Language Skills Related Task
ASSIGNMENT 3: LANGUAGE SKILLS RELATED TASK
TASK
Read the description of the class below. Then choose ONE text from a selection of three taken from a B1 level coursebooks. You will need to design your own tasks to develop the students’ receptive skills (reading for gist/specific information/reading for detail) and productive skills of your choice (speaking and/or writing).
Class profile:
This is an intermediate class (B1). There are 10 students of mixed nationality (multilingual): Italian Spanish, German, Turkish and Thai. They are all in their mid 20s. They are interested in studying English to advance their careers, to travel and two students would like to take the IELTS exam next year.
They are all keen to communicate and work together as a group, but find grammar tasks tedious and their spoken accuracy need attention. They are fairly autonomous and often spend time together outside class.
You must attach your material with this assignment (appendix) – remember to credit the source and attach tasks including answer keys. Use the following headings:
RATIONALE FOR THE CHOSEN TEXT
- say why you have chosen the material for this class/level (refer to level, interests, needs, strengths and weaknesses, length of text etc.)
RECEPTIVE SKILLS
- say which receptive sub-skills could be practised (provide two – include a gist activity and an activity requiring more detailed understanding of the text)
- design tasks for practising these skills and say why/how these tasks will help you achieve these aims – remember to grade the activities to suit the level of your students
- make reference to background reading, explain why we develop these skills in class
PRODUCTIVE SKILLS
- say which productive sub – skills (speaking or writing) could be practised in relation to the material
- design tasks for practising these skills and say why/how these tasks will help you achieve these aims
Make reference to your background reading on this subject.
Suggested Books: (see chapters of Reading/Listening/Speaking/Writing)
- Harmer, J: How to Teach English
- Harmer, J: The practice of English Language Teaching.
- Harmer, J: Teacher Knowledge
- Riddell, D: Teaching English as a Foreign Language
- Scrivener, J: Learning Teaching
Write in continuous prose with clear headings and paragraphing. Make sure your language is accurate.
Assessment Criteria
Candidates can demonstrate their learning by:
- correctly using terminology that relates to language skills and sub-skills
- relating task design to language skills development
- finding, selecting and referencing information from one or more sources using written language that is clear, accurate and appropriate to the task
Assignment checklist (tick as you go along before submitting the assignment):
I have:
- chosen an appropriate piece of authentic material for the level of the - --
students provided a rationale for it
- designed appropriate tasks for two receptive subskills, e.g. a gist activity and a more detailed
- task with a brief rationale and supported with references to background reading
designed appropriate tasks for productive subskills, e.g. a role play activity or a discussion
- task with a brief rationale and supported with references to background
reading submitted the tasks and the authentic material – credited the source
- included a bibliography
- proof read my own work – accuracy of written
English
- observed the word limit 750 – 1100 words
Choose ONE from the selection below:
TEXT A
TEXT B
TEXT C
TAKE NOTE!
Presentation: Presentation of your work is very important in our assessment scheme, and factors such as sentence structure, spelling, punctuation, organisation and layout should be given a high priority. The assignments must either be typed or written legibly in ink. Credit will be given for your own ideas.
Referencing & Plagiarism: You need to reference the sources you consult whether these be methodology books or classroom activity books. Please clearly mention page number, author’s name, title, publisher and publishing date in the assignment and on the handouts. Assignments have to be all your own work. You will need to sign and declare that they are your own work.
Plagiarism in more detail
Plagiarism - that is the presentation of another person’s thoughts or words as though they were your own - must be avoided in all four of your written assignments. Note that you are encouraged to read and examine the work of others as much as possible. You are expected to incorporate this in your thinking and writing of assignments. But you must acknowledge and label your sources. Direct quotations from the published or unpublished work of others, from the internet, or from any other source, must always be clearly identified as such by being placed inside quotation marks, and a full reference to their source must be provided in the proper form. Remember that a series of short quotations from several different sources, if not clearly identified as such, constitutes plagiarism just as much as does a single unacknowledged long quotation from a single source.
Equally, if you summarise another person’s ideas or judgements, you must refer to that person in your text, and include the work referred to in your bibliography. Substantial sections taken from a source must be acknowledged as such in the relevant paragraph(s). This will be particularly important in Assignment 2, to reference information about your learner’s first language. Your tutors able happy to give advice about the appropriate use and correct acknowledgements of other sources in your own work.
The use of the work of another student, past or present, constitutes plagiarism. Where work is used without the consent of that student, this will normally be regarded as a major offence of plagiarism.
Failure to observe these rules may result in an assignment failing Referencing guidelines
References must be included in the assignments for all sources of assignment content. You can choose a standard method of referencing that you prefer but try to be consistent in using one method of referencing.
For example, one standard method is the Harvard referencing system. In this system the order of the elements of the reference is:
Author’s surname and initials, Date in brackets. Title in italics. Edition. Place: Publisher.
For example: Swan, M., (2005). Practical English Usage. 3rd ed. Oxford: OUP.
If a book has editors, note them, e.g. Swan, M. and Smith, B., eds., (2001). Learner English. 2nd ed. Cambridge: CUP. To cite a chapter from such an edited work, the chapter reference is followed by In: Swan, M. and Smith, B., eds., ....etc.
The above system makes referencing within the text simple: just give the author and date of publication, which will relate to the full reference given at the end of the assignment, e.g. Swan (2005) demonstrates that modal verbs are often .... or Modal verbs are often used in this way
(Swan 2005). Exact quotations should be referenced with a specific page number, e.g. Swan (2005, p.95).
Web-pages should be referenced in full,
e.g. <http://www.teachenglish.co.uk/phoneme_chart.htm> (accessed 1st July 2016).
EACH TASK should be between 750 – 1100 words long. Assignments that are substantially below or over the word limit will be returned for resubmission.
