Page 7 - GAME ON E-BOOK

The second strand requires the learners to learn through meaning-focused

output. The strand involves them to learn through speaking and writing activities.

The learner is expected to convey ideas and messages to another person. Making

other people understand the ideas and messages expressed through language is

the learner’s focus. The condition is the same with the first strand that the activities

will only encompass a small proportion of language features which are unfamiliar

to the learners. The second strand is all about using the language productively.

Often, meaning-focused input and meaning-focused output are combined in many

spoken activities as one learner’s output becomes another learner’s input.

The third strand requires the learners to learn language items; language-

focused learning. The strand involves the deliberate learning of language features

for instance, pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse. The

learners will deliberately focus on language features in both meaning-focused

input and meaning-focused output contexts. The learners will focus on the features

which are simple and rely on developmental knowledge that the learners possess.

However, this strand should only be a small part out of the whole programme or

course. The third strand is all about dealing with the messages, and language

items. Substantial evidence has shown that deliberate learning helps learners

retain a large amount of usable knowledge.

The final strand is called fluency development, and this requires the learners to

become fluent in listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. The learners will be

helped to use what they already know in the best possible way. The fluency

development strand is considered as meaning-focused. The learners are expected

to receive and convey meaning of the ideas and messages. Learners should be

dealing with familiar language features as they listen, speak, read, and write. Nation

and Newton (2009) emphasised that an activity is not regarded as fluency activity if

it involves unknown vocabulary.

This book is a compilation of the activities that were ran by a group of lecturers

from Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan (PIS). The activities incorporated and integrated

these strands and equal amount of time was allocated for each strand. Ideally,

each strand represents 25 percent of the total programme or course time.

The activities meet the pedagogical principles outlined by Nation and Newton

(2009), particularly in terms of repeating the most useful language items, that is,

high frequency items and ensuring materials are controlled and simplified to

provide input accordingly. Additionally, in devising the activities, the learners’

language and communication needs were analysed, monitored and assessed.

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