writing+assignment

Post your writing assignments here

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As I am still very much at the beginning of forming my own teaching philosophy, I am continually seeing just how important grammar instruction is within the classroom in order to learn a language. My own philosophy would include that grammar is part of the basic and growing foundation you need to continually build upon in order for other aspects of the language to make sense. As a learner trying to express myself in writing and speaking or responding through reading and listening, I need to understand the basic structures of the language through grammar in order to formulate the words and sentences that will do so. ======

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As discussed in my second language learning class, I think it is important to address grammar explicitly in the classroom at the very beginning of language learning, such as learning basics of sentence structure in order for you to begin to communicate and to have that basic foundation built upon as various content/input is added. I think it is important to teach grammar in a way in which is clear, interesting in some shape or form and that it needs be shown that it is significant to the learner’s language acquisition. Whether for younger children that is making a game or interesting activity surrounding the lesson or for older students using content in the grammar lesson that is very relevant and applicable to the students ======

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Some of the aspects of grammar that we focused on are those that I found most important were the use of tense and aspects of verbs including modals in order to express time and describe past, present and future situations both in speech and in writing. This was something I implemented into my lesson plan and specifically focused on in my activity with reading and writing as a passage was read and verbs and tense were identified through the reading. ======

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I also think our lesson in class on question structure was vital in order for students to be able to construct those questions themselves even without knowing all of the meta-linguistic meaning behind it all. ======

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Though I did not focus on different kinds of clauses and sentence structures in my lesson plan, I will still consider this an important aspect of grammar because without it a learner may be able to get the gist of what someone is saying but could //very easily// confuse and complicate who or what the speaker is talking about within a sentence. ======

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Let’s face it, grammar can be so terribly confusing but so very necessary in order to communicate effectively and clearly as a language learner. The more grammar can be applied and integrated into the rest of language learning, the more proficient the learner will be come in the language and more comfortable in speaking. ======


 * Hillary Cintron**

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When I first signed up for this class, I had no idea what ‘Pedagogical Grammar’ even meant. So after a whole semester of this class, I have a much better understanding of what this class is all about and also of grammar and how to teach it. I have always wanted to be a teacher but my interests have been tweaked more towards becoming an ESL teacher since I’ve been in college. However, I had never considered the vast difference in terms of lesson plans between ESL and mainstream classes. This lesson plan project was great practice for future lesson planning. From various readings, I had come to the conclusion that I would never teach grammar explicitly; but, after actually planning this lesson, my opinion has changed. Even though my lesson plan was made for a second grade level, as hard as I tried to conceal the grammar aspects of the lesson into fun activities, sooner or later the grammar became explicit. I definitely think grammar has earned its place in the classroom, especially an ESL classroom. ESL students will need this grammar in their everyday life so I think it’s very important to teach grammar explicitly in order to avoid the confusion and frustration of trying to conceal it with other non-grammar related topics. Since I plan on teaching grammar explicitly, I want to incorporate many different types of examples (not just writing on the board and worksheets). Explicit teaching requires an active balance of “hands-on” activities, such as reading articles/ novels/ comic books, watching films, listening to the radio. I want to provide my students the grammar but also present it to them in ways that they will experience grammar from the “real world” such as through the news, in movies, at dramas, etc.======

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It was hard to pick what is most important, but the aspects of grammar that I find most crucial are parts of speech, verb tenses, sentence types (compound and complex), comparatives and superlatives, and question formation. Although, I really thought every topic that we covered in class is something that I would like to teach my future students. I didn’t incorporate all of these aspects of grammar in my lesson plan (I did incorporate verb tenses and comparatives and superlatives). Knowing that I want to work with children, I planned on basing an activity off of my favorite children’s book. As dumb as it sounds, I never realized the amount of grammar that this book (as well as every other book) contains. I chose to focus on the aspects of grammar that are most commonly represented in this book. There are many other aspects from the book that I chose not to focus on in the lesson because I didn’t want to overload the students with grammar.======

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The most important lesson that I’ve learned from this class is that English really is crazy. But it’s okay to not know all of the answers. Most importantly, I’ve learned where to find the resources to best answer the questions that I’m unsure of.====== _

Throughout my schooling, grammar has always been something that I would chose to ignore and/or do just enough to squeak bye. In my 15 years of Spanish learning I have always done and learned just enough of the grammar to pass the tests and move on; it was never something that I deemed important. Because of this, I never really thought about how I would teach it in my own classroom. I always knew it was important, and that eventually I'd have to figure out a way to teach it, but just assumed I would learn how to teach it along the way and that it would all just come to me, somehow.
 * Mallory Olian**

Since taking this class, I have not only realized the importance of grammar in teaching a second language, but also in understanding my own first language. It has become clear to me that if I want to be successful in teaching ESL for both my students and myself, it is necessary to have the most complete understanding of my native language. Although I wouldn't say that I am completely confident in my grammar skills, I feel like I'm on the right track and have a solid foundation for the future. When I have my own classroom, I hope to teach grammar in a way that is fun. The word “grammar” has a negative connotation and my goal is to alleviate this feeling of anxiety amongst my students and teach it in a way that is engaging. I now believe that CBI is the most productive way of teaching grammar to children, and depending on what grade I teach hope to incorporate the topic on a regular basis. I see the possibilities for grammar usage in subjects such as language arts, science, and even math. My goal is that students learn grammar without even realizing it. This seems to be the best way to make it seem less daunting. When kids don’t realize they’re learning, I know they learn more.

Although science is no where near my favorite subject, I chose to create a lesson plan based on it. The main reason I chose it was because throughout the class it has become clear to me how often we use grammar and not even recognize it. I believe that this Lesson Plan is one that students will enjoy doing (or at least, have to) and that the grammar aspects will go unnoticed. Personally, I think that’s the most important way to learn. I also think that the lesson plan I wrote can be used at all different grade levels and to students of all different English language proficiency. I can see it being changed easily for ELLs while also challenging native speakers.

All in all, I know that this class helped me to be a better English speaker, and in turn English teacher. I look forward to using what I know in the future, and hope that I will be successful in executing all my goals. Likewise, I hope that this wiki and all the work we have done on it will serve as a great resource for the future and all my grammar needs :)

**Chandra Hill** The grammar and related teaching issues we learned about this semester will have a big impact on my future teaching. Since I am planning to teach high school English, I had hoped that explicit grammar teaching would not be a very big part of my class, mostly because I felt so clueless in that area. But now I see more and more how helpful grammar can be, and also that it actually makes much more sense than I had thought. Especially in relation to any future ESL students I have, I think grammar definitely needs to be a part of my lesson planning. I also see how it could help mainstream students in getting a better grasp of how to write better academically. Overall, I really feel that learning more about grammar myself made me realize how important it is in a classroom setting.

I think that the way I will probably present grammar to my students is through the content. It seems that learning grammar through actual scenarios when the students will need to use it for an assignment or reading comprehension will be the most feasible. Even if I teach a strictly ESL class, I still think it is helpful to structure grammar contextually. But in a mainstream class with ESL learners, now that I am aware of grammatical issues, I will evaluate my lesson plans for grammar in a similar way that we have in this class project.

Verb tense, modals, and complex and compound sentences are some of the most important things that we have studied in my opinion. For one thing, they are very crucial for sounding native-like and for academic writing. Also, understanding the rules for these aspects of grammar can make forming good sentences much less complicated. I did choose to include tense and modals in my lesson plan. I thought that knowing about tense and modals would be important for my students to complete an activity, and using it in their writing would give them a practical application to help cement the concept in their minds. While I did not include discussing complex and compound sentences in my lesson plan, I feel that that is an ongoing point I would try to teach my students. Knowing appropriate clause formation, comma usage and how to join several ideas can make students’ writing profoundly better. So I would always be checking their writing for good sentence structure. Basically, I looked through my lesson plan for certain structures or grammar points that I thought might be confusing for the students, or which they themselves would need to produce.

This class gave me a ton of new information, and I tried to apply it as best I could. Since I am new to creating lesson plans in the first place, it was a little bit daunting to include the grammar aspect. But I can definitely see how vital it is in some cases, and beneficial in almost all areas of classroom instruction.


 * Diane Bell**

English grammar is by far one of the subjects that gets the most complaints in a classroom, and it can be a difficult subject to teach, whereby (unfortunately) many teachers try to avoid this area of the language. However, on the other hand, English grammar is one of the most important subjects, that not only carries over into every other subject, but it carries over into everyday speech as well. Learning grammar should be fun, and I firmly believe that it is the teachers’ duty to make room for grammar (where it is needed), relate the grammar concepts and terminology to students’ level, and present the material in an appropriate manner (possibly on an individual basis).

As with any “boring” subject, it is important to make English grammar learning attractive, fun, exciting, and useful which I believe can be done in a number of ways. The way I approach each class will slightly vary from classroom to classroom (depending on the grade level and English level), but my method of CBI will consist of providing an atmosphere, where all are able to learn to the best of their ability, where the students are able to contribute to class, and grow academically and personally. If I am teaching a tenth grade mainstream biology class (which is a possibility with my biology minor), I will approach English grammar teaching differently than I would with a strictly ELL class. If I notice that in the mainstream class many students (native speakers and ELL speakers alike) are having difficulties with punctuation in coordinating and subordinating clauses, I would take some class time to explain when a comma or semicolon is needed. However, if I notice major grammar errors (tense choice, irregular verbs, passive voice etc.) in the ELL students’ lab reports (or in speech), I would set time aside for those students and go over the unclear areas and even give them worksheets with examples that would be beneficial.

I believe that all aspects of grammar learning are important, but I would probably say that verbs and everything to do with verbs (tense, aspect and voice) are the most important to me. In English the sentence structure has a specific order: subject, verb, and object. I think of the verb as the core of the sentence, and if the core is not clear, the entire clause is in danger of being misinterpreted. Also in my experience from living abroad and living with ELL speakers wanting to improve their English, and from teaching ELL students here on campus, many ELL speakers want to know how, when and why, we use either present simple (eats), present progressive (is eating), or present simple of the verb “do” plus the bare infinitive of another verb (does eat). It is important for the teacher to give actual concrete reasons to the students and not just say that it is a “stylistic” or “crazy” English thing. In my lesson plan I will focus on irregular verbs along with other important grammar concepts (keeping in mind that I will be using this lesson plan for first graders in Germany this summer for my internship) I will not necessarily give great detail about every concept, but I will have to present the material how the actual teacher would like it to be presented. ---

Whenever someone describes learning English as a second language, they say it's one of the hardest languages to learn because of all the nonsensical grammar rules and exceptions. With this in mind, I found the prospects of teaching English grammar daunting. While I grew up speaking English, I never had to study grammar very intensively, so this class was a new experience for me. Through this class I have definitely observed the benefits of understanding grammar, and the importance of being able to explain it in your classroom. The examples of classes where students have been confused by collocations, grammatical exceptions, and other sneaky factors in English grammar have all been an excellent reminder of how important it is for the teacher to be able to explain these to the student. While many of the grammatical patterns seem to be learned through exposure and repetition, it seems necessary to lay out a basic framework for students who are accustomed to a different grammatical structure in their language, and then teach the exclusions as they come up.
 * Elizabeth Barney**

I can see myself teaching the basics of grammar (parts of speech, forming questions, using correct tenses, etc.), but I think I would rely on content-based material with integrated grammatical examples to teach the more complex ideas. For example, if I want to teach children a lesson in adverbial clauses, it might be a bit challenging for students to catch on to right away, but if I expose them to a variety of examples, and then teach through the content, it seems like it would make the task more simplistic for the child. I chose to focus on the simpler parts of speech in my lesson plan assignment (verbs, adjectives, and nouns), because these are simpler aspects of grammar that students are learning in the ESL class I am currently placed in, and it seemed like an important starting ground for teaching parts of speech. I also chose to integrate my lesson within an English Language Arts plan with a focus on comprehension strategies. I have been learning about comprehension strategies in my literacy instruction for students with disabilities class, and story mapping seemed like a good way to combine a content level lesson plan with specific parts of grammar, as the student needed to use specific parts of speech to fill out the chart.

=**Erika Cranmer** = = =  As a teacher I want to make sure that I am teaching to each student individually as well as teaching the entire class and growing together. I think that this class has helped me to be able to do that effectively with the grammar that we have learned. I can now better teach English Language Learners who may struggle with grammar in my classroom on individual levels based on need and proficiency level. In our LLT 362 textbook, there is evidence that points to the necessity of form based instruction in a content based program for ELL’s. Because of this evidence I will try my hardest to include form focused grammar material to my students at least once a day even if it is a small lesson. I will try to figure out what my students’ needs are first and then formulate my grammar and content lesson around that. In the last article that we read as a class the authors encouraged the reader to formulate lessons that way instead of putting grammar into content lessons that you have already formulated.

I think that deciding what to focus on should be based on the proficiency and developmental level of your students. You can’t be throwing progressives and noun clauses at first graders and expect them to pick right up. I will have to be very aware of my students’ production and reading levels. It will be my responsibility to pick up on what my students need from me in their grammar learning. I think that the parts of speech and where they go in a sentence is important, question formations, and tense and aspect are all very important for the elementary level that I would like to teach at. I made sure to highlight some of these in my lesson plan. I think that for younger children, some of the later things that we have covered might be too difficult for them.

I feel much more confident teaching these parts of grammar because of this class. I feel that I could answer questions if my students should ask me and I feel that I have appropriate resources in our textbook if I do not have the answer. This class has increases my confidence and has shown me the grammar is worthwhile and necessary to know for your English Language Learners in your classroom.

 __Katie Raftery__

As a future spanish teacher, I found this class important for explaining the differences between the spanish language and the english language. Although I may not use the english grammar part of it, I can use it to explain how languages work. Likewise, the lesson plans have helped me develop a plan in teaching the spanish culture to my students, in particular if they are esl. This class has made me be aware on how to address my students who may not speak english as a first language. This becomes tricky in particular in a spanish classroom, since learning one language is hard enough! I want to make sure to be cognisent of all my students and make sure that they are all understanding the material. If there are ESL students in the class, I will definitely try to do something similar to my presentation once in a while and include things such as the conditional mixed in with the Spanish culture. I decided to solely focus on the conditional in order for the students to be able to digest the Spanish that I taught along with the new conditional. Likewise, since this was for the fourth grade, I did not want to overwhelm them. Especially in the Spanish classroom, many children have anxiety in speaking aloud in fear that they may say something incorrectly. This makes me think about how someone who speaks another language must feel in a classroom full of mostly all native english speakers. This class has also motivated me to further my studies after undergrad and get certified in TESOL. I never thought about how difficult our language is and how much we take for granted the fact that I have grown up with english as a first language. I would never have thought of the different difficulties that non native speakers have with english until we talked about them in class. I think that trying to see from the ESL student’s perspective from the best of one’s ability is a very important quality to have. Likewise, I appreciated that although grammar can be difficult to grasp (and a bit boring!) at times, Mark found easier ways for us to understand it as well as teach our students (inflection engineer). I hope to put this enthusiasm along with teaching methods to work in the future. Thanks!


 * Ellen Spendel**

Although our class focused on grammar structures we talked about not teaching this way to our students but focusing more on content. I think that it was good to get a deep understanding of verb tenses, clauses, parts of speech and so on to be able to teach my students but I liked how we also learned how to teach it to them in a different way. My minors are TESOL and Spanish and I hope to have a class of only ELL students or maybe even a bilingual Spanish class. So it was very important for me to learn grammar the way we did in this class and also learn the difficulties ELL students have with different aspects of grammar. This class gave me a new point of view on how ELL students see English and how I can help them. Grammar will be a focus in my class but I will always incorporate it in the content. I still would want to teach my students literature, history and science but I would be more aware of the grammar involved. I will incorporate lesson plans that are based around a grammar aspect when I need to teach that part of grammar when I think my students do not have a good foundation for that topic. But I will also need to teach them content required by the school. For these lesson plans I will need to identify the grammar the students will need to know to understand. In some cases I will have a ‘side grammar lesson’ if it is very difficult grammar for the class. In other instances I will only need to be aware of this, and make sure my students do not understand the text because of grammar. If I make an error of judgment and notice in my students’ discussions, worksheets or writing tasks that they do not understand the topic because of confusion with tense, models or collocations, I will give them feed back and possibly go over that grammar aspect with the class. Even when I cover grammar specifically I still want it to be some what content based. For example, if my students are having trouble with conditional I would not go in depth about it being an adverbial clause and so on. Instead I would give them a piece of writing that was simple, such a list of things someone would do if they were president. This way they would understand it through content only in a simpler from than in the academic material in the classroom. The most important aspects of verb tenses are verbs (agreement and tenses) and parts of speech. Verbs are in every sentence and convey a lot of meaning. There are also many tenses and types of verbs that need to be covered. I realized this in class since we spent the majority of time on verbs. Also we discussed how language learners have a lot of trouble with verb tenses and when to choice them. As an English speaker I chose them intuitively so it was interesting to learn why I chose certain tenses. This is why I picked past tense for my lesson plan, and the differences of it with different aspects. I realized later on parts of speech were a large area in my lesson plan. This can be difficult for language learners since different types of words are placed differently and used differently. On a final note, I think that grammar for ELL students is most important when the errors inhibit comprehension, but not the specific errors such as the differences between who and whom.


 * Katie Hansen**

LLT 346 has really opened my eyes to grammar. One of the biggest things that I have taken from this class is the idea that grammar can be taught under the radar. I think that often times when students have to learn grammar explicitly they shut down because it tends to be taught in a very traditional and boring way. When the students mentally check out like this, I do not think that they learn as much. Grammar is really important for the students to become more native-like in English so it should be present in the classroom but in a fun way. When teachers focus on something that is entertaining to the students and then add grammar to it, the students learn more. I think we can see this idea in the lesson plans we have been creating in class. We have all chosen topics that are not explicit grammar instruction but we are teaching grammar through them. It is a great idea; you are killing two birds with one stone. The students are entertained and having content-based lessons while also learning grammar. For example, in my lesson plan I looked at a short skit. It is a fun idea because the students get to interact with each other and act. In addition to this, we get to talk about verb tense. We get to see the differences between present and past tense throughout the skit and how it affects the story. Verb tense is one of the more important aspects of grammar in my opinion and I think it is important to practice it a lot. To create a complete sentence a verb is always required. Therefore, verbs are very important. Along with verbs are the tenses. Tenses explain when something did or did not happen. Because of all of this, I believe that verb tenses are crucial and that is why I chose to include them in my lesson plan. Overall, I think this class has really taught me to appreciate grammar and value its importance in language learning. I used to think that it was incredibly boring and not really needed in the classroom often. I also thought that grammar could only be taught explicitly. Now, I see that there are a lot of different ways I can implement grammar into the classroom; I see it as a true foundation for language that can also be fun and interesting.


 * Sarah Cheesmond**

This class was very useful for me as a future elementary educator. Not only did the class teach me a great deal about grammar and how it is used, it also explained very creative ways to teach the grammar. I believe that grammar should always be recognized as an important part of everyday schoolwork and learning. Most of the time I will not teach grammar explicitly because I am not planning on being an ESL teacher, but mini-grammar lessons can be incorporated into almost any other lesson plan. I believe I will do one small explicit grammar lesson everyday, probably at the very beginning of the day. However, I will incorporate grammar into other lessons if the opportunity arises. For instance, if I notice a student using incorrect grammar, I will casually prompt them to say the sentence correctly and if I notice a continual pattern of misuse, I will plan an explicit lesson around the mistake. While correcting students, I must keep in mind that it is very important not to embarrass the student during the correction. It is best to phrase the sentence in a way that does not sound as if you are correcting the student. It is important to realize when students are struggling with an aspect of grammar and use that opportunity to form a lesson around the topic. I am planning on teaching elementary school (preferably lower elem.) so not all the aspects of grammar that we covered this semester will be appropriate for me to teach to my students. The aspects of grammar that seem more important for me to focus on in my classroom would be basic parts of speech, question formation, and verb tenses. The lesson plan I made focuses on verbs and past and present tenses of verbs. I think this is a very important aspect of speech and it may take a while for students to fully understand the concept. That is why I think it is particularly important for this topic to be explicitly taught to students. I decided what topic I wanted to base my lesson on by choosing a grade level (2nd grade) and then looking through the wiki. I went through and chose a topic that was a basic part of speech and would be comprehensible for the age group. Although I do not see myself as an “ESL teacher,” I will most definitely be teaching grammar to native and ESL students that may be placed in my classroom. This class really showed me how important grammar is in learning the English language and now I feel much more equipped to teach grammar to my students.

MARK DOBSON

My personal teaching philosophy has always surrounded one idea. This idea is that I am an educator, not a teacher. I say this because to me teacher carries the connotation of being a content merchant of sorts. Meaning that what I provide students with is information that is surface deep and limited to my course. In reality, I believe that my notion of educator calls for me to advance knowledge in all disciplines of education and likely a bit more in my content area. This view fits quite well with the current environment with respect to ESL instruction, meaning that in many cases ELLs are not being explicitly taught language in a designated language classroom, so incorporating language in a non-language classroom seems to fit quite well with my personal teaching philosophy.

As an educator, I believe that I have a duty to speak and write—and even read and listen in a way that positively models language use. So the first step to using grammar in the classroom is doing it well, myself, and this goes for both my ELLs and native speaking students. I also think I have a duty to incorporate all types of activities: writing, reading, listening, and speaking. I also think educators have a duty to expose students to wide variety of grammatical concepts in these different forms. All students have the right to receive feedback on their grammar. Grammar has a secure location, implicitly in all classrooms and for me, the degree to which is it explicit is determined by the composition of the class.

I think that I have a need to do a perpetual/on-going needs assessment with my ELLs to determine what I need to be explicit and take time on in terms of grammar. Because realistically in a content classroom while trying to follow curriculum standards and lesson plans, we cannot take the time to explicitly teach and review each grammatical concept you encounter in the text or activities of the class. With that, I think that some sort of assessment needs to be done to gauge the classes competency in an area and then determine whether or not explicit teaching needs to occur on that topic.

Further, Students have a need to learn the standards of the language. So via modeling, corrective feedback, and explicit grammar teaching, instructors need to facilitate ways students can learn how to speak correctly. I think the basic attempt to communicate is important. Students need to be informed that they were effectively communicating to you, even if there may be some errors in grammar.

In terms of specific types of grammar that is valuable in the classroom, I think everything we have studied has a valuable function in language and teaching a language, but the one area in my experience that seems to carry the most value is Verbs. Verbs are a huge domain in the subject of language, but with linking and action, transitive and intransitive, auxiliary and modal, tense, aspect, and mode, and other variables in the domain of verbs seem to really be a determining factor in communicating and understanding language. My lesson focused on many things and focusing on verbs was a high priority. Verbs also seem to be the most complex constructions in our language.

In total, I really have gained a more deep appreciation for grammar in the classroom. I also think that the words "that's just how it is done in english or I can't explain" with respect to L1 grammar have seemed to slowly work it's way out of my speech.