So often we say of our students that we want them to be self-guided, to know what they need, and to take charge of their own education.  Lamentably, I find that very few teachers really teach thoughtfully--although I must say that it is being built in to more and more curricula. 

Anyway, I want to point to another method of students taking charge: unstructured time.  Unstructured time is important in life and in teaching.  When I first began using unstructured time with my students, they hated it.  They had no idea what to do with their time.  They constantly sought approval from me.  And they whined.  I hate whining.

But I kept it. 

"You should tell us what to do!" one of my older students told me.

"If you planned better, they wouldn't be so rambunctious," suggested my husband.

Twenty minutes a week isn't much, but for those who had never been allotted free time, it seemed interminable.

"What do you think you could do?" I would counter student after student.

"Huh?" was always the answer.

"Well, what do you do if you come in early before the other students?"

"Read a book."

"Okay.  So you could read a book. What else?"

A blank stare.

"What do you do at home if you don't have anything to do?"

"I always have something to do."  And this was the problem.  It took time for them to discover that they could play games, look up topic-related videos on the computer, discuss their favorite music in English, or read and re-read their favorite books.  They could write or watch plays.  They could sing.  They could create their own videos.

They learned what they liked and what they were good at.  They learned to choose something to do.  They learned to create, to laugh, and to explore.  And it's a step toward taking charge of their own lives.

Okay.  This post is about a work in progress.  As many of you know, I have tutored on and off for years.  In recent years, my students have included high school kids taking the SATs.  I am now blessed enough to have a high level high school sophomore who is struggling with the writing section (especially the grammar portion of the writing section) of the SATs.  His dad is very concerned, and I have no desire to minimize that.  I was teaching him the best way I knew how, but Dad was still concerned, so I started to really research other test-taking strategy books.

My problem, which I present to you for your advice, is that I am not finding any good strategies for this section of the SATs!  I am so disappointed!

Thus far, the strategies that I have found for the grammar section of the writing part fall into two categories:

1.  Students should just memorize grammar rules, which are then usually just listed in the book; and
2.  Students should eliminate as many answers as they can and then select an answer based on the statistical probability of getting it right from the number of answers that remain.

In my mind, these are rather flawed strategies for an entire section of a test.  First, most students already know the grammar rules.  The problem is prioritizing them because grammar is, on some level, subjective (and you can argue with me about that, but I would simply point to the plethora of style guides out there and regional and national variations of language use--many of which include differing spellings, use of prepositions, and forms of past participles--and again state that, on some level, grammar is subjective).  Secondly, guessing should never be a fundamental strategy for a test.  A back up strategy, yes, but to pose guesswork as the main component of test-taking strategy is to equate the subject matter being tested with mystery, and while I may say that grammar is subjective, it is neither mysterious nor arbitrary.

So, now I'm going to put forth what I have been doing and really asking for your advice on how you might go about teaching this material because, as I said, Dad is worried, and, honestly, I would be hypocritical if I didn't seek out alternative strategies (even if I may ultimately discard them), which I feel is simply good practice and the basic responsibility of any educator.

Okay.  So thus far, I have prioritized a list of grammar questions that I use in a flow chart-y way.  By flow chart-y, I mean that you begin by checking the sentence for the first offense and move on if the sentence does not have that problem; if the sentence does present that problem, then, regardless of any other problems the sentence may have, you need to find the answer that fixes that first problem.  For example, say you have a sentence that is a run-on (offending issue number 1) and is passive voice (offending issue number 5).  If you find an answer that fixes the passive voice (#5) but not the run-on (#1), then it is no good.  But if you find an answer that fixes the run-on (#1) and not the passive voice (#5) AND THERE ARE NO OTHER ANSWERS THAT ADDRESS BOTH PROBLEMS (or you can't fix both because it would require changing more than the underlined section), then you MUST pick the answer that addresses the run-on (#1) and not the passive voice (#5).

Make sense?

So my prioritized list of issues is:

1.  Is it a sentence?
    a.  Specifically, check that every clause (dependent and independent) has a subject and a predicate.
    b.  Make certain that compound sentences are joined appropriately with coordinating conjunctions (think "FAN BOYS"--for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so--thanks to Chuck Thomas for the mnemonic) or semicolons, not commas or other punctuation.

2.  Do things agree?
    a. Specifically, if you have a plural subject, do you have a plural verb?
    b. Do the number and case of all of your pronouns match their antecedents as they (both the antecedents in terms of number and the pronouns in terms of case) appear in the sentence?
    c. What is the tense of the sentence?  Do all of the tenses line up?
    d. If you have a single modifier modifying two things (usually nouns, but sometimes something else), does it carry through correctly for both?  Be especially careful of "than" and "as ____ as" constructions.

3.  How are your modifiers?
    a. Are your modifiers in the correct places?  If they are modifying nouns, are they next to them? 
    b, Do they fit--number, tense, person/thing (i.e., have you given a personal verb to an inanimate object--okay in the reading section but not here? If you have "who" is it modifying a person or if "that" is it modifying a thing?, etc.)?

4.  Are the words used correctly?
    a.  Are all of the words used appropriately?  See 3 b.  This is similar, but on a more global scale. In this case, you are looking for things like "less" vs. "fewer," etc.
    b. On a finer note, is the tone correct for all of the words?  Does one jump out as inappropriate?

5.  Is the sentence, or any of its clauses, in the passive voice?
     a.  FYI - This change may often cause a change in the subject of the sentence.
     b.  Make certain that the sentence is still a sentence after this change is made (this often appears as a trick!).

6.  Is the sentence's meaning clear?
    a.  Do all of the pronouns have clear antecedents (e.g., if there is a "she" can it only be one person, or are there two females in the sentence?, etc.)
    b.  Would a comma clarify something?  Sometimes things are running together and could be clarified a couple of different ways.  A comma is often used to separate, and you may see this in the answers.
    c.  Would reordering help?  Under the couple of ways to clarify, reordering ranks high.  Keep an eye out for this in the answers.

7.  A note of caution:  Differing styles use commas very differently, and in looking over these sample tests, I see VERY few questions in which commas are the crux of the issue with these exceptions:
     a.  Without the help of a coordinating conjunction following it, a comma cannot join two independent clauses; only a semicolon can do that.
     b.  Introductory gerund phrases and dependent clauses require commas after them.
     c.  Most styles now state that dependent clauses beginning with "which" require a comma (restrictive/unrestrictive set aside for the purposes of the test).  ETS seems to be following this rule.

Any thoughts on this method/issue or the materials discussing strategies for this section would be greatly appreciated!  Thanks in advance!

A number of experiences lately have brought me back to one of my fundamental principles of understanding (not just teaching or learning):  do it yourself.

There is simply no better way that I know of learning, of understanding, of developing empathy, or of evaluating.

I often find holes in my homework or materials when I attempt to do it.  I find other realms of inqiry, new areas of vocabulary, grammar that might be necessary, and examples that might be helpful by trying it myself.  I discover issues in timing--homework that is too long or assignments that fail to provoke a long enough contemplation of the point to be useful.  And perhaps most important, I find problems of unfairness.  I find bias.  I find areas in which I ask questions that my students lack the skill to answer or cannot answer due to social constraints that I hadn't thought about before I did it myself.

And maybe the most effective (not most important) consequence of doing it myself is providing modeling and earning the respect of my students.  If I learn another language in the same way I teach English to my students, that carries weight with them.  If they see me write the same essay that they do and then pick apart my own work in editing (and I do this because I largely doubt the effectiveness of peer review at the lower levels until the students have really been trained BOTH EXPLICITLY AND BY EXAMPLE how to edit), then I have convinced them that I am not wasting their time on busy work.  Furthermore, for young students, it is the beginning of teaching them to be colleagues, and for adult students, it is an innate acknowledgment that I know that they are intelligent even if they can't communicate what they know in my language.

And I have found that this level of respect flings open the doors to learning faster than anything else that I have seen with the exception of bodily care.  People want to be seen and heard.  We can better do that when we take a few moments, stand in their place, and do what they do.

Okay, so I have a bunch of ideas about how things "ought" to go, but none of that really matters unless you can see it working.

So here is one of those lessons that I have pulled out in Korea from time to time that just goes really well every time.

Lesson title:  When You're Slidin'

Age of students: elementary school - preferably 2nd-5th grades

Size of class:  2 or more students.  For larger classes, separate the class into groups of 3 or 4.

Student level: high beginner and above

Equipment/supplies needed: tape recorder, CD player, or computer with internet access and speakers

Objectives:  Introduce age appropriate vocabulary (baseball and potty talk), reinforcement of the rhythm of English through the rhythm of the song, (in the Korean context) differentiation between when/if, guided application of rhythm and grammar.

Length of lesson: Approximately 45 minutes.

Warnings: This lesson is an appropriate lesson for a free day or a relaxing moment after a test.  The topic of the lesson is something parents hate but kids love, making it risky to do by itself but very effective in terms of student motivation, long term recall, and real life application.

Activity 1:  Fill in the blank listening. 
Time:  Approximately 7-8 minutes

Take the lyrics from "The Diarrhea Song" from "Parenthood" and type them out, leaving some blanks.  Make enough copies for every student and distribute them to the class.

 Be careful which words you choose to eliminate.  What have you been working on in class?  If it's rhymes, then eliminate the words at the ends of the lines--but provide a wordbank because the words are obscure.  If it's potty talk (unlikely, but...), then eliminate the words of the bodily functions.  If sports, eliminate baseball words.  If noun markers, eliminate possessive pronouns, etc.

Play the song, which can be found on Youtube here. 

Have students fill in the blanks.  Repeat listening as necessary--I usually give two to three opportunities, but it will depend on the number of eliminated words and the level of your students.

Activity 2:  Singing/Role Playing
Time:  Approximately 10-15 minutes

Discuss the meaning of the text.  Allow students to translate if needed.  Trust me, at this age, once the words have been translated they will use the English and never resort to the home language again.

Allow the kids to sing and/or act out the song.  The actual singing is important because it reinforces the rhythm, which is one of the problems with the acquisition of English by speakers of several other languages.

Allowing role playing as well adds an entirely new dimension to the work.  Now, we have not only engaged linguistic and musical intelligences, we are also adding bodiy kinesthetic and the personal intelligences.  It puts the kids in touch with their feelings and their bodies and relates them to the words. 

This is HUGE.

First, this group is in the concrete-operational stage of thinking.  The doing is just incredibly important for the recall, and it is actually equating this meaning with this grammar--which is generally acquired either through memorization (needing far more practice than is usually alotted) or through logic (which is a formal-operational function--something our 2nd to 5th graders are not entirely ready to do). 

Secondly, the vocabulary is age appropriate.  Since 2nd to 5th graders care VERY MUCH about potty language and the more grotesque functions of the body, the MEANING carried with the grammar will make learning the grammar attractive to them.

Thirdly, this is a moment of connection and belonging.  We are talking the second tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and this is especially problematic in ESL/EFL classes because there is a lot of alienation between students and teacher.  Two things allow bonding here.  First, the teacher has shown true interest in a something dear to the students and has given them free reign (or at least limited reign) to pursue this interest, and, secondly, the students are tapping into their own emotions.  This is very rare in early EFL/ESL classrooms because the cognitive energy required to translate/formulate what they want to say often buries their affect.  You can't bond with someone when you're always wearing a mask.  The goofiness of this role play allows that mask to come off.

Finally, back to the grammar, in a Korean context, it is very difficult to break the when/if translation.  Koreans will usually translate "if" for future or imaginary hypothetical situations in which Westerners primarily use "when."  Through the use of something as memorable and entertaining as "The Diarrhea Song," you can break the translation by providing a pattern.  Koreans, in particular, will use these patterns in formulating their thoughts in English.

Activity 3:  Rewriting
Time: 20-30 minutes

In their groups, students rewrite the song using their own games/problems.  For example, they can still use diarrhea, but maybe they set it up in their hagwon ("When you're on the hagwon bus and you feel a big warm rush, diarrhea...diarrhea") or they could use a different problem like being out of their allowance ("When you're picking up the phone but you hear no dial tone, out of money...out of money.  When your stomach starts to growl but you can't buy kimbap now, out of money...out of money.").

Have the groups perform for each other.

This provides both practice and relevance, both of whch are necessary for the acquisition of the grammar and the vocabulary.  It also makes the song and its content the students' own.  It doesn't just belong to English class any more.  This is about them and their problems (and jokes). 

In addition, it straddles Eastern and Western cultural differences.  Presenting your work for the others is often considered arrogant showmanship in Asian cultures, BUT working together is perfectly normal and making your classmate's laugh is improving everyone's mood--something many Asians, and Koreans at least, are taught to do from birth. Therefore, this simple activity helps Korean students in particular begin to overcome cultural barriers which often stand in the way of success in Western situations, and it does so in such a way that the students do not have to compromise their own cultural beliefs.

Just FYI - I do realize that one of the major responses to my example of the blind kindergartner/mental health diagnoses is that these children might benefit from separate schooling outside of the mainstream classroom.  I have deliberately not engaged this portion of the argument because inclusion/exclusion is peripheral to my point which is twofold:

1. If it ain't workin', it ain't workin' no matter who developed the plan or how good it looked on paper. 

2.  If you are facing the failure of point 1, then a new plan is needed--not more of the same plan.

On point 1--that's why data collection is so important.  I am a big fan of cold, hard numbers AS WELL AS a list of confounding factors WITH MORE cold, hard numbers (i.e., I don't care if your indicators say the child can't read.  If I routinely see him get books that he's never seen off the shelf and read them to other children, then I know that for some reason, your indicators are not measuring what they say they are.  But that isn't the same as throwing out the numbers entirely.  That is saying that in X testing situation, the subject is not displaying mastery of Y knowledge that he/she IS displaying in Z situation).  Do you see the difference? 

Also, it doesn't matter if the best practices have worked in 8,000,000 other situations.  If they continually do not work (and I'm talking about 3-4 PROLONGED attempts with different teachers and in different settings) for the 8,000,001st child, then they are NOT the best practices for THAT child.  Period.

On point 2-- This is at the heart of NCLB, even though most school systems have found many ways to outwit it.  But this is also my point about creativity and actually what Ross Greene talks about in his books "The Explosive Child" and "Lost at School" (yes, I know those should be underlined or italicized, but I haven't kicked the formatting thing here yet.  You get the point though, don't you?).  You have options.  Your new plan can say X is not optional in our school and therefore we expell the child from our environment (not a belief I hold, but one that is still an option).  You can attack the problem from a new direction--a form of compromise (in which, it would be helpful if all parties were involved in the planning process).  Or you can re-evaluate and decide that it really isn't that big a deal and let it go.  These are all options.  YOU have to make a decision, but insisting on the same course of action is probably not going to yield better results.

Recently, I have repeatedly stumbled across the idea of accommodations and/or changing teaching strategies.  As any of you who have met me know, I am no fan of blind conformity and view best practices with a grain of salt until I see them work.  I am all for changing up my strategies and trying new things when it's my idea, but even I have balked in the past at being told to add something when I didn't think it was possible and, especially, when it's SOMEONE ELSE's idea.

But let me say to all of you out there who feel this exact same way: I was wrong.  Every time.  To my shame, it has always been possible.

We tend not to like change, particularly when we aren't given a choice.  But honestly, how much faster would we succeed and adapt if we put our energy and creativity into finding ways to solve the problem and adapting things to work instead of finagling ways to escape them?

Try it.  Collect the data.  If it really doesn't work, you have proof both that you tried and that it failed.  This goes a long way in changing what will be done in the future.  But I'll tell you this.  I never tried something and failed to learn something else.  I've never incorporated something into my teaching to reject it wholesale.  There has always been an element of good worth keeping.

But back on accommodations.  Consider the following situation:

A blind child is enrolled in kindergarten.  The school wants to hold her back because she can't read the textbooks they have and she doesn't know her colors.

Would we stand for that?

NO!  Obviously, we would want to introduce her to adaptive technologies--braille or a computer reader, and waive the requirement that she know her colors because no amount of teaching will ever accomplish this. 

We would not repeatedly thrust the same materials at her and give her three remedial courses in color identification.

But this is exactly what we are doing for many children with mental health diagnoses, learning disabilities, and other non-physical issues.

It doesn't make any sense.

Then consider what is possible when you teach accommodations.  I have a second-grade boy with ADHD (as well as other issues).  Last year, he did not score above a low C (72%) on any test 3 pages or longer.  We have been working solidly on coping skills for boredom and inattention--fidgeting if it helps you pay attention, watching the teacher's mouth, underlining the words as you go, etc.  Last week, he got a high B on a long reading test.  Change and progress are possible, but only if you are willing to look at the situation and make changes.

Consider again.  When I first began teaching EFL, someone told me you just can't teach articles to Asians.  They will simply never learn them.  I took it as a challenge in both reading comprehension and practical grammar.  After six months of work identifying meaning in poems by the articles used (short poems on topics of their interests were presented with all the articles and noun markers whited out. Students needed to identify what they felt the noun markers were and then use them to decode the meaning of the poem), I had a class get all of them correct.  The key was rethinking the situation (how had the information been presented in the past?--by grammatical rule--and why wasn't it working?--it hadn't been shown to have meaning to the students), correcting the problems of the past (demonstrating practical usage and creating meaning), and giving an outlet in which those skills would be useful (allowing students to continue talking/writing on the topic with their own experience/needs).

Now, this isn't an example of accommodation, but it's one of those cases in which people think something is impossible only because they haven't rethought the process.

So my challenge is: what is the difference we want to see in our teaching, our world?

Impossible?

What if we thought it MUST happen and it MUST start with us?

What is our plan?

I am convinced it CAN happen.

Calvin Coolidge once said, "No man ever listened himself out of a job."

I find this especially true in teaching...and especially hard to do.

Why?
1.  Listening requires halting one's own agenda and truly taking in the moment as it is.
2.  Listening may mean abandoning one's plans and adjusting one's course, perhaps rather significantly.
3.  Convention: Teachers are trained to teach, not listen, and students are taught to listen, not teach.

If it's so difficult, why do it?
1.  Because there's no better way to guage where your students are.  Indicators can be wrong or biased.  Secondhand accounts are not complete.  And your students are TRYING to tell you.  Why not listen?
2.  Because it establishes a sense of worth, rapport, and belonging.  Someone who is listened to is someone who is valued.  We want to be valued, and we do better when we feel we belong.

So how do you do it?
Ahhhh.... This is where I fail a lot.
1.  Slow down your own feedback.  I come from an area with rapidfire conversation.  This doesn't always work in the classroom.  Sure, it's fun for drilling and can be good for joking, but it doesn't help for listening.  So to do this:
a.  Stop.  After you jave asked your question, don't explain. Shut your mouth.
b.  Engage your student with your eyes.  Don't break eye contact. 
c.  Count to five after your student stops speaking to make certain he or she is truly finished.
d.  Resist the urge to make an evaluative comment and ask a follow up question.  This is really hard, and at first, students will want reassurance.  I sometimes say, "I really want to know what you think" or "I really like hearing your thoughts."  This is less evaluative than my gut response but still indicates my pleasure in the continued conversation.

2.  Check for nonverbal cues.  Are your students fidgeting? Are they leaning forward engaged? How do they participate?  Who talks to whom?  What makes them laugh?  Does one laugh and not another?

3.  Put yourself out there, especially if you want negative feedback.  Positive feedback is needed, but sometimes you need to get at the negative emotions to reach the positive ones.  Start with your own example, e.g., "When I was in school, I hated when...," or even start with yourself, e.g., "I really hate when I ______ in class."  Identifying the problem is the first step to finding a solution!

4.  Incorporate what you heard into what you do.  If you listen to what was said and then throw it out the window, then you have actually made the situation worse.  Act on what you have heard.  Even if you don't completely follow the students' advice, you can incorporate pieces of it into your plans.  Besides, seeing their own plans in action and watching how they work is a step in becoming self-determining and self-sufficient--the end goal of all education.

Any teacher who says they don't teach to the test either doesn't have tests or is lying.

We are judged by how well our students do, and tests are the conventional method of measuring that.

Yes, we teach to the test, and there are also good reasons for doing so:

1. A bunch of really smart people worked a really long time to come up with this test.
2. These smart people gave this test to a lot of other students along with other measures to make sure that this test is both reliable and valid.
3. Somebody had a (good) reason for thinking that mastery of the topics on this test would predict future success.

In short, the tests that are out there, like them or not, have been well-researched and, well, well-tested.

But we all know people who do well on the test and can't. do. anything. else.

And, I'm pretty sure that the problem is this:  we have taught to the test and not beyond it.

Teaching beyond the test means taking the skills from the test and finding where they are used in real life.  Once this has been pinpointed.  BRING BACK the real life experience and teach something truly authentic IN YOUR CLASS.

Yeah, I know.  Somehow we are supposed to supply the knowledge and eventually the kids will just move right on up Bloom's Taxonomy.  Sure, there are some interventions like worksheets on "critical thinking skills."

Let me just say anecdotally that I am not seeing how our current method of teaching higher level skills is outstripping the Asians who teach by rote memorization--and I have spent the bulk of the last 12 years of my life looking at this.

However, I will say that one thing that makes a difference in both places appears to be the use of these newly acquired skills in TRULY authentic learning situations (i.e., something more than the "learning in real life" section of your textbook).

So how would you go about teaching beyond the test?

Here are some things that have worked for me:

1. Look at the test.  It has been well-researched and widely tested.  It has been assessed for reliability and validity.  What are its questions like?  What is it trying to test and how does it attempt to do so?
2. Read about who the test is for.  Does your student fit that group?  Does your student WANT to belong to that group?  How can you help your student succeed? Cultural/age barriers
3. How does this test correlate to real life activities that your student would feasibly be expected to achieve in the future?
4. How can you feasibly bring this real life experience into your classroom?
    

And here would be some examples of what you might do:

1. For a DIBELS type (or other phonics) test of nonsense words.  Goal: Teaching sounding our nonsense words. Bring in (or print) a bunch of flyers from a different locale.  Also provide a map of the area with a school and the stores located clearly on it.  Give students an amount to spend and have them write directions of how to get there.  They must then read them to the teacher/other student successfully to get their prize.  Obviously, all of the place names will be nonsense to them.

2.  For a TOEFL type listening/reading response.  Goal: Given previous knowledge, to respond in mixed media and in real time to a problem. Play a brief segment from Oprah or some other self help talk show.  Follow this with an email or question to Dear Abby/Ann Landers on a similar topic.  Students should write or speak a response.

3. For EFL/ESL students preparing for school interviews.  Goal: Expressing themselves clearly despite the interference of electronic devices.  Make them must successfully use a video/taped speech to direct their fellow students to find or do something in the class.