Culture and SLA - Week 10 - Reading Group Workshop

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 10 of the course Culture and Second Language Acquisition for the master's in English teaching at ULACIT term IIC0 2023. This week we will participate in the reading group workshop to explore some practical strategies for teaching culture in the language classroom by sythesizing and analyzing the ideas found in your assigned readings.

Today's Goals:

• Present a brief workshop on an assigned reading that synthesizes the author's ideas and explores their classroom implications.

Guiding Questions: 

• What does the professional literature say about teaching culture in the L2 classroom?
• How can I promote professional discussion among peers about an academic article from my field?

Community Builder: Solar System

Click the link below to access the Jamboard and follow the teacher's instructions.

• Jamboard: CLICK HERE

• Teacher's Page: CLICK HERE

Task 1: Reading Group Workshop

Now it's time for your reading group workshop. Before we participate in your presentations, let's quickly review the learning objective and justification.

• Learning Objective: Demonstrate your ability to read an academic article and accurately identify and synthesize key concepts presented in the text in order to lead a group discussion exploring the implications of the theory to your teaching practice.

• Justification: A key skill of a professional educator is the ability to draw upon relevant theory from academic literature from the field in order to inform his or her teaching practice. Although academic texts can be challenging, it is essential to develop the ability to read, interpret, and synthesize the core ideas of academic articles when pursuing a degree in a graduate level program.

• Group 1: Dolka & Miguel - Cultural Codes for Calls: The use of commercial television in teaching culture in the classroom

• Group 2: Laura & Monserrath - Cultural Mirrors: Materials and methods in the EFL classroom

• Group 3: Daniela & Ana Ester - Materials for Cultural Awareness

Peer Feedback Framework

Task 2: Instructions for Pending Assignments

You have two more major assignments in this course, the Culture Lesson Plan and Textbook Analysis Paper and Presentation. Let's take a look at the instructions for each of them now.

• Culture Lesson Plan: CLICK HERE
• Textbook Analysis: CLICK HERE

References:

Cortazzi, M. & Jin, L. (1999). Cultural Mirrors: Materials and methods in the EFL classroom. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning (pp. 196- 219). Cambridge University Press.

Pulverness, A. & Tomlinson, B. (2013). Materials for Cultural Awareness. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Developing Materials for Language Teaching (2nd ed., pp. 443-459). Bloomsbury Academic.

Scollon, R. (1999). Cultural Codes for Calls: The use of commercial television in teaching culture in the classroom. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning (pp. 181- 195). Cambridge University Press.

 Teaching Writing - Week 11 - Teaching Genre with the Teaching-Learning Cycle

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 11 of the course Teaching Writing for the Bachelor's in English Teaching at ULACIT in term IIC 2023. Today we will explore the topic of genre and experiment with an instructional cycle that can help raise students' awareness of the purpose and organizational features of a particular text type. We will also take time to review your second lesson planning assingment.

Today's Goals:

• Demonstrate the design features of your process writing lesson plan.
• Define the concept of genre and its importance in reading and writing instruction.
• Participate in a demonstration lesson following the Teaching-Learning Cycle.

Guiding Questions:

• What are the benefits and challenges of following a process approach to writing instruction?
• What are text genres and how are they connected with social purpose and context?
• How can the Teaching-Learning Cycle help students develop genre competence?

Task 1: Lesson Plan Walkthrough - Process Writing Lesson Plan

This week you were asked to write your second lesson plan. Let's take a moment to review what you created.

• Example: Walk us through your plan.
• Strengths: Tell us what you think are the strengths of taking a process approach to writing instruction.
• Challenges: Tell us the challenges you faced while creating the plan or potential challenges you foresee for teacher or students who will follow the plan.

• Additional Considerations: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Genre and the Teaching Learning Cycle

Let's take some time to explore the topic of genre, its importance, and strategies to teach it.

• Initial Concepts: Read the quote below from the beginning of your study guide and define in your own words what genre is and why it is important.

• Quote: “Teachers who take a genre orientation to writing instruction look beyond subject content, composing processes and textual forms to see writing as attempts to communicate with readers. They are concerned with teaching learners how to use language patterns to accomplish coherent, purposeful prose. The central belief here is that we don’t just write, we write something to achieve some purpose: it is a way of getting something done (Hyland, pg. 18).”

• Text Analysis: Teaching genre involves changing the way we think about texts by training ourselves and our students to be perceptive analyzers of texts to identify their purpose and typical organizational patterns. You were asked to complete an analysis in your study guide to identify the mode, context, purpose, tone, organization, and language features of two genres. What genres did you analyze and what did you discover?

• Definitions and Orientations: These continue by anlayzing two more quotes from the study guide which help contribute to our growing definition of genre.

• Quote: “…genres are typical configurations or arrangements of text patterns that emerge (and change) over time in a cultural/social context. They are socially purposeful and created in order to achieve particular types of meaning (that is, they are functional in that context) (Burns, pg. 95).”

• Quote: “Genre pedagogy is underpinned by the belief that learning should be based on explicit awareness of language, rather than through experiment and exploration, so teachers provide students with opportunities to develop their writing through analyzing expert texts (Hyland, pg. 22).”

• Activity 1: Discuss these questions with your partner. Then move on to the next activity.

• Have you ever received a rejection letter or email?
• If so, what did it say? If not, what do you think a letter like this should contain?
• Who would probably send a rejection letter?
• When would the letter be sent?
• What should the tone of the letter be?
• How does the writer probably want the reader to feel?
• What is its purpose? What details does it need to express and why?

• Activity 2: Click on your group worksheet below and follow the instructions in the document.

• Group Worksheet: CLICK HERE

Task 3: Lesson Plan 3 - Genre Writing Plan

Let's finish today's class by previewing your third and final lesson planning assignment. 

• Assignment Guidelines: CLICK HERE

References:

Burns, A. (2016). Functional Approaches to Teaching Grammar in the Second Langauge Classroom. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Teaching English Grammar to Speakers of Other Languages (pp.84-105). Routeledge.

Hyland, K. (2003). Second Language Writing. Cambridge University Press.

   TOEIC Preparation - Week 8 - Part 7 - Reading Comprehension

Introduction: In today's class we begin our four week study of Part 7: Reading Comprehension. Complete the collaborative tasks below with your partners. 

Warm Up: Poem Analysis

Work with your group members to read the following poem and complete these tasks.

• Step 1: Read the poem with your partners. Each group member should read on stanza paying attention to the rhythm and rhyme. When you finish tell your partners what you think the poem is about. Then continue to the other tasks.

Eye have a spelling checker

It came with my pea sea

It clearly marks four my review

Miss steaks eye can knot sea

Eye strike a key and type a word

And weight four it to say

Weather eye am wrong oar write

It shows me strait a weigh

As soon as a mist ache is maid

It nose bee for two long

And eye can put the error write

It's rarely ever wrong

Eye have run this poem threw it

I am shore your pleased two no

It's letter perfect all the weigh

My checker told me sew

• Step 2: You probably noticed that the poem has many problems with homophones, or similar sounding words and phrases. What homophone errors can you identify? Can you find where these words should go?

• So
• Mistake (2x)
• Or right
• PC
• Knows before
• Straight away
• Cannot see

• Step 3: This poem is an example of irony. What is ironic about this poem?

• Irony: Noun - Something that seems to be deliberately contrary to expectations and the result is often amusing or funny. 

• Step 4: CLICK HERE to read the "corrected" version of the poem. Did you find all of the mistakes? Did this help you better understand the poet's message?

Task 1: Text Type Matching

Go to your Anthology pg. 29 (CLICK HERE): Look at the sample texts. Write the names of the text types in your anthology using the list below.

• General Correspondence
• Notices
• Articles
• Graphical Texts
• Advertisements
• Forms
• Instructions

Task 2: Common Text Types

In this task you will explore some sample text from the TOEIC. Click your group link below and follow the instructions in the document.  

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE
• Group 3: CLICK HERE

Task 3: Focused Practice - Group Quiz

Take the following group quiz with your partners. All of the texts in the quiz are examples of business correspondence, a common text type in Part 7 of the TOEIC. The quiz has 20 questions but it was divided into two parts for your convenience. Be sure to skim the questions before you start reading.

• Text Types: Business Correspondence 1 - CLICK HERE
• Text Types: Business Correspondence 2 - CLICK HERE

Task 4: Book Practice

Complete the following practice exercises from your book (CLICK HERE).

• Pg. 12 - Task A - Identify Sequence of Events
• Pgs 13-14 Task A - Identify a Target Audience

TOEIC Speaking Pair Practice

Task 5: Think Fast Mini-Speech

This improvisation activity consists of 4 rounds. In each round you or your partner will give a 30 second speech about a specific topic. Try to mention as many reasons and details as you can in the time limit. Do not stop talking until the time is over.

1) What are three objects you never leave home without and why?
2) What is your favorite part of your house and why?
3) What is a holiday that you don't like very much and why?
4) What is something you have never done but have always wanted to try and why?




Task 6: Mini-Test 

In this task you will play the video respond to three questions. The video includes the timer. Remember you have 15 seconds to respond to questions 1 and 2 and 30 seconds to respond to question 3. When you finish, discuss your responses with your partner and say what you did well and what you could improve. When you finish all the exercises, play the videos again and answer the questions you did not answer on the first round. 

Student A

Student B

Student A

Student B

Task 7: Rapid Fire Improvisation 

In this task your listening comprehension, thinking speed, and improvisational abilities will be tested. You will hear a rapid fire list of questions for which you will need to provide a 15 second response. You will hear a beep that signals when when to start and stop your responses. This will help you work on your improvisation skills which can come in handy in this section of the real test. Take turns answering the questions: Question 1 for Student A, Question 2 for Student B, Question 3 for Student A, etc. When you finish, play the video again and answer the questions you didn't answer in the first round. 

  Culture & SLA - Week 9 - Planning a Culture Lesson

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 9 of the course Culture and Second Language Acquisition for the master's in English teaching at ULACIT term IIC0 2023. This week we will participate in a lesson about a cultural practice in the US as a way of demonstrating how the Four Cultural Knowings and the Experiential Learning Cycle can be used to design a culture lesson. We will also discuss topics related to language necessary to participate, describe, interpret, and reflect on a cultural experience.  

Today's Goals:

• Participate in a demo lesson sequence to experience how the theory from the course can inform your lesson planning.
• Share an aspect of your culture ideas about activities students need to participate, describe, interpret, and reflect on a the experience.

Guiding Questions:

• How can theory influence my approach to lesson planning?
• How can the four cultural knowings help me organize a culture lesson?

Review Task 1: Film Analysis

Let's finish some parts of the film analysis discussion that we were not able to complete last week.

• Going Deeper: Thinking More about the Assignment
• In this task you were asked to compare products, practices, and perspectives and describing two of Hofestede's dimensions, If you were the professor of this course, what additional or alternative ways of cultural analysis could you have added to this assignment?

• Imagine you could propose alternative films to watch for the cultural analysis podcast assignment. What films would you recommend and why? How are they rich in cultural content?

• Thinking Critically: Reading Between the Lines
• Although the film is a comedy and meant to be fun, it is over 40 years old and we should also take time to analyze some aspects of the film that are potentially problematic by today's sensibilities. 

• The film's account of the tribe and their lifeways and culture is fictional. However, the Khoisan people are a real ethnic group in countries like Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa that have traditionally lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the savanahs and deserts of southern Africa for over 10,000 years. Knowing what you know about the history and current status of traditional hunter-gatherers and indigenous people in countries around the world (and Costa Rica), what do you think the real status and quality of life is like for the Khoisan in modern times compared to the dominant culture in their respective countries? What problems are common to indigenous groups?

• The Khoisan people featured in the film are presented in a documentary style although the information given about them is false. Do you think there are any ethical considerations to explore given the fact that this movie became a worldwide hit and for many people it was the first and only exposure they had to this culture?

• What do you know about the Apartheid system of South Africa or race relations in that country in the past and present? Were there any explicit or implicit examples of issues of racial discrimination, power access, superiority, etc. present in the film?

• One of the major plotlines of the film involve a war between the government and rebels. In what ways does this reinforce stereotypes about political instability and violence in developing countries?

• Have you heard of the terms "the noble savage" or "the myth of the noble savage" (el buen salvaje in Spanish)? CLICK HERE and read the brief description and answer the questions.

Review Task 2: Film as a Cultural Product

A critical analysis of the film as a product of the culture that produced it can reveal some historical socio-cultural compexities of the context in which the movie was made.

• Decolonization: Political and Social Change (1950-1975)
• South African Empire
• Namibia (South West Africa)

• Apartheid: Institutionalized Racism in South Africa
• What? When? Why?
• South Africa's International Reputation in 1980.
• Where was Apartheid in the film?
• Product of "Botswana"
• Kate's voice dubbed in American accent

• War: Cold War Paranoia with a Racial Component
• Cold War
• Fear of Communist Expansion
• Border Wars (1966-1990)
• Cuban Support for Communist Rebels in Angola

• Khoisan: Invisible History of the Tribe
• History
• Game Reserve 
• Forced Relocation / Reservation System
• Change to Agriculture and Pastoralism
• Alcoholism, Health Problems, Depression, Poverty
• Loss of Traditional Lands and Lifestyle
• "Discovery" of the Xi
• Trophy Hunting and Diamond Mining
• Lack of Political Representation


• "We have survived for millennia in one of the world's driest areas but they treat us as stupid. We are hunter-gatherers yet we get arrested. We cannot damage the wildlife. If we kill one animal we eat it for a month. We are not allowed to hunt but others can. We are still hunter-gatherers. We want to be recognized as hunter-gatherers. If you say don’t hunt, it means don’t eat. If you are going to ban hunting, you have to consult us. You’re going to turn us into poachers. But hunting for us has never been about poaching. We hunt for food." - Jumanda Gakebone, spokesman for the San in Botswana

• ‘‘The image of the Bushmen given by the Gods films is not really good because it does not show how people are really living. It only shows the past. People should not see this as what is happening now. I find it difficult to believe that people don’t realise it is just acting.’’ -Gcao Tekene Çoma, actor who played Xi

Warm Up: What's a Fair Price?

Today we're going to talk about food and prices. Click the Jamboard link below and use the Sticky Note function to add what you would consider to be a fair price for the different items in a restaurant. 

• Group Jamboard: CLICK HERE

Goals for Today's Lesson

• Learn the situations in the US in which tipping is expected or considered to be a polite gesture.

• Listen to interviews with US citizens to hear their personal strategies for tipping in restaurants.

• Discuss the pros and cons of the practice of tipping in the US and the possible consequences of eliminating it.

• Use the quick tip method to mentally calculate the amount to tip depending on the price of the meal.

Task 1: Video Analysis

Watch this short video clip from the 90's sitcom "Third Rock from the Sun". It is about a family of aliens who move to Earth in order to study and live among humans. Their lack of understanding of human culture leads to humorous situations.

• What happened in the first scene?
• What did the man misunderstand?
• What happened in the final scene?
• How did the waitress probably feel? How did his partner feel?
• The man says that he is making the process honest. Does he have a point?
• What happened to the woman's drink? Why? How might this reflect a cultural perspective about tipping?

Task 2: Class Survey

Click the link below to take a brief survey to decide in which situations it is customary to tip somone in the US.

• Class Survey: CLICK HERE

Task 3: Learn from the Locals

Now you will listen to some audio interviews from cultural insiders who will explain the practice of tipping and their own personal strategies for determining how much to tip. Click your group link below and complete your graphic organizer by watching the corresponding videos. Remember to use the subtitles and you can also slow the play speed to .75 if any part is difficult to understand.

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE
• Group 3: CLICK HERE
• Group 4: CLICK HERE
• Group 5: CLICK HERE
• Group 6: CLICK HERE

Emily's Thoughts on Tipping

Josh's Thoughts on Tipping

Jeff's Thoughts on Tipping

Max's Thoughts on Tipping

Task 4: How to Tip

Pay attention to your teacher's presentation about the process of tipping in restaurants. 

Task 5: Vocabulary Builder

In a moment you will read an article about an incident that occured in a restaurant where a waitress was not tipped but first, let's lean some important vocabulary.

Task 6: React to an Article

Take a moment to read the article as a group.

• Article: CLICK HERE

• What happened to the waitress?
• Why was she upset?
• Are customers obligated to leave a tip?

Task 7: Teacher's Anecdotes

• Dining with Costa Ricans in North Carolina

• Anthony's Big Tip

Why tip? Cultural Perspectives

Alternate Perspectives

Not everyone in the US is in favor of the tipping system. Read this quote from former restaurant owner Jay Porter who abolished tipping at his restaurant and raised his servers' wages.

"Studies have shown that tipping is not an effective incentive for performance in servers. It also creates an environment in which people of color, young people, old people, women, and foreigners tend to get worse service than white males. In a tip-based system, nonwhite servers make less than their white peers for equal work. Consider also the power imbalance between tippers, who are typically male, and servers, 70 percent of whom are female, and consider that the restaurant industry generates five times the average number of sexual harassment claims per worker. And that in many instances employers have allegedly misused tip credits, which let owners pay servers less than minimum wage if tipping makes up the difference."

Source Article: CLICK HERE

Your Thoughts

So now that you have learned about the tipping culture in the US, take a moment to express your reflections and reactions.

• What did you learn about the practice of tipping in the US that you did not know before?
• What is your personal reaction to this practice?
• As a Costa Rican, how do perspectives differ about money, abundance, and status?
• How do you feel about the underlying wage difference for employees in the service industry?
• Do you think that the practice should remain or should it be abolished?
• How do you plan to handle this situation if you go to a restaurant in the US?

Task 8: A Quick Tip

You can use the following method to quickly estimate a 20% tip in your head. 

1. Take the total amount of the bill and round up to the nearest whole number.
2. Double it.
3. Then move the decimal point one number to the left.

Example: Your bill is $9.60

1. Round to the nearest whole number. ($10.00)
2. Double it. ($20.00)
3. Move the decimal point one number to the left. ($2.00)
4. Your tip or a $9.60 meal is $2.00 so you pay a total of $11.60.

Demo Lesson Plan: CLICK HERE to view the lesson plan for this class. Later this course you will create your own lesson plan using this template to teach a cultural aspect. 

Culture Lesson Plan Guidelines: CLICK HERE so we can review the instructions and evaluation rubric for your upcoming culture lesson plan project. 

Task 9: Culture Lesson Plan Brainstorm

Take the last minutes of class to share the ideas you brainstormed in your last study guide to to teach an aspect of your culture to a foreigner.

References:

Moran, P. (2001). Teaching Culture: Perspectives in Practice. Heinle, Cengage Learning. 

  Teaching Writing - Weeks 9-10 - Frameworks for Text Exploitation and Task Design

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Weeks 9 and 10 of the course Teaching Writing for the Bachelor's in English Teaching at ULACIT in term IIC 2023. Today we are having a class that is double the normal length to make up for the class we did not have on July 1sth. Today we will explore two text exploitation frameworks for writing, review a range of activity types related to Nation's four strands model and we will also review the seventh creation you made for this week and preview your next lesson planning task.

Today's Goals:

• Demonstrate the features of your textbook adaptation / exploitation activity.
• Experience a TDA lesson and an Idea's Grid activity sequence.
• Discuss two of Nation's frameworks for activity design. 

Guiding Questions:

• How can I adapt textbook materials to provide better writing opportunities for students?
• How can text exploitation frameworks help me incorporate writing in meaningful way?
• How can the Four Strands and the Four Task Types frameworks broaden my repertoire of instructional techniques for writing?

Task 1: TDA Demo - Nasty School

You will participate in a demo lesson following the Text-Driven Approach. Follow the teacher's instructions and enjoy the activity sequence as a student. Later you will analyze what happened in the sequence from a materials design perspective.

• Introduction: You are going to hear a poem about children behaving badly in school. Before you listen to the poem, discuss these questions with your partners:

• What are some rules that kids typically have to follow in school?
• What are some ways that kids misbehaved when you were a student?

• Listen and Read: You are going to hear the first part of the poem called “Nasty School” by Shel Silverstein, a poet who was very popular with children when I was young. As you listen, imagine you are a 3rd grader in this elementary school. Try to visualize the answers to these questions. (CLICK HERE to access the poem)

• What are you wearing?
• What and who do you see around you?
• What are you thinking and feeling?

• Share some of the images that came to your mind. Did you ever do any of the behaviors mentioned in the poem?

• Now you are going to hear the second part of the poem where you will hear about what students learn at Nasty School. As you listen, imagine you are a naughty child in Nasty School. Visualize yourself doing these naughty things.

• Discussion: Discuss the following questions with your partners:

• What do you think of the poem?
• What is an image that stays in your mind related to the poem?
• Why do you think this poet was popular with children?
• Do you agree that it is sometimes fun to break the rules?
• Some people think that one of the primary functions of school is to teach children to control their impulses and learn how to be obedient. Do you agree with this perspective?
• What role should school shave in the formation of values and good behavior in society?

• Writing: Now you are going to write your own poem about one of the following imaginary schools. Choose your school and write a brief poem discussing what happens in this school, how students behave, and what they learn to do. CLICK HERE and go to your section of the document.

• Pleasant School: A utopian school where children learn to be model citizens

• Tico School: An academy where foreigners learn to think and behave like Costa Ricans

• School of Life: A school where children learn essential non-academic life skills that will prepare them for the real world

• Speaking: Re-read the first part of the poem with your partners and then read the roles information below to participate in an improvised roleplay with your group members.

• Student A: You are Johnny, a very misbehaved 3rd grader. You have been very disruptive in class for several months. You are a good kid but being naught is just so fun. Now it is time for the semester parent-teacher conference. You know that your teacher is going to tell your parents about all of the bad things you have been doing. Try to minimize your behavior to avoid punishment from your parents.

• Student B: You are Johnny’s mother or father. You know your son can be a little hyperactive but you think he is a good kid. Now it is time for the semester parent-teacher conference. Ask the teacher questions to find out how Johnny has been behaving.

• Student C: You are Johnny’s teacher. His terrible behavior has made your job a nightmare for the last six months. Now it is time for the parent-teacher conference. You want to explain to Johnny’s mom or dad all of the bad things that he has done and get their support to help him change his behavior.

• Language Focus: Now let's take a moment to look at the poem again. What do you notice about he verbs after the word "how"?

• Finish this sentence about you: "In school I learned how to ..."

• Let's Try: Let's go back to the school poems document and complete the final task as a group.

• Group Document: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Exploring the Text-Driven Approach

Now that you have learned about the structure of the Text-Driven Approach, discuss the following questions with your partners. CLICK HERE to view the lesson plan. 

• How did the text influence the activities that occured at each stage in the lesson?
• What language skills (listening, reading, speaking, writing) were addressed in the lesson sequence?
• Tomlinson says that texts and tasks used in class should be cognitively (intellectually) and affectively (emotionally) engaging for students in order to provide the ideal conditions for langauge development. Where you cognitvely or affectively engaged by the text or any of the tasks? If so, how?
• TDA depends on finding or creating texts with a high degree of potential engagement, what are some kinds of texts that your learners would find engaging? Why?

Task 3: An Alternative View of Textbooks

CLICK HERE to view a sample unit from a textbook series called Searching that was developed for Norwegian elementary school children to be used with a Text-Driven Approach. Skim the unit and discuss these questions.

• What do you notice is different about this textbook compared to the standard EFL textbook?

• The activities and tasks of a TDA lesson are inspired by the text itself and the teacher should use their creativity to develop their own activities to help students make a personal connection with the text. Choose a text and tell your partners what you could have students do in the following sections.

• Readiness Activities: Learners think about something personal which will help them connect with the content of the core text.

• Experiential Activities: Learners link the images and thoughts from the readiness activities to the text when first experiencing it.

• Intake Response Activities: Learners develop and then articulate personal responses to the text. These are not comprehension questions. They are interpretation and opinion questions.

• Development Activities: Learners develop the text by continuing it, relocating it, changing the writer’s views, personalizing it, responding to it, etc.

• Input Response Activities: Learners focus on a specific linguistic, pragmatic, discourse, genre or cultural features of the text in order to make discoveries about its use.

• Additional Development Activities: Learners revise what they wrote or said in the first developmental activities as a result of the discoveries they made in the input response activities.

Task 4: Exploring Axbey's PWP Cycle

CLICK HERE to access the dialogue and follow the teacher's instructions. 

Task 5: Activity Type Demo - Textbook Adaptation / Exploitation Activity 

Nearly every week of this course you will submit a unit writing activity creation in order to build a portfolio of writing activity types. 

• Characteristics: What does textbook adaptation /exploitation involve?
• Example: What activity did you create?
• Strengths: In what ways are is textbook adaptation / exploitation beneficial?
• Challenges: What potential limitations or challenges are associated with this?

• Additional Considerations: CLICK HERE

Task 6: Reading Response - Helping Learners Write

Let's take a moment to discuss these questions related to your assigned reading for this week.

• Concept Review: A few weeks ago, we looked at six orientations that have been proposed to describe the ways that L2 writing instruction has been conceptualized. Each has its own focus, method, and potential limitations which means that most teachers will find themselves incorporating multiple orientations in their lessons. Can you remember the focus, method, and limitations of these six orientations?

• Focus on Langauge Structures

• Focus on Text Functions

• Focus on Creative Expression

• Focus on Writing as a Process

• Focus on Content

• Focus on Genre

• Nation's Four Strands: The chapter started with a brief consideration of Nation's Four Strands Model and how it applies to writing instruction.

• What is your overall impression of the four strands model? What is your understanding of the purpose of the model and what each strand refers to?

• Meaning Focused Input

• Meaning Focused Output

• Language Focused Learning

• Fluency Development

• What are some specific ways that the four strands can be applied to the teaching of writing?

• Four Task Types for Language Instruction: On page 95 Nation writes, "These four kinds of tasks are called experience taks, shared tasks, guided tasks, and independent tasks. One way to look at each of these types of tasks is to see their job as dealing with the gap which exists between learners' present knowledge and the demands of the task." Like the four strands, this framework can equally apply to all language skills. What do each of these tasks types refer to and how do they bridge that gap?

• Experience Tasks

• Shared Tasks

• Guided Tasks

• Independent Tasks

• The Four Tasks Applied to Writing: CLICK HERE

• Final Quotes: These quotes from the conclusion of the chapter help summarize the purpose of the two frameworks presented (the four strands and the four task types). What stood out most to you about this chapter?

• "The aim in describing the four kinds of tasks is to make teachers aware of the possible approaches to dealing with the gap between the learners’ knowledge and the knowledge required to do a task, and to make them aware of the very large number of activities that can be made to help learners. When teachers are able to think of a variety of ways of dealing with a problem, they can choose the ones that will work best in their class.”

• “The job of these tasks is to help learners gain mastery over the language, ideas, language skills and types of discourse that are the goals of their study.”

Task 7: Lesson Plan 2 - Process Writing Plan

Let's finish today's class by previewing your secong lesson planning assignment. 

• Assignment Guidelines: CLICK HERE

References: 

Nation, I.S.P. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing. Routledge.