Practical Ideas for Teaching Writing:

Is Vocab the Writing Teacher’s Job?

Keith Folse

University of Central Florida

keith.folse@gmail.com

Thank You

HEINLE CENGAGE

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HELP: a new book for new (and not so new) teachers

HOT SEAT QUESTIONS

mygrammarquestion@gmail.com

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HOT SEAT QUESTIONHOT SEAT QUESTION

_____ Monday

_____ June

_____ noon

_____ December 25th

_____ spring

_____ my birthday

_____ the 1980s

ANSWERANSWER

at 6 pm, at noon, at this moment

on Monday, on Dec. 5th,

on my birthday

_

in June, in spring, in 1990,

in the 80s, in the 20th century

AT

O N

I N

AT

O N

I N

We need your questions!!!!We need your questions!!!!

E-MAIL: mygrammarquestion@gmail.com

Book of HOT SEAT QUESTIONS for teachersRoyalties go to a TESOL scholarship fundYour name and school will appear with your

questionHelp your fellow teachers and also TESOL

students

Teaching writing = QUESTIONS

Why are students in this course? What should I do (in class)? What should they write about? (My decision?) What should we do about errors? How should I mark student writing? Wait…. Should I even mark student writing? Should students write in a journal? And then? So what about grammar? Vocabulary?

Spelling? Punctuation? etc….,etc….,etc…. What to do???

YOU must work on vocabulary!

Importance of Vocab for ELLs

3 pieces of evidence

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Importance of Vocab for ELLs

#1: Student Voices

• In exit surveys, secondary ELLs now in college complain their ESL courses needed

(1) more opportunities to speak English in class

(2) more teaching of vocabulary

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Importance of Vocab for ELLs

#2: Reading• Knowledge of isolated vocabulary

correlates VERY highly with reading proficiency

(1) The best readers know how to use context clues to read, but

(2) The best readers rely on context clues the least because they know the most words

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Importance of Vocab for ELLs

#3: Writing• Vocabulary usage impacts writing

scores by natives• In experimental conditions, the best

papers:

(1) are longer

(2) have the highest number of unique words (which means they use a lot of synonyms, which means they know more vocab)

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Teaching writing = QUESTIONS

Why are students in this course? What should I do (in class)? What should they write about? (My decision?) What should we do about errors? How should I mark student writing? Wait…. Should I even mark student writing? Should students write in a journal? And then? So what about grammar? Vocabulary?

Spelling? Punctuation? etc….,etc….,etc…. WHAT TO DO?????

The Serenity Prayer

So what are things we can control?And what are things we cannot control?

Coming up with the items in the correct categoryis not as easy as it might appear…

OUR (= teacher AND student) PROBLEM:

What is obvious to you and me is not always so obvious to people not of our culture or not of our language background -- especially when it comes to WRITING

REVOLUTIONARY IDEA: I asked some advanced ESL students about WRITING and what was surprising here in the US (great DVD – see BIBLIOGRAPHY !!!) _ _ _

Japanese observation about a dry cleaning garment bag…

"Warning: To avoid danger of suffocation, keep this plastic bag away from babies and children. Do not use this bag in cribs, beds, carriages or playpens. The plastic bag could block nose and mouth and prevent breathing. This bag is not a toy.”

Do we NEED to say this???

Argentinean reaction: on an Airbus 320 recently…

"Warning: This door must be closed during take-off and landing.”

Do we NEED to say this???

Turkish student: “American writing repeats too

much… it’s redundant”

• P 1: This ___ will discuss XYZ by analyzing A, B, and C• P 2: support #1 (about A)• P 3: support #2 (about B)• P 4: support #3 (about C; strongest)• P 5: This ___ discussed XYZ by analyzing A, B, and C

Do we NEED to say this???

Serenity Prayer: What we CANNOT control

• students’ expectations / goals / needs• time required to grade 100 essays• students’ ability to correct all of their

own grammar errors instantly or independently (in x wks.)

• students’ English proficiency (in x wks.)• students’ composition ability in L1

Serenity Prayer: What we CAN control

1. the topics and therefore S’s & T’s interest 2. writing tasks (what? #? # of rewrites?)3. the scoring procedures (YOUR TIME!)

(no research to show that your grading = better student writing)

4. what we do (and don’t) teach: 4a. teach (selected) grammar only as needed

4b. teach vocabulary at the adv. level

What we CAN control

1. the topics and therefore our interest

BOOK 2: GREAT PARAGRAPHS: Each chapter ends with 5 writing prompts for that rhetorical mode.

BOOK 5: GREATER ESSAYS: ditto but the prompts are divided by subject (Humanities, Sciences, Business, Personal) [plus 10 “additional” topics per chapter]

TOP 20: one large writing prompt for the grammar point

What we CAN control2. writing tasks (what? #? # of rewrites?)

a. shorter, specific writing tasks(e.g., providing and following a model)

b. numerous writing tasks(avoid the “I assign, you write, I grade” syndrome)

c. limit number of rewritesd. more “all-class” tasks

(Greater Essays: 3 versions of the same essay)(Great Paragraphs: all s’s work on same topic sent)(various books: Building Better Sentences TASK)

Tasks that ALL students can do together and then check together

1. Teach a CLASS: You don’t get paid enough or have enough time to teach 20 / 15 / 32 individual writing classes for the whole semester

2. Teach a CLASS: Limit your grading time3. Teach a CLASS: Concrete activities that

students can complete and check in pairs/groups

4. Practice building better sentences, which are the foundation for paragraphs, essays, and all types of writing.

Sentence Combining in Small Groups

1. Students work in 3s.2. There are 3 problems.3. Each student becomes A, B, or C.4. After Problem A, then student A will put

that on the board. (All A students go to the board at the same time.

5. Check all answers as a class.

EXAMPLE for whole class

1. The flag is Mexican.2. The flag is green.3. The flag is white.4. The flag is red.

you: _________________________________ _________________________________

Problem A

from Great Paragraphs, p. 244

1. School uniforms should be mandatory.2. This should be for all students.3. The students are in the United States.4. This is for a number of reasons.you: _________________________________ _________________________________

Problem B

1. Matt plays tennis every Monday.2. Matt plays tennis at night.3. Matt enjoys this.4. Laura also enjoys this.

you: _________________________________ _________________________________

Problem C

1. Karla is extremely happy.2. Karla got a car.3. Her car is new.4. Karla’s car was a gift.5. The purpose of the gift was for her birthday.6. On this birthday, she turned 30.

you: _________________________________ _________________________________

What we CAN control

3. the scoring procedure (YOUR TIME!)(no research to show that your grading =

better student writing)

a. Mrs. Cameron b. specific feedback , not overkill

(e.g., vocabulary: GIVE the word!)

What we CAN control4. What we do (and don’t) teach

4a. teach (selected) grammar ONLY AS NEEDED GRAM CLASS (no future perfect!) WRITING CLASS TEACH, not TEST, SPECIFIC EDITING

(from Top 20 & others) “This paragraph contains 7 errors: spelling (1),

word choice (2), s-v agr (3), topic sentence (1).”

4b. TEACH VOCABULARY at the adv. Level Keep a vocabulary notebook… (Vocabulary Myths)

Grammar Example #1

VERB TENSES? Yes, but which ones?

By the year 2020, perhaps the US population will have grown to almost 500 million.

Future Perfect Tense???

Grammar Example #1

VERB TENSES:

①present tense

②past tense

③present perfect tense

④present & perfect modal + verb

⑤past perfect

⑥passive voice of 1-5

Grammar Example #2

ADJECTIVES BEFORE NOUNS?

Opinion: an interesting book

Dimension: a big apple

Age: a new car

Shape: an oval mask

Color: a black coat

Origin: a Canadian product

Material: a plastic toy

a big round Malaysian opal friendship ring a delicious aged Dutch cheese snack

Grammar Example #2

ADJECTIVES BEFORE NOUNS?

1. Make your students use ONE adjective

1. Make sure the adjective is BEFORE the noun it modifies

A non-ESL-tainted co-author… from Greater Essays, Essay 4c, p. 102

Modern Music Technology: Downloading or Stealing?

The recording industry is in a slump. Albums and CDs

are not selling as much as they were several years ago, and

this trend shows no sign of reversing. For the industry as a whole, profits are down ten percent within the last three years. What has caused this downward spiral for the music industry? The answer is the same piece of equipment with which I am writing this essay: the personal computer. There are three reasons that the computer has had this deleterious effect on the recording industry.

Evidence that Vocabulary is Critical in ESL Writing

• 1st SOURCE: Research studies– Santos (1988)– Ferris (1994)– Biber (1986)– Engber (1995)– Dordick (1996)

• 2nd SOURCE: ESL Composition Rubrics– Teacher-generated– ESL Profile (Jacobs et al. 1981)– TOEFL ®

Tips for Teaching / Inspiring Better Writing

• Remember students’ REAL objectives

• Respect student time / money investment (don’t have students write only 3 or 4 assignments in a semester)

• Don’t teach a grammar course, teach a WRITING course (which means teaching grammar as actually needed, not as dictated from the “this-is-good-for-you” mentality)

• Collect many assignments, allow the papers to “die” in memory, mark many lightly/specifically, focus on a few in depth and through drafts

Tips for Teaching / Inspiring Better Writing

• Concentrate on editing skills -- both surface language AND composition/meaning

• Let students work together, but don’t go crazy with peer editing (AKA: peer-editing is not THE solution)

• Work on sentence-level tasks (even at advanced!!)

• Encourage/Push vocabulary usage/growth

• When in doubt, go back to ……….

The Serenity Prayer

Questions?