Assignment - M&R

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT:
MATERIALS AND RESOURCES

GENERAL INFORMATION:

This assignment consists of creating a ‘kit’ of own-produced materials for a specific

group. Besides, it must be done in groups and has to fulfil the following conditions:

- Length: between 8 and 10 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if
there are any).
- Type of font: Arial or Times New Roman.
- Size: 11.
- Line height: 1.5.
- Alignment: Justified.

The assignment has to be done in this Word document and has to fulfil the rules of
presentation and edition, as for quotes and bibliographical references which are
detailed in the Study Guide.

Also, it has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the “Subject

Evaluation” document. Sending it to the tutor’s e-mail is not permitted.

In addition to this, it is very important to read the assessment criteria, which can be
found in the “Subject Evaluation” document.

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Assignment:

Carry out the following task

You are expected to submit a ‘kit’ of own-produced materials for a specified group of
learners in your current or a future context.

- The kit should be a coherent block of work, produced in response to some

observed need of the learners.
- It must be prefaced by a rationale, in which the issues that have been raised about
design, trialling, adaptation and evaluation in the subject are discussed, as they are
relevant to your circumstances and the materials. A rationale might include
discussion of the context, the age and level of the students, the nature of the
syllabus and materials used by the learners, the need you perceive, the belief about
language learning and teaching that the materials represent, and any other issues
that are relevant to your materials (for example because of the particular media
chosen).
- You must also include information about how you intend to evaluate the materials
when they are used.
- You must submit copies of the materials you produce, with the teacher’s
instructions that make it clear how they are to be used. Write these instructions as if
they were for another teacher who could use them.

Note: You may find it useful to refer to the reading available in Assignment Materials
section (at the same place where you can find this paper).

Important: you have to write your personal details, the option and the subject
name on the cover (see the next page). The assignment that does not fulfil these
conditions will not be corrected. You have to include the assignment index below
the cover.

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ASSIGNMENT:

MATERIALS AND RESOURCES

STUDENTS’ NAMES:

Daniela Millan Tarquino

Login: COFPMTFL2612393

Luis Fernando Gómez Dávila

Login: COFPMTFL1439052

Ronald Ramírez Porras

Login: COFPMTFL2934593

Maritza Román
Login: COFPMTFL2942848

Group: 3

fp_tefl_2018-06_uneatlantico

Date: 02-12-2018

UNIVERSIDAD INTERNACIONAL IBEROAMERICANA (UNINI) PUERTO RICO

MASTER IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
BOGOTÁ
2018

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 Assignment - M&R

Index

Introduction ……………………………………………………..…Page 5

Rationale …………………………………………………………..Page 6

Task 1 ……………………………………………………………...Pages 7,8,9

Task 2 ……………………………………………………………...Pages 9,10,11

Task 3 ………………………………………………………………Page 12

Task 4 ……………………………………………………………...Page 13

Conclusion …………………………………………………………Page 14

References …………………………………………………………Page 15

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Introduction

During the process of development of the amazing teaching profession, teachers

become responsible entities for the creation and design of different activities, which
lead learners to acquire, remember and apply English as much as possible. Likewise, it
is necessary to develop task planning skills which allow students to feel comfortable
and motivated in their learning process. Besides, it is important to create good an
appropriate tasks which raise the potential of students; exercises that require the use of
their critical thinking. Therefore, our main goal is to generate varied work options to
develop and practice the listening and speaking skills bearing in mind the contents that
have already been worked in the classroom.

Pointing at the mentioned objective, we have selected a group of students with a

specific level of proficiency who have been exposed to the particular content that will
be working on. In this group, we have found some particular needs, which consist
mainly on the listening and speaking skills, since students present difficulties at the
moment of identifying and recognizing fundamental parts of dialogues in English and
express ideas through different conversations and debates. In the same way, we have
chosen a variety of communicative activities in order to carry out the design of our own
material to be applied in the classroom.

Therefore, taking into account the ideas on the plan presented by Ellis in Tomlinson
(1998) who illustrates the steps that teachers should follow to develop tasks in the best
way, this material will explain step by step how to guide teachers in planning, design,
description, materials, assessments and recommendations in order to give them all the
opportunity to use a variety of alternatives and activities to carry out in the classroom
when students require them. In this way, we can give learners the chance to
experience real interaction with the language.

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Rationale

Taking into account the context in which the application of the activities is carried out,
we have chosen the materials that will serve as a basis and tool during this process. It
is important to emphasize that the design and selection of the materials can be
influenced by the learners’ context and setting, in the sense that this aspect can
condition the process appropriately or not very appropriate. This way, taking into
account the characteristics and needs, students are 16 years old, which indicates that
they are going through adolescence, an age which allows them to carry out their ability
to think critically and at the same time abstractly, allowing them to manage different
concepts and draw in their mind the possible consequences their actions may bring in
the future. It is important to highlight that during this stage of their life, the creation of
their own identity becomes their greatest goal. In this way, it is possible to remark that
the use of materials for teenagers must be a completely challenging issue for both
teachers and students; for teachers in the sense that it is our responsibility to create
materials which allow students to think for themselves and think of a proper and
appropriate solution to problems and that allows them to raise their potential for critical
thinking during their learning process.

Nevertheless, students require the teacher's help and support, since the process of
developing a high level of critical thinking is not about letting them do all their activities
"as it may be possible for them" or "on their own", they also need a guide for their
learning and thinking process. On the other hand, taking into account the Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), these trainees are in the
proficiency level B2, level in which they can understand complex texts and solve
activities that allow them to increase their potential level of thinking. Also, there is
another important characteristic: In the class, the same mother tongue (Spanish) is
used by all the learners. Besides, we have found that our main objective for these
activities is to work on the students’ listening and speaking skills, besides the grammar
focus of all the exercises is mainly based on the structure of the simple present. Thus,
videos, recordings and social networks are materials to be used during this process,
whose nature is focused on multi-syllabi.

As a final point, it is important to state that related to the setting, the group of students
presents a high level of interest and motivation.
Being this aspect a fundamental part for the development of the activities proposed
through this kit.

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TASK 1
CREATE YOUR OUN INFORMATION VIDEO!

-Identification of need:
When this population of learners, which is classified into the intermediate level, is
exposed to listening exercises based on videos and/or tracks, presents a difficulty to
comprehend the dialogues, messages and/or announcements found here. Also, when
these students are asked to provide information related to what they are listening to,
they present problems to achieve this goal. Also, they present difficulties to identify
contractions and abbreviations, taking into account the native pronunciation which is
presented by the dialogue, beside of unknowledge of some vocabulary presented
during a conversation about environment and pollution
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ4knN1xdFk) such as: environment, guess,
care, that’s, pollute, “I don’t know”, etc. Thus, they strongly need to link up the input
they are getting from the listening task with the vocabulary and grammar they have
been learning during the class.
-Contextual realization:
Students have to select one of these topics: Environmental problems, vegetarianism
related to the environmental care, pollution and the importance of recycling, reducing
and reusing materials. Then students have to prepare a report through a video,
showing the topic they already selected. Finally they have to expose the video by
showing it to the whole class. The idea by applying this activity is to work on both skills:
Listening when students are hearing the videos and speaking when they pronounce
and prepare them.
-Pedagogical realization:
In this point students are asked to identify and classify the unknown words,
contractions and unfamiliar structures they may find during the presentation of the
videos they are showing in the classroom.
- Physical production:
Students have to create and make use of pictures, charts, flashcards and oral
production.
-Students’ use of materials:
At this point, students have to make an introduction and presentation for the whole
class. They are going to use the topic they already selected for the creation of the
video and create a story to be presented the next class.
Method: Communicative language teaching.

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Goal: To get and produce vocabulary and expressions through the dialogues and
comprehend ideas from videos and oral presentations.
Level: Intermediate (B2)
Age: 16 years old.
Timing: 150 minutes.
Input: Conversation about environment and videos made by classmates
Activities: Completing charts based on the first video and recorded videos made by
students.
Teacher’s role: Monitor-assessor.
Student`s role: Participant. Totally active.

1. As a first point, students have to select one of the topics already mentioned above:
Environmental problems, vegetarianism related to the environmental care, pollution
and the importance of recycling, reducing and reusing materials. Then they have to
prepare a video where they are going to provide data about the topic they chose,
through this part, students are going to be exposed to produce output. Later, all
students are going to share these videos with the whole class in order to practice the
listening comprehension and learn new vocabulary.
2. As a second point, after all students have shown their videos, they are going to
recognize the new words and phrases learned during the different presentations, to
complete this activity, they are going to complete a chart which will be drawn by one of
the students on the board, where they have to divide and classify the vocabulary by
categories, taking into account three main columns: UNKNOWN WORDS,
CONTRACTIONS AND UNFAMILIAR STRUCTURES, here all students from all groups
have to write on the chart their new words and pronounce them. This activity is thought
with the aim of practicing pronunciation while getting new words and phrases.
ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION OF THE ACTIVITY:
1. Description of the task:
Method: Communicative language teaching.
Goal: To get and produce vocabulary and expressions through the dialogues and
comprehend ideas from videos and oral presentations.
Input: Conversation about environment and videos made by classmates
Activities: Completing charts based on the first video and recorded videos made by
students.
Teacher’s role: Monitor-assessor.
Student`s role: Participant.

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2. Planning the evaluation:

Approach: Communicative language teaching.
Purpose: To study the students’ progress in their listening and speaking skill.
Evaluator: The teacher.
Timing: 150 min.
Type of information: Information videos.
3. Collecting information:
Before the task: It is strongly relevant to study the learners’ attitude toward the different
activities, with the aim of identifying troubles, difficulties and motivation.
During the task: Team work and participation in the class to carry out the exercises.
After the task: The information videos made by students allow us analyse the
comprehension of the activity.
4. Analysis of information collected:
The data collected will be analysed and evaluated into a qualitative way, by looking at
learners' attitude and their own feedback.
5. Conclusions and recommendations:
Through this activity learners will be able to practice their listening and speaking skills
and learn vocabulary they ignored before the task.
This way, students may be asked to continue watching different videos at home in
order to increase their English practice, taking into account mainly the oral skills:
Speaking and listening.

TASK 2: LET’S TEXT IN CLASS!

Method: Communicative language teaching by Using ICT

Goal: To provide and get information from audios in WhatsApp.
Time: 45- 50 minutes.
Input: Vocabulary from Activity 1and listening dialogues.
Activities: Provide information through audio, interactions. Class group.
Teacher role: Monitor-assessor.
Student's role: Active participants.
Descriptors: The activity will integrate the teaching-learning interaction by replacing
chalkboards with students’ own smartphones or other devices for learning during class
time. With this in mind, it is a suitable activity where students will be motivated by social
media. Some important aspects are the following. The situational syllabus: In order to
use vocabulary from task 1, In a new personal context related with a set of everyday

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situations that learners should find themselves involved in, and in which they would
need situational language.
Methodology: Bearing in mind with our population and their young age,
communicative English teaching would activate communicative skills in real situations.
On op on that, it is universally acknowledged that technology gets the highest rise
among teenagers although, it is fundamental to keep in mind the facilities in the school,
since the access to the technology allows to develop this task. The controlled time
would be positive in order to fulfill and organize activity based on the contextualization,
performance of the activity and assessment.
Language and resources: Vocabulary from Task 1. Materials required are, cell
phones, tablets or computers with internet connection, and an evaluation (rubric
checklist) which will be imperative to work as a future reference to this ICT integrated
material.
Procedure: Welcoming and contextualization. Warm up, to introduce the activity
entitled Let’s text in class! Here, the teacher generates expectations and reduce
anxiety, by activating previous knowledge and vocabulary with open questions about
las topic and about their use of WhatsApp. (5 minutes)
Input: Secondly, Teacher will introduce House chores vocabulary and expressions
about shorten language for chatting, by using two short videos from YouTube.. Here the
Teacher have the opportunity to introduce a comparison with writing and listening in
order to develop those skills and new expressions related with enrolment in those
tasks.
Videos:-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klOXkZU18kE,
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8knZEVNkiU) (10 minutes).
Pedagogical realization: To start the teacher designates a student to create the
WhatsApp group, instructions and politeness recommendations to be followed, in order
to start the chat in a well manner, instructions are the subsequent:
Message 1: Teacher: very good afternoon everyone, welcome back to our English
practice. Today by texting in class! We are going to listen and chat by WhatsApp, There
are important rules to participate.
● Writing is not allowed in this chat.
● All of you must participate at least twice (with your audios).
● Topic: House chores; you must use your vocabulary from task 1 and use
previous grammar simple present tense.
● Once, you answer the first question I will send to one of you, you need to create
a new one to a different partner.
● Use open questions. (15 minutes).

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Planning the evaluation: To prove the effectiveness of the activity and to future
reference, all the answers will be taken into account in order to give them a formative
evaluation, correcting the mistakes on the board, also practicing the pronunciation
based on the possible mistakes they get, this by a rubric with the mentioned
instructions. (15 minutes).

Thanks to ICT the analysis of information collected could be checked many times in
order to identify pronunciation, fluency and common mistakes with the aim to work
improve those aspects and future texting with different topics.
Evaluation of Materials: Finally our material will be subjected to
the following checklist evaluation. It was taken from the
reading materials chapter 7. Motivation and the learner.
Chapter 7. Motivation and the Learner

Does the material have variety and pace?

Is the subject matter of reading texts, listening passages, etc. likely to be genuine
interest to the learners, and taking into account their age, social background and
cultural background, their learning objectives and he composition of the class?

Does the material have an attractive appearance ( visual, typography, layout, etc)

Do the activities in the material encourage the personal involvement of the learners in
the learning process (e.g. by talking about them or finding out about each other)?

If material is culture- specific, will this be acceptable to the learners?

Is there a competitive or problem- solving element in the learning activities?

(Cunningsworth 1984:79)

TASK 3 : YOUR FIRST ARGUMENTS!

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The background materials in this task are their own Info videos from task one. After
watching each fragment twice, students will be asked to choose one of their
classmates’ videos and write an opinion of that topic. When students finish their
writing, they must read it to the class, the other students will ask him/her general
comprehension questions to the each reader.
1. Description of the task:
Input: Students’ info videos
Procedure: Students are exposed to watch their own info videos at least 3 times,
choose one that they feel interested the most and write an opinion of the topic.
Language activity: Receptive and productive.
Outcome: In accomplishment of this task, students will be have a better understanding
of the content of their videos and more confidence about the vocabulary.
Objective: To provide opportunities to create argument ideas so as to critical thinking.
2. Planning the evaluation:
Approach: Communicative language teaching.
Purpose: to initialize their speech by organizing their ideas into opinions.
Focus: On the effectiveness.
Scope: Internal.
Evaluator: The teacher and peers
Timing: 60 min.
Type of information: Listening, observation and collection of the written exercise.
3. Collecting information:
During task: Interactional analysis -teacher will observe how students resolve the
meanings of unfamiliar vocabulary with their peers and how they prepare their
opinions.
After task: Their writings will be collected for correction and grading.
4. Analysis of the information:
Data must be analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. During the task all students will
be able to form meaning and to write an opinion based on the content of the chosen
video discussing in groups.
5. Conclusions and recommendations:
The outcomes are going to be fruitful if most of the students are aware to listen, solve
their vocabulary, and they feel confident to express their point of view specially to
answer their peers’ questions.
Recommendations: A cooperative review about unfamiliar vocabulary presented and
solved by using general comprehension questions.

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TASK 4
THE HUMAN FOOTPRINT IN THE PLANET.
Communicative Task: The Human footprint in the planet.
To carry out a small-scale research to analyze the human footprint in your municipality
(120 minutes).

Activity 1: To watch a fragment of National Geographic’s documentary

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoLjkTb81rA&list=PL63B51C5BFBFDF473)
Activity 2: To discuss ideas between their peers about how to raise consciousness
about the human footprint in your municipalities.
Activity 3: To take notes and create a mural about strategies to avoid human footprint.
Activity 4: A travel log where you collect and show the evidence of your study (students
should pick a social or environmental problem and follow it for a period of time)
Activity 5: To present the evidence of their research to their mates and teacher through
slides or any other visual aid.
Description:
Content: Human Footprints (students learnt this content before).
Language activity: Listening and Speaking.
Objective: To carry out a small-scale research to analyze the human footprint in your
municipality
Planning the evaluation:
The task will be evaluated in three steps. Before starting to make students remember
about what have been discussed about the environment in previous classes. During
the activity the teacher will check if students are understanding and sharing ideas. And
after the activity to check the students travel logs and results of their research.
Collecting information:
Through the mural, travel log and results presented by them to the class which means
before, during and after the activity was carried out.
Conclusion and Recommendations:
The final presentation will show if students became aware of the human footprints in
their municipality, understanding the dialogues and expressing coherent ideas about
the same topic. The recommendation will be for the teacher to pay attention if the ideas
were taken outside the classroom to check how meaningful this topic was for the
learners.

Conclusion

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Regarding to design, adapt and evaluate an engaging and effective language learning
task, demands teachers committed to their students and their own job, due to, it is a
matter of being involved in all of the stages, requiring time, planning, design, collecting
information and evaluation together with conclusions as stated by Ellis in Tomlinson
(1998).

Therefore, throughout this work, it could be seen how these steps were taken into
consideration among the four tasks, to provide our 16 years old students challenging
but engaging activities, according to their characteristics and needs, checking during
the whole process how the tasks were being carried out.

In addition to this, working with mixed abilities such as speaking and listening were an
opportunity to see how the steps proposed in Ellis theory gave a well-organized
planned to control the entire process of the class while it was taking place before,
during and even after the development of the tasks given.

Finally, bearing in mind important aspects such as the context, goals, and roles of the
activities learners should carry out, will make them more meaningful and engaging to
them, developing autonomous learning, and giving opportunities to be creative by
making decisions of what could be the best way to perform those tasks they have
carried out.

References

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1. Annett, J. (1969) Feedback and human behavior: The effects of knowledge of

results, incentives and reinforcement on learning and performance. Penguin Books.
London.

2. Cunningsworth, A. (1984). Evaluating and Selecting Teaching Materials.

Oxford: Heinemann.

4. Ellis, R. (1998). The evaluation of communicative tasks. In Tomlinson, B. (ed.),

Materials Development in Language Teaching. (Chapter 9). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

5. Ellis, R (1997). The empirical evaluation of language teaching materials. ELT Journal
volume 51/1 (36-41). Oxford University Press. Retrieved from
http://files.fernandamunoz.webnode.es/200000043-
1e19a1f132/The_empirical_evaluation_of_language_teaching_material.pdf

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