Sundry Sunday Reflections
Hi everybody,
Okay, I think we're pretty much unanimous that it was really useful when Doug had us analyse that sample of student writing (a great follow-up to Brenda and Dave's presentation, too!). I think another useful exercise might be to brainstorm some activities to address the problem areas in the student's writing and capitalize on the strengths, perhaps incorporating this student's (imaginary) interests or some of the material from the IRPs that Doug will be bringing in. I suppose in a real classroom setting, it wouldn't be possible to cater lessons to students' individual needs in this way, but it's a good thing to know how to do nonetheless. Of course, the best place to start may simply be to present the grammatical information and gently remind the student to apply what they already know (as we already did), but if the difficulties persist, it might be good to come up with some interactive (and even fun!) practice exercises to assign for homework or introduce to the entire class.
Error correction is a really important and tricky issue, I think--but an important one (since, as Dave and Brenda so insightfully pointed out, errors are not the same as mistakes. They occur repeatedly and systematically, so correcting them has the potential to clear up a lot of problem spots very quickly and relatively easily. That's why it's best to focus on the problems that come up most frequently, as we saw when we looked at the sample of student work.) I know from my own experiences as a language learner that it's most useful to focus on a few areas at a time and keep building. As a tutor, though, my philosophy is usually to ask students how they would like to me corrected, and often they tell me that they want EVERYTHING corrected (like what you used to do, Brenda). This poses problems for me, because I do want to respect that student's preferences, but it can be hard to make all the corrections without 1) being hurtful, 2) being overwhelming, 3) addressing language points that might be too advanced for the student to grasp immediately, 4) having to say "That's just the way it is" a lot, especially for things like idioms and exceptions to general language trends. I suspect that one of the reasons many students want everything corrected is because they have been taught/believe in the idea that they are supposed to emulate the 'ideal' native speaker, and that errors, even when they do not impede clear communication, get in the way of this goal. In my classroom, I would try to encourage an atmosphere where it's okay for students to make mistakes and to express themselves differently from a native English speaker, as long as they are able to reach their communicative goals (which, naturally, evolve as the student's abilities evolve). Still, some students might want to be corrected on everything, and of course I don't want to say no (since I believe they should have some control over the way they learn and that learning can be collaborative). So, in a situation like this, what do you do? My instinct would be to tell the student that I am willing to make all the corrections, but I would prefer to do it in stages (in my experience, students usually agree to this... but maybe that's only because the students who are the most concerned with mistakes also tend to be the ones who are most deferential to teachers and respectful of their 'expertise'... and I would hate to take advantage of that to boss my students around!) The other possibility is to correct everything, but give explicit instruction on a only few points (maybe using some kind of colour-coded pen system where one colour would represent areas to work on actively, and the other colour is just FYI for the time being. Neither pen would be red, of course!). One of the most thought-provoking suggestions in David and Brenda's presentation was the notion that different types of learners may benefit from different types of correction (again, tricky to implement in a classroom setting... seems easier to have a single correction policy... but in one-to-one consultations with students, there may be more room to accomodate that student's needs and preferences).
One last remark: we've had some really great presentations this week. Madelaine, I thought you found some great resources to tackle the problem of reading level/maturity level of content in literature for ESL students. If You're Not From the Prairie may be a children's book, but my parents own and cherish it and I never thought of it as being for kids. The other great thing about it is that it provides a great template for reluctant poets to start getting their ideas on paper... providing a structure really makes the writing process easier. And I think creative writing can be a really empowering way to use and play with a new language, because there's a sense that it's for YOU and you can do whatever you want with it (although I guess this isn't really true in the context of a school assignment. It might be good idea to provide some opportunities for students to do free writing that isn't for handing in... although maybe when we're so short on instructional time, this isn't a great use of it? I'm not sure.) Another good way to bridge the language level/maturity level gap might be with comics or graphic novels; I think maybe somebody already mentioned this in class?
Sophia, I thought your presentation did an amazing job of organizing a lot of really complex information and drawing connections between the various approaches. The cake metaphor was a great one, too... a very engaging way to begin.
Can't wait to hear more of your fabulous ideas, folks!
Okay, I think we're pretty much unanimous that it was really useful when Doug had us analyse that sample of student writing (a great follow-up to Brenda and Dave's presentation, too!). I think another useful exercise might be to brainstorm some activities to address the problem areas in the student's writing and capitalize on the strengths, perhaps incorporating this student's (imaginary) interests or some of the material from the IRPs that Doug will be bringing in. I suppose in a real classroom setting, it wouldn't be possible to cater lessons to students' individual needs in this way, but it's a good thing to know how to do nonetheless. Of course, the best place to start may simply be to present the grammatical information and gently remind the student to apply what they already know (as we already did), but if the difficulties persist, it might be good to come up with some interactive (and even fun!) practice exercises to assign for homework or introduce to the entire class.
Error correction is a really important and tricky issue, I think--but an important one (since, as Dave and Brenda so insightfully pointed out, errors are not the same as mistakes. They occur repeatedly and systematically, so correcting them has the potential to clear up a lot of problem spots very quickly and relatively easily. That's why it's best to focus on the problems that come up most frequently, as we saw when we looked at the sample of student work.) I know from my own experiences as a language learner that it's most useful to focus on a few areas at a time and keep building. As a tutor, though, my philosophy is usually to ask students how they would like to me corrected, and often they tell me that they want EVERYTHING corrected (like what you used to do, Brenda). This poses problems for me, because I do want to respect that student's preferences, but it can be hard to make all the corrections without 1) being hurtful, 2) being overwhelming, 3) addressing language points that might be too advanced for the student to grasp immediately, 4) having to say "That's just the way it is" a lot, especially for things like idioms and exceptions to general language trends. I suspect that one of the reasons many students want everything corrected is because they have been taught/believe in the idea that they are supposed to emulate the 'ideal' native speaker, and that errors, even when they do not impede clear communication, get in the way of this goal. In my classroom, I would try to encourage an atmosphere where it's okay for students to make mistakes and to express themselves differently from a native English speaker, as long as they are able to reach their communicative goals (which, naturally, evolve as the student's abilities evolve). Still, some students might want to be corrected on everything, and of course I don't want to say no (since I believe they should have some control over the way they learn and that learning can be collaborative). So, in a situation like this, what do you do? My instinct would be to tell the student that I am willing to make all the corrections, but I would prefer to do it in stages (in my experience, students usually agree to this... but maybe that's only because the students who are the most concerned with mistakes also tend to be the ones who are most deferential to teachers and respectful of their 'expertise'... and I would hate to take advantage of that to boss my students around!) The other possibility is to correct everything, but give explicit instruction on a only few points (maybe using some kind of colour-coded pen system where one colour would represent areas to work on actively, and the other colour is just FYI for the time being. Neither pen would be red, of course!). One of the most thought-provoking suggestions in David and Brenda's presentation was the notion that different types of learners may benefit from different types of correction (again, tricky to implement in a classroom setting... seems easier to have a single correction policy... but in one-to-one consultations with students, there may be more room to accomodate that student's needs and preferences).
One last remark: we've had some really great presentations this week. Madelaine, I thought you found some great resources to tackle the problem of reading level/maturity level of content in literature for ESL students. If You're Not From the Prairie may be a children's book, but my parents own and cherish it and I never thought of it as being for kids. The other great thing about it is that it provides a great template for reluctant poets to start getting their ideas on paper... providing a structure really makes the writing process easier. And I think creative writing can be a really empowering way to use and play with a new language, because there's a sense that it's for YOU and you can do whatever you want with it (although I guess this isn't really true in the context of a school assignment. It might be good idea to provide some opportunities for students to do free writing that isn't for handing in... although maybe when we're so short on instructional time, this isn't a great use of it? I'm not sure.) Another good way to bridge the language level/maturity level gap might be with comics or graphic novels; I think maybe somebody already mentioned this in class?
Sophia, I thought your presentation did an amazing job of organizing a lot of really complex information and drawing connections between the various approaches. The cake metaphor was a great one, too... a very engaging way to begin.
Can't wait to hear more of your fabulous ideas, folks!
posted by Alana Chuk at 8:51 AM
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