On the forum: Evaluating materials

On the forum: Evaluating materials

Forum link

For this session’s forum task, choose one of the following options.

Option 1

For the Output task for this session, in addition to sketching out a sequence of PTs for your chosen Target Task, you’ll need to supply a piece of material to support any one of the PTs. Here is your chance to get some peer feedback on that material before submitting the full Output task.

Your material could be:

  • A reading or listening (transcript or audio/video) to introduce input for the main task, or another kind of pre-task activity to prepare learners for the main or ‘exit’ task
  • Support for the main or exit task, e.g. task instructions, role cards, template to be completed by learners
  • A post-task activity such as an evaluation of task performance, language focus or similar

Please go to the forum and attach your material to the post by Thursday February 18th, along with a brief description of its purpose and use.

Finally, choose one other piece of material posted, and provide constructive feedback. How could this material be improved?

Option 2

Choose any of the materials provided in the Reading for this session (either in the folder or online), or choose another piece of material that is available to others. Write a comment with an evaluation of that material in terms of, for example:

  • The extent to which it respects Skehan’s (1998) definition of a pedagogic task (meaning-focused, relates to real-life, is assessed on outcome, etc.)
  • Its suitablility for the target community of learners (if specified)
  • Its effectiveness in supporting task performance and how this could be improved
  • How it could be tweaked in terms of task complexity variables or task conditions (open/closed, etc.), and to what ends
  • Any other relevant observations!

Please post by Thursday February 18th. Look at any other evaluations posted, and respond to say how far you agree or disagree with the evaluation.