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Is it possible to teach composition to classes of 45 |
possible |
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nearly impossible |
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Total Votes : 7 |
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NorbertRadd
Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 148 Location: Shenzhen, Guangdong
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Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 11:55 am Post subject: Is it possible to teach composition to classes of 45 |
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I'm sorry to write about this again.
The dean has made all the absentees return so now I have all sorts of non-writers back at this cram school parading as an institution of higher learning, scowling, hating doing anything but memorization.
They agree it's important for me to learn to write Chinese but don't think writing is important to them.
I found some ideas from the idea cookbook today that will work in a couple of my classes but most are very resistant to the idea of model, demonstrate, and do. I was grading 500 papers a week for a while but gave it up when I saw the students uninterested in feedback.
Most of the students have no listening comprehension and they're studying Faulkner in their other classes when they can't compose an original simple statement.
My contract ends 6/30.
Any suggestions are welcomed.
I can't bail because I'm going elsewhere soon in China. |
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Norman Bethune
Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 731
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Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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It is possible to teach composition to classes of 45 or more students.
Some suggestions to keep you grading time within reason:
Have the students keep a journal in english. Every week do random spot checks on ten students to see if they made entries every day. You really don't care what they write about as long as it is original. Tell the students to write at least 100 words a day and make it personal. During each class, scan the ten journals you collected for habitual problems and for plagarism. Give verbal feedback to each student. At the end of term, collect all the journals...assign a grade based on whatever criterion you decide... you don't have to read all of the journal entries if you don't want. Take a sample.
Concentrate on in-class writing assignments. Give the students 45 minutes (if possible) to write something you assign in class (make it about 200 words long). Collect at the end of class. Again, you don't have to read in-depth and give feedback. Scan quickly for repetitive errors and problems areas to be covered in later classes. Give brief verbal feedback at the beginning of each class when you hand the papers back. Again, you don't have to read all of them...you will know who the good students are and who the bad students are just by scanning the assignments each week.
Assign topics to groups to write about. Make it a collaborative effort. Tell the students they must write a story or composition together. Do it in class. Monitor the groups to see who is doing what and keep telling the slackers to contribute. Make sure all of the students write on paper the story...all students must submit in their own handwriting the story they supposedly all collaborated on. Grade and give feedback if you want.
Precis or editing exercises...you get the idea. Keep it short, hand out long passages and tell students to rewrite them. I know it really isn't composition, but it gives them the idea how to use words differently.
Good luck |
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tofuman
Joined: 02 Jul 2004 Posts: 937
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 6:08 am Post subject: |
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Deleted
Last edited by tofuman on Wed May 11, 2005 1:46 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Norman Bethune
Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 731
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 6:58 am Post subject: |
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To clarify:
Is it possible to teach composition to classes of 45 or more students?
Yes. You can teach the classes. You are a teacher and you know how to lead and coach and facilitate and all those other fancy things that a teacher does.
But:
Is it possible for a student to learn composition in a class of 45 or more students?
Maybe 5% of students will actually pay attention and their writing will improve dramatically. 20% will improve a little. The remaining 75%, aware that once they graduate they will never have to write anything so complex as an english essay ever again in their lives, will exert minimal effort or won't even try to learn anything.
Teach to the whole class, but focus more of your time and feedback helping those students who are truly working hard and improving. Fail the rest of them (they'll pass anyway, the Chinese administrators will see to it, no matter what you may say). |
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Roger
Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138
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Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 8:28 am Post subject: |
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I think writing would help them a lot more than their cram vocab lessdons and those unspeakably useless oral English classes. Learning how to write - is learning hot to organise one's thoughts.
I agree, of course, that 45 is a high number. But it is still manageable. Your students do need a lot of critical feedbakc, and they need to learn to act upon your feedback!
How can you teach them that?
I suggest you introduce the notion of collaborative writing: groups of several students joining tow rite one piece together, with one of them being a proofreader, one being a secretary or typist, or maybe two doing each job. Or each writes a paragraph in a composition. You must specify the exact length of each paragraph, of course.
Don't think they can write essays! Teach them things they really need in ordinary life - how to write a job application. How to write a complaint. How to enrol a student at a foreign university. How to write a Letter to the Editor on a given topic!
I normally have 5 students or so write things together, each must assess his or her peers' writing before I mark all the remaining mistakes. This way, they do take an interest in lowering the overall number of grammar and other mistakes.
And yes, have them write in class. Not as homework... there are so many downloadable articles... complete with or without mistakes! |
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NorbertRadd
Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 148 Location: Shenzhen, Guangdong
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 12:53 pm Post subject: thanks for the feedback |
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This week, I've been having the students edit paragraphs from the book.
There's only 5 cycles of classes left and of the 9 this week with rewriting, 7 were successes.
I didn't follow my instincts when I started but taught the text which is chock-full of bad examples.
I won't ever teach composition again.
I got a new job lined up teaching conversation at a tech school and I've loads of experience with that and when that gig's up, I'll have my postgrad. education finished.
Thanks again for the feedback.
This is a thankless task. |
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Jolly

Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Posts: 202
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Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 9:05 pm Post subject: Re: Is it possible to teach composition to classes of 45 |
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NorbertRadd wrote: |
I'm sorry to write about this again.
The dean has made all the absentees return so now I have all sorts of non-writers back at this cram school parading as an institution of higher learning, scowling, hating doing anything but memorization.
They agree it's important for me to learn to write Chinese but don't think writing is important to them.
I found some ideas from the idea cookbook today that will work in a couple of my classes but most are very resistant to the idea of model, demonstrate, and do. I was grading 500 papers a week for a while but gave it up when I saw the students uninterested in feedback.
Most of the students have no listening comprehension and they're studying Faulkner in their other classes when they can't compose an original simple statement.
My contract ends 6/30.
Any suggestions are welcomed.
I can't bail because I'm going elsewhere soon in China. |
Question: Why should you be required to write Chinese?
It's crazy to have so many students in a writing class. I once was teaching in a similar situation. I was told by the dean of the English department not to grade or even make comments on all the papers. Why should students take the time to write papers if the teacher is not at least going to comment? I don't think FTs should teach writing classes. It's way to time consuming and probably doesn't help the students very much. Reading 500 papers takes a lot of time and energy! How can any school expect their FTs to do that? It's next to impossible to read that many papers and have any kind of life -- not to mention eating and sleeping. I really tried reading ALL the papers. Getting past the grammar mistakes was a trial. This is why FT should not teach writing. The Chinese teachers have to teach them grammar first!
Do you have a teacher's assistant, a student who helps you with the papers? If not, ask for one. You can't possibly do all that work.
Good luck!
Last edited by Jolly on Thu May 19, 2005 4:54 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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NorbertRadd
Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 148 Location: Shenzhen, Guangdong
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Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 10:29 pm Post subject: why learn to write Chinese? |
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I am learning Chinese as hard, as fast, as effectively as I can mostly through self study and speaking with locals.
I ask students: Is is important for Chinese language students to learn to write and they enthusiastically say:"Yes!"
Often I'm told by students, "I only want to learn to speak."
Orwell, Stephen King, Strunk&White say to use the active voice and I've been trying to teach them that writing in the active voice can help them learn to speak better.
Most students then tell me: "I don't want to be a teacher."
I thought being too cool for school was only a US phenomenon. |
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ChinaMovieMagic
Joined: 02 Nov 2004 Posts: 2102 Location: YangShuo
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Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 7:17 am Post subject: |
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COURSE PROPOSAL
Writing without Teachers: Dialogues among Writers
The course is based primarily upon the work of Peter
Elbow, described in his book Writing Without Teachers.
A key concept in this approach is the fact that it is
difficult, especially for inexperienced writers, to
compose without direct and immediate feedback from a
variety of readers. Feedback is important to any
writer's development: a writer has to know what
effects his or her words are having on readers. As
Elbow writes, "You need movies of people's minds while
they read your words."
The dialogue in this class is designed to give the
writer a representation of what has gone on in the
minds of the readers when they have read his or her
words. The purpose of the teacherless class is to
provide dialogic feedback to writers in advance of a
real audience. The ultimate objective of this pedagogy
is for writers to gain enough experience so that they
no longer need the group, but can depend on their own
sense of what is appropriate--that is, to be able to
cope successfully with one's writing processes
independent of others.
Class Members:
In order to ensure that the class is composed of
motivated members, the teacher will interview
prospective members of the class. According to Elbow,
the teacherless class should be formed from a small
but diverse group of dedicated writers, and the group
must commit to write something every week and to
respond to everyone's work faithfully. Elbow's
experience has shown that, ideally, the group should
have seven to twelve members.
Initially, each group member brings to each session a
piece of writing based upon the movie segment viewed
by the class and discussed the week before. Having the
members (including the "non-teacher")
write about the SAME MOVIE SEQUENCE, has several
specific results:
*it will help overcome "writer's block"
*it will be a shared experience for the class members;
that is, they will be all writing about "the same
experience"
*it will enable the members to learn from their fellow
members' writing styles--both from the diversity and
from the uniformity
*it will enable the members to experiment with a wide
variety of creative writing expressions, based upon
the SAME MOVIE SEQUENCE--rich descriptive
word-pictures, inner thoughts of the characters,
dialogues between the characters, use of adverbs and
adjectives, expanding upon the movie
sequence--creating the "before" and the "after"
Relevant samples of writing from novels and poems will
be studied and discussed, as well as practiced/copied
by the students--in writing about the SAME MOVIE
SEQUENCE. In some cases, members will also study a
MOVIE-NOVEL passage, based upon the SAME MOVIE
SEQUENCE.
FORMAT
Each group member brings to each session a piece of
writing based upon the movie sequence. The member
reads the piece aloud twice, and then the other
members tell the writer how the writing has affected
them (this response can be oral or written). This kind
of feedback is NONEVALUATIVE, one in which readers
simply verbalize their reactions as readers. The goal
is not to judge the writing good or bad or to suggest
ways to improve it, although that may happen along the
way; the object is simply to describe one's reactions
to the words on the page so that the writer gains an
accurate sense of how his or her prose is being
received by readers.
After a writer reads the text, he or she listens while
the other group members speak or write about the text.
The writer's must not reveal how they feel about the
reactions to their writing. If the readers sense that
their is defensiveness on the writer's part, they will
censor what they say and the writer will not gain an
accurate picture of readers' experiences. The writer
must listen and absorb what is said. As Elbow advises
writers: "Just take it all in. Assume that when you
write something else--or rewrite this piece--your OWN
choices about how to write it will organically benefit
from hearing what they are now saying."
Elbow has devised four strategies for getting the
dialogue underway: pointing, summarizing, telling, and
showing.
(1)POINTING
The reader underlines words or passages that seem
particularly effective:
"Start by simply pointing to the words
and phrases which most successfully
penetrated your skull:perhaps they seem
loud or full of voice; or they seemed to have a
lot of energy; or they somehow rang true; or they
carried special conviction.
Elbow recommends a wavy line for any passages that the
reader finds 'particularly weak or empty."
(2)SUMMARIZING contains four steps:
(a)First tell very quickly what you found to be the
main points, main feelings, or centers of gravity.
Just sort of say what comes to mind for fifteen
seconds.
(b)Then summarize it into a single sentence.
(c)Then choose ONE WORD from the writing which best
summarizes it.
(d)Then choose a word that isn't in the writing to
summarize it.
(3)TELLING allows the reader to provide a narrative of
what happened while he or she read. The listeners
simply provide a short narrative about their
reactions, not about how good or bad the writing was
perceived to be.
(4)SHOWING is a process of METAPHOR, because some
responses to writing cannot be communicated directly.
Such metaphors "tap knowledge which you have but which
is usually unavailable to you." Elbow provides a list
of twenty-four possible ways to unearth descriptive
metaphors of your reaction to a particular piece of
writing. Here are five examples:
(a)Talk about the writing as though you were
describing VOICES: for example, shouting, whining,
whispering, lecturing sternly, droning, speaking
abstractly, and so forth. Try to apply such words not
only to the whole thing but to different parts.
(b)Talk about the writing as though you were talking
about MOTION or LOCOMOTION: for example, as marching,
climbing, crawling, rolling along, tiptoeing,
strolling, sprinting, and so forth.
(c)Color: What color is the whole? the parts?
(d)The writing is a lump of workable clay. Tell what
you would do with that clay.
(e)Let your whole body make the movements inspired by
the writing or different parts of it. Perhaps combine
sounds and movements. |
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NorbertRadd
Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 148 Location: Shenzhen, Guangdong
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Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 10:14 pm Post subject: can't reinvent the wheel |
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Thanks for the feedback!
Quote: |
the group
must commit to write something every week and to
respond to everyone's work faithfully. |
The students here only care about test performance and not learning or improvement and they learned rote memorization once upon a time and rely on that. Sometime next month, I leave. In a week, they'll give me their final compositions and I'll grade them and I'm finished.
As I said before, I taught the book first rather than follow my instincts but doubt it'd made a difference here where the situation's impossible.
What's good is that I've developed apathy, viz., learn, do, or fail; and effective classroom management.
I've been running the class as a writing lab and students believe it's supposed to be their study hall.
The concept of active learning is completely alien here, especially in most of the Chinese textbooks I purchased for myself |
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frigginhippie
Joined: 13 Mar 2004 Posts: 188 Location: over here
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Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 4:27 am Post subject: possible IF |
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Possible IF you only have 1 or 2 classes. I was given 4, of 40 students, per week. No way can a teacher correct 160 compositions/week. The department said, "only correct 1/4 at a time". I asked, "so each student should only learn 1/4 of the information?" No reply.
The guy before me just wrote 90% on each paper, with no editing whatsoever. By the quality of writing from 10th-year English students, I imagine this has been the case for most of their education. Sad. Especially when their 10 years results in the journal entry "I am happiness".
-fh |
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