Analytic Essay

María José García-Huidobro
May 25th, 2009
Language IX
Crystal Hickerson

Teaching grammar in context

David Nunan, Director of the English Centre and Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Hong Kong, in his article for ELT journal, “Teaching Grammar in context”, argues that teachers must go beyond linear approaches and traditional ways of teaching grammar in an English class. After analyzing the article, it is truly reasonable to say that the article contains valuable arguments and we can support his ideas with his amazing experience in the education field since he has worked as a language teacher, teacher educator, curriculum consultant, and materials writer in many countries. His teaching and research interests include task-based teaching, learner-centered instruction, and classroom observation and action research.
The article tries to explain the reader that grammar must be taught in context and not in isolation as it is used to in many schools. Nunan gives a complete comparison about what happens with the old fashioned way of using grammar in isolation and his proposal of using grammar in context. The author implies that teachers expect from their students understanding and not the knowledge of different concepts known by hard and in isolation. From that point of view, the author gives different examples of how can we apply grammar into our classes in relation with different topics in order to reach an effective learning. Every example can show us that it can be useful since he has practiced them in his own classes, with this the article demonstrate the reader that those practices have been evidenced and proved that they are reliable.
Nunan, provides plenty of examples to support his thesis to facilitate the reader the idea of teaching in a different way and not being afraid of using them. Maybe the readers can think that the article is written extremely personal since the author emphasize his article in his own experience so in this case the author should prove his own performance with other author specialized in the field. However, when you analyze the article you may feel sure about you are reading given the huge background and experience of the author.
The article is effective and it fulfills what the author expects because it let the readers maybe most of the time teachers to go beyond and think about new methodologies that can make enormous changes in education. On the other hand, we can identify that the text is well organized and very simple to follow, so the reader can have a very easy and quick reading pursue by a complete and interesting topic.
To conclude, the article written by David Nunan, “Teaching grammar in context”, is a very complete article that can be very useful for teachers of second language acquisition towards new models of second language teaching. A combination of theory and practice is this text that gives logical evidence that the author knows what he wrote and it is revealed in his strong arguments.

References:
Nunan, David. “Teaching grammar in context.” ELT Journal 52.2 (April 1998). May 12th , 2009 .

"Improving test scores" (corrected)

Improving Test scores- What we can do
Burns, J. David. “Will I do as well on the final exam as I expect? An examination of students´ expectations”. Journal of the scholarship of Teaching and Learning 8.3 (2008): 1-19. Although the article contains a lot of important and useful information for teachers, Burns is not well qualified to argue and discuss the topic since he is in the marketing business and he could not prove that students´ expectations are connected to test scores.
This article is very useful for teachers that want to increase students’ performance but finally the author did not find any relation between previous expectations and final results. The results did not work because the author just proved it in only one class, maybe his thesis could come up if Burns makes a continuous research instead of having results after just one try. Even though, the author did not obtain concrete results and certain prove that previous expectations can help students performance, the article opens a very important topic to discussion, that can be how about using previous expectations in teachers´ classes combined with interactive classes as a new methodology.

"The importance of testing in English class" (corrected)

The assessment process is fundamental to found evidence about our students´ performance in order to know what is really happening in our classes and also to use the information afterwards to be able to judge our methodology and try to modify our own strategies as teachers. The book provides an instructional manual of how teachers can test understanding in a proper way. Each chapter is divided into the main skills that English teacher must evaluate in an English course as listening, reading, vocabulary, etc. The information given has a very attractive design since there are a lot of drawings and the examples are shown in a very dynamic way. Every testing technique publicized in this book is a result of teachers´ needs as the new ideas revealed are practical and have been already used and have demonstrated success.
Most teachers are always arguing about lack of time and the quantity of class hours so they do not spend time searching about new techniques and new ideas that can help us to make a better job as educators. This book can be very useful in the fact that brings up new techniques and new solutions that can be easily applied in the classroom to obtain better results and to be more critical when testing. In contrast, we can also observe that the book shows how teachers can evaluate grammar in a more effective way but as it has been proved grammar is not any more part of learning english as a second language.

María José García-Huidobro

English Language 9

Crystal Hickerson

Wednesday 6th May, 2009

“The importance of testing in an English class”

Madsen, Harold S. Techniques in Testing. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

The assessment process is fundamental to find evidence about our students´ performance in order to know what is really happening in our classes and also to use the information afterwards to be able to judge our methodology and try to modify our own strategies as teachers. The book provides an instructional manual of how teachers can test understanding in a proper way. Each chapter is divided into the main skills that English teacher must evaluate in an English course as listening, reading, vocabulary, etc. The information given has a very attractive design since there are a lot of drawings and the examples are shown in a very dynamic way. Every testing technique publicized in this book is a result of teachers´ needs as the new ideas revealed are practical and have been already used and have demonstrated success.

Most teachers are always arguing about lack of time and the quantity of class hours so they do not spend time searching about new techniques and new ideas that can help us to make a better job as educators. This book can be very useful in the fact that brings up new techniques and new solutions that can be easily applied in the classroom to obtain better results and to be more critical when testing. In contrast, in the last years it has been demonstrated that grammar is not any more part of our process in learning English as a second language and as we can identify the book contains a full chapter of how teachers can evaluate grammar.

Improving Tes scores- What we can do

Burns, J. David. “Will I do as well on the final exam as I expect? An examination of students´ expectations”. Journal of the scholarship of Teaching and Learning 8.3 (2008): 1-19. Although the article contains a lot of important and useful information for teachers, Burns is not well qualified to argue and discuss the topic since he is in the marketing business and he could not prove that students expectations are connected to test scores.
This article is very useful for teachers that want to increase students’ performance but finally the author did not find any relation between previous expectations and final results. The results did not work because the author just prove it in only one class, maybe his thesis could come up if Burns makes a continuous research instead of having results after just one try. Even though, the author did not obtain concrete results and a certain prove that previous expectations can help students performance, the article opens a very important topic to discussion, that can be how about using previous expectations in teachers´ classes combined with interactive classes as a new methodology.

"Online sources"

1. Journals
a. “Association of American Colleges and Universities”
http://www.aacu.org/resources/generaleducation/index.cfm
The site offers a huge variety of different topics related with education. It is very easy to explore and you can find a lot of important information about education. The site also provides other links to very interesting education sources in order to give more information and have a complete research of your topic of interest.

b. “Educational Research and Reviews”
http://www.academicjournals.org/err/index.htm
The site provides the different volumes from the academic journal, “Educational research and reviews”. It is well organized in order that you can explore the site by selecting an especial volume or respecting the specific date.

c. “Education review a journal of book reviews”
http://edrev.asu.edu/
The Education review provides a great review of a big variety of book research and many essay reviews of famous authors in the education field. It is well organized and it contains a lot of different quotations that can help you to have a more complete investigation.


d. “we LEAD In Learning” An E-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership http://www.leadingtoday.org/weleadinlearning/
It provides a lot of articles of different authors and in each article it also provides some kind of information about the author’s life and other works.


e. “DOAJ”
http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=findJournals&hybrid=&query=education
The site contains a lot of information, easy access and different topics related with education in different languages!!!

2. Data bases
a. “Education and Literacy”
http://www.uis.unesco.org/pagesen/ed.htm
It is very interesting you can investigate many different topics related with education all over the world.


b. “Wikipedia”
http://www.wikipedia.org/
At first I did not know that it was a data base, but after I understand the concept I realized that I have used it in several times. It provides a lot of information and in many different languages.

c. “Internacional Education research Database”
http://research.ibo.org/pls/apex/f?p=107:1:3215830032429809
It contributes to the investigation of education, respecting international education and its methods.

"Relgion in class"

Religion has always been a controversial topic among human beings. History has shown us that religion has not reached its own purpose but on the contrary it has distanced beings from one another.
Some schools have chosen not including religion as a subject, instead they prefer that each family can have the option to decide if they want to follow a religion or not. The article “Teaching Religion in schools” alludes an open discussion to express readers’ opinions about giving or not religions lessons at school; it is an interest material to identify that most of the people think that religion must not be taught in class.(1)But sometimes “Religion” as a topic can arise any time and as teachers, we must be prepared. It does not matter what you believe or what you think is best, you must give the tools to make them chose. Educators are models but they are also a guide to provide knowledge in order to help them to create their own critical thinking. We must be tolerant a not becoming an extremist, we must act as neutral because we can not disrespect others believes. For example, in the interview made to Bill Maher about its new satirical documentary, the political satirist wants to show the world, with his new satirical documentary, that religion is attempting against human beings life. (4)We can identify this kind of documentary as extremist and intolerant for people who really believe that religion is necessary and important in life. Also in a The New York Times article Maher also described religion as ambiguous and non real. (2)
Teachers have to be neutral in every controversial topic because we never know how student’s families think and how are they going to react if we give our own point of views. Most of the time, students think that what teachers say is the truth and nothing but the truth but they must know that educators are just a help to make them conscious of real life.


Bibliography:

-Maher, Bill. Personal interview. 30 Sept. 2008.
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95210724>

-Cameras Roll, and Faith Hasn’t a Prayer. The New York Times. 26 Sept.2008.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/movies/28lela.html?src=tp>


- Teaching Religion in Schools. American civil liberties union of Pennsylvania.
<http://www.aclupa.org/education/studentsrightsmanual/freedomofreligion/teachingreligioninschools.htm>