Welcome. This blog discusses English education in Norwegian primary schools. We are a group of students studying at the University of Tromsø, who are currently attending the third and fourth year of our masters in teaching. Enjoy!
mandag 26. oktober 2015
fredag 23. oktober 2015
Grammar-to-go
By Sandra Mikalsen
The first step we had chosen from “Grammar-to-go” was called
“Speaking, writing, spelling”, and
was about making the pupils familiar with the poem. This part of the teaching
scheme was assigned to me, so the first thing I did was to present the poem on
the smartboard by reading it out loud to the pupils so that they would get the
right sound and rhythm of it. Afterwards, we read the poem out loud together a
few times and talked about the form and content of the poem. Next, I divided the class into four groups and
assigned each group one stanza from the poem to be copied down so that they
would get some practice in writing and spelling. Then each of the groups would
get together to make a performance out of their assigned stanza. They could
decide whether to recite the poem using different intonation, pitch, pace and
empathy.
The third and last step was called “Writing own poems, finding rhyming words”. In this part we wanted the pupils to write a five-line poem about anything they would like to write about. The student in charge started off with asking the pupils what they knew about five-line poems, and then showed them an example of a five-liner, including a recipe on how to make one. She also repeated with them what nouns and adjectives were. The class was already familiar with this kind of poem, but some of them needed a reminder and some inspiration anyway.
In my overall opinion, the teaching scheme went well and we got positive feedback from the pupils. We also consider the pupils with dyslexia during the planning and adapted the scheme according to their needs. By doing so we also made it more manageable for the pupils who struggle with English. Most of the pupils were active and participated during the entire session, which made it easier for us to interact with them and get through most of our items in our scheme. The only unforeseen problem that we encountered was the amount of time required for each of the parts in the scheme. The first part of the session took much longer than anticipated because there was a need for explaining and writing down the translation of certain words. To improve the scheme, I think I would give each part more time and also maybe make it more diverse considering the pupils who needs more challenge.
For this assignment, I will write a report on how it went when we applied
the method “Grammar-to-go”, by Hæge Hestnes (2011), to our teaching scheme for
an English class. I will give a description of the teaching scheme and the text
we chose, including on what level the pupils are in English and a bit about the
frame factors for this class. Afterwards I will give my own evaluation and
reflection of the scheme and the method “Grammar-to-go”.
In this practice period my group and I were placed with 6th graders.
The class consisted of 19 pupils, where their English skills varied a lot and
two of the pupils was diagnosed with dyslexia. Fortunately for us most of the
pupils seemed motivated for English and liked it. We decided to use the “Grammar-to-go”
method during a visit from our University teacher, and therefore we found it
best to conduct all of our chosen steps in this method in just one session of
English.
The “Grammar-to-go” method consists of eight steps in total, but we
chose only three of them. We had 90 minutes available and decided to divide the
session into three parts – one part for each of us students and each of the steps
we had chosen. For this method we also had to find us a poem, song or lyric to use
the method with. So we ended up with a poem called Brother by Mary Ann
Hoberman, from the book Poetry Speaks to
Children (Paschen, 2005).
The first step we had chosen from “Grammar-to-go” was called
“Speaking, writing, spelling”, and
was about making the pupils familiar with the poem. This part of the teaching
scheme was assigned to me, so the first thing I did was to present the poem on
the smartboard by reading it out loud to the pupils so that they would get the
right sound and rhythm of it. Afterwards, we read the poem out loud together a
few times and talked about the form and content of the poem. Next, I divided the class into four groups and
assigned each group one stanza from the poem to be copied down so that they
would get some practice in writing and spelling. Then each of the groups would
get together to make a performance out of their assigned stanza. They could
decide whether to recite the poem using different intonation, pitch, pace and
empathy.
The second step was called “Adverbials of time” and focused on grammar, but without the pupils
actually knowing they were working with grammar. For this part each pupil got a
copy of a worksheet that we had edited in advance. This contained the original
poem, a picture, and another edited version of the poem where all the subjects,
pronouns and possessive determinatives were removed.
Thus the pupils task was to
replace these with other pronouns and possessive determinatives. Before they
got started on the task, the student in charge of this part repeated with the
pupils what pronouns were, and gave them an example on how to do the task.
The third and last step was called “Writing own poems, finding rhyming words”. In this part we wanted the pupils to write a five-line poem about anything they would like to write about. The student in charge started off with asking the pupils what they knew about five-line poems, and then showed them an example of a five-liner, including a recipe on how to make one. She also repeated with them what nouns and adjectives were. The class was already familiar with this kind of poem, but some of them needed a reminder and some inspiration anyway.
In my overall opinion, the teaching scheme went well and we got positive feedback from the pupils. We also consider the pupils with dyslexia during the planning and adapted the scheme according to their needs. By doing so we also made it more manageable for the pupils who struggle with English. Most of the pupils were active and participated during the entire session, which made it easier for us to interact with them and get through most of our items in our scheme. The only unforeseen problem that we encountered was the amount of time required for each of the parts in the scheme. The first part of the session took much longer than anticipated because there was a need for explaining and writing down the translation of certain words. To improve the scheme, I think I would give each part more time and also maybe make it more diverse considering the pupils who needs more challenge.
When it comes to my opinion about the “Grammar-to-go” as a method, I
think it lacks the most important thing about the whole method – instructions
on how to teach grammar! We had a lot of difficulties on finding a
grammar-related task for the scheme, especially when the method contained only one
step specific for grammar. Apart from these flaws I found the method easy to
understand and apply. It also contained some good suggestions on how to implicate
both oral, writing, spelling and creativity skills in working with poetry.
References:
- Hestnes, H. (2011) Grammar-to-go. I Guldal, T.M. og Otnes, H. (red.)
Grammatikkundervisning. Språkheftet 4.
Idéhefte for lærere. Tapir akademisk forlag
- Paschen, E. (red.). (2005) Poetry Speaks to Children. Naperville, Illinoise: Sourcebooks, Inc.
- Paschen, E. (red.). (2005) Poetry Speaks to Children. Naperville, Illinoise: Sourcebooks, Inc.
The Grammar-to-go method in practice
This is how I used the grammar-to-go method by Hæge Hestnes in my practice period.
(under the picture)
My presentation of the grammar-to-go method (prezi)
(under the picture)
My presentation of the grammar-to-go method (prezi)
"Grammar-to-go".
This is my description of a teaching scheme that me and my practice group made based on an article called "Grammar-to-go". I have chosen to present it in a Prezi-presentation.
https://prezi.com/bmzshy6vek48/the-grammar-to-go-method-poems/
https://prezi.com/bmzshy6vek48/the-grammar-to-go-method-poems/
Theaching scheme based on the "Grammar-to-go"-method
by Torun Sørbøen
My teaching scheme is presented in a Prezi-presentation. Follow the link: http://prezi.com/m3pjk0mrpzeh/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy, and have a look!
My teaching scheme is presented in a Prezi-presentation. Follow the link: http://prezi.com/m3pjk0mrpzeh/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy, and have a look!
Sources:
Dahl, R. “The Dentist and the Crocodile”. In Paschen, E. (Ed.). (2005) Poetry Speaks to Children. Naperville, Illinoise: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Hestnes, H. (2011) “Grammar-to-go”. In Guldal, T. M. & Otnes, H. (Ed.) Grammatikkundervisning. Språkhefte 4. Idéhefte for lærere. Tapir akademisk forlag.
Grammar teaching
I have made a PowerPoint presentation to show you how my practice group implemented the "grammar-to-go" method in a teaching scheme, and how I experienced the method in use.
Follow the link for the presentation
http://www.slideshare.net/secret/bYOGXUjJtfqf0z
Eirin
Follow the link for the presentation
http://www.slideshare.net/secret/bYOGXUjJtfqf0z
Eirin
torsdag 22. oktober 2015
Grammar-to-go
By Heidi Alida
This year me and my group had our practice period in a class with 6. Graders. We chose to do the grammar-to-go method the day we had our teacher from the University visiting. Since we did this, it was also very important for all of us in the group to both take part in the planning of the teaching scheme but also in the learning activity in the classroom. We had 90 minutes available, and we built the teaching session up as three parts, where every part had a focus area from the grammar-to-go method. As we were three students in the group, we decided to conduct the plan where one of us were in charge for each part.
The first part, is the first task in the method, the speaking, writing, spelling. We started with the introduction to the poem. The poem we decided to use were Brother by Mary Ann Hoberman (Pashen, 2005). The pupils received a thorough and interesting introduction to the poem where they did choral reading before they discussed the poems content and form. The pupils got divided into four groups, where every group copied one stanza, and then got together to practice on how to perform it, with focus on intonation, tempo, pitch and empathy.
In the second part of the class we were going to focus on point six in the grammar-to-go method. The pupils were going to work with grammar, but we didn’t introduce it for them as grammar. We made a document with the poem, where we hade the poem on the left side, that the pupils used in the first part of the class. We had a picture in the middle, to illustrate the poem, and on the right side we hade the poem again, but here we had taken away the subject pronoun and the possessive determiner. This way the pupils could focus on filling in another pronoun and possessive determiner than the ones in the original poem. The student responsible for this part had a thorough review of the task with the pupils, repeating all the pronouns together with the pupils before they started to fill in.
The last part was the one I
was responsible for. Here we chose point five, writing own poems, finding rhyming words from grammar-to-go. The
pupils had recently been working with both five-line poems and adjectives in
the Norwegian classes. The pupils were very grateful for English, and seemed to
like the classes very well, but the academic level was very varying. By choosing a five-line poem
for everyone to write, most of the pupils would be able to make one and
experience success. I began with letting the pupils tell what they remembered
about five-line poems, and they remembered all the different lines, and what
they sustained. I still chose to show some examples from Stairs homepage (Cappelen Damm). I also let the recipe on a five-line poem be in sight for
those of the students who needed a reminder during the task.
I think the grammar-to-go method was interesting to use, but while we were planning the class, I thought it could be hard getting several points into one class. We did make it this time, but during the class we noticed that the first part demanded more time than we had planed. And since we had our teacher visiting we all wanted to do our part. That may have made the last parts a bit stressful. Since the pupils knew the recipe for a five-line poem we were able to finish the task. Had it been another situation I would have saved the last part for later, and instead used time on evaluating the class. We didn’t have time for that, but we brought it with us, and in the English class the week later, we started the class with evaluating the last one with the pupils. The pupils seemed to like it very well and the response was very positive. We also got time for some of the pupils to finish their five-liner and read it for their learning partner or the class. It seemed like the pupils liked the method and the way we worked, and for later I would like to try the grammar-to-go method again, but over a longer time period.
References:
This year me and my group had our practice period in a class with 6. Graders. We chose to do the grammar-to-go method the day we had our teacher from the University visiting. Since we did this, it was also very important for all of us in the group to both take part in the planning of the teaching scheme but also in the learning activity in the classroom. We had 90 minutes available, and we built the teaching session up as three parts, where every part had a focus area from the grammar-to-go method. As we were three students in the group, we decided to conduct the plan where one of us were in charge for each part.
The first part, is the first task in the method, the speaking, writing, spelling. We started with the introduction to the poem. The poem we decided to use were Brother by Mary Ann Hoberman (Pashen, 2005). The pupils received a thorough and interesting introduction to the poem where they did choral reading before they discussed the poems content and form. The pupils got divided into four groups, where every group copied one stanza, and then got together to practice on how to perform it, with focus on intonation, tempo, pitch and empathy.
In the second part of the class we were going to focus on point six in the grammar-to-go method. The pupils were going to work with grammar, but we didn’t introduce it for them as grammar. We made a document with the poem, where we hade the poem on the left side, that the pupils used in the first part of the class. We had a picture in the middle, to illustrate the poem, and on the right side we hade the poem again, but here we had taken away the subject pronoun and the possessive determiner. This way the pupils could focus on filling in another pronoun and possessive determiner than the ones in the original poem. The student responsible for this part had a thorough review of the task with the pupils, repeating all the pronouns together with the pupils before they started to fill in.
I think the grammar-to-go method was interesting to use, but while we were planning the class, I thought it could be hard getting several points into one class. We did make it this time, but during the class we noticed that the first part demanded more time than we had planed. And since we had our teacher visiting we all wanted to do our part. That may have made the last parts a bit stressful. Since the pupils knew the recipe for a five-line poem we were able to finish the task. Had it been another situation I would have saved the last part for later, and instead used time on evaluating the class. We didn’t have time for that, but we brought it with us, and in the English class the week later, we started the class with evaluating the last one with the pupils. The pupils seemed to like it very well and the response was very positive. We also got time for some of the pupils to finish their five-liner and read it for their learning partner or the class. It seemed like the pupils liked the method and the way we worked, and for later I would like to try the grammar-to-go method again, but over a longer time period.
References:
Paschen, E. (red.). (2005) Poetry Speaks to Children. Naperville, Illinoise: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cappelen DAMM,
Stairs http://stairsonline5.cappelendamm.no/sjangerside.html?tid=951154
Sourced: 20.10.2015, kl:13:52.
onsdag 21. oktober 2015
My experience with "Grammar-to-go"
I have made a Prezi to show you what my group did in our practice period, and my experiences using the "Grammar-to-go" method.
http://prezi.com/l1ybyekzxu3h/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
Enjoy!
http://prezi.com/l1ybyekzxu3h/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
Enjoy!
Abonner på:
Innlegg (Atom)