The Role of Printed Materials in
Promoting Reflection in Distance
ELT Teacher Education Programmes
Pranjana Kalita Nath
PhD student, Dept of ELT, Gauhati University, Assam, India
&
Master trainer, AHA Project, British Council - SSA Assam
The context
• Regular Vs Distance training (DE)
• Different approach in DE
• Discussion on reflection often situated in
regular training (Teacher present as facilitator)
Why discussion on printed materials
• Most common practice of course delivery in
DE in India
• Even now, printed materials are used more
than other options
• Discussion applicable to other modes to some
extent
Self learning materials (SLMs) and
Reflection
• Characteristics
– Self-learning, self-directed, self-explanatory, selfguided
• Apprehensions
Promoting reflection
Presenting print materials in such a way that they
• Provide stimuli for thinking
• Engage learners in activities
• Help them use the ability to reflective skills
• Why
– Adult learners
– Learner autonomy
– Fill the gap created by absence of teacher
What to do
‘…….instructional designers and academics should allow
distance learners to be more reflective, to give personal
views on topics, to debate and argue their points of
view, to question information given by the instructor
and textbooks, based on personal observations and
knowledge acquired elsewhere.’ (Tam 2000)
• Balance between support/input and reflection
or thinking
A Demonstration
Model used: Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (Anderson
et al, 2000)
•
•
•
•
•
•
Create
Evaluate
Analyze
Apply
Understand
Remember
• Reason for choosing
The original text (slightly modified)
Inter-language Interference
There is an influence of the properties of the L1 on the course of L2
learning. The learners transfer sounds, structure and usage from one
language to the other. Transfer is of two kinds – the positive transfer
and the negative transfer. Positive transfer is the result of similarities
between the L1 and L2, while negative transfer is the result of
differences between the two. The latter is known as interference.
Positive transfer makes it acceptable to use the L1 habits in the L2
settings. For example, the assumption that the subject goes before all
other units in a positive sentence satisfactorily transfers from Telegu to
English. On the other hand, in negative transfer L1 habits cause errors
in L2. For example, Subject-Object-Verb order does not satisfactorily
transfer from Telegu to English.
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Language Transfer/Interference
English is not our mother tongue. In most cases in
our daily life, we talk in our mother tongue, i.e. in Tamil,
Telegu, Assamese, etc. So when we speak in the second
language, i.e. English, it is often influenced by our mother
tongue. This is called interference or language transfer.
For example, Assamese people often find it
difficult to pronounce /f/ or /ʃ/ because it not there in
their mother tongues. So while speaking in English, they
often pronounce ‘ship’ as /sip/ instead of /ʃɪp/and /phan/
instead of /fæn/. Have you ever noticed such influence
among the people in your region? If yes, make a list of
them below. (If you are an in-service teacher, you might
think of your students coming from different regions, and
note if you observed any such influence among your
students.)
……………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………
Introduci
ng the
topic
Example
Think
of own
context
Think of
own
classroom
context
APPLY
In the example given above regarding Assamese speakers, the
speakers transfer sounds from their mother tongue to English.
Sometimes the structure or other features might also be
transferred. For example, Telegu speakers easily transfer subject
in the sentence-initial position to English language, because it is
there in Telegu language also. For example,
In Telegu, Manamu andaramu Bharateeyulam.
(Subject)
In English, We all are Indians.
From the above two examples (the first one in
Assamese context and the second one in Telegu context), we can
see that language transfer can be of different types. In the first
case, transfer happened due to differences between the two
languages (Assamese and English). This phenomenon is called
negative transfer. In the second case, transfer was the result of
similarities between the two languages (Telegu and English). This
is called positive transfer.
Now think of some more examples of positive and
negative transfers from your own mother tongue to English
language. Make some notes in the following space.
……………………………………………………………
Example
s&
informat
ion
More
info
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According to you how is language transfer relevant to language
teaching? In case of positive transfer, we don’t need to worry at all.
But negative transfer calls for specific strategies for language
teaching. As a language teacher, which of the following things
would you do with your students if you find negative transfer?
1. Ignore it
2. Explain the concept of negative transfer
3. Ask students not to be influenced
4. Design activities focusing on areas of negative transfer to
minimize it
When you are aware about the areas of negative transfer among
your students, that will help you to identify the areas to work on to
help your students improve their English. For example, if you find
that many of your students find it difficult to use the verbs ‘drink’
and ‘eat’ because there is one single word to refer to both in their
native language, you can design activities around this learning
point. So we can see that Option 4 given above is correct.
Now look at the following case study.
Next steps:
1. (Case study) a teacher designs an
activity focusing on an area of negative
transfer.
EVALUATE
CREATE
2. A list of a number of activities. Learner
will choose which one is appropriate for
a particular case of negative transfer.
3. Guiding learners to design an activity
appropriate for addressing a particular
case of language transfer.
Analyzing the activity
• Scaffolding for reflection
• First step may not be reflection oriented; gradual shift
to advanced reflective skills
• Input between steps
• Other features of SLM
– personalization (personal pronouns, slightly
informal language, direct questions)
– simple language: short sentences, small paragraph
• Contextualization
THANK YOU