Place of Grammar in Language Teaching: New Requirements, New Perspectives
Dr Geoffrey Williams
Department of English, Faculty of Arts
University of Sydney, Australia
1. Points of departure
Some key professional issues
... Into classrooms to look at some images of grammar teaching practices, and evidence about their effects
Ways of 'Doing' Grammar
Keywords
A starting point: thinking about 'point of departure' in different text types
2. Studying Literacy Learning with Grammar as a 'Mental Tool' in Real Contexts
Evidence: Information from two groups of eleven-year-olds and their teacher, Ruth French (and supplementary information from ... The Grammar Club)
First 11-year-old Group
Learning to write procedures
Second 11-year-old Group
Learning to write factual recounts: how might students learn to structure texts more clearly, with a developing sense of audience?
Writing at the beginning of the school year
Tamilselvan's First Recount
Centerpoint
On the 10th January we went to the Tresures of the Pharoahs exhibition at Centerpoint. We got there at 2.00. It cost $5 to go in. The exhibition, ranging from Tutenkhamen to the queen modles was all quite extra-ordinary. Although it was short was worth the money.
At the end of the exhibition there was a big room with tables filled with Lego. We sat down and started playing or building. I thought of making a modle of Tutenkhamen.
It took me 40 mins. I built it and it looked real. So the lady at the desk asked me to give her my name, address and modle. But before I could do so my cousin broke it.
At the end we went to McDonalds.
Developing two kinds of knowledge about language:
'Close reading'
Another child's writing in this text type
James' (age 8 yrs) Recount
My Holiday in Coffs Harbour
On the first day we drove to Coffs. We got to Coffs at 3.30 12 seconds. That afternoon we swam at the beach. My brother was shocked when I walked deep and was only up to my ankles in water. The next day we went for a swim in the water. In the afternoon we went to the Big Banana and I got a boomerang and an ice cream. Then we went on a bushwalk in a rainforest. The next day we went on another long bushwalk but then we went for a walk behind this water-fall. The next day we went on a barbecue with some friends. And I found a natural swing. On Thursday we went to the beach in the morning and flew kites in the afternoon. On Friday we went to the Mutton Bird Hill Nature Reserve and there were lots of nests in the ground. Then we bought some prawns. And then my Dad bought me a double passionfruit twist ice cream. Then the next day we went home.
Language Patterning: Functions of Grammatical and Semantic Patterns
What features count as relevant elements of a pattern? (In dialogue with: Chambers, A. 1993. TELL ME: Children, reading and talk. Stroud: Thimble Press.)
A Specific Example of Writing Development: Joint Construction of a Factual Recount
New Learning about
and abstracting ...
3. Evidence: A Comparison of Students' Independent Writing in Two Parallel Classes
Comparing writing in two associated classes: the focal class and a parallel class which experienced the same excursion
The Sample of Writing: two groups of texts in each class, selected by the teachers
Evidence from Analyses of the Texts:
Reading the Children's Texts Closely
Notation:
Recount of Hyde Park Barraks and Australian Museum Excursion
On Wednesday the 22nd of June Yr 6 went on an excursion to the Hyde Park Barraks and Australian Museum.
Around 9.30 we began to enter the city and started to go past many shops. I got more and more exited as we got out of the bus (there were two buses because there was not enough room for everyone in the same bus.) As we rounded a small corner the beautiful St Mary's Cathderal came into veiw. After a short silence the teachers told us to schech it and so we did. After this we walked a short distance to the gates of the Hyde Park Barraks themselves.
We were split into two groups (to make it eseir for the guides) and got rid of our bags ready for the tour. First we we went to the top floor to see the "convicts" exhibition and it was realy fun laying in hammocks (not the originals) and asking questions of the guides. We then went into a room storing plastic figures with names and writing on them. They represented some of the men that were staying at Hyde Park Barracks while convicts and the punishments they endured. In the same room the guide lifted up a floorboard and uncovered a fake rat's nest with lots of bits of material and quite an assortment of things used by the convicts and female immigrants. A neclace with a cross (possibly owned by one of the female immigrants) suggested some type of religion. And the peices of clothing told us what types of materials were used for dresses and pants eg. in those days. As I was at the back of the somewhat misshapen circle I did not know what the sudden skweak, scream and chatter was caused by. Then as the circle moved back a bit, I crept to the front and was surprised to see Angela on the floor and the guide holding up a fake but horrible rat while reassuring her that the rat was certainly fake. Angela had had quite a shock when the guide pulled the rat from under the floor-boards and screamed. At first nobody was sure about the reality of the rat so that was the cause of the chatter.
After that we were shown the female immigrants section one story down from the area we had just been. Here we were shown original rats nests and the things that were found in them. We learned that the female immigrants did not sleep in hammocks, only hard wooden bunks (one mattress between two women). ...
Giving Voice to a Major Concern: Does explicit teaching about grammar and text types destroy individual writing 'voice'?
Olivia
Alga took us to the convict part upstairs first, you see, Hyde Park Barracks was a place where convicts would stay if they worked for the government, but the only place restored and we could visit was the sleeping block, actually we did a bit of sleeping our selves! Alga took us to a room where hammocks were, so we hopped in for a little snooze!! It was very comfortable so people kept asking questions so we could stay in "Bed" for longer. But Alga moved us on. After this we went into a room that had painted wooden silhouettes in it and a recording going of voices of different convicts, did you know the size of the average convict was about as tall as me!! They must have been a small lot! One man by the name of Jhon Jhonston, was the naughtiest fellow. He would always be doing something wrong. He spent 3 years in irons, 100 lashes (many other numerous numbers of lashes also!) and 3 months in the solitary confinement cell. But even with all that he would'nt stop.
Petra
At 12.00 pm we meet with the other Year 6 classes for lunch at Hyde Park. We passed the fountain in the park which is famous by most people in Year 6 at Haberfield because once when we came on an excursion, Merideth (a person in 6D) fell into the fountain while having a photo in frount of it.
4. The Future