Reflection #4: Grammar

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This week we discussed grammar use and teaching techniques for ESL students.  I found this topic very interesting because from my own experience, I can say that learning the grammar structure of another language is a very difficult thing to do.  There are usually different tenses to learn, and some words that have different meanings in different contexts.  Learning grammar as an L2 student could be very discouraging and frustrating when corrections are always being made and progress isn’t apparent.  I felt very frustrated when I was learning Spanish because there were some grammar rules I could not seem to memorize and therefore always messed up on papers and writing exercises.  I think the activity we did in class last Thursday was so interesting and helpful in terms of teaching students about grammar, and knowing that mistakes are ok!

We were given two examples of writing exercises by ESL students, and we were told to correct them as if we were the teacher.  It was so hard for me to not correct every single mistake, and I was even tempted to just change the entire thought of a few sentences because I didn’t understand what the student was trying to say.  It was very stressful to read because my brain hurt from trying to figure out what to fix and what to leave alone.  I ended up correcting more mistakes then I should have, but I really had a hard time leaving the corrections go unnoticed.  We talked in class about only addressing a few issues in the paper at a time so the student is not overwhelmed and disappointed.  I think it would be a good idea to write a comment to the student stating a few things to look over again because they are apparent in the paper.  This way the teacher is not picking out every little thing out of the paper, and instead is giving the student an certain area or grammar rule to address and they can find the mistakes themselves.  I would also write on the paper that if they need help finding the mistakes then they can come talk to me after class and I would be happy to go over his or her paper with them.  I think it is so important to give students corrective feedback, but only so much at a time because too much can make the student feel incompetent and give up easier.  Another trick I learned a few years ago is to use a different colored pen (not red) when correcting student’s work.  Red is associated with being wrong about something, so if a teacher were to make corrections with another color, such as blue, black, or green, then the student may feel more at ease and won’t look at the corrections as all the mistakes they made.  I think this unit was a very important one for all of us becoming teachers.  No one wants to make his or her students feel incompetent!