Professional Documents
Culture Documents
DATE
SUPERVISOR
RESEARCHER
PROGRAMME
OPTION
TESL-2
SCHOOL
TITLE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The notion of using newspaper text as a resource for language learning is not very
original. In Malaysia for example, the leading English language dailies the New
Straits Times and The Star run well established and widely employed Newspaper in
English (NIE) initiatives in Malaysian schools and colleges. This type of project aims
to encourage the use of the newspaper as a language learning resource. Penny Ur's
popular classroom ideas book has several suggested activities that utilize newspaper
text (Ur 1988). In an edition of a leading English language teaching (ELT) journal
two articles appear which exploit newspaper articles; one of the purpose of "language
awareness" (Wright and Bolitho, 1993) and the other for "genre analysis"
(Flowerdew, 1993). There are examples of whole textbooks devoted to the
exploitation of newspaper based material for language learning purposes. "Scoop" by
Barry Baddock (1984) is one such title.
In this article the focus will be on the use of newspaper material for the purpose of
exploring the grammar of English. Whatever the different arguments, positions and
ideas put forward by ELT professionals about the role and nature of grammar, no
serious teacher"... interested in the development of second and foreign language has
ever suggested that learners do not need to master the grammatical system of the
target language..." (Nunan, 1991: 152)Or take the position of Widdowson (1990)
who states that: "language learning is essentially learning how grammar functions in
the achievement of meaning..." (ibid: 1987) Since then there has been a growing
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realization that effective communication and effective grammar are linked, grammar
allows us "to mean" in a language. The need for grammar therefore is a real one.
What the more recent emphasis on learner centeredness and communication in ELT
has done is to encourage a more imaginative and eclectic approach to the area of
grammar teaching and learning. We now have an ideal where grammar is not the sole
focus of lessons but rather an integral part of learning to communicate effectively in
the target language. Into this frame, newspaper text as a resource for grammar
activities fits in. 97) The debate on how best to teach English as a second or foreign
language seeks to facilitate the development of target language competence in
learners, in the most effective way. This debate has necessarily included the issue of
what grammar to teach, how to teach it, how much to teach, and how explicitly to
teach it. There seemed to be an assumption at one point that increasingly '~modern"
methodology and approaches were marginalizing the role and importance of
grammar (or at least formal grammar study) in the EL classroom. This was
articulated by EL course designers in Kuwait for instance, who asked: "If language is
a means of communication, does it not seem more important to you to make
somebody understand what you want or make a grammatically perfect statement?"
(Sawaan)
1.1 Reflection on Past Teaching Experience
During the teaching and learning process I always try to provide an environment that
will allow pupils to express themselves and contribute ideas.In each lesson pupils are
given grammar exercises even if they do not know how to answer the question
correctly. However, during the whole process I find that my pupils especially in the
lower class answer the question with high grammatical error.When explained they
actually understand what the question wants but they do not know how to answer the
question with the correct grammar.
For one month, I was asked to teach Year 4 Dedikasi which was the third class from
six classes. My first number of pupils was thirty-eight pupils. Since the pupils are
from the third class of six classes, they could understand what I said butcould not
respond well. The one thing that I detected when I was teaching was they did their
best when I offered them a token as a reward for correct answers
The first thing I thought of was the discipline problem. There were so many
complaints about the class from other teachers. I took it as a challenge for myself and
ignored the negatives perception of the class. I taught them even though they
misbehaved each time I entered the class. For the first two weeks, I tried really hard
to establish their discipline problems. Once when I was teaching in the class, two
boys were fighting at the back and one of them cried. I was bewildered because they could not
restrain their misbehaviour during my lesson. I had come up with the class rules on the first day
I entered the class but that did not work.
In the next lesson, I started to use token as a reward for good conduct and correct
answers. Each time they behaved properly or answered correctly I rewarded them a token.
When they did things that displeased me, I took one token out. With this, I managed to get
them to behave during my class. I did the token system based on Skinner(1938), who proposes
that giving the reinforcements will result to the desired behaviour from the target. This theory
worked well for the last two practicums that I had undergone. My school pupils were weak in
all the four language skills based on the poor achievement in examinations.
I tried to speak one hundred percent in English with them because if I were to be
observed by my headmaster, it would not seem professional if I spoke in Malay. However,
when I communicated in English with them, none of them understood me completely. Some of
them can speak English but lot of grammar mistake They were always whispering indicating
that they did not understand me. Due to this problem, I decided to come up with the way to
improve their grammar. And every time they did not understand me, I explained the words by
doing actions and gestures to describe the words. I only used Malay when they could not
understand my explanation in English.
My experience tells me that placing specific grammar structures within their larger
conceptual framework is more helpful to students than a random, piecemeal approach to
explicit grammar teaching. Let's continue with the example of participial adjectives. If students
already understand that -ing can signify the active meaning of a transitive verb and that the -ed
can signify a passive meaning (whether they know the terminology or not), the difference
between boring and bored becomes less difficult for the teacher to demonstrate or the student
to grasp than if the student had no understanding of active vs. passive meanings.
Teachers must set goals for the things that the pupils have to achieve so that we know
they are improving from time to time. A lot of things have to be considered when a teacher sets
the goals for his pupils which are the proficiency level, the pupils interest on the subject, and
the pupils work in the subject. Our job as teachers is to guide them and lead them to proper
way of doing things in the future. I wished that I could help the pupils to understand and love
English because whenever I entered the class, the pupils always told me that English was
difficult. As an English teacher I want my pupils to love English as a second language because
in the current world, English is very important.
have difficulty in internalising grammar rules, although these have been taught intensively
(1996, cited in European Commission, 2006).
Newspapers bring to our students real life situations and can be easily used as authentic
materials. Newspaper-based activities engage students in interesting and enjoyable activities
and they also encourage them to further reading. They usually reflect the culture of a certain
community through the language they contain. It reflect the changes in the language as well,
and in doing so, help students and teachers keep up pace with such changes. Most
newspapers are linguistically up-to-date and
provide valuable linguistic data` (Tafani, 2004).
In Malaysia local English language newspaper text is widely available. It is also of high
standard and offers a good range of choice with four titles (three morning and one evening*) in
West Malaysia alone.
Newspaper text is an example of real life language data. For learners with a limited English
language environment, newspapers can be a source of enrichment and increased language
exposure. This is important given the link that has been postulated between increased levels of
target language exposure and correspondingly enhanced degrees of target language competence
(Ismail, 1991).
The language in newspapers tends to be more current and mainstream. Other types of text such
as those extracted from literary or specialized sources may present encounters with idiomatic,
regional, colloquial, and esoteric or technical usage. Fossilized or stylistic idiosyncracsies may
occur. These features may be distracting in a general ELT context.
There is a wide range of routine grammar topics which can be found in newspaper text. The
extent of the topics is limited only by the imagination of the teacher.
2.0 WHAT IS MY FOCUS OF INVESTIGATION?
Grammar skills is an important skill in foreign language learning. Students are expected
to be competent and to develop grammar skill in both formal and informal situation in. It
needs to be supported by English components; grammar together with vocabulary and
pronunciation which are taught appropriate with standard competence at School. The
students are expected to be able in speaking, it means they are able to share ideas and
opinions to listeners through English speaking. Grammar skill is viewed as the measure of
competency. It is the requirement that is important for success of Malaysian students in
welcoming globalization era.
Improving grammar skill involves a process of building and sharing means through the
use of language orally and the students will know the way how to express language
communicatively. They will learn how to express utterances meaningfully. It also leads
them to make interaction in the societyby using language since to be able to use grammar
correctly is one of important skils that should be mastered by the students in learning
English language.
Teaching grammar is considered to be one of the most challenging parts whilst teaching
English as language subject. By using newspaper text will make the learning process simpler
and easy to reach. Newspaper text is easy to physically manipulate. Itcan be cut out,cut up,
jumbled up, rearranged, combined, pasted etc. If reprographic facilities such as photocopying
are available, newspaper text is an excellent medium for the preparation of presentable
materials through the cut and paste method. Alternatively, a whole page or section or
newspaper can be utilized with learners seeking out examples of certain language features or
following teacher rubrics to do tasks on the text.
2.2 Analysis of Preliminary Investigation Issue
There is the issue of language data quality. Some question the standard of English found in
some newspaper writing. While acknowledging this concern, it is important to point out that
such a problem can be seen as an opportunity for language work in the area of error analysis
and correction. The style of newspaper journalism, the journalistic genre, is cited as a problem
too. For example the "telegraph" nature of headlines presents samples of language not
commonly encountered outside newspapers and which could be accused of being
ungrammatical "journalese". Headlines however, provide ample material for language work.
Learners can be asked to rewrite headlines as "proper", full sentences for example.
In this research, I wish to present a case for the use of newspaper text as suitable material for
the teaching of grammar in the English language classroom in Malaysia. As well as considering
the rationale for the employment of such material despite several possible constraints that
might arise and ways to overcome them.
In education, there are lots of problems and issues faced by teachers. To narrow the scope,
there were many problems occurred in my classroom as well. Thus as a teacher, I should pay
close attention to the problems faced by the pupils. Problems and issues will never be easy to
handle but they also will make teachers improve a lot in the teaching practice. How a teacher
handles the problems will make the teacher have high ethics and accountability of being a
teacher. So as a teacher, I have to try my very best to overcome these problems.
Grammar is one of the English skills, which should be mastered by student. By mastering
grammar skill better, student may converse themselves in baslic interactive skills such as
greeting, apologizing, thanking, introducing, asking or offering something. It is an
assumption that somebody who mastered English should posses a good grammar skill.
Generally, teaching is not only transferring knowledge to the students, but it is also guiding
students to become successful in their own fields. The aim of this research is to encourage
primary student to use also use English newspaper in ESL classroom. Learning English
may become fun learning if we can use various methods such as English newspaper.
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The issue of grammar and its place in the ELT syllabus is not confined to ideology or
methodology. The definition of the term is difficult in itself. Crystal's interpretation (1971) of
grammar as the "... patterns of syntax, word structure (morphology) and meaning..." (ibid: 55)
appears to offer a reasonable working definition for the purposes of a simple paper like this.
The descriptive categories used in the examples and descriptions that follow are labels that are
familiar and "traditional" in the sense that they represent a shared grammar metalanguage. Of
course there may be quibbles about the exact purview of terms and the scope of definitions, but
generally the categories used are part of the common terminology ELT professionals and
learners use to depict the grammar of English.
Student
Nurul Shafiqah bt
Mohd Adam
Nurul Nazira bt
Shukur
Father
Mother
Mid-year
2013
End-year
2013
Mid-Year
2014
Teacher
Housewife
60 B
62 B
62 B
Housewife
74 B
68 B
70 B
Engineer
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5.0 ACTION
I had taken a few actions when conducting this research. The use of outside material is more
demanding on teachers. I have to organize, design and produce tasks to exploit newspaper test as
well as select the text in the first place. Using an article or newspaper text may throw up points of
student questions that the teacher does not anticipate. The use of provided and prescribed course
text offers ..time and cost benefits to teachers and schools.. (Richards, 1992:4) Newspaper text
does offer the most flexible and ease in terms of its use for supplementing course material. As
mentioned before, it is physically easy to manipulate and commonly available. Task rubrics can be
given orally or written on the board. Using newspaper text for extra materials allows us teacher, to
tailor activities to the students needs and provides teachers with opportunity toengage in some
professional reflection through the deliberation of questions about the role and purpose of the
material:
What do I want my students to do by way of this material which in case is the newspaper;
What exercise, task or activity can I think of that will do what I want it to do for my students;
How best can I (through newspaper) assist my students in the realization of syllabus requirements
in this area (grammar?)
5.1 Procedures Of Actions
To find out whether the teacher uses different kinds of approaches and strategies during
teaching and learning process by observation and questionnaire.
Use colored pen to focus on grammar points. For example, if you are studying verbs
that take the gerund or the infinitive, have students highlight these combinations using one
color for gerunds and another color for infinitives. Another option is to have students
highlight different tenses in different colors.
Photocopy an article from a newspaper. White out key grammar items that you are
focusing on and have students fill in the blank. For example, white out all the helping verbs
and ask students to fill them in.
Review the definition of a noun with your class. Then have them select a story from the
front page of today's newspaper and find the nouns. They can underline the people they find
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in red, the places in blue and the things in green. Then make a list of nouns you can find
looking around your classroom
5.11 Procedure
Grammar test 1
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
: Pupils to build a mind map and list down things they may see at library, Park,
Market and Night Market
Grammar test 2
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
: Using color markers, the pupils underline the people in red, the places in blue
and the things in green.
Aspect No.
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
Aspect
Pupils Participation
Pupils Learning Acquisition
Pupils Work
Teachers Preparations and Planning
Methodology
Communication Skills
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7
8
9
10
11
12
4.7
4.8
4.9
4.10
4.11
4.12
6.2 Questionnaire: A set of Questionnaire will be given to the particular teacher. Refer to
Appendix B2.
The questionnaire will focus on the teachers own opinions towards how she teach English
in the particular class and the usage of language games.
6.3 Interviews: Interview with students will be done with the questions will be set based on
how they feel when playing language games and how the games affect them. Refer to
Appendix B3.
6.4 Pre-Test: A set of Pre-Test question will be given to the students after the interviews. Refer
to Appendix B4. The question will test the students vocabulary based on the words
allocated in the Curriculum. Appendix B5.
6.5 Observation 2: Still using the same SKPMsStandard 4 Instrument and after all
interventions had been done, the English teacher will be asked to conduct a lesson that
includes the language game strategy. The lesson plan (Appendix B6) will be provided by the
researcher.
6.6 Post Test: Using the same type of test but different questions as in the Pre-Test, students are
again asked a series of questions but this time the students may use the Bubble Map
thinking skill to help them. (Appendix B7)
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and by using a formula that has been determined, the final score will be obtained and the
proficiency level of the teacher could be determined. The levels are as follows:
Percentage
Level of Proficiency
90-100
Excellent
80-89
Good
60-79
Hope
40-59
Satisfactory
20-39
Weak
0-19
Very Weak
Description
All strength in 5 are optimized. There are innovative and creative thinking
applied. Some value-added materials are being used to make sure students
achieved the objectives and overall lesson.
Table 5: Standard 4.5 Methodology Scoring Scheme
After all 12 aspects are scored, then the formula stated below will be used to determine the
final proficiency level of the teacher.
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Formula
Sample Score
60
80.00
Proficiency
Good
17
the researcher would have the opportunity to use simple sentences and rephrasing questions
as the interview goes along in order to make the students understand.Refer to Appendix B3.
The interview is focused on the students background, their interests and also their
perception on the methodology of their English teachers had done with them during their
school hours. This will (hopefully) show whether the methods applied by teachers attracted
the students interests or otherwise.
7.4 Pre-Test
Bachman (1990) who was also quoted by Brown defined a test as a process of quantifying a
test-takers performance according to explicit procedures or rules.
Bachman (1990) also cautioned us to distinguish between quantitative and qualitative
descriptions. Simply put, the former involves assigning numbers (including rankings and
letter grades) to observed performance, while the latter consists of written descriptions, oral
feedback, and non-quantifiable reports.
In this research, there will be two test conducted before and after the intervention planned.
The pre-test (Appendix B4) will be the base score to determine the actual proficiency of
students in vocabulary. The test will be a multiple choice question based on the current
syllabus. Look at the example below:
Which one of these things is a part of a house?
A. Shoe
B. Nose
C. Roof
D. Leg
There will be 40 questions and the score will be kept and compare to the post-test that will
be carried out after the interventions are taken.
7.5 Post-Test
Just like the pre-test mentioned above, the post test (Appendix B5) will be a 40 questions
multiple choice test. The scores will be collected and compare to the pre-test in the table
below:
No.
Student
Pre-Test
Post Test
Difference
Plan
Date / Duration
First Tutorial
5 July 2014
5 - 12 July 2014
13 - 17 July 2014
23 August 2014
10
24 August 19
September 2014
11
12
By 30 September
2014
13
October 2014
14
15
January 2015
16
February 2015
17
February 2015
18
Post Test
19
March 2015
20
April 2015
21
17 July 2014
9 August 2014
10-14 August 2014
16 August 2014
17-22 August 2014
20 September 2014
November 2014
By 26 February 2015
TBA*
*TBA To be advised
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8.2.1.1 The researcher plans out at least a one hour lesson (Appendix B6) for
the class so that the teacher will be able to introduce the language game
to the students.
8.2.1.2 The language game itself is a part of the iThink Programme which the
school is enrolled to since May 2014. And it is the school vision to
become a Thinking School by the end of 2015. (Appendix C1)
8.2.1.3 When students are familiar with the designing and creation of Bubble
Maps, then it will be converted into a game.
8.2.1.4 The game will use cut-out circles that can be pasted on the board with
lines that connect with the circle in the middle as the main idea.
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fly
Pla
y
bu
y
Presen
t tense
drink
catc
h
9.0 REFERENCES
9.1 Multiple resources
9.1.1 Books
9.1.1.1 Chitravellu, N. (2005).ELT Methodology, Principles and Practice,
Oxford Fajar, Selangor.
9.1.1.2 Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching.
Pearson Education Ltd, Edinburgh.
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Magazines
9.1.2.1 The Times
9.1.2.2 Readers Digest
9.1.3
Journals
9.1.3.1 Zhu, D. (2012) Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 3,
No. 4, pp. 801-805
9.1.3.2 Sobhani, M. (2014). Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 4,
No. 5, pp. 1066-1073
9.1.3.3 Intratat, C. (2011). Alternatives for making language learning games
more appealing for self-access learning. Studies in Self-Access
Learning Journal, 2(3), 136-152
9.1.3.4 Wilkins, D. (1972). Linguistics in language teaching.London, UK:
Arnold
9.1.3.5 K. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), reprinted (2004)
by Routledge, Taylor & Francis
9.1.3.6 S. Ackroyd and J. A. Hughes, Data Collection in Context (1981)
Longman
9.1.3.7 Kvale, Steinar (1983). The qualitative research interview: A
phenomenological and a hermeneutical mode of understanding. Journal
of Phenomenological Psychology, 14, 171-196
9.1.3.8 Min.YK.(2013). Vocabulary Acquisition: Practical Strategies for ESL
Students. University of Washington at Bothell (USA)
9.1.4
Online Articles
9.1.4.1 Advantages
and
disadvantages
of
observation.
Strathclyde. http://www.strath.ac.uk/
9.1.4.2 The importance of vocabulary.Frankfurt
University
International
of
School.
http://esl.fis.edu/parents/advice/vocab.htm
9.1.4.3 English as a Second Language (ESL) Teachers: How to Teach
Vocabulary to Beginner and Intermediate ESL Students.ESL Teacher
Guide. http://eslteacherguide.hubpages.com/
10.0
APPENDICES
10.1
A1 - Student 1 Personal Profile
10.2
A2 - Student 2 Personal Profile
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10.3
10.4
10.5
10.6
10.7
10.8
10.9
10.10
10.11
10.12
10.13
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