Feedback| Designing My Worksheet

This post is about what kind of feedback I got from my peers for my worksheet.

In the previous post, I shared the process of creating my worksheet, and in the week7’s seminar, we gave each other’s feedback.

I have received several positive feedbacks in terms of the design, layout and context of my worksheet. I have also got some advice from my peers. Most of them are about colour in it as I printed it out with black-and-white colour. There was a reason behind why I printed it black-and-white colour, not colourful print. In my context, there are maximum 40 students in a class and there is a budget restriction depending on a school. Hence, I cannot use a colourful copy for my every worksheet. For the realistic reason, I wanted see how I could exploit black-and-white colour density to a visually attractive worksheet.

Other feedback was about images and photos. I did not include any of them in my worksheet. My lesson plan was using PowerPoint to show some photos of students’ local area whilst they have discussion but it would have been better if I additionally added some different photos in my worksheet from the presentation slide. Like one of feedbacks, “some pictures of things associated with the region could prompt discussion”. It might be true that students could come up with some ideas or opinions according to the photos in my worksheet, so I added two photos on page 2.

Moreover, one of my peers gave me a very helpful feedback about the vocabulary box. As you can see, I started every word with a capital letter. However, what she mentioned was that some students might think that they can start every word with a capital letter in a sentence as it is in my worksheet. When creating my worksheet, I had not thought about such potential issue. I realised that this is possibly happened to my learners. Thus, I made a change in the vocabulary box.

Not only have I received all those feedbacks from my peers, but also I have learnt various things through giving my feedbacks and taking a look at others’ worksheets. When I started reading one of my peer’s texts, I was immediately dragged into reading. This is because the title was full of mystery and made me wonder “what was happened?” and “what’s next?”. If I were a student and reading the text, I would be encouraged to read the passage without a bored feeling. Therefore, I personally think that a content of a reading text is very important and can be a motivational factor for students in reading.

After giving each other’s feedback, we had a seminar about the role of comics in ELT. I agree with the lecture how comics (illustration visuals and texts) have a hug impact in learning things. More importantly, it is FUN! From my experience, I have realised that some students prefer reading comics to reading only texts, and I am also one of them. When I was a student in a primary school, I could not understand how to use an equation at some point. Then, my father bought me a math comic that a Japanese famous TV anime character explains how to use the equation to solve questions. After that, I could manage to deal with it. Furthermore, I was not able to like a history textbook at all as a secondary school student, so I read history comics at the library instead of reading a textbook. All I know about history now is from the comics I read. Therefore, integrating comics in ELT can be a beneficial aspect for students.

From the seminar, I thought that it might be better if I manage to learn how to draw a comic and create my own so that I can control my materials as I want them to be. Probably, my next individual objective is to learn basics of how to draw comics, or I could ask students to create comic strips for worksheets. Some students like to draw comics, so it would be great for them to have an opportunity to show their work in a class.

Bibliography

Chamberlin, B. (2001) How can visuals support and enhance the second language learning process? MA Dissertation, University of Brighton.