week?

(This activity is when we were told to use the checklist given to us and evaluate a chapter on a textbook. Then, we need to state what trouble we face and then we need to come up with a solution.)

Textbook Evaluation Checklist

Patricia Byrd and Marianne Celce-Murcia

Evaluation of the fit	Yes (a good fit)	Perhaps (an adequate fit)	Probably (a poor fit)	Absolutely not (wrong for curriculum, students, and/or teachers)
Fit between the textbook and the curriculum
Fits curriculum goals		/
Has appropriate linguistic content	/
Has appropriate thematic content	/
Fits the pedagogical and SLA philosophy of the program/course		/
Fit between the textbook and the students
Explanations understandable and useable for students	/
Examples understandable and useable for students	/
Activities appropriate for students	/
Thematic content understandable	/
Fit between the textbook and the teachers
Fits the language skills of our teachers	/
Fits the knowledge based of our teachers	/
Provides explanation that can be used by our teachers	/
Provides examples that can be used and expanded by our teachers	/
Fits the needs and preference	/
Provides in-book or instructor’s manual support for teachers	/
Overall evaluation of the fit of the book for this course in this program
Should the text be selected		/

In our opinion, this checklist, by Byrd, is not appropriate for an in-depth chapter/textbook evaluation. Looking at this the holistic view, we can see that this checklist seems to be a good evaluation at first but after viewing this checklist analytically, we deduced that this checklist is suitable for the overview of the textbook/chapter. In lay man’s term, this checklist just focuses on whether the textbook/chapter meets the need of the students, teachers and the curriculum, as a whole.

A full analysis of the textbook/chapter is hard to be done because the checklist is too simple and a bit vague. Furthermore, this checklist does not include the micro-evaluation stage that is crucial, even though it contains the macro-evaluation stage.

Our suggestions would be to use this checklist as the overview evaluation and then complemented by another checklist that involves a more in-depth evaluation. Then we can consider the evaluation is good.

Reflection
I never did an evaluation on textbook before. I also never use a checklist before so this experience is really a good thing for me especially since I am going to be a teacher in the future. As a pre-service teacher I guess i can say that I need to look more at other checklist as each have their own advantages and disadvantages. I only used one and its not much so definitely I need to get as much knowledge on these checklist because I will have to use them.
After learning about checklist for textbook, I found it interesting that even textbook is in need of a checklist. I always thought that a textbook is perfect to use for all sort of teaching and everything in it is flawless. So finding a checklist for textbook is really suprising and change my way of thinking on textbook.
Like I said I only used one checklist so to improve my knowledge is by knowing what are the purpose of the checklist as one is not entirely the same as the next.  

not sure what week is this from?

What influenced the building of materials development

1) Principle of SLA influenced the developing of material through theories that have been introduced in SLA.

 -Exposing language in authentic use: things that we do everyday actually play a big role in developing the material for example as easy as starting a conversation or reading, watching or listening English material, if students like to watch English movie or cartoon we can relate the story that they have watched in building the materials.

-Develop confidence: some students have problems with their confidence, what we doesn’t know is those who quiet actually have lot of thought but they are unable to talk about it because of their level of confidence. In order for us to build the material consider those who are quiet, meaning that the material can stimulate the student’s confidence.

2) Principle of teaching and learning.

-Helps learners to feel at ease: using textbook as the only learning material will make the lesson a little boring, with the used of other materials such as graphic, video or audio visual can enhance the lesson quality.

-Maximize learning potential: to build a good material for students teachers have to look through what the students have achieved in their previous lesson therefore the material that teachers have to develop must enhance the students prior knowledge.   

3) Learners + parent’s goal

-Materials that we develop should not always cater their interest but the materials should at least stimulate their interest in learning rather than demolishing the dust, as you can see learners and parent’s goal are connected to each other, this is because both of them share something which is motivation. From the learners point of view we call it intrinsic motivation where students develop their interest within themselves while from the parent point of view its extrinsic motivation where parents motivate their child in learning.

4) Country’s vision + Curriculum goals & objectives

- Both of them connected to each other. For example, other groups have mention about “Celik IT” and ability to speak English. Our country need the students to master in both IT and English therefore the material that we should develop must have the ability to boost the students knowledge about IT  and English. Other than that parent’s goal and country’s vision are connected as well, parent want their children to learn and acquire knowledge therefore the country’s vision have to consider what the parent want, PIBG or PTA here are main roles in building the visions.      

Reflection
I thought that developing a material was only with the goal of helping the learner/student. I never knew that it has so much more than it seem. When I was in primary school, I thought that my teacher always just make material in which ever way she like. But after doing this activity I found that I was wrong.
This greatly affects my knowledge as now I have to look at a few things before and after i finish making my material for the future students. I guess I will need to read more principles and familiarize with it if I want to make a a great material.