LESSON 2: TEACHING FOR MEANING AND ACCURACY

UNIT IN TEACHING AND LEARNING THE MOTHERTONGUE

As future teachers of Mother Tongue as a subject, you are expected to play the role of a language teacher; thus, it is vital that you understand the nature and dynamics of communication and language learning. In this unit, Teaching and Learning the Mother Tongue, you will be exposed to the five macro skills of communication and the teaching and learning strategies that you can use in the classroom for your young learners to acquire and enhance these skills. A variety of instructional activities will be provided for analysis and you are expected to design your own instructional activities in your chosen Mother Tongue. In addition, lessons on choosing and developing on-grade and culturally relevant instructional materials are also covered in this unit. Hopefully, the tasks that you will complete here will equip you with the adequate knowledge and skills to teach Mother Tongue as a learning area.

LESSON 1 THE MACRO SKILLS OF COMMUNICATION

Lesson O bjectives: At the end of the lesson, students are expected to: • familiarize themselves with the macro skills that are essential for them to communicate effectively; • see and understand the interconnectedness of these macro skills in communication; • draw out possible topics for instruction based on their understanding of the macro skill and the sample classroom activities; and create a "proficiency criteria" for each macro skill. Instructional M aterials Needed: a copy of an exemplar of a printed text in the learners' Mother Tongue (e.g. short story, news article, folk tale, song lyrics), video recording that shows an individual's proficiency in speaking and listening, and sample commercial video appropriate to young learners. (These materials m ay be prepared by the teacher or the students m ay be asked to prepare them prior to this lesson.)

I. ACTIVATE

Learning Activities:

In learning any language, there are skills that everyone needs to acquire and master for him or her to communicate effectively. We call them "macro skills." Macro skills are defined by the skills that constitute it: speaking, reading, writing, and listening. Recent literature adds two more skills: representing and viewing (Barrot, 2016). They are now commonly called as the Six Macro Skills of Communication. These "language macro skills" is divided into "productive" and "receptive" skills.

Your task is to classify the six macro skills mentioned earlier as productive or receptive. Write your answers in the box provided.

Productive Skills

Receptive Skills

Compare your answer to your seatmate. How similar or different are your answers? Explain your classification. Why are certain skills considered as productive while others are considered as receptive? Prepare to share your answers to the class.

II. ANALYZE

Below are sample language classroom activities. For each activity described, do the following: 1. identify the dominant macro skill being targeted by the activity; and 2. list the other macro skill/s that is/are required to be used by the learner in order to execute the activity.

With your seatmate, discuss the following questions: 1. How did you arrive at the dominant skill for each activity? 2. What did you notice about the relationship between and among the macro skills? 3. Do you think it is possible that a single activity will only tap one macro skill? Why do you think so?

III. ABSTRACT

In the previous activity, you learned about the overlap and interconnectedness of the language macro skills. This task should help you understand the macro skills on a deeper level. From here, we will only focus on the five macro skills (i.e. reading, writing, listening, viewing, and speaking) covered by the Mother Tongue Curriculum Guide prescribed by the Department of Education.

Below is a matrix that contains the language macro skills. You will find in column 2 some keywords that are related to the macro skill.

In triads, complete the table by developing a definition of the language macro skill using the keywords in column 2, and by identifying the possible ' lesson topics in teaching a specific language macro skill (see example below). Write at least three-lesson topics for each macro skill.

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4

Language Macro Skill Keywords Description of the Skill Possible Lesson Topics

Listening "understand, interpret and evaluate"

Ex. Listening for Details

Speaking "building and sharing meaning"

Reading "draw meaning" and "interpret information"

Viewing "perceiving, examining, interpreting and constructing meaning"

Prepare to share to the class your definitions and sample lesson topics.

IV. APPLY

When or how do you know that a language macro skill has been acquired and mastered by a learner? What does "proficiency" in each of the macro skill mean? What are the measures of-proficiency for each macro skill?

Your final task (and learning) for the lesson on macro skills involves determining the measure of proficiency for each macro skill. The class will be divided into five and each group is assigned to a specific macro skill. Each group is expected to accomplish the following: 1. Find an "exemplar" or model material that will exhibit proficiency of an individual in a particular macro skill;

Example:

For reading and writing: A copy of an exemplar of a printed text in the learners' mother tongue (e.g. short story, news article, folk tale, song lyrics).

For speaking and listening: A video recording that shows an individual's proficiency in speaking and listening.

For viewing: A sample commercial video appropriate to young learners.

Analyze the material by answering these questions; a. What are the strengths of the exemplar or the model material? b. Why do you consider the material as an exemplar? What are the distinctive characteristics of the material that depicts proficiency in a particular macro skill? 2. Create a "proficiency criteria"for the macro skill assigned to your group.