Individual Response - Ramadhan Omar

1)

Based on the analysis of the lesson plan, I could see the presence of the Behaviourism and Interactionism theories being used.

Under the Behaviourism theory, learning is seen as the product of teaching which involves conditioning and habit formation (De Bot, Lowie & Verspoor, 2006). In this case, the presence of Behavioursim theory comes into play when the teacher explicitly teaches the students that before a full stop or exclamation mark, syllables have a fall tone, and before a comma or question mark, syllables have a rise tone. The teacher then plays an audio clip of the scripted conversation to allow the students to hear the rising and falling of intonation patterns. In this case, the learning was seen as making a series of connections, called stimulus-response bonds (De Bot, Lowie & Verspoor, 2006) where students are taught the rules and then they will listen to the audio conversation and to model the intonation patterns by listening to audio clips and the script. The student will model the correct pronunciation by listening to the audio clip of the scripted conversation. Thus, the learning was seen as pure habit formation (De Bot, Lowie & Verspoor, 2006).

Under the Interactionism theory, we could see that how the students were given the opportunity to work in pairs with their classmates and at the same time, able to listen to how their other classmates spoke. In addition, it also allows the students to evaluate on their classmates pronunciation and of their own. They are also given the opportunity to evaluate each other responses which thus promote student-student evaluation. The lesson incorporates Interactionism Theory as it is interactive as it involves the students to interact with their classmates (in pairs or electronically) and it hopes that this social interaction will help the students to develop their language competence (Vygotsky, 1978).

Overall, I can see that the topic of the lesson has been grouped into divisions of language learning that is Reading, Listening and Speaking (Chapelle & Jamieson, 2008).

2)

Strengths:

I find that the teacher has adopted a good way to introduce the topic to the class by using an ICT tool by showing a YouTube clip that relates directly to the topic that they are going to learn today. In doing so, it motivates the students and evokes their curiosity while watching the clip and it is a good way to arouse student attention and relate it to the student’s interest. While they are watching the clip, it enables the students to have an idea of what they are expected to learn today (framework or today’s lesson).

The lesson involves interaction of students within their peers and as a whole class. Through interactions, students at the same time are able to get clarification about the meaning of language that they do not initially understand (Pica, 1994). The interactions that the student has in class position them to develop strategies for future communication and learning so that they can take advantage (Chapelle & Jamieson, 2008). Interactions that the students engage in during communication are also valuable for their language development (Ellis, 1999).

The “follow up” section in which the students require to use the E-Portal system helps to paint a picture of the autonomous learner, who after studying in a class where the teacher has introduced the topic is able to take advantage of electronic resources outside the classroom (Chapelle & Jamieson, 2008).

The use of IT in the lesson provides individualized interactive instructional unmatched by what can be provided in the classroom. When the students are instructed to go onto E-portal system to do their own readings aloud passage, it allows the students to vary the amount of time they spend, the help they request or the path they take through a learning activity (Chapelle, 2001).

I can understand why the teacher use IT in the lesson activity as perhaps because of the students regular use of the Internet, students feel more engaged by interactive materials that provide feedback than they do with exercises in a work book (Chapelle & Jamieson, 2008).

The teacher also uses assessment as it is an important part of instruction to help the students how well they have performed. Overall I feel that the students are guided towards constructive, individualized and collaborative activities in/outside the classroom.

Weakness:

The groupings of the pair work might gives rise to problems where students would prefer to pair up with someone they are familiar with. Students who are of lower ability might be left out and thus faces difficulty in finding a friend to pair up with. Thus, the teacher has to therefore ensure that all students are paired up in such a way where no student is left out and to ensure that each pair is of a mixed ability so that they are able to learn from one another.

I also find that the conversation audio is too long for students to capture the real essence of the intonation patterns. I find that the conversation could be a little shorter and the type of conversation that the teacher picked up could be more relevant to the school context. Alternatively, the teacher could instead take an audio clip of an oral passage so that students can really relate it well and at the same time able to learn how to look put for the different intonation patterns.

When asking students to give responses or justification with regards to whether they agree or disagree with that group’s justification, the teacher has to take note what are the comments that the students wrote. This is because students might unconsciously give sarcastic remarks or unconstructive feedback to their peers.

Lastly, I find that the calling of the 6 students for the activity is redundant as these students might not have grasped the whole concept of the topic. These students might not be producing a correct intonation and pitch patterns. As a result, they might be modeling the wrong pronunciation to the other students and students might have difficulty answering the questions that is being posted on the visualizer.

Overall I find that the teacher has provided the guidance that the students need by selecting materials, structuring activities for learning, evaluating performance and offering the teacher’s expertise and encouragement in many ways (Chapelle & Jamieson, 2008).