Sample of DLLM

Hello readers!

Here is the sample of our DLLM. The activities ranged by bands which we intently created it as in a digital form of a workbook. In order to complete this task, we are asked to create something which can be used flexibly by the learners. The arrangement of the activities have to be sorted by bands from 1-6. When learners use the DLLM, they can move step by step depending on their level of proficiency.

Why DLLM?

Purpose and rationale:

a)  to improvise the current method of teaching and learning process into technology-based.
b)  to develop an approach in reducing teachers’ reluctance to use technology.
c)  to attract the learners’ attention to use the language in real-life.

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Theories involved: 

a) The Affective Filter Hypothesis
There are three categories of which were motivation, self confidence and anxiety. The students with high performance tend to get motivated to learn language as usage digital language learning material is very interesting when using Prezi as a platform and social networking sites as a site to submit their tasks or homework. Generally, students prefer variation in doing tasks and bulky textbooks to accompany the lesson are no longer applicable. Besides that, the creation of digital language learning material is very beneficial for learners with high anxiety due to shyness and self-doubt may find this way of teaching is more comfortable and create conducive environment to learn.

b) The Input Hypothesis 
According to Krashen (1981), in this hypothesis, the learner will acquire the language when they receive the messages that is understandable which is also known as comprehensible input. Thus, for the beginning we use video to give the students a gist on what will they learn for that particular learning. A short video regarding 10 signs of a good friends is being used as the content is simple and direct, which will able the learners to understand the context of the learning. Moreover, the video also provides important point that will expose the learners with the input that able the learners to learn and use the language.

c) Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
Here, we use audio-lingual approach on the activities that involve listening and speaking activities. Furthermore, in order to carry this approach we use video where students later on will need to watch and listen to the contents of the video before proceed with the activities. Moreover, all of the activities that we designed are focused on the students-centered which means that students will do all the learning activities together with their peers most of the time whereas teacher only will guide them and observe their progression. Furthermore, through the activities the students also will learn the rules of grammar and the rules of language use.

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Pedagogical Usability that it fulfills:

1) Learner control
- Learning a new topic, learners’ memory should not be burdened to an optimal level.
- Divide the material into smaller meaningful units

The theme that we have chosen is Social Issues and the topic that has been selected is What Friends Are For. Based on the activities, we can see that the main component `Friendship’ has been broken into smaller meaningful unit. If we refer back to “Dokumen Standard Prestasi Tingkatan 2”, it has been mentioned that activity for band 1 should be designed to know fundamental skills of listening, reading, writing and speaking. Therefore, the activity 1 is designed in a manner that students were given knowledge or exposure regarding the topic by asking them to watch a video and answer simpler questions to check their understanding. Then, the activity 2 is designed in a way that the students have to identify and match the sentences based on what they listen and read from the video.

2) Learner activity
- Determined by the learners characteristics but learning material that support student activity by being interesting and based on real life.
- Introduced problem-based learning:- learners is presented with a certain amount of source material and constructs their own conception of the topic to be learned.
- Encourage collaborative nature of learning.

Friendship is one of the most important aspect in student’s life. The underlying benefit of the activity is to enable the students to distinguish the signs of good friendship in order to let them think and reflect on their own companion.

3) Goal orientation

- Goals and objectives should be clear.

- Best result -> learning material, teaching and learner are aligned.

- Goals can be concrete or abstract

- If goals do not originate from learner, the meaning should be explained to them.

The learning material is designed in a way that the activities progress from a level to another level. The goal of the material is to teach he students to differentiate between god friendship and bad friendship. Even though the goals do not originate from the learners, the material is designed in a way that the material speaks for itself and the video explains it clearly.

4) Applicability

- Approach taken in learning material should correspond to the skills that learner will need in everyday and working life.

- Learning material should be at an appropriate level from the point of view of a learner’s learning process.

Friendship is an universal issue and something that revolves around humans life from childhood till older age. The learning materials designed to suit the learners’ point of view.

5) Added Value

- In the form of creative use of possibilities that technology offers

- Computer assisted learning offer following added values:

• > Learning is controlled by learners, initiated by the learner and is in the form of that the learner desires
• > Interesting content
• > Learners’ active participation

- Offer the learners tools that are suited to control the learning material contents and effectively and economically make use of that material.

- Learners should feel it is best to learn using technology.

The software, Prezi is an innovative form of presentation compared to power point slides and it can be controlled by the learner themselves and able to do the activities on their own. The content is interesting because it associates with daily life and students will feel motivated and participate actively because it is something they do, understand and going through at the moment.

6) Flexibility

- Takes into account learners’ individual differences

- Should be given opportunity to navigate freely through the learning material

- Contains diverse activities

The material is designed in a manner that student can use it for their own purposes. It shows that the material is designed for self-learning purposes and it contains variety of activities based on friendship.

Tutorial Task Week 3

(a) Identify the theory behind communicative language teaching approach.

Based on the article of Communicative Language Teaching by Nina Spada, CLT is an approach to L2 teaching where it is a meaning-based and learner-centered approach. Here, the fluency is being emphasized more compared to the accuracy of the language or in other words, it is mainly focus on the ability of the students to understand and produce messages and not the teaching or correction of language form. Other than that, there is also other view that purpose CLT as primarily meaning-based which includes both the fluency and accuracy aspect.

The audio-lingual method is an oral-based approach which is based on the behavioral psychology (Skinner). In addition, it is used in the language learning where it gives attention on the inductive learning of grammar. The learning is conducted through the activities that involve the students to do repetition, practice and memorization. This method will drill the students in the use of grammatical sentence patterns. For example, dialogue activities which can be carried out by the students in form of imitation and repetition. By conducting this activity, the students will be able to use the target language communicatively.

Furthermore, according to Hymes’ theory the knowledge of the rules of grammar (linguistic competence) and the knowledge of the rules of language use (communicative competence) gives obvious impact on CLT. According to Hymes’, the focus in L2 teaching is through the accurate use of grammatical forms. Besides that, there are also several components of abilities that the learners need to require which is (1) linguistic competence; (2) sociolinguistic competence; (3) discourse competence; and (4) Strategic competence.

(1) Linguistic competence: the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary.
(2) Sociolinguistic competence: the ability to say the appropriate thing in a certain social situation.
(3) Discourse competence: the ability to start, enter, contribute to, and end a conversation, and the ability to do this in a consistent and coherent manner.
(4) Strategic competence: the ability to communicative effectively and repair problems caused by communication breakdown.

 (b) State the implications of communicative language teaching towards materials development.

Implication 1:-
Functional categories found in teaching materials which includes making requests, greeting, making suggestion enable the learners to be aware of communicative functions. It also helps the learners to understand the fact that communication could break down if they only focus on linguistic (semantic-grammatical) meaning and ignore the intended use of the utterance (i.e. function) by the speaker. For instance, a person whom struggling to open the door due to heavy luggage asks a random student for a help gives grammatically correct answer, without taking any action, may cause offense as the answer shows lack of the understanding of the embedded function of ‘making a request’. Traditional teaching materials tend to simplify the complex form function relationship into one-to-one correspondence. The interrogatives are used for asking questions, imperatives for giving commands and conditionals for making hypothetical statements. From a communicative perspective, this relationship is explored more carefully, and as a result our views on the properties of language have been expanded and enriched. However, there are number of pedagogic problems associated with this approach to materials design, particularly to do with the sequencing of the language to be practised.

Implication 2:-
The real world language in use does not operate in a vacuum. We need to aware that the language function and language form does not operate in isolation but as part of as network of interconnected factors, all of which need to be taken into account in materials that use a communicative concept as their design principle. Based on a large amount of data from spoken language known as a corpus, Carter et al (2011) and O’ Keeffe et al (2007)explain how spoken grammar is distinctly different from written grammar. There are also principles of conversation (McCarten and McCarthy, 2010) in which social interactions play an important role. There is often a stated requirement for authenticity- a term that loosely implies as close an approximation as possible an approximation as possible to the world outside the classroom, in the selection both of language material and of the activities and methods used for practice in the classroom.

Implication 3:- 
A communicative approach also implies a concern with behavior, with patterns of interaction as well as linguistic content. Morrrow (1981) makes a simple and useful distinction between the ‘what’- the contents of a language programme- ad the ‘how’- the ways in which that content might be learned and taught. This behavioural ‘how’ would cover the kinds of activities we carry out and the tasks we perform, such as writing a letter or an essay and etc. Recent materials have reacted in various ways to and against the communicative movement of the 1970’s. However the main principles, with varying degrees of change and modification have had a long lasting impact on materials and methods that should not be underestimated. Thomson (1996) highlighted few points regarding CLT which were:

- CLT means not teaching grammar
- CLT means teaching only speaking
- CLT means pair work- role play
- CLT means expecting too much from the teacher

Recent materials have reacted in various ways to and against the communicative approach of the 1970’s. However the main principles, with varying degrees of change and modification have had a lasting impact on materials and methods that should not be underestimated. Certain criteria of CLT is too important to lose for instance the concern with the world beyond the classroom, the concern with the learner as an individual and the view of the language as structured to carry out the functions that we want to perform.

(c) Locate principles supporting CLT within the KBSM English Language Curriculum and F1 English Language Syllabus. 

Aim of KBSM English Language Curriculum:
The syllabus aims to extend learners’ English language proficiency in order to meet their needs to use English in certain situations in everyday life, for knowledge acquisition, and for future workplace needs.

By referring to the KBSM English Language Curriculum, there are several objectives that support the CLT.

By the end of their secondary school education, learners should be able to:

- form and maintain relationships through conversations and correspondence; take part in social interaction; and interact to obtain goods and services;
- obtain, process and use information from various audio-visual and print sources, and present the information in spoken and written form;
- listen to, view, read and respond to different texts, and express ideas, opinions, thoughts and feelings imaginatively and creatively in spoken and written form;
Principles that support CLT:-

(1) form and maintain relationships through conversations and correspondence; take part in social interaction; and interact to obtain goods and services: 

Principle #1: promotes cooperative and collaborative learning
- Through the activities that involves conversation; the students will eventually interact with each other and give opinions on the topic that is being talk about. Here, the students not only able to express their idea on certain things but they also will learn on how to give a right response. For example, in the role-playing activities where students can ask each other questions regarding certain topic (e.g. family or friend) where during this process, they will ask questions and respond politely. Moreover, through this activity the students also practice the sociolinguistic competence.In addition, the students also will collaborate with each other in order to make the process of communication of the target language can be carry out successfully. Thus, teacher needs to be the facilitator during the learning activities and promotes communication among students. 

Principal #2: practice of using the language
- As the students get involves in the interaction process obtaining the goods and services, they will be exposed to discourse competence. Here, they will learn to start, contribute to, and end the conversation on the topic being talk about. The students will start to learn this in a consistent and coherent manner as they will take turn in order to participate in the conversation. Moreover, they also will be taught on how to ask questions and responds in a polite manner whenever they want to make enquiries. - Apart from that, the students also will learn the linguistic competence as they get involves in activities such as writing simple instruction or simple invitation. Here, the students usually will participate collaboratively and at the same time they will learn on how to use the simple grammar and vocabulary.

Principal #3: focus on form
- It is an approach to explicit grammar teaching, emphasizes a form-meaning connection and teaches grammar within the contexts and through communicative task. Thus, it is very important for the teacher to find activities that is related to their real life situation so that they will understand the context more easily. Here, teacher should encourage the students to express their idea by making the students get involve in interaction and focus more on the meaning and allow the learners to figure out the rule themselves naturally as they having a conversation with each other. During the activity, the students eventually will communicate by negotiation of meaning and gives feedback as well.

(2) obtain, process and use information from various audio-visual and print sources, and present the information in spoken and written form: 

Principal #1: input needs to be rich 
- The activities that involve the use of authentic materials are very essential to reflect real-life situations and demands. Thus, teacher should design activities that use various audio-visual and print resources for the learning. For example by using audio-visual such as videos, the students not only will listen to the spoken texts but they also can take a look at the visuals presented in the videos.This is very good as teacher can attract the student’s interest. Moreover, teacher plays an important role in maximizing the use of the target language and this can be done through giving an instruction during the learning. Furthermore, teacher should give students greater amount of input so that they will gains greater information on the target language.

Principal #2: input needs to be meaningful, comprehensible and elaborated.
- The materials that are used in the activity of the learning should be meaningful and comprehensible to the students so that they can use the language in their real life. Thus, teacher needs to design activity that is authentic. For example, teacher should choose passage that is meaningful and able the students to give view on what the text is all about. Here, the process of learning can be in the form of writing or orally where here the students are encourage to elaborate their thought on what they have learn.That is why; teacher must be able to choose appropriate materials, as the proficiency levels of the students differ.

(3) listen to, view, read and respond to different texts, and express ideas, opinions, thoughts and feelings imaginatively and creatively in spoken and written form:

Principal #1: promotes collaborative learning 
- As the students are exposed to different texts, this can enhance their understanding on different usage of the language. The students will get involves in a group activity where they need to collaborate and interact with each other to complete their task. For example, storytelling activities during the discussion which ask the students to use their own words in order to express their ideas. Here, the process of negotiation of meaning can be seen during the discussion process.

Principal #2: focus on fluency over accuracy 
- As the students express their own ideas, the focus will be on the fluency of the language use. Here, teacher also will emphasize the students with the discourse competence and sociolinguistic competence as the students get involves in the interaction process regarding the topic being discussed.

Principal #3: learner-centered approach 
- Teacher should encourage the students to participate actively in an activity that use the target language which allow them to work on themselves, for example role-play activity that needs the students to cooperate with each other creatively. Thus, by conducting activity that focus on learner-centered, the students able to express their ideas and opinions freely. Moreover, in order for the learner’s linguistic knowledge to be automatic, students’ needs to be put under the real condition or situation of communication.

Principal #4: provide error corrective feedback 
- When the students presenting their works, teachers will either give positive or negative feedback to the students. In order for teacher to make correction on the language used by the students, teacher can used direct error corrective which involved teacher’s help such as providing clues or clarification requests. In addition, error corrective and positive feedback is necessary in support of the learning process. Moreover, during the feedback, the students also will be exposed to the strategic competence that allow them to communicative effectively and repair problems caused by communication breakdown.

(d) Identify the general categories and specific items to evaluate chapters in a Malaysian English Language textbook. 

Checklists are the systematic evaluation for course books. There are various checklists proposed by different authors such as Tucker (1975), Haycraft (1978), Daoud and Celce-Murcia (1979), Cunningsworth (1979, 1984) , Williams (1983), Grant (1987), Sheldon (1988), Harmer (1991), Skierso (1991) and Ur(1996). The most detailed checklist is Skeirso’s checklist.

The checklist of each and every author varies from one another from the aspect of scope, form, criteria and the terms used to describe the criteria. Almost all checklists share the similar general categories for evaluation of the chapters in course books which were design, language content, subject matter and practical considerations. Precisely, design of the course book is an important or main key for the evaluation of the textbooks which includes the layout of the materials on the page and it also involves the overall clarity of organisation whereas language content involves the coverage of linguistic items and language skills. Subject matter is related to the topic whether it is related to the theme of the course book. Last but not least, practical considerations are vital for evaluation of the course book and it can be explained as availability, durability and price. It is better if the course book is designed to be `reachable’ for all walks of people in the context of availability and price.

The specific items for the evaluation of the course book are transparency of the criteria. Transparency of the criteria can be explained as whether the concepts stated clearly and able to understand by all teachers and students with different potentials. Teachers, course designers, and materials writers must be aware that the input provided by them will possibly are processed by learners in ways different than intended. For instance, look at the words below. Can you understand these phrases? It has been used in course book.

* Sequencing of the grammatical patterns ( appropriateness)
* Sentence length ( matches to students proficiency of that level)
* Spiral approach
* Communicative activities
* Balance in language skills
* Usage of Authentic language
* Encourages learners to develop their own learning strategies
* Range of Vocabulary

The grading and sequencing of the materials is also comes under specific items for the evaluation of the course book. It can be explained in terms of the organisation of the language content. As far as we concern, language can be divided into structures. For instance, the American course book which is targeted for Upper Intermediate level seems to be easily interchanges and there seems to be no sequence. The chapter 6 of the book is entitled `Life essentials’ which talks about health problem or which is more related to healthy lifestyle however the chapter 7 is entitled as `The natural world’ which describes about remarkable places which requires travelling. It shows there is no sequencing in terms of lexical items. In contrast, Malaysian English Form 2 textbook shows correct sequence and 3 chapters clustered under one main theme, for instance `People’. The chapter 1 entitled `What people do’, the second chapter entitled as ` Villagers and their livelihood’ and followed by chapter 3 entitled as `Famous faces’. It clearly shows the lexical items are related to people and there is proper sequencing of the materials.

In addition, the presentation of the skills in the materials also has equal impact in evaluation of the course book. The course book must emphasize and integrate four skills which were speaking, reading, writing and listening. However, some course book fails to give equal importance and seem to be narrowed to focusing on writing skills only. As a teacher, we have to be aware that writing skills alone is not being used in communication. The activities of the course book must be more communicative so that it can benefit the students to improve their proficiency and boost their confidence level.

Reflection on Tutorial Task Week 4/5

For this task, we are asked to choose one article regarding to the checklist for evaluating materials and the article title is “Choosing & Evaluating Textbooks” by Neville Grant.

This is what I can conclude from the lesson:

1. Textbook evaluation is crucial as it gives teachers the opportunity to adjust what they want to distribute to the learners. Different learners require different approaches. Therefore, teachers need to know who their students are, what are their levels what kind of approaches that are suitable for them and so on. From this lesson, I realize that we need to evaluate textbooks or even any materials that we want to adapt in our classroom. This is where we expect the effectiveness of the material or precisely, the textbook.

2. Teachers need to become aware of the range of textbooks and also evaluations available out there. There are abundant textbooks and also evaluations that we can pick and adapt. During this lesson, I realized that there is a need to choose the suitable evaluation checklist in order to end up adopting the right book. There is always a right book for the learners, teachers just need to figure it out.

3. I personally liked the evaluation because it is really easy to use, it is not complicated compared to other checklists. It is also quite moderate and user-friendly in terms of its arrangement. There are also stages where we need to look at the surface, and also in-depth.

There is a lot that we gained from this week lesson as we can apply it later in the future especially the exposure that we get about the importance of textbook evaluation and how to evaluate it critically.

Reflection on Tutorial Task Week 6

For this task, all groups were distributed with different checklist respectively. For our group, we were given Grant's. In completing this task, we were asked to read and internalize how Grant's perspective or point of view in evaluating textbooks and what are the specification he looks for in a textbook. Internalizing Grant's checklist which is Making the most of your Textbook by Neville Grant (Longman 1996), we realized that different people would set different expectation or standard out of a book.

During the presentations from other groups, it is even more clearer that different author would want a different specification in their checklists. Comparing those checklists sometimes can be confusing as most of them are quite useful to be adapted later. However, teachers are the ones who know their students best. Our lecturer once said that we have to make our own justification and comparison in order to take up a textbook to be used in our classroom. Sometimes the checklist can also be useful to measure up contents in book itself. Through the lesson of this week, we also learn that sometimes we need to judge a book by its cover. Especially when we are about to use it with children. Children tend to be attracted to books that will capture their mind, the usage of colours and so on. Some more, when children are the ones who going to use the book itself, we have to consider whether or not the book suitable in the matter of its size, its thickness, its weight and a lot more other justification needs to be considered.

However, comparing our checklist (Grant) with the other groups' such as Byrd, LittleJohn, Cunningsworth, we are glad that Grant can be considered as the most flexible one. There are three stages of evaluation a teacher needs to undergo, and at each stages, there are a set of detailed assessment/judgement a teacher needs to follow up. Grant's checklist is also relevant in terms of its questions. It emphasizes on both big and small matter we should evaluate in a book those which are necessarily need to be minded of.

For our presentation, I can say that.. it is not that we did not do very well but there are parts we were lacking. Based on the comment from our lecturer, it is told that we were a bit off-track. Hehehe. Yes, I admit that we were lacking in putting ourselves in a real teaching experience. Therefore, we cannot relate what we were about to present, with the questionnaire in the checklist. Thus, in the future, we need to internalize what we really about to present, and not just doing it for the sake of presentation but also to understand the underlying concept of a certain topic. This knowledge is important for all of us as we need to apply what we have learned in the future.

Additionally, while working in our group for this task, we realize that each and every one of us have a different perspective. And that different perspective did not turned into an effective collaboration. It should be, but it did not. I can say that we failed in terms of  gathering our opinions into one sort of notion or stand. We should turn it into something that is bold enough as all of us have our own different point of view, however, instead of justifying our personal view, we should come up with one specific group notion. Personally, I think we have learned a lot from this task.

Reflection on Tutorial Task Week 9

In week 9, we are asked to evaluate to which extent does the activity in the textbook portrayed listening process/skills. From what we have gone through, listening process takes up a few stages before one can feedback (respond). There is a need to listen first, understand, remember and evaluate before one can respond. Respond also means that the person has completed the process of listening as he/she would like to give respond/feedback/speak. Through this lesson/tutorial, we as future teachers learnt that in order for a student to be able to respond, he/she must first listen effectively so that they will be able to understand. When they understand, they will be able to remember as they try to recall for information. Next, they will evaluate and compare what they just know with what they have already known. Thus, as future teacher, I am benefited from this task as I realize that listening process is important. Also, I will try to establish an environment or lesson, anything I am able to work for in order to help my students to understand what I (as a teacher) trying to deliver. It also challenges me as a future teacher to think critically (as it develop my own critical thinking) to create an effective listening activities for my students later.

Tutorial Task Week 8: Materials Adaptation

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Reflection on Tutorial Task Week 2

How does it affect me as a pre-service teacher?

When I was first introduced to this task, I presumed it was quite disfigured. However, with the help of the Jeremy Short's video, and the guidance from the notes as well, I slowly began to gather the info. Through this week's lecture, I have learnt that when we build or create learning materials, there are certain principles that we have to follow. A teacher cannot simply pick a material and not being prepared to teach in the class. He or she needs to pick a suitable material that is able to achieve impact, requires and facilitate learners' self investment, expose learners to language authentically, and many more. To my own preference, this lesson has not just assist us (the future teachers) in some ways but also it has been a good exposure and intro topic for Materials Development.

How does it affect my current level of knowledge?

Previously, I thought there are only certain materials that can be useful for teaching purposes. However, through the exposure of this week's lesson, I found that ALL kind of items, pieces or objects, in fact ANYTHING can be teaching materials depending on how that teacher adjust or develop the material. Some can only be tools if teachers are not inventive and visionary enough to develop the tools into useful teaching materials. For example, before this lesson most of us thought that only certain teaching materials which labelled "teaching aids" or "teaching materials" or anything commonly used by our teachers can be teaching materials or materials for teaching purposes. However, after learning this week's lesson, we have learned the other way around. Good thing is that, when we have material that we want to use for teaching purposes, we have to ask "How do this material help learners to learn the language?"

How can I use that knowledge to improve myself?

I will improve myself in such a way that a teacher should be. Not only act like a teacher but also to challenge myself to think creatively, innovatively, and most importantly, critically. As a teacher in the future, I know that I should surround myself or be familiar with more materials which can be used in my lessons.

Grant's Checklist Article Presentation

Tutorial Task Week 9: Materials for Teaching of Listening

Form 2 Textbook
Topic: Looking Good, Feeling Great

1. How closely do you feel that the listening process is mirrored in these materials?

Stages of Feedback

Stage 1: Receiving
Receiving refers to the intentional focus on hearing a speaker’s message, which happens when we filter out other sources. The main objective of the talk is to listen and detect the missing information to fill in the blanks. The talk is related to personal hygiene so the students need to focus on listening to the steps on personal hygiene only. If the talk is quite long and includes other elements such as effects of personal hygiene, then the students' mind will automatically filter these information because it is considered to be unimportant to them.

Stage 2: Understanding
Understanding process takes place when the students attempt to learn the meaning (which is not always easy). The students will make attempt to learn the meaning of the talk and when they encountered a new vocabulary for example, they will make an effort to predict the synonym of the word.

Stage 3: Remembering
The process of remembering is when the students try to recall what have been said that they might have missed along the talk. While the students struggle to understand the meaning of the talk throughout the process, they might have missed some information or answers and try to recall on what have been mentioned earlier.

Stage 4: Evaluating
The process of evaluating takes place commonly when they are in the process of judging the value of the message. For example, once the students have collected the answers, they will try to make sense and value the message; whether they are relevant or important.

Stage 5: Feedback
Feedback indicates teachers' involvement, for example; after the listening task, the teacher plays their role by asking one or two representatives from the class to give their answers so that the students will feel more motivated to learn in the class.

2) To what extent do they assist in developing the listening skills of our students?

a) It teaches the students to find keywords, or in other words, it is a good practice for them to focus on what’s important/relevant. Based on the listening task given in the Looking Good Feeling Great (pg 121), the students are required to listen to a recorded audio talk to get the answers to fill in the blanks. Therefore, the students need to listen intently to get the correct answers-filter unimportant words/information and focus on answering the questions.

b) It enables the students to figure out/identify the correct way to pronounce words/tone in English. Language acquisition can be done effectively by using several method e.g. by watching English based program, listening to songs and etc. Academically thinking, listening to a good speaker is a good way to acquire the language better. Even though, the recorded talk is one-way communication but still the students are able to check on actual/correct manner of utterances as well as the tone of the speech of the speaker. Later, the students will imitate the speaker and slowly, they make progress.

c) It enhances the students' cognitive skills. Cognitive skills refers to an individual’s ability to process or synthesize information, filter unimportant information and store essential knowledge in short-term memory or long term memory. Based on the listening activity in the Looking Good Feeling Great topic (page 121), the students are required to listen to a recorded talk for twice. First, the students will be given some time to read and understand the questions before the teacher proceed to play the recorded talk. Some students might have gotten the answers right away while certain students may face difficulties to familiarize with the intonation, accent, pitch and pronunciation of the speaker and could have missed the important elements (answers). When the talk is being played for the second time, this opens up chances for the students to focus on the missed elements and take note while for some students, they can take this opportunity to check their answers.


Powerpoint Presentation

Group members:
Anasuhah Binti Buyong
Ainatul Mardhiah Binti Manin
Jeeivita Kathirvellu Pillai
Nur Nabilah Huda Binti Hamdan

Evaluating English for Intermediate Level's Coursebook using Grant's Checklist

Reflection on Week 7: Digital Language Learning Materials

1. How does it affect me as a pre-service teacher?
As a pre-service teacher, I personally think that being exposed to the DLLM is somehow has opened up our minds and change the way we (I) think. How? Alright, firstly, getting to know more about DLLM has made me realize that however sophisticated the digital language learning material is, there's always a time where we need to ask ourselves (teachers) several crucial questions, "How does this material can help? In what way? Does it really help with the presence of this material or, it just doesn't make any difference with or without this particular digital language material?" It is important to know what is the creative ability that a certain DLLM could bring into the classroom and how well does it perform in ELT. Secondly, I personally feel that learning DLLM this week has given me the opportunity to try out a few others DLLM I have never had any idea of, before. Now I certainly aware which DLLM will suit a certain activity/task I'd like to give my students later on.

2. How does it affect my current level of knowledge?

Previously, when one asks me what are the examples of DLLM I would definitely answer all those typical, commonly used social networking sites such as Facebook, Edmodo, Schoology, Twitter, Tumblr and Blogspot, or other digital teaching aids such as the computer, projector, CD-Rom and et cetera. However, after a week of being exposed to other DLLM such as EnglishCentral.com, Yabla, LanguageLab, GarageBand, Moodle, Ning, Flat Classroom and so on, I feel like there are actually specific platforms of digital language learning materials that can be used and not just being stuck on one or two choices of materials. I do realize I have known more than I did before, it has certainly opened up my mind -- to figure out how easy, sophisticated and fun a DLLM can be.

3. How can I use that knowledge to improve myself?

As a pre-teacher, I should take this exposure as a starter for me to have the initiative to search for more and more DLLM. Not just search for them but also briefly try them out, in order to understand how they really work and what preference do they offer as well as what are the pros and cons in integrating them in my ELT processes. I believe that when I am learning it myself, I am opened to discover several other ways to integrate DLLM in my ELT. I believe that the more I get myself familiarize with these digital materials, I will gradually improve my skills in using technology and in this age, teachers are demanded to be technology savvy.

Tutorial Task Week 7: DLLM Checkpoint

Tutorial Task Week 6

Checkpoint 1: Search for digital language learning materials.

Language classrooms have always used technologies of various kinds, from the blackboard through to the language laboratory. In recent decades, however, there has been an explosion in the resources available to teacher, to the point where many feel overwhelmed.

Since we have variety modes of media for communication purposes, it might not always used for oral interaction.

1) Oral interaction

• Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)-Skype,Tokbox videochat,ooVoo AND Polycom system

-Enables voice communications to be transmitted via the Internet through the use of a broadband connection with a computer with a microphone and webcam

 -Cheap or (free) local and international interactions between individuals or groups

-Possible to project images onto full screen and pass the microphone around to allow individuals to talk with the speaker

 -Online tutoring and peer tutoring

-For project work with students from other institutions

-For homework hotlines

-To connect students from different schools who are preparing for a combined arts festival or vacation camp or immersion visit

-For group of students participating in cultural exchange activities, talking about, for example artwork or dramatisations they have prepared

-Linking students with experts in their field (e.g. medical students being interviewed be secondary students; authors being interviewed by students who are reading their novels)

-For example: ---Skype ~ Around the World with 80 schools challenge (Jacksonville,Florida)-to circle the globe, connecting with at least 80 schools in different countries and continents

2) Interacting in simulated environments

•       Online Language school- Avatar English (www.Avatarlanguages.com/home.php?lang=en).Classes take place in custom built virtual classrooms that reflect the theme of the classes, such as airports, markets, banks and cinemas.

•   Languagelab- simulate a city where language learners can engage in activities such as checking in at the airport, visiting an art museum or visiting a business centre to give a presentation.

3) Interacting Through writing

•       Mimic oral conversations but which employ the written mode, using instant messaging applications such as Short Message Service(SMS), ICQ(a homophone for the phrase `I seek you’), Twitter and Google Talk
•       Chat rooms- language teachers have embraced the us of chat as an effective communicative tool

4) Interacting with non -human partners

For learners who want to improve their speaking skills:-

•       Software applications (GarageBand)- provide opportunities for voice to be recorded,listened to and waveforms analysed. A teacher record their voice on one of the available track and student can record their own voice another track as they repeat and emulate the spoken language model provided on the first track.Comparing these track the students can analyse the two samples through visual presentation provided as they investigate the similarities and differences between the two samples.

•       Website: CambridgeUniversity- presents entertaining animations to reinforce individual phonemes and sound patterns. Click-Word Stress- word is pronounced whilst the stressed syllables of the written word becomes emboldened and expands. When a sentence is read aloud, the written text rises and falls to indicate the intonation contours. Animated cartoon illustrates the particular sounds.

Podcasting- process of delivering content to an individual’s computer or mobile device via an automated download through the Internet.Podcasts can take one of three forms:

1. Audio based content (sound file)

2. Enhanced content (inclusive of audio, visual and text)- enables the learners to

use contextual cues to support comprehension

3. Video (often referred to as a vodcast)

• Some instructors create their own video activities on specific topics to share with their students, using video editing tools such as Jumpcut or Videoegg (Windows) or iMovie(Macintosh)-interacting at  normal speaking rates and using authentic language, support can be provided through captions, vocabulary activities, annotations and transcripts.

• Yabla- provides authentic television, music videos, drama, interviews, and travel videos which can be used in slow play with integrated dictionaries, listening games and dual language subtitles

•  Virtex Project (www.worldenough.net/virtex)- Uses digital video clips depicting real life scenarios to prepare foreign language students for work placements

Reading

•       WordChamp –insert a reading passage or a URL into a text box and tell roll the cursor over any word, activating a pop-up with a definition of that word in any selected language and an audio clip pronouncing the word.

•       Academic Word List Highlighter- enter a text- analysed-displayed in bold all common academic words-enable the reader to focus on frequently encountered words from academic contexts.

Writing and Composing

• Software applications- WWWBoard, WebCT Blackboard and WebCrossing-

An avenue for learners to communicate meaningfully with peers and teachers. Discussion forums enable asynchronous group exchanges-maintain automatically all messages in a threaded, hierarchical structure. 

•       Blogs- Language learners: provide opportunity to participate in the composing process without the pressure to produce a whole text independently

•       Webquests- Learners undertake online research tasks involving advanced word processing skills, desktop publishing, authoring web-pages, the creation and the use of templates –can be shared online with peers, parents, assessors and the general public.

•       Flat classrooms- virtual global student summit-students from different schools collaborated in responding to questions – require great deal of organisation and management

Grammar and Vocabulary

•       Scootle- learners watch an animated story –recreate the text by rearranging scrambled sentences- learn to recognise the grammatical categories involved

•       The Collins Wordbanks Online English (www.collins.co.uk./Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx.)- retrieve innumerable examples of any particular word together with its immediate context

5) Interactive Learning Environments

•       Facebook, Myspace- Uses integrative learning management systems (or personal learning environments) – students are provided with a range of tools, applications, and activities in a single context which they can utilise with varying degrees of flexibility and independence, making  a richer language learning experience

•       Moodle- provides to access to highly collaborative communities of learning, forums, wikis, databases, quizzes and so on

•       Livemocha- learners support each other through peer tutoring, along with more structured reading, listening, writing and speaking exercises.

•       Ning- allows you to create your own customised social network on which members can post discussion items, blogs, photos, and videos.

Checkpoint 2: List down the theories and principles.

(1)  Krashen’s theory

·         Input hypothesis

·         Affective filter hypothesis

(2) Communicative language teaching

(3) Environmentalist theory

(4) Interactionist theory

(5) Socio-cultural theory

Principles :-

1.   Materials should achieve impact

2.   Materials should help learners to develop confidence

3.   Materials should require and facilitate learner self-investment

4.   Learners must be ready to acquire the points being taught

5.   Materials should expose the learners to language in authentic use

6.   Materials should provide the L's with opportunities to use TL to achieve communicative purposes

7.   Materials should take into account that the positive effects of instruction are usually delayed

8.   Materials should take into account that learners differ in learning style

9.   Materials should take into account that learners differ in affective attitudes

10. Materials should permit a silent period at the beginning of instruction

11.  Materials  should maximise learning potential by encouraging intellectual, aesthetic and emotional involvement which stimulates both right and left brain activities

12.  Materials should not rely too much on controlled practise

13.  Materials should provide opportunities for outcome feedback

Checkpoint 3: Sketch out a rough outline of your digital language learning materials.

Prezi- Is the software that can used by the educators to create presentation in a more appealing manner which enables the learners to be anticipated for learning and it also helps to promotes active participation. Prezi presentation is much more interesting compared to powerpoint presentation as we have the choice to zoom in or zoom out,change the template in various forms and etc. 

Checkpoint 4: Read Nokelianen’s article: Summarize explanation for each criteria

(1) Learnability

-          Depends on how long beginners’ use a system before they learn the essential skills necessary to perform their tasks.

(2) Efficiency

-          Refers to how well experienced users can operate an application after they have mastered it.

(3) Memorability

-          The ability of an occasional user who has previously used the system to remember its operational principles.

(4) Errors

-          Divided into 2 groups:-

(a)  Less serious errors: disturb the work of users

(b) Serious errors: endanger the preservability of the users’ outputs.

Checkpoint 5: Read Nokelianen’s article: Summarize explanation for each criteria

1.  Learner control

-          When learning new topic, the learner’s memory should be burdened to an optimal level.

-          Certainly helpful to break down the material to be learned into meaningful units.

-          “one-size-fits-all” approach has been criticized (the students are required to adjust their learning to fit the teacher’s conception of the best way of learning certain material.

2.  Learner activity

-          Teacher’s “didactic role”: scaffold the learners’ own activity; increase the learner’s independent activity (teacher as facilitator).

-          Learning material can support student’s activity (interesting & based on real life).

-          Alternative approach 2 structured material: problem-based learning.

-          Teacher gives students a certain amount of source material (individual/group)-construct own conception on the topic.

-          Problem-based learning or accessory software- increases student activity.

-          Computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL): enhance understanding of the processes of productive interaction.

3.  Cooperative/collaborative

-          Studying with others learners to reach a common learning goal.

-          Learners construct knowledge as members of communities in practice.

-          Cooperative learning is more structured than collaborative learning: teacher has the control.

-          Learning (group): members gather & structure info.

-           System/learning material: offer tools to be used to communicate & negotiate different approaches to a learning problem.

-          Computer-supported learning material (practice cooperative learning: students are connected to each other over distance-discussion groups/chat forums).

-          System/learning material supporting cooperative knowledge construction includes:-

·         A visual tool: to fashion simultaneous mind maps of the topic.

·         Tools for social navigation: learner gains info about what learners have done (a synchronic social navigation) or are presently doing (synchronic social navigation).

4.  Goal Orientation

-          Goals & objectives should be clear to the learner

-          Goals more vary from abstract to concrete

-          If learners do not set their goals, the meaningfulness should be justified

-          Learners should only be introduced to only a few, clearly specified goals at one time.

-          Goals should be clearly defined, but have to originate, as much as possible, with the learners themselves. If the goals do not originate from the students, their meaning should be explained to them.

-          The students should be given chance to make choices with respect to the course of their studies

5. Applicability

-          The approach should correspond to the skills later need in everyday and working life and should be transferable

-          Learning something new is most effectively accomplished if involved with practical tasks

-          Learning materials should always be at an appropriate level for learners’ learning process

-          Learning materials should be planned and executed in cooperation with both teachers and students

6. Added value

-          The additional significance value that we can find in a certain DLL materials e.g. the computer

-          DLLM used is expected to introduce definite added value to the learning

-          Encourage the possibilities of a certain creative use

-          Allows learners to be able to choose an attribute that can fit the learners’ preferences

-          List of aspects of computer-assisted learning which offer added value:

ü  Adaptability to individual needs

ü  Number of flexible options

ü  Learning is controlled by the learner, initiated by the learner and is in the form that the learner desires

ü  Interesting contents

ü  Development of communication

ü  Active participation of the students

-          Requires the inventor/creator/designer of the DLLM to have multidisciplinary skills & knowledge, experience, or teaching and time to develop the DLLM.

-          Should integrate tools which are suited to control the contents of learning material & to make sure they use the DLLM more effective & economic.

-          The objective is to let learners feel that the topic is best learned through the use of a computer.

7. Motivation

-          Affects all learning and makes people behave the way they do.

-          Behaviourists says: motivation to do things by reference to instincts, desires and reinforcement, cognitive theorists rely on models of cognitive processes and analysis (Wilson & Myers, 2000)

-          Motivation: Conscious or subconsciously goal-oriented would support the direction of an individual’s general behaviour. (Ruohotie, 1996)

-          Key concepts:

ü  Incentives

ü  Self-regulation

ü  Expectations

ü  Attributions of failure & success

ü  Performance or learning goals

ü  Intrinsic or extrinsic goal orientation

-          Intrinsically: strives to reach learning goals for their own purposes

-          Extrinsically: strives to achieve better results than others, to achieve certain reward, meant to do things because of something else

-          Contextual motivation: motivated because of a certain interest in the studied topic, can varies dynamically.

-          General level – static and can be adapted – therefore can change to a certain stage of life.

-          There’s a distinct btwn attitude & motivation:

ü  Attitude: can affect the quality of one’s work

ü  Motivation: can affect one’s alertness & vigour (strength, energy, dynamism)

8. Valuation of Previous Knowledge

-          The kind of learning material which presumes previous knowledge from the learners.

-          It is expected for learners to be able to already possess/own some skills/knowledge from the earlier learning material.

-          Encourages the learners to integrate their different skills and knowledge to take it into the learning process.

-          Favours learners’ to give elaboration, thought, analysis on the current DLLM used based on their previous knowledge – use central concepts from earlier studies that are important for understanding the present material.

-          The previous knowledge become wider as the current knowledge is being installed therefore the cumulative nature of knowledge become clear to the learner

9. Flexibility

-          Flexible learning materials should take concern towards learner individual differences.

-          Eg: a test given at the start of the lesson should provide enough info about previous knowledge, interest about the learning topic and expectation of what the learners will get.

-          Info that learners got can be used to provide the learner with optional/alternate routes in the studies.

-          Learners should be given a chance to be creative by themselves through the learning materials

-          Learners also should share the responsibility of identifying the appropriate additional learning resources and able to contribute to the learning resources.

10. Feedback

-          The system or learning materials should provide the learner with encouraging and fast feedback.

-          The feedback can help the learner to understand the problems and the lack in their learning.

-          Fast feedback using the IT devices is important because it also can increases learning motivation.

-          Corrections can be made immediately and the problem is solved in cooperation of the learners and teacher.

Checkpoint 6: Explain each criteria for visual design

Harmony
 Harmony refers to the elements of a display which interacts together in a pleasing manner. Harmony is when the pieces of visual images pull together. It can be achieved through repetition and rhythm. Rhythm is the flow of depicted in a visual and helps direct eye movement. To ensure harmony, it is best to use 3 grid and the rhythm should either be in clockwise or counter clockwise .

           
Balance and symmetry

Balance is when the elements of different sizes is brought into balance by either moving them closer or farther from the center of the page.Symmetry is when one half of a visual display is a mirror image of the other half. There are different types of symmetry which were horizontal symmetry, approximate horizontal symmetry, radial symmetry and asymmetry. 

Emphasis

Emphasis referring to creating dominance and focus in the work for instance focusing on colour, value, shapes, or other design elements to achieve dominance.

Alignment
Alignment of elements within a screen is an important part for organizing and grouping purposes. It should visually maximize differences between texts, label and pictures.

Unity

Unity can be referred as relationship among visual elements that helps all elements to   work together. It gives a sense of closure or oneness to a visual image. Unity can be achieved through the use of similar shapes, common pattern or use of a common background.


Group Members :-

Jeeivita Kathirvelu Pillai
Anasuhah binti Buyong
Nabilah Huda binti Hamdan
Ainatul Mardhiah binti Manin