Nama : Yuli Hartiwi
NPM : 15020230013
Tugas Technology in ELT

Reading Skill

Example 1:

In this example for pre-intermediate students, the students first look at a picture of people sunbathing and say whether it is a positive, safe and attractive image - or whether it is the opposite. They might discuss how people should protect themselves from the sun. The teacher then asks the students to read the text and identify where they think it comes from. They should do this fairly quickly. When the class has agreed that the text is from a magazine for teenage girls (this is obvious, partly because of the format - photos combined with short texts - and also because of the language: ‘and let’s face it’, ‘gorgeous guys’, ‘babes’, ‘not only really cool’), the teacher asks them to read it again and put skin, hair and eye colour in order of least vulnerable to the sun to most vulnerable. They can do this individually or in pairs. The class can now study some of the language in the text - including ‘SPF’, physical descriptions (‘freckles’, ‘fair hair’, ‘dark-skinned’, etc) - and the teenage language mentioned above.

There are any number of activation possibilities with this text: students can write descriptions of themselves for the same page in the magazine. They can decide which of the four people they would most like to meet and why. They can role-play an interview with the characters in the article (see page 125), or they can prepare a short talk on how people should protect themselves against the sun, depending on skin type. Many magazines have articles like this which we can bring into class. However, we will need to make sure that the language is not too complex for our students’ levels, and we will need to think carefully about the kinds of tasks we ask students to do with them.

Example 2 :

Students are now asked to read the text fairly quickly in order to answer the following questions:

1.        What’s the important news?

2.        Why did the council change its mind?

Once again, they can discuss their answers to these questions in pairs before the teacher solicits answers from the whole class. The teacher can now ask students for their reactions to the story before getting them to do some study work. First of all, they are asked to match words (from the text) and meanings:

1.      at the last moment       a) fight as hard as you can

2.      funding                       b) at the end of a period of time

3.      fight tooth and nail     c) continue to exist

4.      to persuade                  d) your thoughts about an event

5.      achievement                e) work out your opinion again

6.      reaction                       f) money for an event or place

7.      survive                         g) to help someone decide to do something

8.      think twice                  h) a difficult thing that you do successfully

Writing Skill

Example 1: postcards (pre-intermediate/intermediate)

Students are told that when we write postcards, we often leave out a lot of words to save space (e.g. ‘We’re having a great time’, ‘The food is wonderful’). They then read the following postcard and decide where the words in the box should go:

 

Finally, students imagine they are on holiday themselves. They can discuss their holiday in pairs or small groups, deciding where they will send the postcard from and what they want to say. We will ask them to pay special attention to the kinds of words they can leave out. We could also get them to look at how postcards are structured. For example: description of where the writer is; activities the writer is involved in; exhortation to the reader (‘Hope you are well/Get well soon, etc); sign off (‘Wish you were here, Love P’). We can then get them to write something similar. At beginner levels, some teachers give students ‘postcard phrases’ for them to arrange into a postcard.

Example 2: email interview (pre-intermediate upwards)

Many magazines and colour supplements contain short celebrity interviews in which people answer a series of inconsequential questions designed to be revealing, amusing and entertaining in equal measure. This genre is a highly effective way of getting students to write communicatively. The excerpt from an interview with Neil Gaiman (a cartoonist and graphic novelist) on page 116 is a typical example of this kind of writing. To use this writing genre in class, we will first show students an example (real or invented) of this kind of interview and discuss how it is put together (a whole variety of questions are emailed to the interviewee, who can answer as many of them as they want). We can elicit a whole range of possible questions from students and write them up on the board - and as we do so, modify them so that they emerge in good appropriate English. Students now work in pairs or groups choosing the questions they want to use and adding their own. We will stress that these questions should be sufficiently general to be answered by anybody (e.g. ‘When and where were you happiest?’). While students are working on these questions, we will go round the class suggestions modifications, if appropriate. Students now write a fair copy of their questions and send them to one of the other students in the class. They can do this on pieces of paper, perhaps designed to look like email screens, or, if they have email access, they can send real emails.

Example 3: writing a report (upper intermediate)

The following report-writing sequence is detailed, and will take some time. As the sequence progresses, students analyse the report genre, look at some language points, gather information, draft their report, check it and produce a final version (thus immersing themselves not only in the writing product, but in the process of writing). When they have listened to an interview about the position of women around the world, students are asked to read a report and match sections A-D in it with the following headings:

Positive comments

Conclusion and recommendations

Negative facts

Aim of the report

Students then complete the report with the linking words ‘according to’, ‘also’, ‘although’, ‘as a result’, ‘for example’, ‘furthermore’, ‘however’, ‘in addition’, ‘moreover’, ‘on the other hand’, ‘in this way’ and ‘to sum up’. They then move on to do some work on using synonyms. Now that students have been prepared they write a report in six stages:

Stage 1: students are asked to choose one from a list of topics such as the benefits/dangers of mass tourism, whether banning things ever works (such as gangster rap lyrics, etc), answers to world poverty, freedom to choose (e.g. smoking, gun ownership, etc) or whether parents should be liable for the actions of their children. Alternatively, they can choose a topic of their own.

Stage 2: students are asked to gather information from a variety of sources including - in the case of the example above - the module of the coursebook the text occurs in, a library, the Internet (the teacher can give students lists of websites - rather as happened in the webquest on page 105), CD-ROM encyclopedias, magazine articles, TV and radio programmes, and anyone they would like to interview.

Stage 3: students plan their reports. They should decide what to include, what order to put it in (after looking back at the report they studied) and what their conclusions will be.

Stage 4: students write a draft of their report.

Stage 5: students check through the report in order to decide how effective it is and correct any language mistakes.

Stage 6: students write their final report (they may have repeated stages 4 and 5 more than once). During stages 4 and 5, it is important for the teacher to be on hand to suggest changes, question parts of the report and be a useful resource for students so that they can improve their writing as they continue. When the reports are finished, the teacher can collect them for correction, or they can be assembled on a class noticeboard or put up on a class website.

Speaking Skill

Example 1: photographic competition (upper intermediate to advanced)

In the following activity, students have to discuss criteria before reaching a final decision. They also have to be able to give reasons for their decision. The activity begins when students, working in groups, are told that they are going to be the judges of a photographic competition in which all the images are of men. Before they see the four finalists, they have to decide the criteria they are going to use to make their choice. Each group should come up with five criteria. While they are discussing this, we can circulate, listening in on the groups’ discussions, helping them out of any difficulties and feeding in words and phrases such as ‘contrast’ and ‘make a strong impression’, if this is necessary. We will also make a note of any language problems we may want to study later in remedial exercises. The students are then shown the four finalists for the competition. In their groups, they have to choose the winning photograph. But they cannot do this just on the basis of which one they like best. They have to use the criteria they have previously agreed. Once again, we can go round the groups helping out, cajoling or sometimes correcting (see page 131) where this is appropriate. Finally, the groups have to report back on their choices and say exactly why they have chosen them - which criteria made them choose one above the others. This can develop into a longer whole-class discussion about what masculinity means, or about photography and how it has been changed by the invention of digitised images, etc. This speaking activity works because students are activating any and all of the language they know to talk about something other than learning English. They have a purpose for their speaking (designing criteria, making a choice). But the activity also allows us to feed useful words and phrases into the discussion while, at the same time, giving us a lot of examples of student language. We can use these later in study sequences, where we both look at some of the mistakes the students made, and also help them to say things better or more appropriately.

Example 2: role-play (intermediate to upper intermediate)

Many teachers ask students to become involved in simulations and role-plays. In simulations, students act as if they were in a real-life situation. We can ask them to simulate a check-in encounter at an airport, for example, or a job interview, or a presentation to a conference. Role-plays simulate the real world in the same kind of way, but the students are given particular roles - they are told who they are and often what they think about a certain subject. They have to speak and act from their new character’s point of view. The following role-play sets up a dramatic situation and then gives the participants role-cards which tell them how they feel and what they want to achieve. The teacher presents the class with the following situation:

 

When the teacher is sure the students understand the situation (including, for example, the meaning o f ‘trophy’), the class is divided into five groups: suspect, police officer 1 , police officer 2, lawyer and parent. Each member of the group is given the role-card for the part they are to play. The role-cards are as follows:

The suspect

·         You are seventeen and a half years old.

·         You did steal the trophy, of course, but you don’t think the police have any proof.

·         You want to know where the police got their information. When they ask you what you were doing last night, you’ll say you were with a friend.

·         You enjoy being sitly when the police ask you questions. You get angry when the lawyer tries to stop you doing this.

Police officer 1

•       The suspect was seen leaving the club house at around 9.30 by two other criminals, Ben and Joey, but you can’t tell the suspect this, because that would put Ben and Joey in danger. So the only thing you can do is to keep asking the suspect different questions about what they were doing last night in the hope that they’ll get confused and in the end confess.

•       You have had enough of teenage crime in your area. It makes you really mad. Anyway, you want to get home. Unfortunately, you get angry rather quickly. When your police colleague tells you to calm down, you get really angry.

Police officer 2

•       The suspect was seen taking the trophy by two other criminals, Ben and Joey, but you can’t tell the suspect this, because that would put Ben and Joey in danger. So the only thing you can do is keep asking the suspect different questions about what they were doing last night in the hope that they’ll get confused and in the end confess.

•       You like your partner, but you get really worried when they start getting angry since this doesn’t help in a police interview situation, so you try to calm your partner down. But whenever a suspect’s mother or father tries to say that their beautiful child is not really to blame for something, you get really irritated.

Lawyer

• Your job is to protect the suspect.

• You try to stop the police asking difficult questions - and you try to stop the suspect saying too much.

Parent

• You think your child is a good person and that if they have got into any trouble it isn’t their fault. Your partner (the suspect’s mother or father) was sent to prison and the suspect is very upset about this.

• If you think the police are being unfair to your child, you should tell them so – and make sure they realise it isn’t really your child’s fault.

In their groups, students discuss the role they are going to play What kind of questions will they ask if they are police officers? What will they say if they are lawyers (e.g. ‘You don’t have to answer that question’)?, etc. They discuss what the other people in the situation are likely to do or say. While they are doing this, the teacher goes round the class clearing up any doubts the students might have and giving them language they think they might need. This pre-stage is vital for getting students in the mood for the activity. Students are now put in new groups of suspect, two police officers, lawyer and parent, and the role-play gets going. The teacher goes from group to group, helping out and noting down any language that is worth commenting on later. When the activity is finished, the teacher tells the class what he or she witnessed and works on any persistent mistakes that occurred during the role-play. A variation of this kind of detective activity is the game Alibi. The teacher invents a crime - probably related to grammar or vocabulary the students have been learning - and, say, three students are sent out of the classroom to concoct an alibi about what they were doing when the crime was committed. The three students are now called back one by one and questioned by the rest of the class. When the second student comes in, the class try to find inconsistencies with the alibi of the first of the three. The same happens when the third student of the three turns up. The class then highlights the inconsistencies and guesses who the ‘criminal’ is. Of course, it doesn’t actually matter who they decide on since the game is simply designed to have students ask and answer, using their questions and answers as fluently as possible. There are differing views about whether students gain more or less benefit from simulating reality as themselves or, conversely, playing the role of someone else in the same situation. When students simulate reality as themselves, they get a chance for real-life rehearsal, seeing how they themselves would cope (linguistically) in such a situation. Giving students a role, on the other hand, allows them to ‘hide behind’ the character they are playing, and this can sometimes allow them to express themselves more freely than they would if they were voicing their own opinions or feelings. The best thing to do is to try simulations with and without roles and see which works best with a particular group.

Listening Skill

Example I: live interview (beginner onwards)

The following sequence works when teachers can bring visitors to the classroom (or when they themselves play a role as if they were a visitor). The teacher primes a visitor to the class by giving them an idea of the students’ level and what they may or may not understand. The visitor should be aware that they may have to modify the way they normally speak - but that speaking slowly and shouting (as people often do when confronted with people whose English is not high level) will not be appropriate! The students are told that a visitor is coming to the lesson, and that they should think of a number of questions to ask which will tell them as much as possible about who the person is. Their questions are checked by the teacher to make sure that the students are really asking what they want to ask. When the visitor comes to the lesson, students ask their questions and take notes of the answers. A key feature of such an exchange is the follow-up question - a question which follows on from the interviewee’s first answer. This means that students are forced to listen carefully to the first answer. But it also gives them more opportunity to interact with the visitor, and it means that the visitor will say more. For live listening to work well, students need to have phrases to help them such as ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand what X means ...’, ‘Could you repeat what you just said?’, ‘Are you saying that ...?’. The actual questions they use will depend on their level. Sometimes it is a good idea for students to find out who the visitor is through their questioning (we keep their identity a secret), but at other times they will prepare their questions more efficiently if they know who is coming and what their occupation is, or what kind of story they have to tell. It is not always easy to find visitors. However, for those schools which are well equipped, it is now possible to replicate such interviews with the help of a webcam. As the technology improves, this will become more and more feasible. But if this is not possible, teachers can pretend to be someone else for the students to interview. With younger children, teachers can use puppets or wear masks to show that they are someone different. Students can use their notes to write a profile of the visitor, to write to or about them, or to discuss with the class what they thought about the visitor’s opinions.

Example 2: buying tickets (pre-intermediate)

The following coursebook sequence is an example of how work on one skill (listening) leads naturally into work on another (speaking). As suggested on page 135, it allows the students to predict what they will hear and involves both general and detailed comprehension work. Students look at the following pictures:

The teacher encourages them to describe what is going on in each picture. Words like ‘ticket’, ‘check-in’ and ‘coach’ are bound to occur naturally here, but more importantly, students have an idea of what the conversations they are going to hear are about. Students now hear the following four conversations which they have to match with the four pictures :

1.        passenger: I’d like a return to Oxford, please.

assistant: Yes, of course. Are you coming back today?

passenger: Yes, I am.

assistant: That’s ￡18.50, please.

passenger: Thank you.

2.        check- in : How many pieces of luggage have you got?

passenger: One suitcase and one handbag.

check- in : Did you pack your suitcase yourself?

passenger: Yes, I did.

check- in : Does it contain any knives or scissors?

passenger: No.

check- in : Fine. Could you put it on here, please? OK ... 15 kilos.

3.        passenger: Piccadilly Circus, please.

bus driver: One pound, please.

passenger: Thanks.

bus driver: Thank you.

4.        assistant: Victoria Coach Station. Can I help you?

passenger: I’d like to book a single ticket to Edinburgh, please.

assistant: Yes ... when would you like to travel?

passenger: Friday 14th March in the afternoon.

assistant: OK ... uh ... there’s a coach at 5.45 pm.

passenger: Yes, that’s fine. How much is it?

assistant: ￡45 for a single ticket. How would you like to pay?

passenger: By Visa, please.

assistant: OK.

After this general listening task, students listen again to slot in various key language items

in blanks from the audioscript, e.g.

passenger: ________________ to Oxford, please.

assistant: Yes, of course. Are you coming back today?

passenger: Yes, I am.

assistant: _______, please.

passenger: Thank you.