Comments on: The Constitution of Articles: Our Surface Errors, Ourselves…

By: Agnieszka Kajrukszto

Agnieszka Kajrukszto — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:09:34 +0000

Barrie, I think you provide some food for thought in that we need to find a happy though difficult balance. I think the research does show that overbearing attention to grammar is a detriment to students learning how to write. Bean seems to also suggest that we find ways to correct grammar that will not discourage young writers and will help them internalize grammar rules.
The group work problems you describe is also something I struggle with. In fact, we ( in FIN ECO) have made a handout on group work, and we include in our workshops. In it we suggest that it is a good idea to assign the three basic roles of the coordinator, moderator and note taker and we offer ideas on how to divide responsibilities. Unfortunately, I do not think we manage to solve the problem you cite. After the students meet and then retrieve to work on writing, they often fall into the pattern you describe, I am afraid.
Great ballet story!

By: Barrie

Barrie — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:29:13 +0000

O.K., Szidonia and Agnieszka, point taken! S, thank you balancing my comment a bit-you’re right, as teachers we rarely if ever actually fail students for grammar errors, but the threat is always there at the institutional level, and I think it feels very real to students. I think that the difference in our points of view arises from our mutual desire to be fair and supportive in very real and pragmatic senses-just in opposite ways. As flawless second language speakers, you two are understandably less patient with the “my dog ate my grammar” book line of argument (although I have lived to regret missing a class devoted to Hegel-have been dialectic-deficient ever since!), while I, and probably a lot of native speakers whose parents or grandparents were not born here (and a lot of others as well!) are inclined to want to counteract a certain sticklerism for grammar that, in its more unpleasant form smacks of nativism. But having read your posts, I think I might have to modify my “softy” approach a _little_. Please don’t think I treat grammar and syntax issues as wholly unimportant-they are extremely important, and influence peoples’ lot in life enormously, but I have seen their importance overvalued to the extent that it obscures or overshadows a students’ _ideas_. Which, in the end, is just another form of marginalization . BarrieP.S. When I was a kid I had a Soviet-trained ballet teacher. Hoo boy, was Madame Prochovsky ever a toughie. She used to beat time on the floor with a big stick, which she would also use to correct our arm and leg placement. (No she didn’t beat us- but she was fierce! Nobody slacked off in her class…She loved to grab our feet and touch them to our heads saying “Little Soviet ballerinas can do this in their sleep-While you are watching ‘Welcome Back Kotter’ on the TV!” Actually, I loved her. And several of the little girls in that class grew up to be professional dancers.

By: Szidonia

Szidonia — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:25:34 +0000

Woohoo, Agnieszka, God bless Eastern Europe!I tell them I am from Transylvania, which is true, and I drink blood for breakfast. My favorite is American students’ blood. (I do get some looks of terror at times, seriously. But I find such terror a useful pedagogical tool.

By: Agnieszka Kajrukszto

Agnieszka Kajrukszto — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:42:20 +0000

Szidonia, ofcourse you should tell them that learning means sweating it! When I first introduce myslef to a new class I roll my “r”, try to sound really stern and scary and tell them it is going to be just like in the communist Poland: no smiling allowed, I will make them stand in the corner in shame for every unprompted remark and I will send them to Siberia for every spelling mistake! It works wonders!
Just kidding. (A little).

By: Szidonia

Szidonia — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:13:29 +0000

Yes, but no matter how much we speak about unfair grading rubrics, I have never heard of any of my colleagues failing a student because of grammar mistakes. We tend to be much more liberal than that, and just how liberal one should be is one of the eternal conundrums I am facing. I experienced both sides of the equation: I used to be a second-language learner myself, and I am now a (non-native) teacher of English. I like to think that I understand the situation of those students who come from an under-privileged background, or from a different country. Being a softee, I melt easy. But I have to say that rarely do I see real discipline and desire on my students’ part to make up for whatever they have missed out on. Maybe I am getting sterner the older I grow, but I heard a lot of excuses, some of them quite ridiculous like “I do not know the use of articles because I missed that day in the kindergarten when the teacher was teaching this to us.” I agree that the use of articles is a complex grammatical issue, and schools should teach it extensively, not just at the kindergarten stage (whatever teaching of articles happens at that level). However, how long are you going to wait for somebody to compensate you for that loss decades ago? What about picking up a grammar book and doing the dirty job of, God help me, learning the rules by heart? No, I do not tell this to my students face to face, though maybe I should. I sandwich my suggestions in such a way that I do not hurt their feelings.I love my students, and I understand why some of them have to be glued onto their iphones even during class. Should I tell them that I remember my days in communist Romania when learning meant sweating it? No, I did not have much fun in school, but I learned that making spelling mistakes was a shame, in a real, profound sense of the word, like good old Freud would understand it.