Grammar or not to grammar, that’s a question…

Since English is my second language, I remember from the very beginning of my learning process, grammar played a very important role. Grammar is just like the fundamental concrete structure of the English learning “House”, with vocabulary being the bricks and tiles of the walls and roofs of this house.

Teachers taught specific sentence patterns based on grammatical rules, and we then make our own sentences. Once we were required to translate a sentence, the first thing that guided us was the grammar rules. Subject first, then think about the verbs, and then the objects. However, it’s very difficult for us, since it seems that each grammatical rule has exceptions. When it came to this occasions like irregular verbs, teachers would say, “it’s just the way it is, you just need to memorize all those”. Sometimes we were really confused, and then Chinglish was created by ourselves. Mistakes like “--Do you like mango? – Yes, I like.” and “--Haven’t you been to Beijing? –Yes, I haven’t gone there.” are commonplace, not to mention the errors like “I goed to the park yesterday” and “My mother is a teacher, and he is very kind to his students.” (In Chinese, he and she are both pronounced as “TA”, though characters are totally different.).

On the other hand, sometimes, grammar did help us, because for us, English language learners, it is something that we could use to check whether we are using Standard English correctly. It is something that may help us from making horrible mistakes thus embarrassing ourselves.

As for writing, I think grammar benefit us even more. A lot of Chinese students could write beautiful sentences with very little grammatical errors, because our teachers put much emphasis on grammar and the students have very good knowledge of it; and because in writing, students could have more time to think about grammar, and they could see what they are “thinking” and “talking” in their mind, compared with speaking English.

Frankly speaking, for me, if I knew nothing about grammar at the very beginning, and when I was still in China, which means I didn’t have very good language environment, I would have no clue to learn English, possibly I would have to memorize everything, every word that I see and hear. Wouldn’t that be an even more difficult thing?

Assessment

One of the important jobs that a teacher must do is to assess the students’ work, to check whether they’ve really learned and how much they’ve learned. What criteria could we use to assess the students’ writings? What should we see in their writings? As for course designers, what artifacts should we teachers examine to give students a grade?

We’ve already known about the Six Traits to evaluate a writing piece, however, among ideas, organization, voice, sentence fluency, word choice and convention, which one should we give the most credits? Should we focus more on the students’ ideas and their thinking processes, or should we be picky on their use of language? Isn’t organization important as well? What about the ESL learners? What kind of accommodations should we make for them while grading their papers?

While we are to give students their final grades at the end of the semester, what percentage of A should we be giving? Won’t people think it’s too easy to get an A if too many students got it? However, will students got discouraged thus lost their interest in writing if they only receive a B, or even a C? Should we emphasize more on the effort that our students have been paid, or on the quality of the papers that they’ve produced? What else should we examine besides one or two finalized papers when we consider grading?

There is also an important issue: while we are doing writing conference, or when the students are doing peer writing response, how can we make sure that we really helped, and motivate our students to be willing to write more, and to share with each other; instead of being scared, and even discouraged from writing and sharing? How can a teacher make sure that each one of the small group is really building a supportive community that foster real learning and scaffolded help?

Authority Vs. Moderator of the Class

Mike’s post reminded me of an important question: while the students try to adjust to the class, we, as teachers, are also trying to adjust to the class each time we enter the classroom. How do we balance the role of being authority and moderator of the class?

Since my childhood, I have been taught that the teachers are the absolute authorities in the classroom, and we need to obey strict disciplines in the class and follow the teachers’ orders and instructions without questioning them.

As we grew up and entered the colleges, the classroom setting has been changed. We, more often than ever, have been given opportunities to play some roles in our own classrooms: doing presentations, role playing, etc. We, as students, sometimes are also enjoying the fun of being a teacher taking over the class. At that time, I would be wondering, what is my teacher doing now? Is he/she also listening to us? Is what we are doing right now something new to him/her? What will he/she respond to our performance? At this moment, our teacher turned to be one of the audiences, communicating with us through eye contact and facial expressions. However, whenever I didn’t have the confidence to report what I was about to present, or say, I didn’t have enough knowledge about certain information; or when I was not very sure about the reliability of other classmates’ presentation, I would be eager to become an obedient student, wishing the teacher would take over the control of the whole class, and give us the detailed demonstration of that knowledge.

But how could a teacher understand our needs and our thoughts in time? I sometimes understand it must be a difficult thing for teachers to notice when they should shift their roles from a moderator/co-learner to becoming the real authority in the class.

Maybe that depends on the teacher’s experience. Maybe teaching is also a process, a learning process…

Teaching patterns

From the classes I observed I found that different teachers have certain teaching patterns. Once the pattern was set up, it seemed the following classes were just following the routine and everyone understood what they were supposed to do, and they will find themselves on the right track very soon.

Both classes I observed are from the Department of LTC. One of the teachers hope the students could comprehend and exchange meanings by reading and sharing poems, therefore the routines are students taking the turn to introduce their favorite poems, then small group of 2-3 students discuss the poems and share their own feelings, then the big class get together and further discuss about it. Through this routine, everyone is very clear about their own roles, either as the discussion leader to bring a poem and prompt discussion, or as the students talking about their understandings about the poem.

The other teacher aim at broadening our understanding of the language we use, and deepening our exploration of the language we heard others use. Her specific teaching patterns are introducing students to read seven books in order, and students discuss about the texts in both small groups and big class, then they are supposed to write 2-3 page paper on each book, and then they are required to share and discuss their papers with small groups arranged by the teacher, and in the end the class come together to talk about their specific experiences or understanding towards certain points in the book.

I haven’t observed any English 1000 class yet, nor had I ever taken any. I am not sure about the contents that teachers are supposed to teach, nor am I aware of the American college students’ writing levels and their needs. I wish I could have more information after I observe one English 1000 class tomorrow.

I am also asking this same questions as Nell has asked already: how could a teacher balance both flexibility and stability of the class? How can we adjust our teaching and syllabus to the needs of both the students and the class without making our students maladjusted and frustrated?