Teaching at Home; Homework in the Classroom

Question: How do you turn education upside down?

Answer: Students view lectures, read materials at home and then come to class with their questions. Teacher and other students help to answer the questions.

Comment: Makes some sense. Students move at their own pace. And then move on to the next topic. I’m afraid it’s a little too neat. The teacher does not have the time to be with 35 students at once as students move at different paces. The purpose is to give teachers 100% time to focus on helping students clarify what they do not know, what they have not learned from studying at home on their own.

When the students begin to separate themselves as they learn faster than others, then the teachers might not have the time to deal with every student’s concerns. Still management is a challenge, and it could be a unit. I’d try it. RayS.

Source: This was a video that showed up for a short time on the Internet version of the Wall Street Journal. I was not able to record the names of the interviewer or the young man who was pioneering this method. He did say that it was not a new idea. Appeared in the Internet version of Wall Street Journal, April 11, 1011.

More "Wisdom" about Language from Ken Lindblom, Editor of EJ

Question: Why isn’t standard English any more important than any other variety of English?

Answer by Ken Lindblom: “Using Standard English makes it seem as if the formal version of English that we teach in schools is somehow better or more correct than any other version of English. It isn’t.”

Comment: Try telling that to the student who wants to do well on the objective test of edited English in the SAT. Try telling that to the job applicant who makes a blatant error in a letter of application that is shredded because the applicant wrote, “I should have went to practice.” Try telling that to someone who misspelled a word on a job application that was deposited in a shredder. Try telling that to a teacher from the North Country of New York State who used the term “boughten” in a faculty room and the entire faculty roared with laughter in response. Try telling that to people who were embarrassed because they were corrected by someone whom they respected. It hurts. I know, I’ve been there, done that.

Oh, says Lindblom, students just have to know when to use standard English. I say, It is hard to learn standard English. The other varieties of English are part of students’ language habits. Those habits are not easily replaced by Standard English. The hardest task is helping students learn when to use standard English and to be able to apply it.

Yes, other varieties of English exist. Informal and conversational English have their advantages. An informal and conversational style invites readers and audiences to participate. On the other hand the purpose of standard English is precision. Standard English needs to be taught. RayS.  

Title: “Beyond Grammar: The Richness of English Language.” Ken Lindblom, editor of English Journal (March 2011), 10-11.

The Study that "proved" Grammar Does Not Improve Writing

Question: What evidence is there that a study of formal grammar does not contribute to improvements in writing?

Answer: The Elley Study [“The Role of Grammar in a Secondary School English Curriculum” WB Elley, IH Barham, H Lamb and M Wyllie. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies 10 (May 1975), pp. 26-42] was supposed to put an end to discussions about the utility of studying formal grammar to improve writing. The authors began by admitting weaknesses in studies relating formal grammar to writing. The length of the studies was too short, the students did not learn enough grammar to transfer it to writing, and the attitudes of the teachers toward grammar contaminated the studies.

The final results of this study showed that the grammar group did not write better than the non-grammar group and this finding was claimed as proof that grammar study did not help improve writing.

Also, in the present study, the grammar students expressed negative attitudes toward the study of grammar: “Here the TG [Traditional Grammar] groups showed predominantly negative attitudes, especially on such dimensions as ‘useless,’ ‘unimaginative,’ ‘repetitive,’ ‘passive,’ ‘complicated,’ and ‘unpleasant.’ ”

Comment: Further analysis of this study showed that the formal grammar teachers made no effort to connect the grammar they were teaching to writing. At the very least, students need to learn to write while studying grammar so that the teachers have the opportunities to show students how to apply the grammar they are learning to their writing.

As to the purpose for applying grammar to writing, it is to polish writing, to keep the reader reading from beginning to end without being distracted by problems in sentence structure, usage, punctuation or spelling. It’s also pretty obvious that the teachers who taught grammar were not sold on it or the students would not have reacted so negatively. RayS.

Title: “The Role of Grammar in a Secondary School English Curriculum.” WB Elley, IH Barham, H Lamb and M Wyllie. Research in the Teaching of English (Spring 1976), 5-21.

Grammar--Again!

Question: Who says that the study of formal grammar doesn’t improve writing?

Answer: Ken Linblom, editor of the English Journal, that’s who.

Quote: “Public discussion of English teaching is so stuck on the idea of grammar rules that more important aspects of our field are rarely mentioned. This is true even though the research is clear that traditional grammar instruction—drill-and-kill attention to the parts of speech and punctuation rules—does not improve student writing at all, and there is even some evidence that focusing on grammar rules actually worsens students’ writing (see Dunn and Lindblom; Schuster).”

Dunn, Patricia A., and Kenneth Lindblom. “Why Revitalize Grammar?” English Journal 92.3 (2003), 43-50.

Schuster, Edgar H. Breaking the Rules: Liberating Writers through Innovative Grammar Instruction. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2003. Print.]

Comment: One of the practices that irritates me is writers’ use of their own articles in support of their own ideas. Note that Ken Lindblom in the previous criticism of grammar quotes his own publication in support of his own ideas. Also note his use of “some” evidence that “…focusing on grammar rules actually worsens student’s writing.” [Schuster’s book merely points out that good writers often violate the rules of good grammar by using such traditional mistakes as sentence fragments intentionally.]

I suggest that failure to use standard English results in the readers’ not concentrating on meaning when sentence structure, usage and punctuation cause unintended distractions. The purpose of the study of grammar when it comes to writing is polishing prose, so that the reader begins at the beginning and moves effortlessly to the end without being distracted by unintentional mistakes in sentence structure, usage and punctuation.

For a rebuttal to Lindblom’s tired, clichéd rant  against grammar, see my next blog, a review of the study that was supposed to end all use of grammar to improve writing. RayS.

Title: “Beyond Grammar: The Richness of the English Language.” Ken Lindblom. English Journal (March 2011), 10-11.

Publication as Motivation

Question: Does publication motivate students to write?

Answer: Of course it does. But there is a dark side to this idea.

Comment: Been there, done that. Many years ago, as K-12 supervisor of English, I encouraged teachers in our elementary schools to submit their students’ writing for publication. to children’s magazines that had as their purpose encouraging students to publish. Result? A string of rejections. Not only were students’ submissions rejected, their motivation for writing declined because of discouragement. “Buyer Beware” for this particular idea to encourage motivation for writing through publication.

Rejection is part of publication. Read The Writer, a magazine by writers for writers, to realize how much rejection is a natural part of the desire to publish. I’m not saying that publishing should not be encouraged, but help students realize that rejection is one possibility. Stories of professional writers being rejected are commonplace. Prepare students for rejection; help them learn to deal with it. Reading The Writer will provide some ideas by individual writers who have learned to deal with rejection. RayS.

Title: “A Joy to Teach: My Experience with a Student Writer.” Jim Johnston. Voices from the Middle (March 2011), 27-32.