Comprehending Simple Instruction - Students' Handout

  

Comprehending Simple Instruction : A Lesson Plan for Vocational School - Culinary Department

LESSON PLAN

School                       : SMK Negeri 2  Malang

Subject                      : English

Department               : Culinary

Grade / Semester       : XI / 4

Time                          : 2 x 45 minutes

A.    Standard of Competency : Communicating English at Elementary Level

B.     Basic Competency            : Comprehending Simple Instructions

C.    Indicators                          :

·                Students are able to identify  instructions in cooking process

·                Students are able to arrange a cooking process in order

·                Students are able to produce instructions for cooking process

                                                                                         

D.    Learning Objectives:

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

·           Identify connectors of sequence

·           Identify verbs used in cooking process

·           Match the instruction that they hear with the picture

·           Arrange pictures of cooking process in order based on what they listen

·           Reproduce instructions of cooking process orally

·           Describe sequence of  cooking process orally

E.  Teaching Materials:

a)      Vocabulary

·         Connector of Sequence :- First, ...- Next, ...- Then...- Finally...

·         Verbs used in cooking : mince, peel, slice, add, pour, boil, fry, etc

b)     Text Type :  Authentic Cooking Instructions (Audio File)

LISTENING TRANSCRIPT :

How to Make Jambalaya

Instructor          : Good  Evening, everyone

Students           : Good evening          

Instructor          : Last class, we learnt how to make new England clamp chopper. This time we’re going to learn to cook a dish from the southern part of US. Has anyone heard of jambalaya?

Student A         : It’s a kind of seafood dish, isn’t it?

Student B         : Yeah, I ate it when I was in New Orlean last year. It was pretty spicy.

Instructor          : Did you like it?

Student B         : Yeah, it was good. I’d like to learn to make it.

Instructor          : Thats’s we’re gonna make it tonight. Jambalaya is from Lousiana, it’s called Cajun food. I think you’ll find it easy to make. It has alot of ingredient, but they are all necessary for a good jambalaya. So here we go. Let’s see the first thing we have to do is fry the meet, now, while the meat is frying, I’ll chop up the vegetable. Uhm we need to chop up onion some celery, the green pepper and some garlic. Okay, next we want to add the vegetable to the meat and fry them, sautage them actually, in butter, for about five minutes. Are there any questions while the vegetables are frying?

Student C         : You just fry vegetable and meat together?

Instructor          : That’s right. In the mean time, I’ll cut up the tomatoes. Now we add them to the frying pan. Tomatoes don’t need much cooking. Hmm, ohh, it’s looking tasty. Now, let’s see. Next, we have to stir in all those spices. Spices are the heart of the jambalaya. There’s chilli powder, three different kind of pepper, and tobasco sauce.

Student A         : What kind of pepper?

Instructor          : Owh, white pepper, black pepper adn cayenne pepper.. That makes it hot and spicy. Now, while the spices are cooking, I’ll peel the shrimp. Everyone has peeled the shrimp before, right?

Students           :Yeaaah!!!!

Instructor          : O good, Ok. Now we put everything together in this large pot, the meat and vegetable, the shrimp and two cups of chicken broth. Then give it a stir. Make sure you stir really thouroughly, especially with all the spices and everything.   ok that’s about it. Now we just cook the mixture.

Student C         : How long?

Instructor          : Well, once, it starts to boil we stir them with rice, then lower the heat put it in a pot  and then let it cook for about 35 minutes. While we’re letting it cooked, ...

c)      Grammar Review :

·         Simple Present

For instructions or directions
e.g. Open the packet and pour the contents into hot water.

·         Subordinating Conjunctions : while, when, as

e.g. While the meat is frying, I’ll chop up the vegetable.

F.   Methods of Instruction :

·         Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) focusing on integrated Listening and Speaking Skills

·         Dictogloss Technique

G.  Teaching Procedure :

a.       Pre-Activity (15 minutes)

1)   Greeting then checking student’s attendance

2)   Apperception

·      Teacher puts some raw food/vegetable on the table, then review the vocabulary.

·      Students are asked whether they have once cooked them, and mention the name of the food/dish

3)   Orientation

·      Teacher mentions some verbs of cooking process ( peel, cut, chop, slice, add, etc) and demonstrate it.

·      Students match pictures and the suitable verbs

4)   Motivation

·      Students are asked to choose a vegetable and mention any possible verbs to process it based on their experience

b.    Whilst Activity:

1)   Exploration (25 minutes)

·         Students are asked to watch a cooking video clip

·         Students identify food processing verbs

·         Students identify the connectors of sequence

·         Students reproduce the cooking process they watched orally

2)   Elaboration (40 minutes)

·            Students listen to a monologue on cooking process.

·            Students arrange the jumbled pictures into a good order  according to what they listen.

·            Students jot down important words showing process and the sequence

·            Students reproduce the cooking process orally using the pictures.

·            Students are requested to give alternative cooking process for the same dish  based on their experience

3)   Confirmation (10 minutes)

·            Students are asked to give comment to the alternative given

c.    Post Activity

·               Students are requested to find a typical cooking process around the world for  their homework.

H.  Resources Books and Media

1.    Media  : Realia ( potatoes, carrots, spinach, cabbage etc), Cooking Video Clip,  Audio File, Tape Recorder / Speakers.

2.    Handouts.

3.    Resourcess:

                      ·   Marc Helgessen & Steven Brown , 1994. Active Listening Building. Cambridge University Press, Melbourne

                      ·   ww.youtube.com/watch

I.     Evaluation

Type                      :  Listening Test 

Form                       :  Cloze Test (audio 1) and Multiple Choice (Audio2)

Rubric                     :  

                                  Audio 1 : Cloze Test

Test No.	Criteria
	Correct Word & Spelling	Correct Word but Misspelling	Incorrect Word
1	1	0.5	0
2	1	0.5	0
3	1	0.5	0
4	1	0.5	0
5	1	0.5	0
Score on Cloze Test   : Sum X  40%

                                 Audio 2 : Multiple Choice

Test No.	Criteria
	Correct	Incorrect
6	1	0
7	1	0
8	1	0
9	1	0
10	1	0
Score on Multiple Choice:  Sum of Correct No  X  60%

                               Total Score =   (Cloze Test)  + (Multiple Choice)

Instrument             :  

Audio 1 : Listening Transcript :

Listen to the following instruction and fill in the gaps below.

It's easy to make your own caramel sauce with these tips from Chef Todd Knaster of The Culinary Institute of America. He begins by adding 2 ounces of water to a pan, along with 5 ounces of corn syrup and 7 ounces of of sugar. (As it comes to a boil,___________1) constantly, then stop stirring once the mixture is bubbling vigorously. At this point, it's a good idea to ________2) the sugar crystals forming on the side of the pan with a wet pastry brush. Once the sugar begins to pick up some color, watch it closely, since sugar burns easily. You want to swirl the pan to make sure it cooks evenly, then, ________3)  the heat when you've achieved a deep golden color. At this point, you___________4) the 13 ounces of heavy cream, but do it very slowly so the caramel doesn't seize. Take the pan off the heat and add in the butter, a pinch of salt, and vanilla extract. The sauce will still be very hot at this point, so if you need to cool it quickly,____________5) it into a bowl and set that bowl over a larger bowl of ice water.

Key Answer   :  1) stir   2) wash down 3) turn off  4) add   5) pour

Audio 2 :

Listen to the instruction, then, choose the best answer A, B, C, or D that best answer the questions!

6.                  What kind of salad is the chef making ?

A.             green salad                  C. vegetable salad

B.              dessert salad                D. fruit salad

7.                  After preparing the ingredients, what is the next step?

A.                Chop the fruit                         C. Slice the apple

B.                 Chop the celery           D. Toss the dreesing

8.                  What must be done before the celery is sliced ?

A.             Toss it                          C. Slice it

B.              Wash it                        D. chop it

9.               What is the best time for tossing the salad dressing?

A.                When everything is ready

B.                 After chopping the fruits

C.                 A couple hours before serving

D.                At the time of serving

10.           What is the last thing to do before serving?

A.                Tossing the salad

B.                 Putting some toppings

C.                 Adding everything in a bowl

D.                Adding slices of celery.

Key Answer : 6) D    7) C   8)B   9)C    10)B

ON  THE  ARBITRARINESS  OF LANGUAGE

INTRODUCTION

Language, according to Ferdinand de Saussure  is a system of signs, and each sign is a combination of a form (which is the “signifier”) and a particular meaning (which is the “signified”). The signifier is the sound and the signified is the idea. Idea and sound are like the front and back of a piece of paper ( the paper is the linguistic sign); the head and tail of a coin (the coin is the linguistic sign) or the chestboard and chess pieces (the chess is the linguistic sign). We can distinguish between the two, but we can't separate them. Signs are both material/physical (sounds) and intellectual (ideas). This is important because language is not a thing, a substance, but a form, a structure, a system.

SIGN, SIGNIFICATION AND VALUE

Saussure referred the individual relationship established between a signifier and a signified as SIGNIFICATION, which we commonly think of as ‘meaning’. VALUE, on the other hand, is the relation between various signs within the signifying system. In other words, value is the collective meaning assigned to signs, to the connections between signifiers and signified. The value of a sign is determined, however, not by what signifiers get linked to what particular signifieds, but rather by the whole system of signs used within a community. It is actually the product of a system or structure, not the result of individual relations of signifiers and signifieds (signification). The arbitrarily chosen ‘signifier’ has no value, and the idea or ‘the signified’ does not have true value by itself because it exists within a language system. Instead, the linguistic value of a sign is determined by other factors within its environment, by the other linguistic signs.

Saussure pointed out that the value of signs is culture-specific. The French ‘mouton’ may have the same meaning as the English ‘sheep’, but it does not have  the same value, because English has the terms mutton and sheep, a distinction which is not available in French. The following examples shows that it is also true  in Indonesian.

SIGNIFICATION		VALUE
The starchy seeds of an annual southeast Asian cereal grass (Oryza sativa) used for staple  food;	English : rice	Any of the kind
	Indonesian : 1)    Beras 2)    Nasi	Uncooked grain Cooked & ready to be served
That one who is neither the speaker nor the hearer (3rd singular)	English : 1)   She 2)    He	Female Male
	Indonesian 1)  Dia 2)  Beliau	Either female or male Highly respected female or male
To move on a course or be away from a place	English : 1)     go 2)    went 3)    has gone 4)    going	at certain  time In the past completed now
	Indonesian pergi	Any location in time

VALUE is always composed of two kinds of comparisons among elements in a system. The first is that dissimilar things can be compared and exchanged.  A word can be exchanged for something dissimilar,an idea; the second,  is that similar things can be compared and exchanged.  A word  can be compared with something of the same nature, another word. Its value is not fued so long as one simply states that it can be "exchanged" for a given concept, i.e. that it has this or that signification: one must also compare it with similar values, with other words that stand in opposition to it. Its content is really fued only by the concurrence of everything that exists outside it.

ARBITRARY NATURE OF THE SIGNS

Essentially, language is a symbol system. The choice of symbols used by a language is arbitrary. This is because there is no direct relationship between signifier and signified, between form and meaning; there is no intrinsic connection, in other word, it is unmotivated. This is understandable since  language is not a nomenclature. If this were so, translation would be easy. In fact, each language articulates its conceptual universe differently. ‘Bold and beautiful’, in Indonesian; ‘cantik dan berani’, do not simply name existing categories but articulate their own. Ideas evolve just as much as signifiers do. If language were a set of names applied to independently existing concepts, then in the historical evolution of a language, the concepts should remain stable, even if signifiers evolved. However, this isn't so. Different signifiers can be used to symbolize the same signification; different significations can be symbolized by the same signal. There are so many different words with little or no similarity of form in different languages meaning the same thing. “Book": in French is  ‘livre’, in Spanish: ‘libro’, in Japanese: ‘hon’, in Indonesian: ‘buku’, Turkish ‘kitap’. Even within the same language, the form of words changes over time. In Javanese, people used to call their mother ‘biyung’, this word has been changing overtime : ‘emak’ – ‘ibu’ – ‘bunda’ – ‘mama’. We would not expect this if there was a direct link between a word's meaning and its form, since the constancy of the meaning should prevent the form from changing. Conversely, we have words which change meanings over time, so that the same form comes to be associated with a different meaning. The word ‘teras’ in Indonesian formerly means ‘wood’, then: ‘the front part of the house’, now, it means ‘an important governmental position’.  This is, again, making the existence of a link between the two highly unlikely. The followings are other examples :

English          Indonesian             Javanese

Rice                 beras                        beras

Rice                 nasi                            sego

She                  dia                             dekne

She                  beliau                        piyambakipun

He                    dia                             dekne

He                   beliau                       piyambakipun

Shortly, signs is not in any way predictable from the form, nor is the form dictated by the meaning. In the opposite case, if a symbol is nonarbitrary, then we should be able to deduce its meaning from the form of the symbol, like iconicity which describes the most extreme examples of nonarbitrary form-meaning connections, where the form is directly representational of the meaning.  One such example might be a "no-smoking" sign. The sign effectively "contains" its meaning in its form. There is a direct link between the sign and its meaning, that link being the shape of a cigarette. If cigarettes looked different, the sign would then also have to look different. Another similar example is a blind-crossing sign, which is directly linked to the figure of a blind with a white cane.

Moreover, human language is completely arbitrary with very few  exceptions. The exceptions to the claim that human language is arbitrary fall under two restricted categories: onomatopoeia and sound symbolism. Onomatopoetic words have a definite relationship to what they represent, thus they are not entirely arbitrary. However, different languages represent the same natural sounds in slightly different ways, meaning that they are not completely nonarbitrary either. The following are examples of onomatopoetic words in English and Indonesian.

 English                                Indonesian

hiss                                       mendesis

bark                                      menggonggong

buss                                      berdengung

mew                                      mengeong

moo                                      melenguh

The above examples, again, shows that language is not completely nonarbitrary. If so, every language would have to have precisely the same word to represent the same natural sound.  This is also true in sound symbolism, one of which is called interjection: spontaneous expressions of reality dictated by natural forces.  Let’s see the examples below.

   

English                  Indonesian

 Ouch!                     Aduh!             : expressing pain

 Er....!  / uhmm..!    ehm...!            : expressing hesitation

 Alas!                      Ya Tuhan !     : exprssing grief/pity

 Oops!                    Yah!                : expressing mild apology

 Yuck                       Hiii..!              : expressing disgust.

We can clearly see in the above examples that there is no fixed bond between the signified and their signifier. We need only compare two languages to see how much such expression differ  from one another.

Although onomatopoetic and sound symbols are of secondary importance, the idea of arbritrariness is a plus because it frees a communication system to use the most convenient means available to communicate by removing the constraint that the form of signals must bear a relationship to their meanings. It also makes it much easier for a communication system to refer to abstract entities, since it is hard in any case to make a link between a symbol and an abstract meaning.

REFERENCES

de Saussure, F. (1983). Course in General Linguistics. G. Duckworth, London.

Dardjowidjojo, Soenjono. (2003). Psikolinguistik:Pengantar Pemahaman Bahasa Manusia. Yayasan Obor Indonesia. Jakarta

Gasser, Michael . On the Origin of  Language Arbritariness. www.cogsci.northwestern.edu.