Assignment - M&R

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT

DEVELOPING LANGUAGE SKILL IN THE CLASSROOM

Student: Alexander Oviedo,

Group: 2015-6

Subject: Developing Language Skill in the Classroom

File name: 2015-06AOviedo_DLS

Date: 16/01/ 2016

Assignment - M&R

The learning theories implicit in the way the units are presented and developed.

Take into account the three different theories concerning language development:

The Learning perspective argues that children imitate what they see and hear, and those
children learn from punishment and reinforcement. (Shaffer, Wood, & Willoughby, 2002).

The nativist perspective argues that humans are biologically programmed to gain
knowledge. The main theorist associated with this perspective is Noam Chomsky.

Interactionists argue that language development is both biological and social.

Interactionists argue that language learning is influenced by the desire of children to
communicate with others. The Interactionists argue that "children are born with a
powerful brain that matures slowly and predisposes them to acquire new understandings
that they are motivated to share with others" (Bates, 1993; Tomasello, 1995, as cited in
Shaffer, et al., 2002, p.362).
We can infer that the Interactionists theory is presented in these two texts because the
output that teachers can obtain from their students work are mainly a result of group or pair
work, where each student makes a contribution and besides, he/she can improve his/her
knowledge by sharing the information with the others, for example when they brainstorm
and create ideas and sentences from a specific situation such as: Suggest some other
hurtful situations which may occur at your school... (Bachillerato Made Easy) and
Arguing for and against (Botelln!). Another one that we take it into account was the
integrated approach which is that language is treated as a mean of interaction, rather than an
academic subject. This also relates to motivation, and it is more likely for students to be
motivated to learn a language if they are able to use it to interact, rather than to just have
knowledge about the language. Teachers are able to track students' progress in multiple
skills at the same time.

The extent to which the skills are integrated.

Assignment - M&R

Well then, the skills are integrated of the following way:

First is listening and speaking because the first thing that Bachillerato Made Easy put is a warm up
and inside it discussing and debating each other whether they are agree or not. After that is coming
reading which is started with a match but it is obvious that to match its necessary to read and the
grammar is the last one that they apply in their methodology. In Bachillerato Made Easy there is an
evident connection between grammar and production. It is noted that grammar is taught inductively
and it is integrated with the other four skills. The unit teaches reported speech asking the learners to
write related sentences, taking into account the way to report what someone has said, after that, it is
assessed through an oral task. On the other hand, in Botelln! The use of speaking, listening,
writing and reading are presented, but it does not have grammar activities. The rules of grammar are
not explicit which means that it is a form-focused instruction. Anyway, Doughty (1991) observed
the effectiveness of focusing on form and noted that students with form-focused instruction
outperformed those without instruction on the target forms. however is necessary highlight that a lot
listening produces a good speaking, and reading give you a good vocabulary and the skill to write
well and not to make a lot of mistakes in spelling. In Bachillerato Made Easy, the reading section
has several kinds of activities such as understanding text organization; checking comprehension;
inferring; dealing with unfamiliar word; linking ideas; reacting to the text; skimming; scanning;
writing summaries and reports.

The product-process aspects of the two units.

Checking and contrasting both materials with what has been said, firstly, in Bachillerato Made
Easy the goals that students must achieve are not well defined, the unit provides students clear
directions and explanations concerning the course organization and contents. These contents are
very interesting and motivate students. The four skills are presented with activities that require
teachers support and help to get a good process of learning, to create and produce a good product.
Secondly, in Botelln! goals are clear and It presents step by step how to perform a debate
giving correct instructions to get it. Activities focus more on reading, writing and speaking so this
material has a good process for learning to get a good product, too. To conclude the process of

Assignment - M&R

acquiring a second language can be effective when both the learner and the teacher are involved in
the process keeping the motivation and interest.

The authentic/genuine aspects.

The debate on the problem between the authenticity and genuine aspect of the materials and text is
far from being settled. As major concerns about authenticity starts with the authenticity of texts, Lee
(1995), assert that teaching materials are usually regarded as textually authentic if they are not
written for teaching purposes, but for a real life communicative purpose. Some of the texts
considered authentic on a general agreement between the critics are: novels, poems, newspaper and
magazine articles, handbooks and manuals, recipes, postcards, telegrams, advertisements, travel
brochures, tickets, timetables, and telephone directories written in the target language for the genreintended target language audience can all be considered authentic texts. Authentic texts (either
written or spoken) are those which are designed for native speakers: they are real texts designed not
for language students, but for the speakers of the language in question. (Harmer, 1983, p. 146)
Widdowson (1998) refers to them as possessing genuineness a characteristic of the text or the
material itself. He distinguishes between genuineness and authenticity which refers to the uses
to which texts are put. From the point of view of many authors more important is what you do with
the text in the classroom, how you use it. An authentic text is one to fulfill some social purpose in
the language community in which was produced(Little,1988 :27). From communicative approach a
focus in raise the awareness on the need to develop students skills for the real world has meant for
the teacher to attempt to stimulate this world in the classroom. It is consider that if authentic
materials are used in the classroom then this will enhance possibility to link together the classroom
knowledge with the real world by exposing the students and help them to acquire an effective
competence in the target language. We could observe that from the two materials the Botelln!
Use an authentic material by presenting two videos, which the students have to listen and to
participate to a debate after.

Assignment - M&R

The issue of simplification of text

According to Simesen (1987), simplified text are the ones written, to illustrate a specific language
feature, such as the use of modals or the third-person singular form, to modify the amount of new
lexical input provided to learners or to control the input amount in the classroom. Simplified text
are used mostly in the beginner and intermediate level L2 learners, and despite the debate between
the use of authentic materials over the simplified ones, the latter are still used in the classroom as a
tool to provide gradually the vocabulary and grammar items. Of course criticism on the simplified
text has come from many authors like for example Long and Ross (1993) summarized this position
by addressing the idea that the removal of complex linguistic forms in favour of more simplied
and frequent forms must inevitably deny learners the opportunity to learn the natural forms of
language. Furthermore, some authors argumented that, the use of simplied texts to attend L2
learners may actually be counterproductive because these texts may not allow the learners to take
advantages on using more advanced texts that have sentences of natural length and more complex
structural patterns.

The relationship between the skills work and the learning/practice of grammar.

At the moment which the teachers started to implement a communicative approach to foreign and
second language teaching, learning communication was often submitted as an option to learning
grammar. The main purpose is to let speakers be able to use the language. There are people, who
are only good at listening and speaking, others in Reading and writing, but it would be clear that the
efficiency is relied on how people are capable to have a good communication level. Only through
the practice the learners will be able to improve their English abilities. Reading is an important way
of gaining information in language learning, because through reading you acquire and consolidate
more vocabulary, your comprehension level on the language could expand. Grammar is an
important essence to communication because it helps structure is sentences and it can help in how
well we communicate. One who has writing (grammar: "syntax", "pragmatic", "semantics") is an
effective communication because they will usually be able to catch on to the social rules which help
us communicate. If one has poor grammar, they will not be able to communicate effectively,
regarding Bachillerato Made Easy material this book promotes the development of it literacy, and
5

Assignment - M&R

integrates grammar, vocabulary, functions, skills pronunciation and study strategies in. It contains
projects with fun activities and integrated-skills task like listening, reading comprehension
exercises, and grammar activities. It features projects to consolidate and reinforce learning and
includes natural texts about relevant topics for teens. It offers warm-up and extension activities in
each exercise, activities to promote universal values and cultural notes to promote understanding
and tolerance. The relationship between the skills and the learning of grammar in Made EasyRichmond activities is to engage both inductive and deductive cognitive skills in helping students to
clarify and understand grammar concepts and the interrelationships of grammar structures. The
Botelln! material. We observe that in this material the role of the grammar is diminished, and
is emphasizes more on the part of reading and speaking skills. We don't have a real presentation of
grammar points with specific exercises to check the comprehension of the students. We can
determine that through the text, that the students must analyze and argument they will enhance the
use of the grammar as a final product.

The opportunities for production (oral and written) the units provide.

We can say that the opportunities for production (oral and written) is a relevant process, because
oral communication is a two-way process between speaker and listener where both the speaker and
the listener have a positive function to perform, speaking is therefore an interactive process but we
have to acknowledge that there will be times when the speaker's role will be essentially passive
which focused in McGregor's model of collaborative discourse (see Section 2.2.3) Furthermore
writing is labeled as a written production and is one of the branches; when learning is of a second
language, it is a skill that students must acquire. So as we can notice both units provide their
students with situations that allow for well-rounded development and progress in the four skills to
language learning: Bachillerato Made Easys unit provides opportunities with a group work, selfaccess and Presentation - Practice - Production, for both production skills (oral, written) the unit ten
to be teacher-centred, as the teacher leads the activity and provides necessary information
furthermore it is a student centred because the learners in some steps are able to decide what to
say, how to say it, For example: for oral production the learners start discussing with a selfassessment task in two different exercises, in the first exercise learners have to reflect about their
behavior in given situations and in the second part in groups they have a free discussion about the
6

Assignment - M&R

same topic presented in all the unit and for written provided the learners with necessary structure,
vocabulary and grammar (previously taught).on the other hand Botelln! provides opportunities
with an interaction where the learners work in groups, independently , they work together and
interact autonomously and the teacher acts as a facilitator by doing things like monitoring their
work, for example for the written part they use the steps in the reading part to refute in a diplomatic
way the topics given. Now the learners are totally trained for talking about different points of view.
Oral and written productions are two essential tools when learning a second language; they must be
developed by the students to acquire a second language. This learning can be improved, for
example, by a continuous reading comprehension routine and speaking can be trained by listening.
Observing the two units it is possible to notice that both provide their students with different
situations that encourage them to use these two essential communicating skills in different ways and
purposes, for instance in Bachillerato Made Easy when they are asked to write about
Friendship, to select a short piece of news and rewrite it, write a report considering a previous
example, write arguments for and against, among others. Concerning oral production in
Bachillerato Made Easy we can see an activity such as dialogues and role play and in
Botelln! there is an exercise that involves a debate, so the students have to present their ideas
and explain their reasons. Finally we can see a Discussion Organizer that includes their notes and
suggestions.

The types of production required.

There are three main stages in a unit: Presentation, Practice, and Production. A unit with these three
stages helps learners to learn more efficiently. The first stage has to do with explaining the
objectives of the unit so that the students know how, what and why they will learn. Besides in this
stage the teacher explains the new language in terms of its form, use and the way to write correctly.
The aim of the practice stage is to help the students to use the new language the teacher has just
explained to them. The final stage is production. This helps to motivate the students to
communicate meaning with the new language acquired. They should have the opportunity to
experiment with it. Observing the two units it is possible to determine that the attention is focused
on writing because many of the activities (reading and answering questions, make report or essay,
rewrite sentences, etc.) involve written production, for example in Bachillerato Made Easy, students
7

Assignment - M&R

write an essay by following the steps of the four genders of them: description, narration, exposition
and argumentation. In Botelln! they make a diplomatic on discussion. To do that, this part
requires group and pair work to develop the communicative language process. These different
activities provide opportunities for students to develop awareness or conceptualize understanding
related to the learning. The four skills work together with the activities that require their use and
support the process of learning, creating and producing a determined product. For oral production
Bachillerato Made Easy contains these activities: role play, dialogues and talking about
themselves. Botelln! has some discussion topics where students have to propose solutions and
ideas for the problem or situation. There is also an individual activity where they have to say if they
agree or not stating their reasons.

The variety (or otherwise) of the activity types.

The materials that we use in the classroom must provide a variety of activities and task to increase
the level of comprehension and learning of the language based on all four skills. The Bachillerato
Made Easy material has an organized structure, each skill is ordered in sequence, which gives a
clear way to go through the task. We can observe that had been divided in two main ones- the
reading and writing which incorporate the other two skills like speaking and listening through the
material. The first skills presented is reading which provides also various other tasks like writing,
this activity contain activities to complete applying grammar like reported speech, vocabulary to
contain word formation about comparative and superlative form Do and Make. Other activity is
about an opinion essay where you have to generate ideas and to be organized. Then follow
organized activities of listening, for example to put in order some information, and after to write
information of the action that people do in the listening task. Finally the student must acknowledge
not only in written part the answer but to integrate also speaking. About the Botelln!. In
accordance with the objectives of the material provided at the beginning, the activities focus more
on the tasks of speaking and writing. These incorporates various sub tasks like the one of inferring
basic elements of communication, using language agreements and disagreements, listening
information, identify language features that support opinions through the text that students have to
read and analyze. As a conclusion we can determine that the material Bachillerato Made Easy has a

Assignment - M&R

more organized structure from the point of view of the skills and sub skills covered offering a good
number of activities and task to improve the capacity of the students to learn the language.

Which unit do you prefer? Why?

In spite of that both units are really important considering all what we have studied we would say
that Bachillerato Made Easy is better because this unit is considered Authentic and Genuine; and
this one works with all skills and other things such as grammar and other things that are important
in order to learn the language. Moreover the units have different activities for each skill and lead
the learner and the teacher to achieve the goal, whereas Botelln- was lacking in pictures and
listening which would help them to assimilate easier the information.

Assignment - M&R

Bibliography

[1] Richards, J.C., Gallo, P. B., & Renandya, W. A. (2001). Exploring Teachers Beliefs and the
Processes of Change. PAC Journal, 1,1, 41-58.

[2]Berliner, D. C. (1987). Ways of thinking about students and classrooms by more and less
experienced teachers. In J. Calderhead (Ed.), Exploring teachers thinking (pp. 60-83). London:
Cassell.

[3] Tomasello, M. (1995). Language is not an instinct. Cognitive Development, 10(1), 131
156.

[4] Shaffer, D. R., Wood, E., & Willoughby, T. (2002). Developmental psychology: Childhood
and adolescence (First Canadian Edition). Scarborough, Ont: Nelson/Thomson Canada Ltd.

[5] Fidalgo, A., Fontanillo, I. Mayorga & S. Dague (2001) Bachillerato Made Easy, Students
Book. London: Richmond Publishing Madrid: Grupo Santillana de Ediciones, S.A.., pp.60-67.
[5] Botelln! unit English textbook published in the Basque Country (2010) for teenagers

[6] Widdowson, H. G. (1978). Teaching language as communication. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

[7] Hornby. Definition of Writing According to Expert.

[8] Smith, 1979 Task-oriented lesson and student achievement. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 72,670-675

10