Introduction:
The choice of artifacts that integrate this portfoilio was made taking into consideration their revelance to my learning, as well as the enhancement of my performance and awareness of grammar, both as a student and as a teacher of English.
The artifacts are as it follows:
§ Texts assigned: Text 7 by Larsen-Freeman and Text 8 by Hughes and McCarthy
§ Taks: 3rd and 4th Tasks
§ Teaching material: Reported Speech
Artifacts:
1. Text 7: The Grammar of Choice (Larsen-Freeman)
This one was the text I liked most, for basically two reasons. First, because I always agreed that people make choices when speaking, or writing, and these choices are not always out of the blue: they have a purpose, a meaning, that goes beyond linguistics and towards semantics. Second, because although I knew that and have studied something related to it before, it was the first time I saw a text that approached the English language specifically, even naming and explaining the categories. Of course some categories were new to me, such as the gender one (although it is pretty obvious that men and women have different discourses, as well as people with different ages, as mentioned in the age category). The personality one is also interesting, and it shows a more psychological approach to the use of language and the choices made by speakers. So is the conviction category. It was a surprise to me that the use of the demonstrative pronoun ‘that’ can actually reflect more or less conviction about what is being said. The categories I already knew about, even though I could not really name them, were the power, importance, assertiveness, presumptuousness, age, origin and status.
2. Text 8: From Sentence do Discourse: Discourse Grammar and English Language Teaching (Hughes & McCarthy)
Regarding text 8, which was my second favourite one, the reason why I chose it was mainly because it answered some of my students’ questions (or the questions I sometimes want them to ask): can we use the simple past to talk about two actions in the past that happened one after the other, or do we have to use the past perfect for the first action? This is something, that even us, teachers, sometimes are not so sure of, and sometimes we are afraid to tell some students that such choices are possible, depending on the situation. Students who are grammar-oriented don’t like things that depend: they want rules, some exceptions to memorize, and that’s it. When you say that something else that is not said in the traditional grammar books is possible, depending on a situation, they think you just don’t know enough. Now, when I face a situation like that, I can cite Hughes & Mc Carthy, or just show the text to them!
3. Task 3:
http://teleduc.ead.cpdee.ufmg.br/cursos/diretorio/portfolio_428_87_12//third%20task.ppt?1214594556
This task is a descripion of a class in which the modal CAN is worked in a communicative way, emphasing it as grammar as pattern. I chose this task to be included in my portfolio because I thought the activity suggested was both feasible and interesting, although quite simple.
From this task, as well as from the whole course itself, I could realize that it is possible – and not so difficult – to design more communicative classes, even when the aim is to introduce a grammar point. I guess we are so used to studying rules, that sometimes we tend to think that is easier to do the other way around: present the rule, give some examples and have students to do some exercises on the topic. Although I always avoid doing that, I have to admit that sometimes I do end up falling back into this old formula (in a more communicative way maybe, such as doing all the steps mentioned abobe after having the students see the grammar point in a contextualized way, being it a reading or a listening activity). This has been changing, though. What I´ve been trying now is to expose my students to the grammar points they need to learn as most as I can, in context and in a communicative way, having them use the grammar points almost to the exhaustion (ok, maybe not that much...); and then, only when I see that they can use that specific grammar point, is that I come with rules and more formal exercises. It seems to be working so far. I hope it continues!
4. Task 4:
The reason why I decided to include this task in my portfolio is because I always thought of this subject as being something really important to be taught, although I only officially learned this here, at the university (which is a shame!). At the same time, I have to admit that, as a teacher, I had never developed any activities to specifically teach this to my students. What I usually do is to question them whenever we read a news article, ad, or any other kind of genre, about the choices made by the person who wrote that.
I really think this is really important, especially when teaching reading (althoug it can also be applied in other skills, such as listening to a speech or making one). This increases students’ awareness of word choice, for instance, and help them to become more critical. In my opinion, this is one of the things that lead to proficiency!
5. Teaching Material: Reported Speech
Actually, no real material was developed by me. What I did was to apply some of the knowledge acquired throughout the course with some students. Then, instead of approaching grammar in the regular way (focusing on specific kinds of uses and on form), I tried to do something different.
This class was for an intermediate student I have at Fiat. In the book we follow (Market Leader) there is a grammar section, and the one we were supposed to work with was concerning Reported Speech. At the end of the book, there is a Grammar Reference section with a brief explanation on the grammar points worked throughout the book. I followed the basic procedures to introduce the topic: presentation (through a listening activity – an interview), practice (trough asking the student about the interview: what did the interviewer ask? what did the interviewee say? etc), and more practice (reading an article where part of this interview was reported). After some practice, I gave the student a sheet with a diologue, and asked him to report the dialogue. Then I gave him another sheet with the same dialogue being reported in two different ways: in one, all the verbs were changed one tense back, and in the other, some verbs were kept the same.
For instance:
Boy: Do you love me?
I asked the student if there were any differences in the sentences above, and he mentioned the tense of the verb to love. We discussed about the choices made by the boy when reporting the very same sentence, which helped him start to understand the differences in meaning between the two utterances. Only after such discussion, I presented him with the rules for reporting sentences and the explanation for keeping the verb to love in the presente simple. The nice thing about it, was that after that, he inductively understood that also the reporting verb can sometimes be used in the present tense.
I really felt proud that the activity worked so well, especially because I could aplly what I had learned during this course in my teaching, and more specifically, the subjects brought up in texts 7 and 8.
Conclusion:
I have to confess that sometimes, during my classes, I would still fall back into the old way of teaching grammar: by giving the rules. Now, I am educating myself, and also my students, into this new way of teaching and learning grammar. Not that I think that mentioning the rules is something bad and that it should be avoided at all costs, as if it were a mortal virus. However, I think there are other ways – better ways – to do it, and although some of the students are still kind of resistant to these ways, it is my job, as a teacher, to teach them also this, and not only the language itself. Before, I already tried to raise my student’s awareness of the many possibilities languages offer us; from now on, I will do it even more often, in a soothing way so I do not scare them anymore (I will never say that language is chaotic!). I really think I learned a lot from this course, and to be honest, I regret the fact that I did not have more time to dedicate to it. It was worth, though. Actually, it has been being worth (my first grammar choice could infer that is not worth anymore, whilst it still is! See? I am applying what I learned! Hopefully, in the correct way…).
