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Aelric
Joined: 02 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 5:30 pm Post subject: Teaching paragraph and sentence stuctures.. |
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more than I can chew? Anyone try to tackle this one? I have a long term goal of getting paragraphs down over the course of this year, but I think that parts of speech may be necessary for some students. While one or two classes are great at everything I throw at them, the other 20 are pathetic and some even need some school house rock (although I tried parts of speech before and it was less than steller.)
I'm trying to be a real teacher here, but it's pretty hard considering these worthless middle school textbooks, conflicting (albeit well-meaning) co-teacher ideas and the horrid level of the second and third graders (the new 1st graders are actually quite good, thanks so much elementary teachers.) |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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The first-years just haven't yet developed the same attitude problems; don't worry - it will happen when they move into a classroom with a '2' above the door.
Getting them to write whole paragraphs in large middle school classes likely won't fly very well. I'd stick to simple sentences for the most part. If you want to teach writing see if you can arrange a special after-school class for some of the brighter students. |
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Underwaterbob
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito
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| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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Teaching writing to Korean middle school students is rough. They're used to being told exactly what to do for school assignments. The ambiguous nature of writing messes with their heads. Being creative within a limiting framework is not a Korean specialty.
It doesn't help that the public school curriculum doesn't include much writing to begin with. As far as I can tell, middle-schoolers don't write essays for any of their classes, in Korean or English.
Lower level Korean writing in English seems to fall into two categories: The extremely creative, grammatically atrocious, and the grammatically perfect, near-plagiarism. Maybe you can get your students to find a nice middle ground. |
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Straphanger
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
Location: Chilgok, Korea
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| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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I'm teaching the 5-paragraph essay to grade 5 and 6 elementary at a hakwon. Get an American textbook, it's a lot easier. The first thing you do is teach the parts of speech in English, then identifying the parts of speech, then simple sentence diagramming, then sentences, then paragraphs, then outlines, then essays.
Then practice, practice, practice. |
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losing_touch
Joined: 26 Jun 2008
Location: Ulsan - I think!
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| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Straphanger wrote: |
I'm teaching the 5-paragraph essay to grade 5 and 6 elementary at a hakwon. Get an American textbook, it's a lot easier. The first thing you do is teach the parts of speech in English, then identifying the parts of speech, then simple sentence diagramming, then sentences, then paragraphs, then outlines, then essays.
Then practice, practice, practice. |
Same here .... It has been a long process. The students aren't happy about it! |
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Aelric
Joined: 02 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Yu_Bum_suk wrote: |
The first-years just haven't yet developed the same attitude problems; don't worry - it will happen when they move into a classroom with a '2' above the door.
Getting them to write whole paragraphs in large middle school classes likely won't fly very well. I'd stick to simple sentences for the most part. If you want to teach writing see if you can arrange a special after-school class for some of the brighter students. |
Oh, I know ALL about the attitude problems. I'm enjoying the first years while it lasts.
After school is not happening. I'm already starting two classes that will put me at my limit, pretty much (an extreme basic to help the really low levels and a debate club for the advanced).
One problem is my big mouth on this. I was shocked by the lack of writing skills and thought I could teach this fairly easily, then at a staff meeting, the other teachers jumped on the bandwagon wholeheartedly. All of them loved the idea of teaching more writing skills, so I can't fault them for not being supportive of my idea. Unfortunately, it may be longer than I expected. If we really got to bust out the "verb shows action" type speeches, it's gonna be a long road without much time for anything else. I may have to brainstorm my way out of it after a proper evaluation of what is more worthwhile, writing skills or advanced conversation. |
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Scott in Incheon
Joined: 30 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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One great way to teach sentences is caption writing.
Collect pictures and let students write the captions. When you are doing simple sentences, you use pics with one focal point, and then when they move to complex sentences you can bring in pictures that have two or more focal points.
Caption writing gives the students a real purpose rather than just writing sentences. You can easily create projects by having the students make photo magazines. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Aelric wrote: |
| Yu_Bum_suk wrote: |
The first-years just haven't yet developed the same attitude problems; don't worry - it will happen when they move into a classroom with a '2' above the door.
Getting them to write whole paragraphs in large middle school classes likely won't fly very well. I'd stick to simple sentences for the most part. If you want to teach writing see if you can arrange a special after-school class for some of the brighter students. |
Oh, I know ALL about the attitude problems. I'm enjoying the first years while it lasts.
After school is not happening. I'm already starting two classes that will put me at my limit, pretty much (an extreme basic to help the really low levels and a debate club for the advanced).
One problem is my big mouth on this. I was shocked by the lack of writing skills and thought I could teach this fairly easily, then at a staff meeting, the other teachers jumped on the bandwagon wholeheartedly. All of them loved the idea of teaching more writing skills, so I can't fault them for not being supportive of my idea. Unfortunately, it may be longer than I expected. If we really got to bust out the "verb shows action" type speeches, it's gonna be a long road without much time for anything else. I may have to brainstorm my way out of it after a proper evaluation of what is more worthwhile, writing skills or advanced conversation. |
I'm teaching writing in my extra classes and I'm still working on getting them not to start each sentence on a new line. You can show them example after example to analyse, but it has no correlation whatsoever to their ability to produce. That just takes endless practice, and unfortunately it's not the most fen activity for 12-15-year-olds. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 12:17 am Post subject: |
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| Scott in Incheon wrote: |
One great way to teach sentences is caption writing.
Collect pictures and let students write the captions. When you are doing simple sentences, you use pics with one focal point, and then when they move to complex sentences you can bring in pictures that have two or more focal points.
Caption writing gives the students a real purpose rather than just writing sentences. You can easily create projects by having the students make photo magazines. |
I can see how this might work in some ways but the problem is that it gets them using sentence fragments all the time. What I find works better is to give them a picture with two words that they have to incorporate into a complete sentence. This is not only practical but mirrors iBT style writing questions. |
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Scott in Incheon
Joined: 30 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:08 am Post subject: |
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I have used captions for quite a few years, and never had any problems with sentence fragments.
The captions are really good for doing editing practice as well, as the students can look at the pictures of their friends and make suggestions as to how to make the sentences a little better. |
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D.D.
Joined: 29 May 2008
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| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 8:34 am Post subject: |
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A good start is to ask them to make 5 sentences about a video.
Tell them that each sentence must be at least 7 words. I noticed this approach has helped them to also speak in something resembling sentences. |
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