Portfolio Tasks 6 - 9

Portfolio Task 6: Consciousness-Raising

Consciousness-raising tasks draw on learners’ explicit knowledge of grammar. Consider the following CR task and answer the questions that follow it:

1.    How interesting did you find the task to do? Give a reason for your answer.

2.    What are some of the positive and negative aspects of this task?

3.    Consider other tasks that you might use in your own teaching to teach the same grammatical point.

(adapted from Ellis (2010: 53 -54))

Portfolio Task 7: ICT and Second Language Learning

1.    What are some of the advantages for both learner and teacher of online assessment?

2.    Watch this short video, in which Bernie Dodge is interviewed about the Webquest, with which he is closely associated: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7UynehA_l0&feature=relmfu 

Now look at some of the sample webquests below and briefly describe how you might use the concept of the webquest to teach a group of students in a context of your choice; what might the students learn from carrying out the webquest? 

http://www.theconsultants-e.com/resources/webquests/repository/general-language.aspx

 

Portfolio Tasks 8 and 9: Language Skills

1.    Metacognition is a concept first put forward by Flavell (1976: 232), which ‘…refers to one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive processes or anything related to them, e.g., the learning-relevant properties of information or data.’  Goh (2010:191) develops a set of prompts that are designed to help learners to use strategies when they are engaged in a listening task. Taking a listening task from a course book or one that you have designed yourself, put yourself in the place of a student and consider how they might answer the following questions and discuss briefly how answering these questions might benefit them. Specify details such as the level at which the task is pitched and the nature of the content contained in the recording:  

A.   Setting my listening goal

·         Why am I listening to / viewing this recording?

·         What do I hope to achieve?

·         How many times should I listen to / watch this recording? Why?

 

B.   Preparing to listen 

·         What do I know about this topic?

·         What type of information can I expect to hear (and view)?

·         What words can I expect to hear? (Use a dictionary, if necessary.)

·         What difficulties can I expect?

·         What strategies should I use when I encounter these difficulties? 

 

2.    Brown (2009) has pointed out that there is almost no integration of extensive reading and text books in ELT.

Discuss briefly how you might design a series of tasks that would allow learners at upper-intermediate level to develop their extensive reading skills. What challenges might you face in the selection both of texts and tasks?