Justification Methodology V - Irene van der Spoel
This piece of writing contains information regarding the lesson series I created for the website www.ww2nl.weebly.com and www.genderrolestaught.weebly.com. The initial website is a course for a third grade HAVO, where the students’ level of English is approximately at A2 (Van der Burg, Fransen, Sol, & Zuijdgeest, 2010). The second website focuses on third grade VMBO. Those students are more or less at level A1 to A2 (Van der Burg, Fransen, Sol, & Zuijdgeest, 2010).
The lessons are designed according to the backwards design theory. According to this theory, it is best to first create final objectives before designing activities (Wiggins & McTighe, n.d.). After stating the final objectives, I have created a final product and subsequently the activities that will help the students to acquire the necessary skills.
In order to achieve this, I have applied both Task Based Learning (TBL) and the Pentapie theory. Lessons focused on TBL make students acquire information through interaction and produces a visible outcome (Ur, 2012). It is fairly difficult to let students acquire information solely through interaction when they do not meet face to face. For this reason I have incorporated TBL in for example the Skype session where students had to debate certain statements. The outcome of this debate is made visible through an elevator pitch, wherein the students will have to express their opinion while taking each other’s arguments into account.
Even though not every lesson is based on TBL, throughout both lesson series I applied the Pentapie theory. Each lesson starts with input, which through WH-questions becomes intake, to then go through processing on form and content to producing language chunks (Westhoff, 2008). The final step is allowing the students to put the newly-gained knowledge into practice (Westhoff, 2008). Every first part of each lesson focusses mainly on input. Either a video or an article (or both) are present, complete with questions. Inter alia guiding questions and transcriptions are listening/reading strategies and will help the students to understand the input better (Staatsen, 2015). The second page will focus on processing and producing language chunks. The final part of each lesson prepares the students for the final product while putting the new information into practice.
Although grammar is taught in both my lesson series. I do not explicitly explain the grammatical structures. The focus is more on lexis and the build-up in each lesson allows the students to easily acquire new language ("Content and Language Integrated Learning", n.d.). This is for example seen in my Girls lesson on Science. In this lesson students first underline clauses that have to do with sharing their opinion. Subsequently in processing they categorise different ways of sharing an opinion and they produce short language chunks. In the final output, students write each other a letter, putting the new lexis to use.
Content and Language Integrated Learning is focused on acquiring a language by studying a content-based subject ("Content and Language Integrated Learning", n.d.). In both lesson series I created, this is clearly the case. The lesson series about World War II are related to history in the curriculum. However, the activities focus more on the reflective side, forcing students to think critically and reflect on what happened and could have happened. The lesson series on Gender Roles is quite similar on this matter. By looking at the current state of affair, analysing history and taking a look at a possible future, students are again forced to think critically and reflect on imposed roles in society. This topic fits perfectly with sociology and promotion of self-development in our curriculum.
To round off, whenever I could, I have incorporated Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). This means I have not given any translation for the vocabulary, but I made sure the students would come up with definitions instead, which, according to Schmitt, helps students put the new language to use more easily (2012). The learning goals are focused on communication and the resources I used are authentic materials, which is part of CLT (Ur, 2012). Apart from that, all output assignments are based on CLT, for they either promote communication amongst peers or enforced production of language in a hypothetical situation.
In conclusion I have designed my lessons based on final objectives, taking into account the theories of the Penatapie, Task Based Learning (for some lessons), Content and Language Integrated Learning and Communicative Language Teaching. All theories focus on motivation and acquiring language without explicit explanation of grammatical structures. In this way not only the website and the topic is appealing to my target group, but the way of learning as well.
Bibliography
Content and Language Integrated Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://hubl.hu.nl/sites/hu.learn.mentorix.dk/files/u1349/Curriculumdesign/Content%20and%20Language%20Integrated%20Learning_0.pdf Schmitt, N. (2012). Vocabulary in Language Teaching (13th ed.). New York, The United States of America: Cambridge University Press. Staatsen, F., (2015). Moderne vreemde talen in de onderbouw. Bussum: Coutinho, 18-22, 287, 348. Ur, P. (2012). A Course in English Language Teaching (3rd ed.). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Van der Burg, C., Fransen, A., Sol, V. L., & Zuijdgeest, M. (2010). wERKwijzer ERK-gericht werken met behoud van de leergang. Retrieved from https://hubl.hu.nl/sites/hu.learn.mentorix.dk/files/u1349/wERKwijzer.pdf Westhoff, G. J. (2008). Een ‘schijf van vijf’ voor het vreemdetalenonderwijs. Retrieved from https://hubl.hu.nl/sites/hu.learn.mentorix.dk/files/u1349/Curriculumdesign/Schijf%20van%20vijf%20%20-%20westhoff.pdf Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (n.d.). Understanding by Design. Retrieved from https://hubl.hu.nl/sites/hu.learn.mentorix.dk/files/user-files/u1349/documents/ict%20international/wiggins-mctighe-backward-design-why-backward-is-best.pdf |
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