Elearning - Renee

In this lesson plan, the main learning theory reflected, in my opinion, would be interactionism, alongside a tinge of behaviorism as well.

According to the interactionist model, language competence is said to be developed through social interaction (Vygotsky, 1978). As reflected in the lesson plan, the students were asked to work in pairs in the main activities 1 and 2, and also to partake in a class forum discussion in the post activity. In these ways, the students learn about reading and its various aspects such as tone variations, pace and pause, through the interactions (conversation exchange and practice) with their fellow peers and classmates.

According to the behaviorism theory, learning is said to be the result of stimulus-response habit-formation (Skinner, 1957). There are instances of influence from the behaviorist model of language learning in the lesson plan as the students were asked to perform imitations of the ideal pronunciations - drill and practice.

Generally, the lesson plan is one that is very detailed with specific instructions and objectives reflected in each learning task.

One of the dominant strengths would be its incorporation of ICT (video clips, e-portal system) into the learning process. Towndrow (2007) states that by employing ICT, it would add variety, interaction, flexibility and individuality to the lessons. Furthermore, the e-portal platform creates a less confrontational and less threatening medium for students to express their views, thoughts and opinions more readily at the comforts of their own homes. This also helps the teacher with convenience as they can assess all the class data in one click and not have to rummage through and manually mark a stack of papers.

The weakness of the lesson plan, however, lies in the fact that it is mainly teacher-oriented and that students don’t get to partake much in the decision making process in their learning. In the main activity 1, teacher provides the students with a checklist rubric without letting them know how and why it was derived this way. Towndrow (2007) says that there is no reason why students cannot make decisions about what they learn and how learning occurs. In fact, students ought to be given the freedom to negotiate and act on their novel ideas and curiosity. For example, they should be given inquiry-based learning activities to help them research, filter and gather information on the various aspects pertaining to reading and pronunciation instead of just taking the checklist from the teacher.

In addition, the conversation scripts provided to the students for the activities were too lengthy. This would not aid in the given short attention span that primary school students are expected to have. Last but not least, the video clip of Joey has been observed to be focused on only plosives, and not the adhering to the main objectives stated in the lesson plan.