Material Design for Teaching using a Web Tool

Karina Garca

Assignment submitted for Materials Evaluation and Design Class. November 2012 Bachelor Degree on Applied Linguistics

Estimated word count: 1,046.

5th. Semester Professor: Natzyelly Gonzalez Cd. Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mxico.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 3 2. Web Tools Used ................................................................................................ 4 4. Description of the Material Designed .......................5 4.1 Activities .......................................................................................................... 5 5. Motivation for learners ......................................................................................6 6. Conclusion .........................................................................................................6 Bibliograpy .............................................................................................................7

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1. Introduction
Materials evaluation has been defined by Tomlinson (2003: 15) as a procedure that involves measuring the value (or potential value) of a set of learning materials. An evaluation focuses largely on the needs of the users of the materials and makes subjective judgments about their effects (Tomlinson, 2003). An evaluation might include questions such as do the coursebook really catches the attention of the student?, etc. Evaluations can be carried out pre-use, in-use or post-use. The main aim of evaluating materials pre-use, according to Rubdy (2003: 42), is to measure the potential of what teachers and learners can do with them in the classroom. In-use and post-use evaluations are important in establishing how successful learning materials are (McDonough & Shaw, 2003: 71). Material development according to Tomlinson (2001: 66) is both a field of study and a practical undertaking. As a field it studies the principles and procedures of the design, and evaluation of LTM. As an undertaking it involves the production, evaluation and adaptation of LTM, by teachers for their own classrooms and by materials writers for sales or distribution. Foreign language coursebooks have been increase in these recent years as basis of teaching materials in learner classrooms. In many cases, the approaches taken and the methods advocated in these materials are accepted uncritically by the teachers using them regardless of their teaching context. Teachers in some contexts also do not have a choice and are forced to teach the book and implement methodologies that they may not agree with. However, in both cases there is a huge risk of not doing what is best to promote learning. In this essay I will use the Attitude Students Book 1, and adapt an activity of an specific lesson of the book as the basis for language teaching, these can help to create a learning environment. Also I used some web tools that I think can catch the attention of the students making the process more fun and expecting they can learn easily.

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2. Web Tools Used

Freeweb hosting. Website builder for personal, groups and small business. Lets users make fully functioning sites complete with several apps including blogs, photo, etc. YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos (Wikipedia).The videos can be made available for private or public viewing; it also includes other features such as the ability to comment on videos.

Voki allows users to create personalized speaking avatars and use them to re-create historical actors, unique characters, or other figures. Motivate students to participate. Improve message comprehension. Introduce technology in a fun way and an effective language tool.

Educaplay its a platform to create educational multimedia activities. You can create your own activities with a professional, attractive and fun result.

3. Coursebook
Attitude Level: 1 Unit 8, Lesson 3 Dock of the bay Topic: Noun Phrases & -ing Form Listening and Writing Skills

URL TO THE MATERIAL DESIGN:

http://designedmaterialrany.webs.com/

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4. Description of the Material

Its a web page with activities from lesson 8 of the Attitudes Book. This lesson uses a song to teach the present progressive and the ing form. I adapted some of the activities and transformed them into multimedia activities using a web tool called EDUCAPLAY. In this section I will present an example of how an activity from the Acttitude Students Book 1 can be adapted to make it more effective for language learning. As the activity concerned is representative of activities of its type appearing throughout the Attitude series, it is possible to apply what is discussed here to the materials more generally.

4.1 The activities

The first student book activity is a listening practice activity intended to practice the multichoice pattern: Rosita is making a sandwich/salad. The activities are attempt to be used in conjunction with the teachers book and audio CD (which I do not have but I used YouTube to play the song). The activity is based on an illustration showing a man with his dog sitting near the ocean watching ships. This image and the surrounding on it should already be familiar to learners having been introduced in the preceding activity. Student should choose one of the two answers looking at the image and related them before they listen to the song to check if their answers are correct. The second activity is a matching pattern of verbs with its noun or noun phrases: verb: turning, noun: tables. It is based on the song related to the image of the first activity. The students have to match the verbs with the corresponding noun or noun phrases written in the book.

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The third activity is a writing skills activity and test the students knowledge acquired about the present progressive tense. The students have regular verbs that have to re-write into its ing form. And a Fourth fill in the blank activity in which students have to make the text understandable filling the blank spaces with the provided words. All of these activities are related to the mentioned song and are there to practice with the progressive verbs. In the web page are adapted kind of different but have the same point.

5. Motivation for learners

The material in the web page is colorful, interactive and fun, designed to make the activities more entertaining for students and can catch their attention, it has meaning and purpose on what they are going to do so that they get involve into the activity.

6. Conclusion
In this essay I have attempted to show that while commercially produced materials can be valuable language learning resources, evaluating and adapting activities found in them can increase their potential for learning. It has been seen that before desinging materials it is necessary to have a teaching approach that is based on a set of principles about foreign language learning and the needs of the particular learners. The learning perspectives in this essay advocated learning through tasks that help to create dynamic relationship between demands on learners and support for learning. The materials revealed that although they were based on a teacher approach they could be adapted to make them more suitable for students by adapting activities found in coursebooks to make them engaging tasks easily and to make the process of language learning more stricking.

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Bibliography
Tomlinson, B. (2003) Developing Materials for Language Teaching. London: Continuum. Tomlinson, B. (2003) Adapting Classroom Materials. London: Continuum. Fuscoe, K; Garside, B; Prodromou, Luke. (reimpression 2007). Attittud Students Book 1. Thailand: Thai Watana Panich Press Ltd. Dickinson, P. (2010) Adapting Materials for young learners. United Kingdom: Birmingham Universitys Article.

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