Teacher in Development

I came across a really interesting blog today via EFL Geek.

If you’re an ESL teacher, you will likely find some very interesting thoughts to ponder from Scott Sommers. His post, The Power of Reading by Steven Krashen, left me with much to think about.

I’m big on equipping students to help themselves as they work on their English, or at least I’m trying to be.  I often ask, "What can you do outside of the classroom to continue working on your English?"

One of the primary suggestions is free reading.

Scott highlights some really interesting gaps that surface as free readers attempt to produce language. Gaps occur in spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Even with massive free voluntary reading of appropriate texts, complete acquisition of the conventions of writing may not take place; even very well-read people may have gaps in their competence. Typically, these gaps are small, and many readers will recognize them as problems they experience. Here are some examples:

Spelling demons: Words like “commitment” (or is it “commitment”?) and “independence” (or is it “independance”?).

Punctuation: Does the comma go inside or outside the quotation mark?

Grammar:Subject-verb agreement is sentences such as: A large group of boys is (are?) expected to arrive tomorrow.

These errors usually do not make much of a difference in terms of communication. “Independance,” for example, communicates the idea just as well as “independence.” Obeying the rules, however, is important for cosmetic reasons; readers often find written language containing errors irritating, and this reaction can detract from a writer’s message." (Sommers, 2006)

I really liked his exploration into why this happens, and I think I agree. Why are free readers reading in the first place? Likely for enjoyment, with little attention paid to form and mechanics. 

 

 If I follow Sommer’s ideas correctly, solid teaching practice should be to encourage free reading, but also help students pay attention to the mechanics - the grammar, the punctuation etc.

I can attest to this myself. If you’ve been reading my blog at all, you’ll notice that I’m not very good with punctuation. My college English prof once said that I was a "promiscuous comma user." Punctuation was never something I’ve excelled at.

However, in an interesting and wild twist of fate, I’ve been asked to build and deliver a course on effective email writing for one of our clients. As I’ve researched and prepared for this thing, I’ve found myself returning to the basics of simple, compound, and complex sentences. I’ve even started to learn about proper punctuation again.

I haven’t become an expert, but I have started reading on purpose for examples of the rules I’ve been learning about in my research.

I think I’m starting to notice how simple punctuation works. As I read The Lord Of The Rings, I find myself pausing every once and a while to think about a sentence: hey that’s a complex sentence, or that’s a compound sentence.

I’m also starting to think about why they are compound or complex, and I try to recall and employ the rules I’ve been learning about to explain my reasoning. 

The result…well that’s inconclusive. I’m still in progress there, but I have been working on employing what I’ve been learning about here in my blog. Perhaps there is a decrease in promiscuous comma usage? I hope so anyway.

But the lesson is important: Reading alone is not enough. You also need to pay attention to what you read, and why it’s written the way it’s written.

And maybe, just maybe, you should invite your students to learn the rules used to produce language in order to teach them to someone else.  

In development…What do you think?