In this assignment, I'm going to give a little info about the book which is in use in my school, supply a material and evaluate it in the aspect of its usefullness. The book which I use at school is Backpack 2 by Mario HERRERA and Diane PINKLEY. It includes 9 units and it is full of opportunities to learn through catchy songs and chants, stickers, games, hands-on projects and TPR activities.It also integrates vocabulary, grammar and the four skills.It has a workbook, an audio CD,a CD-ROM and a DVD as corroborative materials. It also has an interleaved teacher's resource book. The CD-ROM provides interactive games and extensive materials including a great number of additional activities. At the back of the book, there are extra materials such as the stickers for each subject , pictures for cut-out activities and a CD-ROM. So not only the teacher has the interactive CD-ROM but also the children have their own ones.
When the book is analised, we can easily see that eac unit is designed in a similar way.It is theme basedi each unit is based on a theme and grammar and vocabulary are presented in the stated theme.
Each unit starts with a song about the topic which generally includes the taget language. This is a good way to make an intro. This type of acivities take students' attention and at the very first moment of the lesson we can involve them in the target language and in the lesson. This may beseen as it can cause management problems when students hear these songs they like to sing, dance, shout, walk around the classroom, but they are really involved in the target language. When I play the songfor the second time, they start to sing it.They learn it subconsciously and this introduction makes my job easier.The second and the third activities are really boring therefore I decided to supplement it. These parts are the presentation sections.In these sections of the book, the target language and vocabulary is given in four or five pictures and in sentences under the pictures it's a kind of reading activity but it doesn't work. It doesn't address my students' needs. Most of the students are visual in this class, that's why I always try to use a good deal of visual supports, especially 3D materials or colourful PPt with animated pictures.I admit that the same lessons are valid for the other activity on the same page.Students are to listen and stick the stickers on the correct place.My stdents don't like this part, they think that it's boring. These are not enough to present a language, if the students are visual ones. I prepared a PPT about the topic , I created a story and made a colourful PPT just like a cartoon. This is more attractive than the book. They have fun when they see the animated pictures. If your students are visual learners, you should visualise your lessons as Herbert Puchta and Günter Gerngross says: “ The video is a medium which captivates their interest. Their attention is clearly focused on the screen. There is a feeling of shared interest. There is more visual variation compared to the static representation in the book and last but not least there is more auditory variation because they hear several voices and there are background noises and there is music. Extensive experience of teaching a foreign language to primary children clearly tells us that teaching stories with the help of a video is an extremely effective strategy which also makes life a lot easier for the teacher.” (Gerngross, Güntern & Herbert Puchta http://www.cambridge.org/elt/joinin/articles/foreignlang.htm)
There are language practice pages and one appliction page. On the language practice pages, the activities are effective. The book asks Ss to write what they have just learnt afterwards there is a speaking ativity as a follow up practice activity. This is an efficient way to reinforce students comprehension. In the application part, the book completes the four skills.It reinforces the comprehension with two listening activities. It is efficient for the auditory students.
Before completing each unit , there is a little booklet about the topic.Students are to tear the page , fold it from the middle and make a booklet.Each of these booklets includes a story. This is an efficient way of revising the target vocabulary or language and giving them in a context.
The best parts of this book are the project,game and assessment sections. After all practice activities, finally students are alone to use the newly learnt language in an enjoyable way. There is no interruption in this part.Students prepare projects and play games. These parts get students closer to language learning.
Additionally , students have the opportunity to evaluate themselves with the help of the assessment pages. They can see and decide what they have learned or not. There is no teacher correction , peer correction or any other interruption during the assessment. They are again alone to make their decisions in the assessment process.
According to my experience, in order to obtain a good understanding of the target language, I need to support the book with the supplementary materials , such as PPT that I’ve mentioned before.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
A powerpoint presentation will support the presentation of the structure. Students have to learn the animals and their habitats.As a story is included in this PPT, student are face to face with a reading text. They also practice spelling, pronunciation of the unknown words as well as practicing reading skill. The story in the PPT will give the target vocabulary in a meaningful context. As it is stated in the article "if the children are interested in understanding the meaning of a text, they involve themselves more actively in the process of comprehension.They are therefore more likely to have feeling of success and develop a positive image of their own language learning capabilities.Positive early language learning experiences can have enormous influence on the child's eagerness to learn and this in turn can be beneficial to their learning in general.(Gerngross, Güntern& Herbert Puchta http://www.cambridge.org/elt/joinin/articles/foreignlang.htm) Therefore, I decided to present the new language through a visualised reading text.
The presentation part of the book “ Backpack 2” wasn’t sufficient enough in terms of input as my students needed much more example sentences given in a context to comprehend the target language. Also the pictures are boring too.These children are the generation of technology and they aren’t interesed in little pictures.I have to address my materials according to their interests.. I thought that a PPT will be efficient and useful. Because they like everything about computer in my lesson and if they see something animated, they really like it.
EVALUATION OF THE MATERIAL
I started my lesson with a song which has a video. They listened and watched it.I asked questions about the video and the song. This activity prepared the students for the lesson. Before watching the PPT , I asked some questions about the story in PPT. By this way, I created reasons for my students to watch the PPT.
Afterwards they watched it , I read the story for them. They were very excited because of the animated pictures. In each movement of the animated pictures , they had much more fun. Besides, they felt that if they are watching a cartoon which is what I actually aimed. They liked the story too. They get involved in the lesson quickly. They enjoyed the activity and were ready to participate more. As there are some unknown words , I put the pictures of them in the PPT in order to make the comprehension clear. After reading the story, they wanted to read it individually and asked and answered some questions. This activity was a good example of reading and speaking practice activities.Everything went just how I have planned before. Timing was very successful too. After they answered comprehension questions, I asked them to make sentences using the target vocabulary that they saw in the PPT . They could get the structure and wrote sentences.
Afterwards, I asked them to open the language practice page of their book. As they saw the target vocabulary and sentence forms.in the PPT, the exercises of the book aren’t challenging for them. While answering the questions, they did scanning totally unconsciously.
The aims were achieved successfully at the end of the lesson. They also practiced the reading strategy “scanning” . presenting the input within a colourful PPT (in a reading text with pictures) was quite beneficial, as a result, I could reach all of my students both the visuals and the auditory learners.
The book doesn’t totally suit my syllabus. I need to teach more input according to my syllabus, but the book gives us just a few . In order to avoid this he lack and to meet the needs of the learners I confirm using supplementary materials apart from the coursebook.
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