Evaluating Resources

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TESL 0150
Resources  Development and Integration

 In Unit 2 one of our tasks was to review and evaluate one of the First Peoples units created by LISTN. I selected the Traditional Aboriginal Education unit from the First Peoples: Learning Materials for Newcomers as a resource to evaluate.
The target learning context for these materials is a CLB 6 LINC class.

The following content objectives are listed in the Teacher’s Guide.
In this unit, students will:
• learn about traditional ways Aboriginal Peoples educated their children before contact with Europeans
 • learn about the importance of oral traditions and the role of Elders as knowledge keepers and teachers in Aboriginal cultures
 • explore some traditional Aboriginal stories from different First Nation communities
 • identify and practice effective storytelling techniques
 • discover how some Aboriginal traditions are being used in schools today to preserve Aboriginal languages and cultures

These objectives focus specifically on the content that students will be exposed to and learn about; they do not identify what students will be able to do at the end of the unit. The unit includes a mix of reading, writing, listening and speaking activities and covers a wide range of CLB competencies. CLB Competency statements for the different skill areas are included throughout the unit before each lesson or activity. I would have liked to have seen a complete list of the listening, speaking, reading and writing skills at the beginning of the unit.

The criteria I selected to evaluate this resource are based on those suggested by Tomlinson and include the following questions.
To what extent does the resource:
·       Help the learners to communicate effectively in English?
·       Include activities designed for different learning styles?
·       Include authentic material?
·       Help the learners develop cultural awareness?
·       Include instructions that the learners will be able to follow?
·       Allow for flexibility or choice?
·       Include activities that allow the learners to make connections?
·       Include a mix of reading, writing, listening and speaking skills?

After reviewing the unit, here are the results of my evaluation.
·       The resource provides opportunities for the learners to communicate effectively in English in a number of ways. There are several discussion activities in which learners share their thoughts and ideas with others before and after a reading or listening passage. There are also several writing activities including note-taking practice, writing a compare/contrast paragraph, writing a journal/blog, and creating a modern fable. Signal words and subordinators are included to help students effectively communicate. Students also have the opportunity to provide and receive peer feedback on their fables.
·       The resource included activities that incorporate various learning styles. There are individual, partner, small group and whole class activities. There are a variety of types of tasks and multiple skill areas are incorporated within most tasks. Students have the opportunity to learn and present their learning in numerous ways, some structured, and some more open.
·       Some of the materials are authentic and are taken from different sources (CBC Ideas Legends Project) whereas others were created specifically for this unit. (Reading passage on Traditional Aboriginal Education) I would have liked to have seen more authentic materials included in the unit.
·       The resource definitely helps learners to develop awareness as it explores themes from Aboriginal people and culture. Learning about Canada’s First Nations is an important part of Canada’s history and culture.
·       The learner instructions were clear and easy to understand. Additional instructions and suggestions were provided in the Teacher’s Guide to assist the teacher in presenting the material. I would have liked the Teacher’s Guide to include more information on how to break up the material in the unit as well as information on approximately how much time would be suggested for each activity.
·       Some of the learner activities allowed for flexibility and choice, while others had all learners completing the same activity. I would adapt some of the activities to incorporate additional opportunities for learners to choose how to present their learning.
·       There are multiple opportunities for learners to make connections between the material presented in different tasks as well as for learners to make connections to their own lives and their own and others’ cultures. For example, there is an interview activity in which learners interview a classmate about the similarities and differences between stories in their cultures.
·       The resource includes multiple activities in all four skill areas: listening, speaking, reading and writing, and many of the activities integrate multiple skills.

After reviewing the unit further, a couple of other modifications came to mind. For the section on Histories, Fables and Folktales I would want to include some authentic Aboriginal stories, and if possible, have an elder come in to share an oral history from their culture. 
For the section where students need to write a compare/contrast paragraph I would provide an example compare/contrast paragraph. The Teacher's Guide has a section on signal words and phrases, as well as subordinators and coordinators, however I would want to provide an example paragraph that showed how they could be used in context. 
For the modern fable writing activity, I would follow the I do, We do, You do teaching strategy. I would begin by modeling writing a fable, and then do a guided writing with the students before having them write one on their own. I did appreciate the fact that the unit included a compare/contrast paragraph outline as well as a self-editing form and a peer editing worksheet. 
The resource meets the content objectives outlined at the beginning of the unit, and the individual tasks align with the CLB Competency statements listed before them.

Overall, I would say that the Traditional Aboriginal Education unit is an excellent resource, and it meets most of the evaluation criteria that I selected. There is an abundance of material and a variety of activities in all skill areas. I would likely pick and choose the components of the unit that I thought would meet the needs of my students and omit those that did not. I would also likely make some adaptations to activities in order to allow for more flexibility and choice. I would also seek out additional authentic materials to supplement some parts of the unit.

LISTN First Peoples: Learning Materials for Newcomers (2016) Retrieved from https://listn.tutela.ca/wp-content/uploads/CLB6-Education-T-2014-07-29.pdf

Tomlinson, B. (Ed.). (2014). Developing materials for Language Teaching. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic.



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