ELT METHODOLOGY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.0 Introduction.......................................................................................................................1

1.1 Overview of Language Teaching Methodology......................................................1

1.2 Scope and Objectives of the Assignment...............................................................1

2.0 Communicative Language Teaching – Lesson Plan.....................................................2

2.1 Overview.................................................................................................................2

2.2 Description of the Lesson Plan...............................................................................2

3.0 Justification of Choice of Activities................................................................................4

4.0 Teaching and Learning Reflection..................................................................................6

4.1 Overview.................................................................................................................6

4.2 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Activities..........................................................6

4.3 Suggestions for Improvement................................................................................7

5.0 Conclusion........................................................................................................................9

REFERENCES............................................................................................................................10

Appendix A – The Lesson Plan................................................................................................11

Appendix B – Observation Sheet.............................................................................................21

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Overview of Language Teaching Methodology

Rodgers (2001) stated that language teaching has become a profession in the last century. With

that, there concept of “methods” of language teaching has emerged. The methodolgoy refers to

a systematic set of teaching practices based on a particular theory of language and language

learning. Due to the focus on language teaching methodology, there have been many

approaches in teaching language such as the silent way, direct method, suggestopaedia, audio-

lingual method, total physical response, grammar translation method, community language

teaching and communicative language teaching. In the Malaysian education context, the

popularity of communicative language teaching (CLT) has made it as one of the main

approaches to use in teaching English in the classroom (Kettle, 2008).

1.2 Scope and Objectives of the Assignment

This assignment explores the use of a selected language teaching approach; in this case, the

selected approach is Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) to teach the specific skills of

speaking and listening in the classroom. A lesson plan is developed and presented in this

assignment report which highlights the activities of the lesson plan. Additionally, a short essay is

written to provide justification for selecting the activities by relating these activities to the CLT

approach. Also, a reflection of the teaching and learning activities is also written in this

assignment report that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the activities, as well as to

provide recommendations/changes that should be made to the activities together with the

rationale for changes.

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2.0 Communicative Language Teaching – Lesson Plan

2.1 Overview

The lesson plan is developed to teach speaking skills to Primary Three students with low to

intermediate proficiency in the English language. The lesson plan focuses on speaking skills,

based on the curriculum specification for English KBSR Year Four: “Narrating the events that

took place”. The lesson takes 60 minutes to complete with activities that included incidentally,

other language skills such as listening, reading and writing. The activities in the proposed lesson

plan are based on the learning theme for English KBSR Year 4 (Curriculum Development

Centre, 2003). The activities are adapted to develop students’ speaking skills while integrating

with other language skills.

2.2 Description of the Lesson Plan

A description of the lesson plan is provided below:

Date 23 March 2012

Time/Duration 8.00 – 9.00 am (60 minutes)

Year 4

Enrolment 25 students

Language Level Low intermediate

Topic Food – Variety of food in the canteen

Learning Outcome At the end of this class, the students will be able to:

Participate and contribute in a conversation about

food

Prior knowledge Familiar with food available in the canteen

Curriculum Specification 2.2. Talk confidently on topics of interest in simple

language;

2.3 Express thoughts and feelings and talk about

things heard, read, seen, and viewed in simple

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language;

General objectives At the end of the lesson, students are able to:

(i) talk about foods found in the school canteen;

(ii) give opinion about improving food in the school

canteen

Specific objectives At the end of the lesson, students are able to:

(a) tell a friend(s) about the type of food found in

the school canteen

(b) share their opinion about the quality of food in

the canteen

(c) give at least one idea to improve food in the

school canteen

Moral value Sharing, respect for others

Teaching and learning procedures Picture, articles, worksheets, board

Note: The Lesson Plan and its Teaching and Learning Aids are appended in the Appendices

Section

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3.0 Justification of Choice of Activities

The 60-minute lesson plan includes a set induction stage using food demonstration with a

homemade sandwich. The use of the realia was to initiate conversation by the students about

food and leading the discussion to food in the canteen. The first and second activities use a

game approach with word puzzle and matching picture-word as a fun way to learn. These

activities create conscious awareness to the pronunciation and spelling of active vocabulary

relating to canteen food. The activities were done in small group to promote cooperation and

generating small talks (to enhance speaking skills) among the students. The next activity

includes the use of short discussion to enhance critical and creative thinking. The writing

exercise was guided so that students are able to produce coherent sentences. The activity

outline in Worksheet B gives the students guideline to structure their group’s discussion as well

as to create lyrics for their song. The next activity involves active speech production in an

implicit manner through the use of song and lyric. Through singing, the students incidentally

improve their pronunciation skills while sharpening their listening skills as they listen to their

teacher and friends. The lyrics help the students to improve their spelling skills. The closing

activity uses a picture to raise students’ curiosity and lead them toward critical thinking and

higher order thinking (synthesizing, analyzing).

The activities in the lesson plan provided the students with tools and opportunity to

enhance their language skills particularly speaking, as well as other skills – listening and writing.

These activities complied with the underlying principles of CLT approach which according to

Rodgers (2001) and Richard and Rodgers (2001) are as follows:

Learners learn a language through using it to communicate

Authentic and meaningful communication is the main goal of the classroom activities

Fluency is given emphasis in communication

Communication involves the integration of several language skills

Learning is a process of creative construction and involves trial and error

In all the activities, the students were exposed to speaking and listening opportunities

and were using the skills as they participate in the activities through their communication efforts.

The communication was related to something authentic and meaningful; in this case, a

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discussion about the food in the canteen. Fluency was also given emphasis in the

communication process as the teacher include activities that get students to enrich their

vocabularies and notice as well as use the words in both oral and written form. Thus, students

were able to pronounce and spell the words familiar in the canteen context correctly. The

activities were also designed to enable students to use their speaking skills as well as listening

and writing. The students also used learning skills such as scanning and skimming, and

interpersonal skills. The activities centered on the students as the teacher played the role as

facilitator. Students construct their own meaning as they depend on their schemata (prior

knowledge about food in the canteen) which are refreshed through the games activities and

used prominently in their communication efforts. Brown (2001) stated that students in a

communicative class ultimately have to use the language, productively and receptively, in

unrehearsed contexts outside the classroom. Classroom tasks must therefore equip students

with the skills necessary for communication in those contexts. These aspects have been

included in the activities of the lesson plan.

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4.0 Teaching and Learning Reflection

4.1 Overview

The teaching and learning reflection involved having a colleague to be an observer during the

classroom activities. An observation sheet was developed to provide the teacher with a writing

tool to record the responses of the students, their participation and teacher’s classroom

management ability. The teacher’s responses were documented in the observation sheet,

shown in Appendix B.

4.2 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Activities

Based on my own reflection of the activities and my colleague’s observation comments and

ratings, I felt that the activities to a certain extent have fulfilled the learning objectives. The

students were provided with contextual activities in a situation they are familiar with. The varied

activities in games, group activities, singing, discussion and others gave them the chance to

express thoughts and feelings as well as talk about things they are familiar with in a simple but

fluent language. Based on the general and specific objectives, the students’ main

communication efforts were talking about food in the canteen and sharing information with their

friends in their conversation. However, my colleague and I observed that participation in all the

activities is not 100%. The weaker students sometime stay silent and do not speak unless being

spoken to directly. Also, the use of other language (Malay) also lessens the effectiveness of the

lesson activities. The students however, did their best to speak in English with some help from

their friends to supply them with vocabulary for completing their sentences. The students were

using the English term for the food but most of the sentences in their conversation are in Malay.

Nevertheless, the students have enriched their vocabulary with new words relating to food in the

canteen and learn how to state like and dislike of a particular food.

Some of the activities were easy such as the word puzzle game and the picture-word

matching activities. The students were able to search the words easily. Thus, the activity was

finished early. I used some of the extra time to generate more conversation with the students.

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There are also activities such as the singing activity that was given a short time period. The

students like the activity but felt that it was not enough (time) and reluctant to finish the lesson

as they want to sing some more. Therefore, the weakness in this aspect is lack of planning and

anticipation of the students’ learning styles and preferences.

The activities also showed that students have no setbacks to using English in singing

songs. All the students, including the weaker ones enjoyed and participated 100% in the

singing. This indirectly makes up for their inactivity during the conversation and discussion

activities. However, the singing activity was short for them, and only able to build several lines of

lyrics for the students to sing. It did led to the discovery of new words, their meanings and use in

context such as ‘delicious’, ‘spicy’, ‘fragrant’, ‘stinky’, ‘sour’, and so on.

4.3 Suggestions for Improvement

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson plan, the following suggestions for

improvement are given.

(a) Lesson follow up

The students have been exposed to a rich vocabulary input relating to food in the

canteen. There should be follow up of this speaking lesson such as using the world of

knowledge about food and bringing them into a specific writing class. It can also be used

in a grammar lesson to enhance students’ knowledge about adjectives. This ensures

that the knowledge they gained from this lesson is used to enhance other language skills

in another follow up lesson.

(b) Rules ‘Only English in the Classroom’

One of the weaknesses of the activities was use of Malay in the classroom especially

during the conversation and discussion. In future lesson, a strict rule of ‘Only English in

the Classroom’ should be adhered to complete with rewards and punishment. This

abides the behaviorist approach to learning, stating that response to stimulus and

reinforcing good behaviour with positive (rewards) and negative (punishment)

reinforcement can help students to learn the language effectively (Baum, 2005). To help

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the students to develop confidence and skills to speak in English, the teacher may put

sentence model written on poster paper and pasted in the classroom so that this guides

the students in constructing their speech. This suggestion is recommended because the

effectiveness of the activities depends on the students’ use of English in their

conversation and discussion.

(c) More time given to activities that students like

More time should be given to activities that students like, such as singing activity. This

will generate more active participation and encourage incidental use of the language, as

advocated in the CLT approach (Rodgers, 2001). Newton (2001) stated that singing is a

form of communicative approach and an efficient way to learn vocabulary. He explained

that singing provides the vocabularies that students can use productively and

repetitively.

(d) Prepare activities that match students’ ability level

The games activities were too easy for the students as they may have been familiar with

the vocabulary related to food in the canteen. To improve the activity, the teacher may

use questions that lead to the word in the word puzzle. For example, “Food that is long,

brownish and often found between two buns” will lead to “Sausage”. This will be more

challenging and generate higher thinking order as well as promoting critical and creative

thinking.

The proposed suggestions above can help to improve the activities in the lesson plan.

Through these improvement, the students will be able to enhance their speaking skills even

more and at the same time, having fun while learning.

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5.0 Conclusion

The lesson plan developed in this assignment is based on a communicative language teaching

approach which is most commonly used in the teaching and learning English in most Malaysian

classrooms. The activities presented in the lesson plan are geared towards providing the

students with a contextual situation where they can participate in communicative activities. As

shown by the lesson plan, there are a variety of activities that we can use in a CLT classroom.

However, the success and effectiveness of the activities depend on the students’ level of

participation. Strengths and weaknesses of the activities must be determined and further

improved in future lessons.

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REFERENCES

Baum, W.M. (2005) Understanding behaviorism: Behavior, Culture and Evolution. Blackwell.

Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Longman Pearson Education, White Plains, New York.

Howatt, A. (1984). A history of English language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kettle, M. (2008) Teaching Grammar: Rethinking the Approach. In H. Gaudert (Ed). The Teaching of Grammar. Malaysia: Sasbadi-Malaysian English Language Teaching Association. pp. 175-190

Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and principles in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nation, I. S. P. (2001). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Richards, J., & Rodgers, T. (2001). Approaches and methods in language Teaching (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rodgers, T.S. (2001). Language Teaching Methodology, CAL Online Resources, September Issue Paper, http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/rodgers.html

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Appendix A – The Lesson Plan

Stage Teaching activity Student’s activity Remarks

Set induction

5 minutes

Food Demonstration

The teacher brings

homemade

sandwiches from home

Teacher asks

questions

Do you bring

homemade food to

school?

Do you buy food

from the canteen

during recess?

Which is better,

homemade food or

canteen food?

[Teacher calls out

students’ name to

respond to her]

Whole class

Students give

responds to

teacher’s question

Rationale:

To bring students’

focus to the

lesson content

Materials:

Homemade

sandwich

(realia)

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Stage Teaching activity Student’s activity Remarks

Activity 1

10 minutes

Word Puzzle Game

The teacher gives

instruction on how the

game is played

Small groups are

formed

Teacher asks students

to find at least 5 items

from the puzzle

Teacher asks students

to say out the food

they find in the puzzle

Small Group

Students form

group of 4

Students highlight

5 items from the

puzzle

Students calls out

the food in the

puzzle

Rationale:

To provide

vocabulary on

type of food in the

canteen

Materials:

Word puzzle

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Activity Sheet: Word Puzzle

S A U S A G E R U I

R E A I J L I I H G

G N A S I L E M A K

B U N F J A G C N E

A G T G P O G I L J

R G F R I E D M E E

I E E R T Y G D J D

C T F B I S C U I T

E A C A K E D F G J

U L L A B H S I F R

Bun, Sausage, Nugget, Cake, Nasi lemak, Biscuit, Rice, Fried Mee, Egg, Fish ball

Stage Teaching activity Student’s activity Remarks

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Activity 2

10 minutes

Matching word-pictures

Teacher distributes

Worksheet A

Teacher asks students

to match the food item

to the picture

Teacher asks

questions

What food is this?

Can you find this

food in the

canteen?

Do you like this

food?

What other food

can you find in our

school canteen

Teacher writes down

other food items found

in the canteen

Teacher asks students

to pronounce the food

in the list

Small Group

Students match

food item to the

picture

Students responds

to teacher when

called out

Students read out

the food in the list

Rationale:

To relate food in

the puzzle to the

canteen as a

context and also

to improve

students’

pronunciation

Materials:

Worksheet A

Whiteboard

Worksheet A

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Stage Teaching activity Student’s activity Remarks

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Biscuit

Egg

Bun

Fried rice

Fried mee

Nugget

Fish ball

Cake

Sausage

Nasi lemak

Activity 3

10 minutes

Group Discussion

Teacher distributes

Worksheet B

Teacher asks students

to discuss about food

in the canteen

Food they like and

why

Food they don’t like

and why

Food they want the

canteen to sell and

why

Teacher asks students

to write their answer in

the worksheet

Small Group

Students discuss

and give respond

to the questions

Students complete

the worksheet

Rationale:

To encourage

students to share

ideas among

themselves

Materials:

Worksheet B

Worksheet B:

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We like to eat _______

Because its _____________

We don’t like to eat _________

Because its ________________

We want ________ in canteen

We want __________ in canteen

Because ____________________

Because ____________________

Stage Teaching activity Student’s activity Remarks

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Activity 4

10 minutes

Sing a Song

Teacher distributes

Worksheet C

Teacher gives

instruction for the

activity

Teacher teaches

students to sing the

song

Teacher asks students

to sing their song

using lyrics they made

in Worksheet B

Small Group

Students sing

along with teacher

Students sing their

song based on

their lyrics

Rationale:

To present group

output in a

creative way

Materials:

Worksheet B

Worksheet C

Worksheet C:

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Sing a song (Lyric ‘Happy birthday’)

We liked to eat sandwich

Because its so yummy

We don’t like to eat sweets

because it is too sweet

We want fried mee in canteen

We want fried rice in canteen

because it is delicious

because it is my favorite

Stage Teaching activity Student’s activity Remarks

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Closure

10 minutes

Show a Picture

Teacher shows a

picture

Teacher asks students

if they can have the

food

Teacher impart moral

value about healthy

diet

Teachers summarizes

the lesson

Whole Class

Students respond

to teacher

Rationale:

To wrap-up the

lesson and

inculcate moral

value

Materials:

Picture A

Picture A:

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Appendix B – Observation Sheet

Rate the students’ participation, students’ response and teacher’s management ability using 1 – 5 (1 = the least satisfactory, 5 = the most satisfactory) and your comments

Stage Students participation

Students’ response Teacher’s management ability

Set induction

3 3 4

Comments:The students shows more interest about the food and do not answer the teacher unless the teacher ask specifically from someone (say out name of student)

Activity 1

4 4 4

Comments:The game was easy. Students can find the words easily.

Activity 2

3 3 4

Comments:The game was easy. Most responses from those who are good in English. The weaker ones kept silent.

Activity 3

3 3 3

Comments:Malay is used in the conversation of the students. The teacher has to keep reminding students to speak in English. Only the better ones tried; the weaker ones remain silent.

Activity 4

5 5 5

Comments:Students definitely like this activity

Closure

3 3 4

Comments:Students still want to sing and don’t want the class to end

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