Webs for Listening

1.      ICRT

You could get lots of information and news here, and what is more, there are many good shows hosted by good DJs. If you like to listen to English songs, this is where you have to be!

2.      http://esl.about.com/cs/listening/

This is a website to train English listening skills for learners and teachers. There are comprehension quizzes for listening skill improvement for beginner, intermediate and advanced ESL EFL English levels.

3.      http://www.studioclassroom.com/

StudioClassroom is a useful websites for all English learners. They have different radio shows for different ages.

Materials for asking & giving directions

For students to have role plays. One student could be the person who gets lost, and the other will be the person who gives the directions. The colored words are what they usually see in the town or city, so it's quite useful.








This picture is for students to review the directions and some sentence patterns that will be used in asking and giving directions. the teacher will give the directions and students will follow the instructions to find out what the places A, B, C and D are.

Sharing: Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan

Topics	Touring Disneyland	Target Students	Grade 6-8	Date
				Time	40 minutes
		Instructor	Frances Lin	Place	classroom
Vocabulary	1.      Disneyland (a big amusement park in California, U.S.A.) 2.      restroom/restaurant 3.      straight 4.      left 5.      right
Sentence Structure	1.      Can you tell me the way to...?  2.      Go straight ahead until you see..
Materials	one map for practice and homework, a fill-in the-blanks exercise for homework
Aims	1. To familiarize and fully understand the dialogue and practice talking using the key phrases and sentences in daily life 2. To learn how to answer questions about asking the way. 3. To offer opportunities and an environment in which to exercise speaking, communicating, and expressing themselves on this issue in real life.
Procedures
Warm-up: (approx. 4 minutes ) Invite students to introduce Disneyland. Students who collected information beforehand would give detailed introductions, but others may share their knowledge about what visitors would see in it as well. Stage 1: Presentation (approx. 8 minutes) 1. New vocabulary: except for Disneyland, a teacher should explain restroom, restaurant and the vocabulary of directions. First, briefly introduce their meaning and gives some examples to clarify how to use them. Of course, also talk about the synonyms of the words.    2. Performing: the teacher and a pre-selected student role play and perform a skit about asking directions, being sure to answer using all the sentence patterns and expressions that will be taught. It must contain an appropriate introduction at the beginning and a natural conversation in the middle leading to a logical conclusion, just like a real life dialogue. Stage 2. Exploitation (approx. 18 minutes) 1. New structure: the teacher explains the structures. First, tell their Chinese meaning and then makes the sentences and asks students to give the class their own examples.    2. Reading: students first read the dialogue individually and then practice it by pair-work.    3. Explaining: the teacher explains the dialogue in detail and asks students whether they have problems. He/she paraphrases almost all the sentences, explains them in Chinese and raises questions to the students. After finishing answering students' questions, the teacher asks them to read the dialogue again.    4. Substitution: the teacher provides names of some other places and the directions on how to get there. The students practice the dialogue substituting the new information into the sentence structures, first by themselves and then in pairs. One group is asked to do it in the front of the room. Stage 3. Production (approx. 10 minutes)    1. Designing a role-play: the teacher asks students to design a role-play between two persons with the knowledge learned as much as possible and to perform it as a pair-work.    2. Map play: the teacher hangs a simple map of Disneyland on the blackboard and lets two students ask each other how to get the sites on the map Homework: Filling in the blanks: The teacher passes out a dialogue which includes some blanks and a map. Students need to write down how to get to a few sites and finish the dialogue according to the map.

Teaching Material: There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly by Simms Taback

Simms Taback is very famous picture book author. He won Caldecott Medal which is a great honor. "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed" is one of his works. Teachers can use this picture book to teach children animals. 

The website: http://www.simmstaback.com/


There is also a song of this picture book:

Teaching Survey

TEACHING OBSERVATION

TEACHER: Ms. Wu Hsing Yi	OBSERVER: Frances Lin
DATE: 5/9 MON.	SCHOOL: Yi- Hsueh Junior High  School
CLASS PERIOD: 9:15am~10:00am	GRADE: 7th Grade
LESSON TOPIC: How Much Sugar Do You Need?

Overall View

The instructor is a well-experienced teacher, so the performance on her teaching was quite smooth-going without mistakes. The teacher also presented good speaking ability in pronunciation and tone, so the content of the lesson was clearly instructed. However, because of the school policy, the teacher had to catch up the progress, so she did not design any special activities for students. In this way, the whole class is kind of plain. If there are some games or interesting materials for the students, the whole instruction would be much better.

As for the four skills of learning English, the teacher did help students to use them to learn. Students had to listen carefully to the teacher in order to know what was about the lesson. During the class, the teacher also asked students to repeat after her, and they had to read out a small dialogue on the textbook. What is more, the teacher also practiced the dialogue with students. After the class, the teacher also gave them some homework to practice writing sentences and vocabulary, and that also helped them to review what was taught in the class after students went home.

PLANNING INSTRUCTION: Plans instruction based on knowledge of subject, students, community, and curriculum

• Has clear, appropriately written objectives for instruction	YES ■	CONSIDER	COMMENTS
• Instruction is related to objectives and provides for assessment which is linked to objectives	■
• Creates instruction that accommodates different learning styles, needs and abilities	■
• Able to create both short and long-range plans	■
• Creates plans that activate prior knowledge and promote critical thinking	■
• Is prepared to teach lesson	■
• Shows creativity in lesson design and materials		■	See point (a)

(a) All the instruction is based on oral teaching. No special activities are provided

SUBJECT MATTER: Understands subject matter and makes it meaningful for students

• Grasps central concepts of discipline	YES ■	CONSIDER	COMMENTS
• Creates meaningful learning experience	■

STUDENT LEARNING: Understands student learning and development and teaches accordingly

• Uses developmentally appropriate instruction	YES ■	CONSIDER	COMMENTS
• Links new ideas to prior knowledge	■

DIVERSE LEARNERS: Recognizes student differences in background, experience, ability, & learning style and teaches accordingly

• Uses strategies to support students whose first language is not English	YES ■	CONSIDER	COMMENTS
• Allows for different learning styles, abilities, cultures, genders and experiences	■
• Fosters respect for individual difference	■

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES: Employs a range of instructional strategies that promote student learning

	YES	CONSIDER	COMMENTS
• Uses variety of materials and media resources		■	See point (a)
• Nurtures critical thinking/problem solving skills		■	See point (b)
• Monitors and adjusts strategies in response to learner feedback	■
• Uses interesting variety of teaching strategies and resources		■	See point (c)
• Uses media technology effectively		■	See point (d)
• Shows creativity in lesson design and materials		■	See point (e)
• Conveys purpose of instruction	■
• Makes directions and expectations clear	■
• Follows a logical sequence in instruction	■
• Paces lesson well	■

(a)    The materials of the instruction are only from the textbook.

(b)    The class is basically teacher-centered, so there might not be enough chances for students to have critical thinking and develop problem solving skills.

(c)     The teacher just gave the class orally and wrote down some important vocabulary and sentences on the black board. No particular strategies and resources are shown.

(d)    No use of media technology.

(e)    Since the policy of school, the teacher has to catch up the progress so she did not design other activities or use other materials for teaching.

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: Structures positive learning environments that promote interaction, engagement, & self motivation

• Helps students work productively and cooperatively with each other	YES ■	CONSIDER	COMMENTS
• Establishes and maintains positive classroom environment	■
• Uses a variety of motivational strategies to achieve learning	■
• Encourages growth of self-control and independence in students	■
• Organizes and manages time, space and activities to promote learning	■
• Provides clear and appropriate behavioral expectations	■
• Employs variety of strategies to monitor behavior		■	See point (a)
• Establishes desirable relationships with all students	■
• Analyzes classroom situation perceptively and makes decisions that enhance learning	■

(a)    The teacher has already been familiar with the whole class, so it is easy for her to control the class situation with using strategies on purpose.

COMMUNICATION: Uses effective communication to foster student learning

• Communicates clearly and effectively	YES ■	CONSIDER	COMMENTS
• Supports and expands learner expression in speaking, writing	■

ASSESSMENT: Uses formal/informal assessment strategies to evaluate student progress and plan future work

• Uses appropriate assessment to evaluate stated objectives	YES ■	CONSIDER	COMMENTS
• Assesses student learning and bases future instruction on that assessed data	■
• Uses variety of assessment tools	■
• Implements self-assessment activities for student	■

Book Evaluation

The assignment this week is to evaluate the textbook. There is an old saying tells us that we should not believe all in what books are trying to tell.

The information/knowledge in books is not necessarily correct. that is also why the government have to verify textbooks before they publish, in order to examine if they are really suitable for learners to use. The followings are the book evaluation based on the twelve criteria edited from Robinett:

Book 2 for 7^th Grade

Chia Yin-Han Lin Version

1.      Goals of the course

According to the General Guidelines of Grade 1-9 Curriculum of Elementary and Junior High School Education, which announced by Ministry of Education in Taiwan, there are three basic goals of English courses for elementary and junior high school students:

a.      Build up the basic ability of students for communicating in English with people, and are able to apply the language to real situations in their daily life.

b.      Help students to find more interests in learning English and learn it with some more amusing ways, in order to learn spontaneously effectively.

c.       Promote students’ understanding of their country and foreign cultures, in order to compare and respect cultural differences.

  Besides the goals above, there are Competence Indicators which divided into two stages, 3^th Grade to 6^th Grade in elementary school and 7^th Grade to 9^th Grade in junior high school. The textbook is for junior high school, so it focuses on the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. It emphasizes the actual application and gives students opportunities to use what they have learned of English in the first stage, in order to develop the new knowledge of the language. 

2.      Background of the student 
The aim students for this textbook are 7^th graders in junior high school, within the age 12 to 14. Most students’ mother tongue is Mandarin, but some of them are still from other groups, such as Southern Min, Mainlanders, Hakka, aborigines. Since English is a universal language, even students are from different backgrounds, they all have to learn English. When talking about the education, some kind of issues like curriculum reform and curriculum Integration have being discussed for a long time. The government in Taiwan has been doing lots efforts and editing the policies of education again and again, however, there is no doubt that diplomaism still exists. It seems that students lose their original motivation of learning after they left the so-called “happy life” in elementary school. As people know, cram schools might be something less than convenience stores on the streets in Taiwan. With this kind of learning background, it is much more important for teachers to think how to choose the textbook and materials for students to use.

3.      Approach

The Teacher’s manual indicates that teachers should create the language learning environment where students can receive meaningful exposure to the target language. To involve students in it, teachers have to design the courses by using some activities involving real communication and also give opportunities for students to do some meaningful tasks. In this textbook, it provides teacher and students with various activities which courage them to have more interaction----teacher to students, students to students, making students learn in communicative activities. There are some pre-reading questions and a picture in the beginning of every lesson, which make students understand about the context of language use and overview what they are going to learn in this lesson. The topics and materials in the textbook are quite close to students’ daily life experience, like celebrating some special days, learning months and dates, or how to make a cake. These different topics and materials not only raise students’ interest in learning English but also help them understand the foreign culture. Teachers could use the four skills to teach all the topics, and the teaching would be more efficient with some other visual aids or media aids. In this way, learners could have more impressions on what they learn.

4.      Language skill

The four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing are validly included in this textbook.

a.      Listening

The listening parts in the textbook focuses on “Dialogue”, “Exercise”, “Fun with Sounds”, “Song” and “Challenge”. As to the content of them, all of them are quite simple , practical and authentic, for example, “Dialogue” in lesson one is about how to make a phone call or answer the phone. In “Practice”, teachers play CDs and students have to circle the right answers.

b.      Speaking

There is one part, “Dialogue” which especially emphasizes the pronunciation improvement, and there are also sections such as “Listen and Repeat” and “Tongue Twister” which focuses on the skill of speaking.

c.       Reading

The “Reading” and “Comic” could train students’ reading skill.

d.      Writing

The “Sentence Pattern” and “Answer the Questions” give students chances to practicing writing skill.

5.      General content

As mentioned above, the chosen topics are quite close to students’ life experience, such as names of foods, sports, and animals. What’s more, the vocabulary and grammar of each unit are completed in the meaningful context, such as in the family talk or a conversation in the classroom. However, the subject matter cover the topics correspond to the life experience of teenagers, but it might neglect the needs and backgrounds of those students who live in the rural area, and other racial minority groups.

6.      Quality of practice material

The “Practice”, “Exercises” and “Review” parts give students chances to practice what they learned in class.

7.      Sequencing

The textbook is sequenced by the following parts, “Warm-up”, “Dialogue”, “Theme Words”, “Sentence Pattern I”, “Sentence Pattern II”, “Practice”, “Activity”, “Reading” and “Exercise”.

8.      Vocabulary

The vocabulary is introduced in the natural and realistic sentences, dialogues, or essays toward accomplishing the ultimate goal of language communication. Also, the textbook put much attention on the purpose of communication, and the text is treated as a whole. Therefore, students do not have to memorize the vocabulary one by one, what they have to do is to know when and how to use the vocabulary in what situation.

9.      General socio-linguistic factors

It is not very obvious to see this point in the text book, but there is indeed one topic of introducing Father’s Day in Taiwan and USA, which is related to the society and helps students to get familiar with the cultural background and understand the foreign culture as well.

10.  Format

The format of the textbook could be evaluated from the following parts:

a.      The type size is convenient enough, and is also appropriate for the learners

b.      There are functional typefaces, a detailed table of contents which includes location of structures and their respective exercises with an index of new vocabulary items and their location, appendices and so on.

c.       There are some simple graphic devices such as boxes, shading, color, arrows effectively used to clarify the presentation of grammatical structures.

d.      The illustrations are clear, simple, and free of unnecessary details that may confuse the learners.

11.  Accompanying materials

The accompany materials of the text book is Students’ Workbooks. There are about six pages of each unit for students to review and practice what they learn in class. What students have to do is answering the questions and giving the right answer, so sometimes it might be kind of boring for students to do.

12.  Teacher’s guide

The “Teacher’s guide” helps teachers understand the objectives and methodology of the text, and give suggested answers for the exercises in the textbook. It also shows teachers how to teach students with an overall class design. The “Teacher’s guide” gives teachers techniques for activating students’ background knowledge before reading the text, suggest a clear, concise method for teaching each lesson and provides additional exercises for reinforcing grammar points in the text.