This week was a real eye-opener for me
as I was met with my lack of linguistic competency. I remember growing up and
learning how to write. My teacher would ask us to include an awesome adjective,
vivid verbs, and other specific vocabularies. We briefly went over articles,
nouns, and prepositions and I remember hearing the dreaded words “adverbial
clause” but for the most part, I did not worry about it. The writing was
writing, speaking was speaking and reading was reading, what was the point of
learning all this grammar vocabulary? How I wish I would have been more attuned
to these words and their meaning. When reading J. Harmer’s chapter 5 from his
book “How to teach English” and D. Brown and H. Lee’s chapter 19 from their
book “Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy,” I
was overwhelmed.
Despite being a native English speaker,
loving English class, adoring writing and always wishing for more time to read,
my linguistic competency is rather lacking. Although most terms were familiar,
my ability to define and identify them was left wanting. Participating in the
worksheet “Common Areas of Difficulty,” sealed my opinion that I should have
paid more attention back in middle school.
As a side note, I find it intriguing to
me that past middle school there was hardly any mention of such detailed
grammatical terms. Unit 3 of this course has been the first time I have had to
think about these things since middle school. For most native English speakers
there is hardly a thought that goes into them using their native language, yet
how many of them truly understand the expanse of their language? How many could
truly explain why they write how they write? I spoke to one native English
speaker, Stephanie. She had endeavored to teach English with no training, the
summary of her attempts was concluded with “it wasn’t pretty” (personal
communication, September 25, 2018). Few of us can actually comprehend English
in such a way as to teach it to someone whose L1 is not English.
Something I
want to take away from this unit is to ask questions, seek to grow and do not
be discouraged when you do not get it right away. Life is full of learning and
honestly is full of common areas of difficulty. People struggle through life
constantly but that does not mean people should give up. Going through this
unit has encouraged and inspired me to continue to learn and grow in areas
where I see that I struggle.
The Action
Plan assignment at the end of this unit was a helpful tool to wrap up all my
thoughts. It helped me to reflect on what I had found challenging and forced me
to think of practical steps to overcome those challenges in the future. I
believe it is important for teachers to always continue to learn. Teachers should
be constantly seeking to grow in their knowledge and their resources. Being
overwhelmed by what they do not know, should only catapult them into desiring
to learn more. As teachers take on this attitude it will transmit to their
students and it will feed the craving to acquire knowledge and master it.
Bibliography
Brown,
H. D., & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach
to language pedagogy (Fourth ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
Harmer, J. (2016). The practice
of English language teaching. Harlow: Pearson Education.
For more resources look these up:
For more resources look these up:
Basics of English Grammar. (n.d.).
Retrieved from https://www.talkenglish.com/grammar/grammar.aspx
Beare, K. (2018, June 26). Preparing to
Teach Grammar in an ESL Class. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/teaching-grammar-in-esl-efl-setting-1209075
Pesce, C. (2016, September 27). 5 New
Fun Ways to Teach Grammar to ESL Students. Retrieved from
https://busyteacher.org/2873-5-new-fun-ways-to-teach-grammar-to-esl-students.html
Team, R. (2014, May 14). The Fastest and
Most Effective Way to Learn English Grammar. Retrieved from
https://reallifeglobal.com/learn-english-grammar-fast-effective/
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