Tutorial week 6 : Littlejohn's Checklist (Problems and Evaluation)

Evaluation and Problems Faced While Using Littlejohn's Checklist by Elucia Yong

Reflection of week 7 tutorial

This week's tutorial was super-fun! This is because we were able to create a DLLM freely. Also, this would be great chance to introduce our creative side. We chose to use ToonDoo which was user-friendly and interesting. From that we created a comic strip and came up with questions for the learners to answer. We took quite a longer time than usual in considering what the question should be as we do not want to burden the learners, and also we wanted them to learn something useful.

Overall, I got to know what is DLLM a lot better after being able to create one and also I learned to consider the suitability of the DLLM to the learners that it may help them to learn some language features while in the same time not burden them.

Reflection on Week 6 tutorial

Previously, we were asked to present on Andrew LittleJohn article on material development. For week 6 tutorial, we were given an English textbook/course book to be evaluated and also we need to identify problems that we face when using the checklist.

We experience problems during our evaluation of the textbook. Although we have presented on the checklist, we still struggle with relating the criteria/features that can be found in the checklist to the textbook. So, we decided to evaluate it on our understanding, Also, there was the problem of different opinions between group mates. Thus, we decided to have a final say in every different opinions.

In this week's tutorial, i learned to accept other views from my group-mates and also to appreciate their opinions.

Reflection on week 3 Tutorial

For this week, we had to answer four questions, which is based on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). Before we proceed in answering the four questions given, we had a group discussion on how we should answer the questions. Our first problem was understanding the questions itself, we got confused especially question C) Locate principles supporting CLT within the KBSM English Language Curriculum and F1 English Language. However, after consulting other group members, we were able to understand the questions better. Then, we decided to divide the questions where I would take on question C), so that it would not consume our time because later we would explain it to one another.

Personally, I had to re-read last semesters notes on CLT, so that I would see the flow of what I have learnt about CLT last semester and connect to what I learnt this semester. It would seem that what I have learnt last semester for CLT is little compared to what I learnt for this semester. This semester, we looked at the communicative competence which have different components to it. Thus, it was challenging, it terms of understanding the different components of communicative competence. However, with the help and guidance of our lecturer, we were able to comprehend the different components of communicative competence.

After our tutorial class where we have discussed the four questions, it seems that we did not answered the questions correctly. So, after the discussion, we redo and manage to answer them correctly. It was really a challenging task, however, because of that task, we were able to better understand CLT.

Reflection on week 4 & 5 tutorial

For week 4 & 5 tutorial, we formed a group of 5 to discuss and present on an article. There were several articles given and we only need to present 1. Not knowing the difficulties of the articles, we chose an article which was by Andrew Littlejohn, in which it was the most difficult among all the articles given.

On our first meeting as a group, which was the same day we got the article, we decided on when and where will our next meeting be. Also, all of us in our group agreed that for our next meeting, we would at least finish reading up the article which did not went according to plan. This is because it was hard for us to understand the article. Andrew Littlejohn's article which is about analyzing material for evaluation was quite in-depth, thus we needed to read it several times to understand what it was all about.

So, after we read it several times and also discuss among ourselves what the article was about, we were able to understand it quite well. It was interesting to know how in-depth analyzing a material could be, by taking into consideration its framework which are "Publication" and "Design", and also the author stated about the 3 levels of analyzing a material.

Hence, Andrew Littlejohn's article really helped us, myself definitely, on what to consider when evaluating a material. The knowledge that I have gained will allow me to apply it later on when I am to evaluate a material myself, especially language learning material.  

Tutorial Week 7: Sketching out a Digital Language Learning Material

Digital Language Learning Materials.pptx

Tutorial Week 9 : Designing Materials for Listening

•       Preview extracts from a local textbook.
•      Form 2 Textbook Chapter 3: Famous Face

            Page 32

 }  How closely do you feel that the listening process is mirrored in these materials?

- Learners are required to converse with a partner in classroom. One of them can take the role of a famous personality. The roles of a fan and a famous person can be reverse so that both the learners can have the chance to express, listen and react.

}  To what extent do they assist in developing the listening skills of our learners?

     - Authenticity exist in this task as the language reflect real discourse when they are giving compliment and congratulate. Language used is not difficult. For example ‘You sang the song beautifully.’ The other partner has to listen for the compliment and give acknowledgement.  

  Page 36

}  How closely do you feel that the listening process is mirrored in these materials?

- Learners are required to listen to the conversation in order to fill in the blanks to complete the statements given in the task. It is a must for learners to listen attentively to given conversation, if they fail to do so, they will not be able to answer the questions correctly.
- In task B, the situation is the same. Learners are to listen to the conversation again to answer the questions given in task B.

}  To what extent do they assist in developing the listening skills of our learners?

- Learners are to listen to the conversation attentively in order to understand and also identify the answers. Learners are listening for a purpose, with this, they will pay more attention to the conversation given.
- Not only that, learners have a background knowledge regarding the theme of the conversation as they have learnt it in the previous tasks. This allows them to be familiar and have a rough idea on the conversation where top-down processing occurs.
- The more exposure the listener has to them, the greater the ability to comprehend.

Page 38

}  How closely do you feel that the listening process is mirrored in these materials?

-In activity A, learners are required to say words after the teacher. This activity focuses on the consonants of /v/ and /w/.
-In activity B, learners are required to pronounce words that they have learned in activity A.

}  To what extent do they assist in developing the listening skills of our learners?

-In activity A, it is a bottom-up practice activity. Learners have to listen and repeat to the words after the teacher. Learners have to pay attention and listen accurately to the sound in order for them to get the pronunciation correctly.
-In activity B, it is a top-down activity since learners have to use their schemata of correct pronunciation of the words so that they can say the sentences aloud. This encourage learners to discuss what they already know about.
-We noticed that this activity has both bottom-up and top-down approach. Correlation between two approaches can help the learners to sharpen their listening skill.


}  Preview extracts from a local textbook.
Form 2 Textbook Chapter 13: Our Green Heritage

   Page 179 

}  How closely do you feel that the listening process is mirrored in these materials?

-          For task A, the learners are to listen to a recording and then pay attention to the sequence of the story. After that, they need to sequence the picture given in the textbook.
-          For task B, the learners need to listen to the recording again and then they need to sequence the sentences given in the textbook.

}  To what extent do they assist in developing the listening skills of our learners?

-          For task A and B, the learners are listening for a purpose, they need to listen attentively to details from the recording.
-          The task relates to top down process as it requires learners’ background knowledge to enable them to relate the description of recording with the picture given.