Bristol Group MOE WKC English Teacher Training Project

Day 6 Session 3 (Wednesday, 15 Oct. 2014, 11:00-12:30pm)

SUPPORT STRATEGIES AND MEETINGS THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS BY PETER

Being assessed on subject content in a non- native language can be a challenge for our learners. In the midst of understanding the content itself, they have to acquire the language in order to grab everything. Here, teacher plays an important role to ensure that the learners are well aware of the learning outcomes and criteria for their assessment. In order to do so, the teacher should know how to provide ample support before and during assessment plus the appropriate or inappropriate moment to do so.

In Peter’s class; Support strategies and meetings the needs of all learners, we were exposed to the ideas of support strategies. Support is essential for learners especially when they have to learn the subject content through non-native language. Therefore, what the teacher can do here is to try to modify the assessment and provide suitable support strategies. It is very crucial as they would be able to express their answer in writing or even orally. Teacher’s role here is to accommodate learners to suit their need plus to move towards learner autonomy. According to Peter, the best and basic way to accommodate the learners is through task differentiation itself.

There are so many examples of activities applicable to support the learners. We could do sentence paraphrasing, providing glossary, adding visual and giving simpler instruction for the weaker learners. Something new that I learned from this topic is the teacher is allowed to use L1 to explain the instruction. For five years of my study in TESL, this is quite surprising. We had been conditioned to try as much as we can to not to use the L1 in teaching language. Entering the real deal in teaching, I realize that sometimes I have to use the L1 to deliver the instruction and I thought I had done it wrongly. Apparently, it is applicable and it is not wrong at all! Peter added, it can be done in order to save time explaining the instruction and gets into the real business ASAP but bear in mind, it needs to be under control and limited or bilingually.

One example of support strategy that I have always used in my class is giving feedback. It is very crucial for us to know the focus and the purpose of feedback. We need to guide the learners and provide space for them to improve. To know our focus and purpose of feedback is to give them a definite and specific feedbacks or comments so that they know what to improve, where to change or how to do it. Having a specific and definite feedback will enable them to be fully aware of what to do next. I realize that sometimes learners keep on doing the same mistakes over and over again. It seems like they never learn. We have been doing it the wrong way perhaps. Having low proficiency learners, I need to take this matter into serious consideration. Learners are unclear of their mistakes. We don’t explain it well enough and we don’t provide them with enough support to improve and change for better. We can’t simply blame them now for not making any progress.

So, I learnt a lot in this class. Talk about motivation specifically, our learners can easily give up and refuse to accept the knowledge we give them. Basically, they do not receive a proper support. Failing few times, making mistakes and keep repeating it can be a frustrating experience. Thus, teachers have to make sure that learners don’t simply get the test paper, look at their grade given by the teacher, put it in a file and throw it away...

PREPARED BY:

ZAM ZARINA MD ZAIN

SELANDAR COMMUNITY COLLEGE, MELAKA