The end of the semester is always a
really busy time!
It has been really
hectic in my life and I know that when I become a teacher, things are not going
to slow down any.
I know it has been
awhile since I have posted last.
Last
time, I talked about teaching writing.
Well, this time, I want to focus on teaching grammar.
This area is always difficult to teach and is
different for every level of teaching.
We talk all the time in our Methods class about how we would teach
certain things in English.
Well, I think
that grammar is a hard thing to even think about teaching.
Some teachers in the field now are afraid to
teach grammar and they do it by one thing.
They open up the textbook the school has decided to use and he or she
does exactly what the book says.
Now, that is ONE way of teaching grammar, BUT
is it the best way for the students to learn?
I would say no. Some students
might learn really well this way, but reading from the textbook and teaching
what the book says and only what the book says is not right. The teacher is there to ENRICH the students’
learning. Enriching student learning
also does not mean give them a worksheet.
Sure, worksheets have their place in any classroom, but not every single
time you teach something. I have been
out in the field observing student learning for four years now and it is
amazing that every single teacher I have observed or worked with has a
different way of teaching.
As a student in the education
field, I am required to do so many hours in a high school classroom setting and
so many hours in a middle school setting.
Both of these settings, like I expected, were totally different.
While in my high school settings, I have seen
five different teachers.
Every single
teacher is different and every single teacher I observed taught grammar.
I have yet to see someone teach grammar the
way I am planning on teaching (which I will get to at the end of the post
:-P).
I have one specific instance that
I would like to speak to though.
While I
was in a tenth grade honors classroom, the teacher I was observing was stressed
out.
Going into the observation, I knew
the teacher was stressed because he or she was re-teaching grammar elements
that should have been taught the year prior.
Now, as I was sitting in this classroom, I was thinking about these
tenth grade students.
The teacher was
standing in front of the class using the SMART board.
His or her notes were in size ten font in a
word document.
He or she would teach a
little bit, and then ask questions about what was just taught.
The students were unable to take notes and were
lost about what the teacher was teaching.
As the teacher was asking questions, he or she was also getting really
frustrated with the students.
It finally
got to the point where the teacher shut down, passed out worksheets (15 to be
exact) and told the students to complete them.
I was in shock!
I could not
believe what was going on in front of me.
Then the teacher came back to me and asked me if what she was doing was
so complicated to understand.
To be
honest, I DID NOT EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT!
I know grammar and would consider myself
acceptable at grammar, but I had no clue what she was trying to teach
them.
I felt so bad for those students
and I do not want my students to feel that way too.
Out of the high school setting, I
got to teach middle school students proper noun and pronoun usage.
I had so much fun planning and executing my
lessons that my time with them seemed to fly by.
So, you are probably asking yourself, what
does he do with grammar lessons.
Well, I
have fun!
I teach the base concept to
the students, so proper noun usage for example, and then have an activity or
something fun for the students to get into.
I also try to relate it to pop culture and ideas from today’s
society.
In the middle school class, I
did a “painting” activity with my students to help them with nouns.
Now, it wasn’t real paint of course, it was
highlight strips.
They had to come to
the board and highlight a word.
Then I
would ask the students questions about the word.
The students had a lot of fun with it and the
teacher still contacts me asking me for ideas.
I hope that what I have here makes
sense. I have noticed that my blogging and
some of my writings kind of go into stream of consciousness like Holden C in Catcher
in the Rye. I try not to do that,
but I think it is the right thing to do for blog posts. So, if you have any questions, feel free to
ask. I would love to answer them!
