My Response - Yin Ting

The lesson plan has skillfully interweaved a number of learning theories that strongly underpin pedagogy and a wide range of teaching strategies as seen in the lesson plan. It is also worth noting that the rationale behind a particular teaching approach may be influenced by more than one learning theory.

Cognitivist Theory as Enacted when…

• Teacher poses a series of questions to students (E.g. What do you think we are going to focus on in today’s lesson? How many of you agree with the video that we will need to make such exaggerated speech? What other ‘myths’ have you heard about being a good reader?) (Pre-Activity)
• Teacher calls upon students to justify their responses to the questions that are based on their peers’ reading (Main Activity 2)

Cognitivist learning theories are theories that explain learning in terms of changes in the mental structures and processes that are involved in acquiring, organizing and using knowledge. Proponents of this theory argue that students in a constructivist classroom are “goal-directed agents who actively seek information” (Bransford, et al., 2000, as cited in Eggen & Kauchak, 2008). The series of questions posed by the teacher enables the students to make sense of the video. Throughout the lesson, students are kept cognitively active as they attempt to understand the ideas that the teacher is delivering. In addition, the theory states that learning and development depend on learners’ experiences. Thus, the video shown provides students with some ideas of “exaggerated speech” and subsequently helps them understand that intonation and pitch are crucial for injecting emotions in speech. As a result, the students construct knowledge that makes sense to them in order to understand their own experiences. The theory is also grounded in the fundamental principle that knowledge constructed is largely contingent on learners’ prior knowledge. Learners do not construct knowledge in a vacuum, instead the construction of knowledge is propelled by the knowledge that they already possess or personal experiences. As seen in the lesson plan, the teacher gets the students to contribute some of the ‘myths’ which they already know about good reading, in a bid to activate learner schema or prior knowledge. Finally, according to Vygotsky (1978), social interaction that involves guiding questions and cooperative dialogue with teacher and peers facilitates the process of social knowledge construction and understanding and this is clearly evident in the lesson.

Constructivist Theory as Enacted when…

• Students work in pairs and take turns to listen to one another’s speech, and then give constructive feedback (Main Activity 1)
• Students discuss with their partner the grade to be given to the reader from the audio clip and then justify their joint decision for giving the particular grade (Post Activity)
• Students use IFS gadget to answer questions based on their peers’ reading-aloud

Constructivist theorists suggest that learners actively create new knowledge of the topic that they learn based on their prior and current knowledge, instead of receiving knowledge that has been transmitted to them either through the teacher or from the books that they read (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2000, as cited in Eggen & Kauchak, 2008). There is no room for passive learning because each student brings a unique knowledge framework to the learning environment, and thus constructs new knowledge in a different manner. Learning is highly active as the student constructs knowledge assisted by scaffolding from the teacher and feedback from their peers (Cerri, Gouardères, Paraguaçu, 2002). In a social constructivist learning environment, student understanding is enhanced as a direct result of the exchange and communication which enable students to understand the lesson more easily. By justifying their decision for giving the particular, the students get to verbalise their understanding of what they have learnt. This very act of verbalising their thought processes enables them to put their sometimes fuzzy thoughts into words and in turn have them clarified with guidance from their peers. It also allows the teacher to assess the extent of their learning progress and ensure that they are following the lesson. The sense of community learning is strongly felt in the classroom as the use of IFS system ensures that not a single student is left out from the learning activity. Learning is not promoted because of the teacher, instead it is student-student interaction that plays a pivotal role in classroom. In their pairs, students are constantly learning from each other’s feedback, negotiating as they decide on the grade that is to be awarded, and respecting each other’s differences in thinking and progress.

Behaviourist Theory as Enacted when…

• Teacher emphasizes the importance of speaking in a way such that the parts spoken by the characters in the script are distinct from the narrative (Main Activity 1)
• Teacher explicitly teaches the need for fall and rise tone before a full stop or exclamation mark and a comma or question mark respectively (Main Activity 1)
• Teacher reinforces that the tone of speeches must match the given description of how the speech is meant to be expressed (Main Activity 2)
• Students are told to pay particular attention to pauses, rise/fall tones and pitch when giving feedback to their partner’s reading-aloud (Main Activity 1)

Behaviourist learning theory explains learning in terms of observable behaviours and how they are influenced by stimuli from the environment. Learning takes place when desirable responses are reinforced and inappropriate responses are ignored or punished (Woollard, 2010). Skinner’s operant conditioning is a form of learning in which an observable behaviour varies in frequency or duration as a result of a consequence. When the teacher constantly emphasizes and explicitly teaches the students, their behaviour gets controlled by the consequences. For instance, not using a fall tone before a full stop or rise tone before a question mark may warrant more oral practices from the teacher (an undesirable consequence) until the student does it correctly. Eventually, the child learns that it is necessary to vary tone before certain punctuation marks in a narration. Conversely, if the teacher praises the child for following the rules, it increases the likelihood that the child will read with varying pitch, tone and rhythm in the future. Furthermore, when students are told to pay attention to the pauses, tones and pitch made by their partner, they learn what is acceptable in speaking (and vice versa) through modelling. Modelling is the central idea of social cognitive theory which is defined as the theory of learning that focuses on changes in behaviour that result from observing others. Though social cognitive theory has evolved over the years into a more cognitive perspective, it is similar to behaviourist theory in that both agree that the idea of reinforcement and punishment is crucial in their explanations of learning (Kim & Baylor, 2006, as cited in Eggen & Kauchak, 2008).

Strengths

• Plenty of Room for Feedback, Explicit Evaluation, and Flexibility

The learning environment established is by no means a passive one as there are plenty of opportunities for interaction between students. Research suggests that it is good to provide learners with opportunities for interaction because exchange and communication entail getting clarification about the concept that learners do not initially understand (Pica, 1994, as cited in Chapelle, 2008). The interactions between students allow them to develop strategies for future communication and learning so that they can take advantage of CALL materials on the Internet. In addition, the use of IFS or clickers not only ensures 100% participation from the students but also allows the teacher to assess students’ progress and provide instantaneous feedback to them. Also, research done by Cohen (2011) has shown that there is a positive correlation between intrinsic motivation and a technology- mediated classroom that uses clickers. More than 80% of the students in Cohen's study who used the tool felt that it supported their learning and were motivated to use it more frequently. I also like how students get to explicitly evaluate one another’s reading by grading their peers. Skehan (1998) argues that evaluation is one of the factors that greatly influences the quality of learner’s work. When students know that their performance will be evaluated, it spurs them to put in the effort and take the learning activity seriously. Finally, when students record their own reading using an audio recorder as part of the post activity, there is a great deal of individualised interaction that is only brought about by technology. The students have no limit to the number of times that they can record their reading before uploading their final work onto the e-portal forum. Thus, the lesson plan certainly taps into CALL resources that have great potential for “good learner fit” than other teaching resources out there (Chapelle, 2001 as cited in Chapelle, 2008).

Weaknesses

• Inappropriate Video and a Lack of Examples

As mentioned by Cindy and Audrey earlier on, the selection of video could have been more appropriate and aligned with the objectives of the lesson, especially since it is used to provide some kind of an experience to the students. It is good to include videos in the lesson in order to make it more engaging, however it is also important that our choice of teaching resources aids in student learning and not merely serve as a tool for entertainment. Suitable video or multimedia software must be chosen for teaching speech patterns; only then can teachers target practice for learners at the appropriate levels (Chapelle, 2008). I also find that there is a lack of examples in the lesson. In Main Activity 1, the teacher basically teaches the students what they need to do when it comes to reading and does not explicitly demonstrate how a fall or rise tone should sound like, for instance. According to Chapelle (2008), teachers need to incorporate examples of English that provide learners with useful models into the lesson. Most importantly, these models should include the target speech patterns that the students need to master and have the level of difficulty that is suitable for their level of development.

References

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Chapelle, C. & Jamieson, J. (2008). Tips for teaching with CALL: practical approaches to computer-assisted language learning. Pearson Education

Eggen, P. & Kauchak, D. (2008). Educational Psychology: Windows on Classrooms, Eighth Edition. Pearson Education International

Cohen, E. (2011). Navigating Information Challenges: Issues in Informing Science and Informing Technology, Vol. 8.

Woollard, J. (2010). Psychology for the Classroom: Behaviourism. Taylor & Francis.

Cerri, S. A., Gouarderes, G., & Paraguacu, F. (2002). Intelligent tutoring systems: 6th International Conference, ITS 2002, Biarritz, France and San Sebastián, Spain, June 2-7, 2002 : Proceedings. Springer.