This is my critical essay for my microteaching. Just thought of sharing it here. Lots of grammar errors but just ignore it. Do feel free to leave a comment, ya.
The target learners that I
have chosen are Year 4 with intermediate proficiency level. The topic of the
lesson is Unit 14, Harmony in the Jungle under the theme of World of Knowledge.
The authentic teaching material that I have picked is an article from National
Geographic website entitled Giant Panda (Appendix 1) which later will be used
to develop writing skills. I will now elaborate more on the factors of material
selection, criteria for material evaluation and lastly, the principles of
material adaptation.
First and foremost, the main factor for the selection of
the article is because of its authenticity. Wallace (1992) defines authentic
texts as real-life texts, not written for pedagogic purposes. The article that
I have selected is not written for any educational purposes instead it is
written for the promotion of environmental conservation. The article is written
for native speakers and brings learners to the usage of the language in real
life. This will allow learners to interact with the real language and content
rather than the form. Hence, this is the main reason why I have chosen this
article.
Next, Nuttall (1996) gives three main criteria when
choosing texts to be used in the classroom which are suitability of content,
exploitability and readability. In my context which is the article Giant Panda,
I am going to look at it through the view of suitability of content. According
to Carrell (1984), teachers should use materials that pupils are interested in.
Pupil’s interest on the text is important because it drives pupil’s motivation
to learn. Besides that, this article is also relevant to the pupil’s need. It is known to public that Malaysia has adopted 2 giant pandas
from China on May 21 to commemorate 40 years of diplomatic ties between the 2
countries. Since giant panda is not a local animal, this article will fulfil
the pupil’s need in knowing the creature. Thus, the content of the article
Giant Panda is suitable for the pupil’s interest and need.
Moving on, I will
expound on the criteria for material evaluation. Tomlinson (1998) suggests that
good text should attract the pupil’s curiousity and interest. In other words,
the material should be compelling that it holds the pupil’s attention. The
article Giant Panda is an interesting article because giant panda is not very
familiar to Malaysian and so the pupils will want to get to know more about the
animal. Other than that, Tomlinson (1998) also proposes that illustrations
should all look friendly to the students so that they feel relaxed when seeing
them. In the article, a picture of a cute giant panda eating bamboo shoots is
included as well as a map of the giant pandas’ habitat. These pictures can be
used to enhance pupil’s understanding of the article as well as attracting
them. Hence, this is the first criterion of my material evaluation.
Besides that, the
other criterion that I have used in evaluating the material is the objectives
of the article. Cunningsworth (1995) writes that the aims of the materials
should match closely with the aims of the teacher’s lesson objectives and with
the needs of the learners. I would like to teach the pupils how to write
numbers in word form and in the article Giant Panda, there is a lot of numbers appear
throughout the paragraphs and because of that, this article suits the aim of my
lesson. This is also in correspondence of the Dokumen Standard for Year 4, referring
to Learning Standard 3.1.2, pupils should be able to write in neat cursive
writing with correct spelling: c) numerals in word form. Furthermore, by using
this text, I can teach the pupils how to write expository writing. Since this
text is full with facts and information of giant pandas, it can be a good
writing model for the pupils. Therefore, the text can be used to achieve the
objective of my lesson.
Lastly, I will
touch on the principles of material adaptation. I have made several adaptations
that I consider necessary. First of all, I have made deletion to the length of
the content. Since the original text is 300 words long, I have to reduce it to
150 words because that is the suitable quantity of words for Year 4 pupils. The reason is to ensure that the pupils will
not feel intimidated with the long paragraphs. This is because according to Mok
(2008) creating an environment that is conducive can encourage learning. Furthermore,
I also have made some simplification to the sentence structure. For example, I
have simplified these two sentences “Wild pandas live only in remote,
mountainous regions in central China. These high bamboo forests are cool and
wet—just as pandas like it” to “Wild pandas live only in remote and cool
mountainous regions in central China”. I have simplified these sentences by
shortening and combining them to create a more simple sentence. Moreover, I also
have applied addition to the text. I have added pictures to the article to make
it more interesting and compelling. The pictures that I have used also acted up
as an aid to the pupils to comprehend the text. Thus, these are the adaptations
that I have made to the article Giant Panda so that it can suit the pupil’s
need.
In conclusion, I
have pointed out two factors of my material selection that are the authenticity and the
suitability of content. Besides that, I also have used 2 criteria for material
evaluation to evaluate my selected text and lastly, I have learnt
how to adapt an authentic text that can be used in the primary ESL classroom
(810 words)
