TESOL End of the term assignment ( after Phase 8)

Answer any two questions from Section A. Section B is compulsory

Section A

Q1. Take a look at any two ESL/EFL course books and evaluate them based on the
following points:

(i) Level to be used ( The two books need to belong to the same level)
(ii) Skills that they attempt to develop
(iii) Format- attractive , easy to use
(iv) Grammar highlights
(v) Can it be adapted or rigid
(vi) Which would you choose out of the two and why ?

Please note that the textbooks need to follow ESL/EFL pattern and needs to be in English and
not any other language. The books chosen must belong to the same level. If they belong to
different levels, for example, one for the beginners and one for the intermediate, then your
answer will not be accepted.

If you are unable to access a text book kindly refer to any EFL: book publisher website or
Amazon.com for Cambridge, Macmillan or Oxford publications. They usually allow you to look
at a single unit of a text.

Reference: EFL & ESL- Links

http://www.eflbooks.co.uk/

http://www.englishstudydirect.com/

http://iteslj.org/links/TESL/Journals_on_the_Web/

Please go over this link http://www.esl.net/interchange_third_edition.html , click on

Student’s Book and you can download some chapters. 

Q2. Imagine you are working with students on the language function of ‘requesting for
information’. The authentic material that you have selected is a railway timetable. Design a
communicative game or a problem solving task in which the timetable is used to give your
students practice in requesting information. Kindly mention time allotted for the task,
language level and the age of students.
Interpreting abbreviations
Timetables often have short codes for specific meanings. Ask students first to guess what these
mean, then look them up, then invent five funny new codes for things that might happen on
journeys e.g. DDCT (Delay while Driver has Cup of Tea).

Pair discussion – planning a journey

Hand out a bus / train timetable to each pair. Prepare a set of different planning tasks on cards
e.g. You want to spend a day shopping in Berlin and then meet your friend whose plane lands at
the airport at 7.20. Plan the journeys. Set one task to each pair. When pairs have finished they
meet up with another pair and describe their plan; the listeners try to raise problems or
difficulties.

Tense practice
When students have planned a journey they can use present progressive for future to describe
what they intend to do e.g. "We’re arriving at 2.37 and then we’re going straight to the theatre."

Phone call role plays

Pairs – one student is the customer, one is an information assistant. Only the assistant has a
copy of the timetable. Set students some problem role plays e.g. enquiring about when trains go
to Delhi, booking a ticket for tomorrow, enquiring about cancellations because of a strike etc.

Word brainstorming
Ask students to study a train timetable and think of every noun that could be used in connection
with talking about the journeys (e.g. train, platform, ticket, station etc). Repeat this for verbs
that go with the nouns (e.g. catch, miss, arrive, change, board, buy etc). When students have a
good list they can use this to prepare a story,

Internet research
set a task such as: Plan a journey from here to Los Angeles stopping at five interesting tourist
places on the way. Students will need to research plane and train timetables as well as finding
out some interesting locations to visit. You could make the task more challenging by restricting
them to a maximum of two plane flights.

Q3. Create an outline of a lesson plan for any one grammar item from the following list (other
than what has been stated).

Nouns

Articles

Verbs

Pronouns
Adjectives

Remember to mention the following:

Objective:

Students will be able to define different types of nouns - including proper nouns, pronouns,
singular and plural nouns.

Students will be able to identify nouns in a sentence

Age: Grade 3

Language level: simple

Time Duration: one week

Aids: black board

NOUNS LESSON PLAN

Procedure

Teachers -- tell the students: a fun activity might be to have the students look
around their classroom, and write down everything they see. Have each student
read one or more of their items out loud - most of these will be nouns. Next,
have the students organize these nouns into categories of "people, places, or
things."
(Ex. desk, chair, teacher, Sam, pencil, book, chalkboard, floor...)

Proper Nouns

Proper nouns are nouns that name a certain place, like New York City, or a
certain person, like Abraham Lincoln. Proper nouns begin with a capital letter.
Examples of Proper Nouns:

Main Street
Dr. John Smith
Phoenix, Arizona
Spot
United States
East Elementary

Pronouns

Pronouns are words that can take the place of nouns. When talking about yourself, you would
say "me" or "I" instead of your own name.

Examples of pronouns:

I
she
me
it
he
they

Wrong: Heidi called Kyle to ask Kyle if Kyle could meet Heidi at the park. (This sentence doesn't
make sense - no pronouns.)

Correct: Heidi called Kyle to ask him if he could meet her at the park. (Substitutes the pronouns
him and he for Kyle, and her for Heidi.)

Singular and Plural Nouns

Singular nouns are nouns that name one person, one place or one thing.

Example:

cup
dog
toy

Plural nouns are nouns that name more than one person, place, or thing.

Example:
cups
dogs
toys

To change most nouns from singular to plural, add the letter s. But for nouns that end in s, ss,
ch, sh, or  x, add -es to show more than one.

Singular
bus
dish
box
bench

Plural
buses
dishes
boxes 
benches

Some plural nouns have to be spelled in a new way:

Singular
goose
child
man
person

Plural
geese
children
men
people

Teachers: Write these example sentences on the board. Then have students try to identify the
nouns, as well as tell what type of noun it is.

Example 1
Bill and Bob drove their car to Chicago. They were tired.
(Bill, Bob, Chicago - singular, proper nouns. They - pronoun)
Example 2
Disneyland, in California, is her favorite place to visit. 
(Disneyland, California = singular, proper nouns.)

Example 3
She lives near the Atlantic Ocean.
(She = singular, pronoun. Atlantic Ocean = proper noun.)

Section B

Write about your past formal or informal language learning experiences. Would you
consider them to be effective or ineffective? Give reasons for your answer. (max.
Word limit 500 words)

I have learnt many languages as part of life like Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and
English. The main purpose to learn English is to become an English teacher for native
and non native speakers.

I done my schooling in Telugu medium so I was not confident to speak English I took a
challenge to learn to Speak as well as write professionally by reading news papers,
magazines ,books, and refer the meaning in the dictionary, write own stories page to
pages.

I don’t say i have learnt everything but still I am learning through the above mentioned
way, my main challenge to learn is to teach English to the International students. I have
a plan to go abroad.

I can say it is effective some times while learning I found it difficult to speak especially to
the English people (Anglo- Indians etc.,) Since i have gone through the process of
learning now I am confident to speak and write but still need to Improve , I am
practicing to speak as native speakers through you tube listening to lot of conversation
writing stories and by reading books.