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B. Ed in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) Assignment Cover Sheet:

Student ID Number Module Name and Code Module Tutor Personal Tutor Assignment Number Word Count

: 0936629 : THE LEARNER AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES ET209 : DR DUNCAN HUNTER : ANDREW DAVIDSON : 1 : 1,642 words

Date due: 12 noon on 2 DEC 2010 Date submitted: 2 DEC 2010 Online Receipt attached (please delete as appropriate) YES y Work may be submitted before the due date y Work may be submitted after the due date if an extension has been granted in writing. y Work submitted late without a written extension will be penalised at the rate of 5% per 24 hours (starting at noon on the day that the essay is due) y Work submitted more than a week after the due date without written extension will not be assessed. In completing the details on this cover sheet and submitting the assignment, you are doing so on the basis that this assignment is all your own work and that you have not borrowed or failed to acknowledge anyone elses work. Please say if you agree to this statement. YES

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TABLE OF CONTENT Page

Content Assignment Students Response References Appendix

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AUTUMN 2010 Due Thursday Week 9, Term 1 Word limit : 1,500 words (1350 1650 words) Assignment 1 Describe a TBLT lesson, based on a topic and target task that you feel might be of value to students in your future teaching context. Explain how activities would focus learners attention towards language meaning and form.

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STUDENTS RESPONSE 1.0 INTRODUCTION This essay aims to describe a Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) based on the model proposed by Willis and Willis (2007). The first part of the essay will be the lesson plan. The next part of the essay will attempt to explain how the activities in the lesson plan focus on language meaning and form.

2.0 LESSON PLAN

TOPIC Aim

: Destination for a School Trip : 1) To discuss and suggest a destination for their school trip. 2) To develop confidence and presentation skills. 3) To consider words/phrases to express opinions which students may use in the future

Target task : Students decide in small groups of which destination they will suggest for the school trip after the examination and present to the class. Vocabulary : Weather (cold, warm, sunny, chilly, windy, foggy, etc.) Transport (car, train, ferry, bus, plane, etc.) Activities (swimming, sight-seeing, buy souvenirs, shopping, etc.) Food (seafood, local cuisine, western food, restaurants, stalls, etc.) ACTIVITY TIMING PROCEDURE Teacher-led discussion. Teacher starts off the lesson by showing to the class some old pictures of her/him during school time when she/he went for school trips. Priming 10mins Teacher tells briefly about the places and what he/she did during the visit. Teacher asks students where they have been. Teacher introduces vocabulary by asking the students to describe the places they have visited e.g. the weather, the activities etc. Teacher elicits answers from students and write on the board.
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INTERACTION

T-S

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Examples of questions :  Where have you been recently?  How was the weather? Was it sunny? How did you get there? By plane? By bus? SS Teacher puts students in pairs and students describe to each other the place(s) they have visited, it could be local or overseas or a place that they would love to visit (in case students never visit any place). Students must provide reasons why they like or dislike the place. E.g.  I visited Kuala Lumpur last weekend. I dislike Kuala Lumpur because it is a busy city but I love the variety of food I can get there. T-S Students watch a video about famous tourist attractions in Malaysia (Fraser Hill, Cameron Highlands, Manukan Island, Penang Island, and Mount Kinabalu) Students guess the places. Teacher then tells the answers to students. S-S Teacher divides students into small groups of three. Planning 10mins Teacher gives pamphlets or brochures of the places showed in the video to each group. Students analyse the brochures given and fill in the tables (Appendix 1). SS Based on the information they have extracted, students in the small groups discuss to decide which destination they will suggest for the school trip. Once they decided, students prepare a presentation to present their choice to the class.
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5mins

Preparation

5mins

Target Task

20mins

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Students present their suggestion to the rest of the class. Other students may offer their opinions whether agree or disagree with the choices. Teacher conducts a voting session (show of hands) which destination is preferred by students and teacher is going to propose the destination to the school administrators.

Focus on form : Teacher lists down the words/phrases which the students use to express their opinions in the target task when they are presenting their ideas. E.g. y In my experience y In my opinion y Personally, I think y Id suggest that y I dont agree with you. Teacher explains that these phrases are important when they are expressing opinions. It portrays politeness and respect. Teacher gives students a list of words/phrases which are used to express opinions. Activities : Students write a short essay of 200 words on the topic Are boys better than girls? by using these expressions.

Focus on Form

10mins

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3.0 DESCRIPTIONS OF THE LESSON PLAN AND FOCUS ON MEANING AND FORM

The lesson plan is designed for Malaysian students, age 15 years old, in a town in Malaysia. The class consists of 30 students from various backgrounds. Most of the students have intermediate level of proficiency in English. However, some students may have better proficiency as they may have been introduced to English from an early age. These students are going to sit for a public examination at the end of the year.

I believe that this topic is relevant to my target learners because the topic relates to them. The school is planning a school trip for the students and this activity allows students to voice out their opinions on the places they would like to visit. The topic will motivate the students to participate because they are able to contribute in the decisionmaking and the end product is real whereby the majority choice will be suggested to the school administrator. In addition, the places in the choices are local tourist attractions and some students may have heard or visited them. Students prior knowledge of the local attractions may make the lesson more interesting and appealing to them.

As mentioned earlier, the lesson is planned based on Willis and Williss (2007) model. In general, TBLT is an approach that provides students with opportunities to use the language in the classroom for authentic communication. Teachers also provide materials where students have to actively engage in the process in order to complete a task. TBLT is more student-centred rather than teacher-centred. The task and the materials are usually authentic. In TBLT, task completion is the priority rather than teaching the language itself and the assessment is done in terms of the outcomes. The method puts more attention on developing students language by providing a task and use language to solve it. In other words, TBLT focuses more on meaning rather than form. It is a more recent Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach and it differs from PPP method as PPP focuses on form rather than meaning. However, form can appear at the end of the lesson (Willis and Willis, 2007).

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In the lesson plan that I have designed, the tasks focus on meaning as it give more attention to completion of the tasks. There is a focus on meaning in all phases. Every phase provides students with meaning which is related and helpful for students when they move to the next task. In priming activity, for example, the priming stage aims to introduce the topic to the students and get them focused with the context. This stage also allows teachers to introduce the vocabulary sets to students in a meaningful context, for example, vocabulary on weather, activities, and transports which students will use later on in the discussion.

Focus on meaning can also be found in facilitating tasks (preparation and planning). In these stages, learners are given a chance to get their thoughts together when they work with the brochures and filling in the tables before they decide how to express those ideas in the target language. However, at this phase, students may unavoidably focus on language. Teachers may correct the students if they make mistakes but teachers should not teach the form in the middle of the task (Willis and Willis, 2007). In other words, teachers should not attempt to control student language. In addition, the assessment will not be judged by the correct forms the students produce but rather the completion of the task. Therefore, it can be said that facilitating tasks may involve a concern with language but it does not include focus on form and assessment based on form.

The target task also focuses on meaning as students will be discussing and presenting with purpose, in which to convince the students and the teacher to choose the destination that they have decided. The whole aim is to get the students to get into the discussion and to produce the end product, which is the presentation.

Willis and Willis (2007) claims that a TBLT lesson does not necessarily have a focus on form. However, it can appear at the end of the lesson and it should not be the primary aim of the lesson. In my lesson plan, the focus on form appears after the students have completed the target task. It is proposed that focus on form should be isolated from the task because students should be allowed to experience the language first because only then students will be able to relate to the reason they need to learn the form (Willis and
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Willis, 2007). This will motivate the students to learn as they already experience the form and aware of the usefulness of the form. Nunan( 2004), on the other hand, disagrees with Willis and Willis(2007). His TBLT model shows that focus on form should occur in the middle of the tasks as it will be easier for students to see the relationship between communicative meaning and form. However, Willis and Willis (2007) argue that if focus on form occurs in the tasks, there will be an intervention and this will distract students from focusing on the target task.

As a whole, I believe that teaching the topic of my lesson plan using Willis and Williss TBLT approach is relevant because Malaysias Curriculum Specifications for English aims to improve students proficiency in order to meet their needs for English in everyday life and prepare learners by focusing language use in society. It can be achieved by making use of real-life issues, for example, making decisions (which is the target task in my lesson plan). The curriculum also aims to encourage students to take part in social interaction and develop students confidence to express ideas, opinions, thoughts and feelings in spoken and written form. It also suggests that topics should be drawn from current issues which concerns students surrounding like schools. TBLT also goes hand in hand with Malaysias curriculum as both focuses on learners centred method. I believe that students will be able to learn the language better if TBLT method is carried out properly by the teachers.

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REFERENCES Curriculum Specifications (2010). Curriculum Specifications : English Language, Form 3. Retrieved Nov 30, 2010 from http://www.kolejku.com/ppk/hsp/b_ing/kbsm/hsp_bi_f3.pdf Nunan, D. (2004). Task-Based Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Willis, D., & Willis, J. (2007). Doing Task-based Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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APPENDIX 1

Based on the information in the brochures, fill in the tables below.

Places

How to get there?

Weather

Activities

Food

Cameron Highlands

Accessible by cars and buses

Chilly

Strawberry picking

Famous for its steamboat restaurants

Manukan Island

Fraser Hill

Mount Kinabalu

Penang Island

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