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B. Ed in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL)

Assignment Cover Sheet:

Student ID Number : 0936629

Module Name and Code : THE LEARNER AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES – ET209

Module Tutor : DR DUNCAN HUNTER

Personal Tutor : ANDREW DAVIDSON

Assignment Number : 2
Word Count : 1,642 words

Date due: 12 noon on 28 APR 2011

Date submitted: 28 APR 2011

Online Receipt attached (please delete as appropriate) YES

 Work may be submitted before the due date
 Work may be submitted after the due date if an extension has been granted in
writing.
 Work submitted late without a written extension will be penalised at the rate of
5% per 24 hours (starting at noon on the day that the essay is due)
 Work submitted more than a week after the due date without written extension
will not be assessed.

In completing the details on this cover sheet and submitting the assignment, you are
doing so on the basis that this assignment is all your own work and that you have not
borrowed or failed to acknowledge anyone else’s work.

Please say if you agree to this statement. YES

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TABLE OF CONTENT
Page

Content 1

Assignment 2

Student’s Response 3

References 9

Appendix 10

SRPING 2011
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Due Thursday Week 1, Term 3

Word limit : 1,500 words (1350 – 1650 words)

Assignment 2

What practical measures can be taken within the classroom to increase students’ autonomy?

TITLE

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What practical measures can be taken within the classroom to increase students’ autonomy?

According to Benson (2011, p. 124), ‘autonomy’ is defined as the capacity to take control
over one’s own learning. Most researchers also agree that autonomy cannot be taught or
learned. For this reason, ‘fostering autonomy’ (Benson, 2011, p. 125) is often used to refer to
educational initiatives that are designed to stimulate or support the development of autonomy
among learners.

In this essay, I will attempt to discuss the practical measures that can be taken within the
classroom in order to increase students’ autonomy. The first part of the essay

The first part of the essay will describe the principles of composing stage with an
example activity. I shall then later explain the principles of the other three stages with
their examples.

1.0 INTRODUCTION

This essay aims to describe a Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) based on

the model proposed by Willis and Willis (2007). The first part of the essay will be the
lesson plan. The next part of the essay will attempt to explain how the activities in the
lesson plan focus on language meaning and form.

2.0 LESSON PLAN

TOPIC : Destination for a School Trip

Aim : 1) To discuss and suggest a destination for their school trip.

2) To develop confidence and presentation skills.
3) To consider words/phrases to express opinions which students may
use in the future

Target task : Students decide in small groups of which destination they will suggest for
the school trip after the examination and present to the class.

Vocabulary : Weather (cold, warm, sunny, chilly, windy, foggy, etc.)

Transport (car, train, ferry, bus, plane, etc.)
Activities (swimming, sight-seeing, buy souvenirs, shopping, etc.)
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Food (seafood, local cuisine, western food, restaurants, stalls, etc.)

ACTIVITY TIMING PROCEDURE INTERACTION

Teacher-led discussion.

Teacher starts off the lesson by showing to the T-S

class some old pictures of her/him during school
time when she/he went for school trips.

Teacher tells briefly about the places and what

he/she did during the visit.

Teacher asks students where they have been.

Priming 10mins Teacher introduces vocabulary by asking the
students to describe the places they have visited
e.g. the weather, the activities etc. Teacher elicits
answers from students and write on the board.

Examples of questions :

 Where have you been recently?

 How was the weather? Was it sunny? How did
you get there? By plane? By bus?

S–S
Teacher puts students in pairs and students
describe to each other the place(s) they have
visited, it could be local or overseas or a place
that they would love to visit (in case students
never visit any place). Students must provide
5mins reasons why they like or dislike the place.

E.g.
 I visited Kuala Lumpur last weekend. I dislike
Kuala Lumpur because it is a busy city but I
Preparation
love the variety of food I can get there.

T-S
Students watch a video about famous tourist
attractions in Malaysia (Fraser Hill, Cameron
Highlands, Manukan Island, Penang Island, and
5mins Mount Kinabalu)

Students guess the places. Teacher then tells the

answers to students.

Planning 10mins S-S

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Teacher divides students into small groups of

three.

Teacher gives pamphlets or brochures of the

places showed in the video to each group.

Students analyse the brochures given and fill in

the tables (Appendix 1).

S–S
Based on the information they have extracted,
students in the small groups discuss to decide
which destination they will suggest for the school
trip.

Once they decided, students prepare a

presentation to present their choice to the class.
Target Task 20mins
Students present their suggestion to the rest of
the class. Other students may offer their opinions
whether agree or disagree with the choices.

Teacher conducts a voting session (show of

hands) which destination is preferred by students
and teacher is going to propose the destination to
the school administrators.

Focus on 10mins
Form Focus on form :

Teacher lists down the words/phrases which the

students use to express their opinions in the
target task when they are presenting their ideas.

E.g.
 In my experience…
 In my opinion…
 Personally, I think…
 I’d suggest that…
 I don’t agree with you.

Teacher explains that these phrases are

important when they are expressing opinions. It
portrays politeness and respect.

Teacher gives students a list of words/phrases

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which are used to express opinions.

Activities :

Students write a short essay of 200 words on the

topic “Are boys better than girls?” by using these
expressions.

3.0 DESCRIPTIONS OF THE LESSON PLAN AND FOCUS ON MEANING AND

FORM

The lesson plan is designed for Malaysian students, age 15 years old, in a town
in Malaysia. The class consists of 30 students from various backgrounds. Most of the
students have intermediate level of proficiency in English. However, some students may
have better proficiency as they may have been introduced to English from an early age.
These students are going to sit for a public examination at the end of the year.

I believe that this topic is relevant to my target learners because the topic relates to
them. The school is planning a school trip for the students and this activity allows
students to voice out their opinions on the places they would like to visit. The topic will
motivate the students to participate because they are able to contribute in the decision-
making and the end product is real whereby the majority choice will be suggested to the
school administrator. In addition, the places in the choices are local tourist attractions
and some students may have heard or visited them. Students’ prior knowledge of the
local attractions may make the lesson more interesting and appealing to them.

As mentioned earlier, the lesson is planned based on Willis and Willis’s (2007) model. In
general, TBLT is an approach that provides students with opportunities to use the

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language in the classroom for authentic communication. Teachers also provide

materials where students have to actively engage in the process in order to complete a
task. TBLT is more student-centred rather than teacher-centred. The task and the
materials are usually authentic. In TBLT, task completion is the priority rather than
teaching the language itself and the assessment is done in terms of the outcomes. The
method puts more attention on developing students’ language by providing a task and
use language to solve it. In other words, TBLT focuses more on meaning rather than
form. It is a more recent Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach and it
differs from PPP method as PPP focuses on form rather than meaning. However, form
can appear at the end of the lesson (Willis and Willis, 2007).

In the lesson plan that I have designed, the tasks focus on meaning as it give more
attention to completion of the tasks. There is a focus on meaning in all phases. Every
phase provides students with meaning which is related and helpful for students when
they move to the next task. In priming activity, for example, the priming stage aims to
introduce the topic to the students and get them focused with the context. This stage
also allows teachers to introduce the vocabulary sets to students in a meaningful
context, for example, vocabulary on weather, activities, and transports which students
will use later on in the discussion.

Focus on meaning can also be found in facilitating tasks (preparation and planning). In
these stages, learners are given a chance to get their thoughts together when they work
with the brochures and filling in the tables before they decide how to express those
ideas in the target language. However, at this phase, students may unavoidably focus
on language. Teachers may correct the students if they make mistakes but teachers
should not teach the form in the middle of the task (Willis and Willis, 2007). In other
words, teachers should not attempt to control student’ language. In addition, the
assessment will not be judged by the correct forms the students produce but rather the
completion of the task. Therefore, it can be said that facilitating tasks may involve a
concern with language but it does not include focus on form and assessment based on
form.

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The target task also focuses on meaning as students will be discussing and presenting
with purpose, in which to convince the students and the teacher to choose the
destination that they have decided. The whole aim is to get the students to get into the
discussion and to produce the end product, which is the presentation.

Willis and Willis (2007) claims that a TBLT lesson does not necessarily have a focus on
form. However, it can appear at the end of the lesson and it should not be the primary
aim of the lesson. In my lesson plan, the focus on form appears after the students have
completed the target task. It is proposed that focus on form should be isolated from the
task because students should be allowed to experience the language first because only
then students will be able to relate to the reason they need to learn the form (Willis and
Willis, 2007). This will motivate the students to learn as they already experience the
form and aware of the usefulness of the form. Nunan( 2004), on the other hand,
disagrees with Willis and Willis(2007). His TBLT model shows that focus on form should
occur in the middle of the tasks as it will be easier for students to see the relationship
between communicative meaning and form. However, Willis and Willis (2007) argue that
if focus on form occurs in the tasks, there will be an intervention and this will distract
students from focusing on the target task.

As a whole, I believe that teaching the topic of my lesson plan using Willis and Willis’s
TBLT approach is relevant because Malaysia’s Curriculum Specifications for English
aims to improve students’ proficiency in order to meet their needs for English in
everyday life and prepare learners by focusing language use in society. It can be
achieved by making use of real-life issues, for example, making decisions (which is the
target task in my lesson plan). The curriculum also aims to encourage students to take
part in social interaction and develop students’ confidence to express ideas, opinions,
thoughts and feelings in spoken and written form. It also suggests that topics should be
drawn from current issues which concerns students’ surrounding like schools. TBLT
also goes hand in hand with Malaysia’s curriculum as both focuses on learner’s centred
method. I believe that students will be able to learn the language better if TBLT method
is carried out properly by the teachers.

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REFERENCES

Curriculum Specifications (2010). Curriculum Specifications : English Language, Form 3.

Retrieved Nov 30, 2010 from http://www.kolejku.com/ppk/hsp/b_ing/kbsm/hsp_bi_f3.pdf

Nunan, D. (2004). Task-Based Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Willis, D., & Willis, J. (2007). Doing Task-based Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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APPENDIX 1

Based on the information in the brochures, fill in the tables below.

Places How to get there? Weather Activities Food

Famous for its

Cameron Highlands Accessible by cars Chilly Strawberry steamboat
and buses picking restaurants

Manukan Island

Fraser Hill

Mount Kinabalu

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Penang Island

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