Funiber materials and resources essay sample

If for some reason you cannot do the assignment in groups, you will have to do it individually (notice that individual assignments will be penalized. The maximum score a student can get is 8/ 10). The individual assignment must have a length between 8 and 10 pages approximately (without including cover, index or appendix –if there is any). The assignment has to be done in this Word document and has to fulfil the rules of presentation and edition, as for quotes and bibliographical references which are detailed in the Study Guide. Also, it has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the Study Guide. Sending it to the teacher’s e-mail is not permitted. All the members of the group have to send the assignment.

In addition to this, it is very important to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the Study Guide.

The assignment mark is 100% of the final mark.

Assignment:

Carry out the following task
You are expected to submit a ‘ kit’ of own-produced materials for a specified group of learners in your current or a future context. The kit should be a
coherent block of work, produced in response to some observed need of the learners. It must be prefaced by a rationale, in which the issues that have been raised about design, trialling, adaptation and evaluation in the subject are discussed, as they are relevant to your circumstances and the materials. A rationale might include discussion of the context, the age and level of the students, the nature of the syllabus and materials used by the learners, the need you perceive, the belief about language learning and teaching that the materials represent, and any other issues that are relevant to your materials (for example because of the particular media chosen). You must also include information about how you intend to evaluate the materials when they are used. You must submit copies of the materials you produce, with the teacher’s instructions that make it clear how they are to be used. Write these instructions as if they were for another teacher who could use them. Note: You may find it useful to refer to the reading available in Assignment Materials section (at the same place where you can find this paper).

Important: you have to write your personal details, the option and the subject name on the cover (see the next page). The assignment that does not fulfil these conditions will not be corrected. You have to include the assignment index below the cover.

RATIONALE
We live in Bogotá, Colombia. The materials herein proposed by the three of us were chosen based on our common teaching context. We all work for the English Extension courses of the National University of Colombia in Bogotá. This Institution offers English courses to general audience who are interested in learning bettering their English skills. We have chosen the first level to apply this Materials and Resources assignment. The groups are composed of 18 students whose age ranges from 18 to 60 years; with a total number of 8 hours of English a week The textbook selected by the teaching staff is New American English File by Oxford. This course book combines traditional teaching methods with more recent approaches, and with a special emphasis on Phonetics. However, like many other course books, this book was designed assuming that all students have the same language level. About evaluation, students are assessed formally and informally. Nevertheless, when we pay close attention to our learner’s characteristics and our educational setting, nothing seems to be enough.

We feel the need to create our own material in order to meet our learner’s demands or adapt or modify some materials from different textbooks or sources adding some supplementary ones so as to get closer in our approach to the understanding of our student’s interests and characteristics. The different trends and developments in theories of language learning and teaching which have most influence the nature of materials written over the last ten years, help us to be conscious about the different aspects of language which must be taken into account when designing materials. But at the same time, those trends and theories show us the wide spectrum English teachers are involved in when deciding what to teach, when to teach, how to teach, in what context and why. The first and most important factor that was considered at the moment of designing the materials was the students’ needs, at the moment of identifying them.

Accordingly, the lessons we have prepared for this group is based on the lexical approach, We will be using the term lexical approach to mean that lexis plays the dominant role in the ELT classroom, or at least a more dominant role than it has traditionally, which has largely been one of subservience to ‘ grammar’ (Sinclair & Renouf 1988). Language teaching has traditionally viewed grammar and vocabulary as a divide, with the former category consisting of structures (the present perfect, reported speech) and the latter usually consisting of single words. The structures were accorded priority, vocabulary being seen as secondary in importance, merely serving to illustrate the meaning and scope of the grammar (Sinclair & Renouf 1988).

MATERIALS
I am from…
-Before Class: have about a dozen pictures of famous icons from different countries, also it is necessary some pictures of famous people from different countries. -Aim: Use the students’ knowledge of the world, introduce chunks at beginners level 
 -Time: 20 minutes

-Procedure:
Show pictures of icons from different countries to the class. Students name the countries they represent., e. g. France, Brazil, Japan. Teach any names they don’t know. Write on board I am from __________ I am ___________

Give students a couple of examples e. g., I am from France, I am French, I am from United States, I am American. Give students some time to come up with their own for the other countries Brainstorm and check on board

Show the picture of a famous person.
Write on board he/she is _______ he/she is from __________ he/she is ___________. Give some pictures to your students and give some time to come up with their own for the other characters. Brainstorm and check on board

Variations: you can use different products that well known in the world, e. g. Food, cellphones, cars, coffee or whisky on the blackboard. Students come up with their own chunks and then compare them. Note that there is more than one correct answer.

Taken from:
http://www. 123rf. com/photo_7441799_set-of-icons-for-travel-to-various-countries. html

Numbers
-Before Class: have a deck of poker cards
-Aim: Use the students’ knowledge of the world, introduce chunks at beginners level 
 -Time: 20 minutes
Procedure:
1. Give each student one card. Explain that the card with the letter A follows as 1 and the Letter Q could be number 0
2. Ask to some students what is your number? Write on the board. My number is __________
3. Give students a couple of examples e. g., my number is two, my number is seven.
4. Give students some time to come up with their own for the other cards
5. Check on board writing the numbers as follows:

Ask your students to complete the list
6. Now ask your students to join two cards and say the number. You have to give an example using your teacher card and one of the student’s. e. g. Your teacher card is 1 and the one from your students is 4. So the number that you two have is 14 fourteen.
7. Check on board writing the numbers as follows:

Ask your students to complete the list
8. If you want to continue this activity you can come up with the numbers up to thousand or even million joining three, four or more students. 9. Brainstorm and check on board
-Variations: you can use printed numbers; also you can write some cyphers and ask your students to write them down. Students come up with their own chunks and then compare them.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…
-Before class: Prepare the song called Friday I am in love you can find the video on this link: https://www. youtube. com/watch? v= mGgMZpGYiy8 Your students might enjoy listening to this great song; prepare a copy for each student (at the end of this activity you can find the lyrics).
-Aims: listening for chunks, selecting known chunks from a text students don’t understand as a whole.
-Time: 20 minutes

-Procedure:
1. Tell the students they are going to listening to a song.
2. Tell your students to listen for individual words, expressions or whole sentences. Explain they will not understand everything.
3. Play the song again and ask the students to write down the chunks they think they hear. Tell them they can use ‘ approximate’ spelling at this stage. 4. Ask to your students to write on the board the words, phrases or chunks they listened to.
5. Give out the lyrics and tell them to complete the blanks students.
6. Tell your students to compare with their partners the play the song again to complete the missing words.
7. Complete the song with the whole class going line after line.

Friday I’m In Love
The cure

I don’t care if Monday’s blue
Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday too
Thursday I don’t care about you
It’s Friday I’m in love
Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday Wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn’t even start
It’s Friday I’m in love
Saturday wait
And Sunday always comes too late
But Friday never hesitate…
I don’t care if Monday’s black
Tuesday Wednesday heart attack
Thursday never looking back
It’s Friday I’m in love
Monday you can hold your head
Tuesday Wednesday stay in bed
Or Thursday watch the walls instead
It’s Friday I’m in love
Saturday wait
And Sunday always comes too late
But Friday never hesitate…
Dressed up to the eyes
It’s a wonderful surprise
To see your shoes and your spirits rise
Throwing out your frown
And just smiling at the sound
And as sleek as a shriek
Spinning round and round
Always take a big bite
It’s such a gorgeous sight
To see you eat in the middle of the night
You can never get enough
Enough of this stuff
It’s Friday
I’m in love
Friday I’m In Love
The cure
I don’t care if Monday’s __________
__________’s grey and __________ too
__________ I don’t care about _____
It’s __________ _____ in __________
__________ _______ can fall apart
__________ __________ break my heart
__________ doesn’t even start
It’s __________ _____ in __________
__________ wait
And __________ always comes too late
But __________ __________ hesitate…
I don’t care if Monday’s __________
__________ __________ heart attack
__________ __________ looking back
It’s __________ _____ in __________
__________ ______ can hold your head
__________ __________ stay in bed
Or __________ watch the walls instead
It’s __________ _____ in __________
__________ wait
And __________ always comes too late
But __________ never hesitate…
Dressed up to the ________
It’s a wonderful surprise
To _______ your shoes and your spirits rise
Throwing out your frown
And just smiling at the sound
And as sleek as a shriek
Spinning round and round
Always take a big bite
It’s such a gorgeous sight
To see you eat in the middle of the night
You can never get enough
Enough of this stuff
It’s Friday
I’m in love

Greetings and Farewells
-Before class: Prepare the picture you find at the end, also prepare the phrases you find in it. Your students might know some of them. Prepare some chunks of greetings and farewells you want your students use in and outside class. -Aims: use students’ knowledge about greetings

-Time: 20 minutes
-Procedure:
1. Ask your students if they know the words you paste on board 2. Ask them if they know any other expressions in English. Listen to them for individual words, expressions or whole sentences. 3. Write on board “ GREETINGS” and “ FAREWELLS” Give the first example in each column; ask to you pupils to give extra words and give the marker to write them down.

“ GREETINGS”
Hi
Hello
How are you?
How do you do?
How are you doing?
Good morning
Good afternoon
Good evening

“ FAREWELLS”
Bye
Good-bye
See you
See you tomorrow
Take care
Good night
Have a good day

4. When they have finished writing read them out loud and add the ones you want and ask them to read them. 5. Now write on board:
A: Hi, how are you?
B: Fine, thank you
A: My name is _______
B: This is _______, nice to meet you.
A: Nice to meet you too.
6. Practice this conversation with one of your pupils and tell them to work by pairs practicing this conversation.
7. Give the opportunity to practice it for a couple of minutes then ask them to say it out loud. Check for pronunciation and congratulate their effort.

Countries and Nationalities.
-Before class: Print and cut out the following sets of flashcards (flags with representative images and nationalities) so that each country and nationality is half the size of a letter-sized piece of paper. -Procedure:

1. Introduce the topic by showing the flag-and-images flashcards to the students to elicit information from them about the name of the countries. 2. Show them the spelling and check their pronunciation. After that, show them the nationalities flashcards to help them cope with spelling and pronunciation. Have students help you with some additional countries and nationalities they are already familiar with. 3. Divide the board in two parts. Stick both sets of flashcards up-side down on each side of the board so that countries and nationalities are apart and in different order. 4. Divide the class in two groups and have a member of each group go upfront and flip one card on each side. If the cards match with the right country and nationality in the same turn, the group earns a point and can continue to flip cards. If the member does not match the cards accordingly, the cards must be flipped back and it is the other group’s turn. The group with most points awarded at the end of the activity is the winner.

Japanese
German
Chinese
Italian
American
Mexican
Brazilian
British
French
Scottish
Australian
Greek

Nationalities crossword
-Before class: copy the handouts of the following two pages. One copy per pair of students. -Procedure:
1. Divide the class into pairs. Give each pair a copy of the crossword.

2. Explain what the words Across and Down mean. Write them up on the board, with the appropriate arrows next to them. Across Down

3. Allow 15 minutes for them to fill in the crossword and to work out the hidden country. Remind them that the answers are nationality words and not the name of the country.

4. Check orally by asking different pairs for the answers to the Across words first, followed by the Down words. Then ask if they have worked on the hidden country (Portugal) Key

Across: 2 French, 5 Greek, 6 Irish, 8 Swedish, 10 Japanese, 13 Indian, 17 Australian, 18 Russian, 19 Dutch, and 20 Spanish. Down: 1 English, 3 Chinese, 4 Mexican, 7 Brazilian, 9 Italian, 11 Scottish, 12 Turkish, 14 American, 15 German, and 16 Swiss.

Nationalities Crossword
Look at the drawings and fill in the crossword. When you finish, take the eight letters in the grey squares to make another country in Europe. (They
have very nice beaches there.)

The hidden country is:

Taken and adapted from: Jones, P. (2001). Vocabulary 2: Games and activities (No ed.). Harlow: Penguin English.

Numbers
Fizz and Bucks
Have students sit in a horseshoe fashion so you can keep the order and the control of the activity. Tell students they have to count one by one around the class. Do it normally for the first round so that students feel confident about it. Now for the second round tell them that instead of saying 5 or a multiple of 5 they have to say Fizz. E. g., 1, 2, 3, 4, Fizz, 6, etc. Practice for a couple of rounds. Then tell them to continue to do so but with 3 and the multiples of 3 with the word Bucks. E. g., 1, 2, Bucks, 4, etc. Finally after practicing a while, tell them to do both words at the same time. If the number is a multiple of both 3 and 5 they have to say Bucks Fizz. E. g., 1 , 2, Bucks, 4, Fizz, Bucks, 7, 8, Bucks, Fizz, 11, Bucks, 13, 14, Bucks Fizz, 16, etc. The students who get it wrong are eliminated.

Personal Information
-Before class: Print and cut out the personal information form showed below and give each student one of it -Procedure:
1. Introduce the topic by showing your real ID to the students and asking if they know what it is and what it is used for.
2. Student will make a list of the information that is required when completing a form.
3. Show students the structure of questions with Wh. Words on the board

What is your first name?
4. Students will continue making appropriate questions about real information from their classmates.

FORM
First name: …………………… Surname: …………………………….. Age: ………… Date of birth: ……………………… Sex: M / F (male / female) Nationality: ……………………….
Address: ……………………………….. Postcode (ZIP code): ………………………. Country: ……………………………..
ID number: ………………………….

Numbers
Procedure:
1. Write on the board the following countries:
Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the US, the United Kingdom Ask students about how many people do they think are studying English in those countries, tell them the numbers are expressed in thousands Write this chunk on the board:

_____________ people study English in the US
2. Students will continue guessing different numbers as they are guessing teacher will say hot if they are saying a closer number, or cold if they are not very close to get it. 3. Continue until they have complete the whole countries on the board.

EVALUATION
In the light of Cunningsworth (1984), we have made a short evaluation of the materials above selected and it is showed as follows: -Aims and approaches
The materials do correspond with the aims of the programme at the institution and with the needs of the learners since they need basic tool to help them to interact and introduce themselves among their partners. The materials are suited to the learning/teaching situation and also they are very comprehensive and cover all what students need for the first time they face a L2 situation. Probably, the flexibility about teaching and learning
styles at this point is not very evident since the approach is focused mainly on the lexis and not on other aspects which can be adopted in further lessons -Design and organization

Since the material is authentical and self-produced, the list of resources and textbooks for the chosen lessons are not wide, although our academical context in which we use them has textbook and multimedia resources that reinforce the lessons and topics. Content organization is adequate and tight to the course syllabus for the elementary level we intend the kit of materials for. The content is sequence on the basis of complexity and lexis, so students will progressively adopted prior structures to new ones learnt. As grading and progression are given by students class performance and accuracy, it is totally suitable for these lessons. -Language content

Main grammar items are covered appropriately for elementary levels, and basic learner needs at this level is definitely taking into account. Vocabulary teaching is adequate, anyway its emphasis is not set in those materials since lexis taken as language as a whole is the main goal for these lessons. Also, it lacks of strategies for individual learning development. Pronunciation work is not included explicitly; although word stress and intonation are implicitly given on some lessons. There are plenty of structures and conventions above sentence level. Greetings, farewells and common specific contexts expressions are given through the lessons. Style and appropriacy are definitely match to the social situation it is given because basic real interactions are covered.

-Skills
The skills work are not integrated because it is an elementary level and we consider the main aspect we have to cover is oral production and comprehension. So, the material included is related to real situations but graded to elementary level so that help students comprehension. -Topic

The material cannot have genuine interest for learners, anyway it is varied and give students a real view of given situation which are paramount to start the process of learning another language. Definitely topics are presented equally in terms of gender, race, religion or any another aspect. -Methodology

As cited in the rationale the lexical approach is taken and we consider is the most appropriate for the reasons explained above. -Practical considerations
The appeareance of materials can be attractive to some students, anyway the students profile in the courses are so varied, the perceptions can differ from one student to other. None of the materials presented need special equipment, just an appropriate classroom and an eager and dynamic teacher to take these on.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cunningsworth, A., & Tomlinson, B. (1984). Evaluating and selecting EFL teaching materials. London: Heinemann Educational.

Sinclair & A. Renouf (1988) A lexical syllabus for language learning. In R. Carter & M. McCarthy, Vocabulary and language teaching. London: Longman. 140–58.