SKILL(S):
Listening with the integration of reading, speaking and writing

LANGUAGE CONTENT(S):
a. Grammatical Item: Adjectives
b. Sound Systems: Plural forms: -s /s/ – hands, eyes
c. Vocabulary: long, big, red

TEACHING AID(S):
Handouts, Pixar feature film website

MORAL VALUE(S):
Co-operation, appreciation, responsibility


THINKING SKILL(S)
Analyzing, generating ideas, making prediction, making hypothesis


AIMS:
a. to practice listening, writing and reading
b. to describe the movie characters in the website

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS:
a. One computer per group of 2 -3 students
b. Internet connection
c. Web Browser.

WEBSITES:
a. http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/inc/chars_pop1.html

PREPARATION:
a. identify a suitable website that provides pictures of movie characters
b. ensure the compatibility of the website with the computer and also the web browser
c. Ensure that the website has no inappropriate content for the students.


PROCEDURE:

PROCEDURE	THINKING SKILLS/MORAL VALUES	REMARKS (teaching aids, time allocation)
Set Induction Teacher introduces the lesson by showing a picture of an alien to the students. Teacher initiates discussion with the whole class about the alien features.	Thinking skills: ·         Generating ideas Moral Values: ·         cooperation	(± 5 minutes)
Activity 1 1.       Teacher will read a short description of an alien. 2.       Students will listen to teacher’s descriptions carefully and draw the alien on a piece of paper. 3.       Teacher will read the descriptions two times. 4.       Teacher and students will discuss the answers together. Teacher will explain and clarify the difficult and new words introduced to the students.	Thinking skills: ·         Making prediction ·         Making hypothesis	(± 15 minutes) Teaching aids: some posters from magazines, labels
Activity 2 1.       After the discussion, teacher will distribute worksheets contain the descriptions on some of the movie characters that can be found in the website. 2.       Students will search and match the descriptions with the characters that can be found from the movie Monster Inc. 3.       Then, teacher will ask the students to identify and circle all the adjectives that can be found in the worksheet (teacher explains briefly what is adjective). 4.       Again, teacher and students will discuss the answers together.	Thinking skills: ·         Generating ideas ·         Analyzing Moral Values: ·         cooperation ·         responsibility	(± 20 minutes) Teaching aids: a description written on a manila card
Closure Teacher recaps the lesson by clarifying the use of adjectives to describe nouns and how it can be used in daily conversations.	Moral Values: ·         appreciation	(± 5 minutes)

FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES:
1. Teacher will ask the students to browse the internet and search for their favorite movie and also the characters. (minimum 5 characters)
*for students who has no internet access at home, they can search for their materials from magazine or newspaper*

2. Students have to write the descriptions according to the pictures of each and every character from the movie they chose.

3. Students will be asked to use the adjective and new words that they have learnt in the lesson earlier.

4. After that, teacher will ask students to send an email of their descriptions along with the pictures of the characters they have described.
*for students with no internet access at home can paste the pictures they obtain from newspaper or magazine in their exercise book along with written descriptions*



BIBILIOGRAPHY
http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/inc/chars_pop1.html
http://macmcrae.com/

TASK 2: Article Review

 

ARTICLE:

'Using Web-based Language Learning Activities in the ESL Classroom'

by Jeo-Bae Son

LINK:

http://www.apacall.org/ijpl/v4n4/IJPLv4n4_article3.pdf

MY REVIEW:

Introduction

The article entitled ‘Using Web-Based Language Learning Activities in the ESL Classroom’ by Jeo-Bae Son was retrieved from International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning volume 4, August 2008, page 34-43. The author of this article, Jeo-Bae Son is a lecturer from the Education faculty in University of Southern Queensland, Australia. this article has been anonymously peer-reviewed and accepted for publication by the publishing committee in association with the International Society for Leadership in Pedagogies and Learning, the International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning is an international, scholarly, independently and anonymously peer-reviewed journal that focuses on issues and trends in pedagogies and learning in local and global contexts and leadership in educational research. The aim of the journal is to publish high quality research that focuses on the essence of pedagogy and learning and related issues and trends.

Summary of the Article

The article looks at methods of using WBLL activities. it also provide the reports of the results of the project based on the utilization of a website, exclusively developed as a supplementary resources for teaching English as a second language (ESL) used by a group of students in an ESL context. Basically, this research aims to determine the effectiveness of web-based language learning (WBLL) in ESL classroom.

The methodology of this research is briefly described below:

Types of WBLL	Language Topic
Pre-created Web activities	Vocabulary, grammar, reading, listening
Task-based web activities	Newsbreak, cultural differences, book/film review, individual essay
Teacher-made web  activities	In line with course’s syllabus

To ensure that this research is a success, a website exclusively designed for this research named ‘WBLL Activities for ESL Teachers and Learners’ (http://www.usq.edu.au/users/sonjb/projects/wbll/) was developed to collect authentic data from the subject; English Language Intensive Course for Overseas Students (ELICOS) program at an Australian university.

The research is conducted by using self-report questionnaire that contained 7 statements which required students to response with Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Uncertain, Agree and Strongly Agree. The subjects only consist of 12 students; 7 male and 5 female ranging from 18 to 41 years old. Thus, it is only a small-scale study of students’ opinions on the usefulness of the WBLL activities. There were four sessions and the questionnaires were distributed at the end of every session.


The results for this research were analyzed based on the 7 statements in the questionnaire:
1.    I enjoyed the Web activities
2.    I learned a lot from the Web activities
3.    I found that the Web site was well presented
4.    I gained confidence in my ability to use the Web for learning purposes
5.    The experiences in Web-based language learning made this course more interesting
6.    I would like to use more Web-based language learning activities during class time
7.    I would like to access Web activities myself outside class time


The result shows that the WBLL is indeed helpful for the students as all the 7 statements in the questionnaire given stated average ratings of mean 4.2 and above. Overall, the students are optimist towards the use of WBLL activities during and outside the classroom.

Reactions and Implications

In my opinion, this research is an interesting enlightenment for the ESL teachers to consider the use of WBLL activities in their lessons. The WBLL activities are one of a brilliant tool for teacher to be more creative and present something different to the students. It is undeniable creativity is one of the vital element to sustain students’ interest in learning thus by utilizing WBLL activities for lessons it surely can benefit the students more.

From the result, it is very interesting to see that WBLL activities benefits various level of age of students. As stated in this research, the subjects were as young as 18 years old to as older as 41 years old. I think this shows us that WBLL activities were enjoyed by everyone. The WBLL activities is good as it is flexible and can fit with any language topic. For an instance, the teacher can provide students with various language exercise such as crosswords, matching exercise and gap-fill exercise.  This can definitely instils fun element in learning for the students instead of just learning the language in conventional ways.
Therefore, I believe that WBLL activities can help teacher to prepare interesting and fascinating language activities in shorter time. Thus, these can allow the teachers to have more time in dealing with other matters in the school and also for themselves too. It also can prevent them from burn out or any other depressing problems that are common to the educators.

However, I believe that the research’s result tend to be over generalized by others. But we shouldn't accept their conclusions too quickly. To find the flaws, you have to take a step back and question what's not there -- the unwritten assumptions, biases, and framework of their research (Will, 1998). Hence, it is important to stress it out again that the research is a small-scale study that involving only 12 subjects from tertiary level thus more study should be carried out if this method of teaching to be used in other institutions such as primary and  secondary schools as they have different interest and age level. Moreover, not all institutions have sufficient materials and equipments such as computer lab and internet connection. teachers’ skills in handling technologies is also one of the factor that should be consider before WBLL activities can be carry out in schools.

As a conclusion, this research absolutely gives the ESL teachers some useful insights to improve their quality of teaching. The result did enlightening us that technology is one of the great tools to be exploited in education. particularly in our Malaysian educational context, this article has shows us that our ‘Sekolah Bestari’ projects throughout the country is indeed one brilliant move in order to help our students to discover new knowledge in pleasant atmosphere and hopefully it can bring positive outcome for the country. Lastly, this article may inspire the ESL teachers to be more resourceful and productive in their lessons.

by,

- Farhana TSR -

TASK 1: Courseware Evaluation

TASK 1