What is the Role of a Teacher in the Teaching of Grammar?

The Role of a Teacher in the Teaching of Grammar

Having delved into an actual teaching arena as my profession, many questions about teaching pedagogies trigger my curiosity, especially on how to teach English as a foreign and/or a second language concerning teaching grammar while employing a communicative approach in a classroom setting. By reading Patrick Hartwell’s “Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar,” it helps me to find the way out on how to impart knowledge to my students. In the book, I find that the issue of teaching in the classroom is crucially embedded in the article. By stating at the beginning of the article that “I would agree with Janet Emig that grammar issue is a prime example of ‘magical thinking’,” Hartwell notes that Students will learn only what teachers teach and only because they teach. In other words, he implies that the teaching of grammar has no more value than “making a prospective driver get a degree in automotive engineering before engaging the clutch” (216). In addition, he includes at the end of the essay that “it is, after all, a question of power,” which is “to take power from the teacher and to give that power to the learner” (228). Here, one cannot help but arguer with this notion by asking, “So, what is the role of a teacher then?” Certainly, the role of a teacher is to contribute an appropriate power to both native and non-native learners in a formal classroom setting.

For native learners, some elements of grammar are acquired by natural means in informal situations. It consists of rules, principles, etc, that are not available to conscious attention. Therefore, the teacher has to pay attention to the internal processes and knowledge the students are building up in their mind. In other words, the teacher’s role, according to Neuleib, is “to help students understand the system they know unconsciously as native speakers, to teach them the necessary categories and labels that will enable them to think about the talk about their language” (206). I totally agree with Neuleib that the teacher still performs an important role in a classroom, and I also believe that in playing this role the teacher must exercise the power in the classroom. I call this power a ‘passive power,’ which means the teacher is a facilitator or a shadow, observing the individual’s needs in writing. As Peal notes in her article, “The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers,” that “Seen in this light, composing becomes the carrying forward of an implicit sense into explicit form. Teaching composing, then, means paying attention not only to the forms or products but also to the explicative process through which they arise” (39). Helping to bring an implicit sense into explicit forms, the role of a teacher is enormously crucial. Because the teacher s will not only teach them the forms or products, but they also have to concentrate on the processes they utilize. As Pearl suggests,

Teachers may first need to identify which characteristic components of each student’s process facilitate writing and which inhibit it before further teaching takes place. If they do not, teachers of unskilled writers may continue to place themselves in a defeating position: imposing another method of writing instruction upon the students’ already internalized processes without first helping students to extricate themselves from the knots and tangles in those processes (38-39).

The power of teachers here is projected as a passive one because the students do not notify the teachers’ actual role.

The teachers’ role as a facilitator, however, is insufficient to assist the second-language learners in “monitoring” of what they have already acquired in a formal classroom situation. Instead, the role of teachers is an ‘active role,’ taking an ‘active power’ to teach students grammatical rules. The teacher has to teach conscious grammatical rules to them in order for them to check whether the tense is right, for instance, in this sense, the teaching of grammar is drastically valuable. From my experience as a teaching assistant in an Intensive English Program, I see that the teacher plays a significant role in order to help second-language learners’ master the principle of writing in English, thereby the students can put the grammar they have learned to good use.

Obviously, it is unnecessary to take power from the teacher and give that power to the learner because eventually students need assistance from their teachers in making decisions in writing. As Murray notes in his essay “Tech Writing as Process Not Product” that “We (as teachers) share our students the continual excitement of choosing one word instead of another, of searching for the one true word” (4). Hence, the role of teachers is essential. It is, after all, a master of utilizing these two different types of power—‘active’ and ‘passive.’ The role of the teacher is then to provide the right power to the right students in order to put the teaching of writing to good use. As Hartwell believes that there are many meaning s of grammar, the teacher’s role is to select the best one that would be appropriate to their students.

The reflection on Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)

The Pedagogy of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) by Susan McLead

After I read the chapter, I thought how could be employ this pedagogy successfully in a classroom. I cannot imagine it being employed throughout high-schools or colleges because it needs a lot of collaborations. Don't other teachers think that teaching writing is not their job? And who should be responsible for writing in other disciplines?

According to the chapter, Susan McLead says, "One day I was cornered just outside my office by a friend who taught history, who was furious with me and with (it appeared) not only the English Department but the entire discipline of English. 'Why can't you people teach these students how to write?' he wondered. I was defensive-of course I was teaching them how to write." I started to consider it isn't the responsibility of the history teacher to teach his students in the class how to write a paper in history writing style" Isn't it the history teacher's job to teach students what proper words or sentence structure they should use in the paper? At any rate, I believe that the responsibility of WAC is subject to both teachers. They have to work together as co-workers and decide how they could help their students. I think blaming and tossing the responsibility to the writing teacher is somewhat unfair.

Initially, I thought that writing teacher should teach students who to write well. Teachers should teach students how to write grammatically correct and how to present their paperwork from their own voices. However, after I finished reading the chapter, this pedagogy is really directly beneficial for students. It definitely helps students to ease their writing in any disciplines. It is funny that after I read the chapter, I talked to my friend about it on the next day. She is majoring in Social Science and hate writing for her English class. She said she hated writing because sometimes she handed in her paper for her English class, she got screwed up. she got the paper back with a lot of red marks all over the page. From talking to her, it brought back to the idea of WAC. I don't remember having such problem in my college years because, in Thailand, we teach English as a foreign language. Therefore, all we write is sentences and short paragraph (at least in my University with majoring in English for Business and Communication). I learned only basic English skills and the rest of the program was in Thai.

According to the last paragraph on page 151, "On the contrary, most of us who have been involved in WAC program from the beginning see 'writing to learn' and 'write to communicate' as two complementary, even synergistic approaches to writing across the curriculum." I think that "writing to learn" is the students write for themselves by write journals and "quick write." This helps students and teachers to get a better understanding in terms of communication. The teacher and students will be able to communicate in the same "language." Then, there is another branch in WAC called "writing to communicate" Writing to communicate is to write from the audience by using their former level of their disciplines.

Finally, I have found this chapter was intriguing and extremely helpful for students. I think this is the most effective way for teaching writing method that will definitely benefit students. However, it's lots of work and endeavor. Writing teachers may encourage teachers from other faculties to teach students how to write as well. Overall, I think this pedagogy might be easy to execute in small college and high-schools because it is easier to cooperate with other faculties.

"..loving those who hate us, we can win our freedom,.."

Today's great thought is about loving those who love us and who hate us...I have been practicing this theoretical teaching myself. It kind of worked and I felt great about it when winning over those who dislike me! All we do is to respect, give, sincere and love them and when as time goes by, the wall between you and them will fall down...

In every veil you see, the Divine Beauty is concealed, making every heart a slave to him. In love to him the heart finds its life; in desire for him, the soul finds its happiness. The heart which loves a fair one here, though it knows it not, is really his lover.
– Jami


It is very difficult for most of us to understand to what extent our love can be expanded. Everybody has a few people with whom he can be friendly, with whom she can be tender, but the Lord tells us, “That’s not enough. If you want to become whole and never be separate again, you should have love and respect for everyone.”

Jesus said, “What is the special achievement in loving those who love you? Even selfish people are prepared to do that. Bless those that curse you.” I can see the twinkle in his eye as the gathering gasps. This is the daring of Jesus. Today we talk about revolution, but I think there has never been a greater revolutionary than Jesus the Christ. He tells us that by loving those who hate us, we can win our freedom, because we will no longer be dependent on how others act towards us. The person who practices this can reach the summit of human consciousness, for it is only by loving people who oppose us and learning to bear with them that we can heal ourselves and heal them too.

Cultural Studies and Composition

I think that the authors, Diana George and John Trimvur, did not give an explicit explanation of the cultural studies. They gave me hope about the chapter at the beginning such as what is culture studies, where does it come from, what does it want, what does it do, and why has it become? However, they did not come on with any answers to those questions.

According to the book, cultural studies is discussions of its relation to the academic disciplines and analysis of its theoretical problematics as possible 'definition strategies" The strategy is to ask what the object or topics of cultural studies are the circulation of the cultural products are from production to texts to readings to lived cultures (Johnson, 77) I wonder if it means that cultural studies and composition is everything, I mean write about everything that we see or read in which the topic is close to us. Then we critically think about it from our initial thoughts.

It seems clear enough about cultural at the end of the chapter. Cultural studies is the studies of everything that people get involved with. Language is ones of the components of cultural; hence, we use it in a class. We analyze and critical the mass communication such as newspaper, TV, advertisement, so forth and so on which tell us about our culture, then write about it.

Berline suggests that there are two commonplace practices:
1) to begin student writing with topic "close to the self" close to student's write whatever topic they like and close to them, so then they would write something crazy like Britney Spears and other things. How can we make them write something that would seem to be valuable to them? And they know that what they are writing is something that related to culture?
2) to teach close reading and interpretation of texts substituting pop culture or media for literary texts. Teachers can get their students to read and analyzed by media advertising, malls, city streets, and the rituals of everyday life as cultural texts.

This is how to make a lasting relationship!

I have to admit that proctoring is something that I don't like at all. All I have to do is to watch students taking exams, cheating, and other things...No time to prepare teaching lessons, no time to write something more academic on my blog at all..Anyway, good thing I have some time to read while watching the students. Today I have a good thought from Eknath and a nice saying from Leo Tolstoy to share with my readers and people who visit my blog.....Enjoy since it's so true in a lasting relationship!

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
– Leo Tolstoy


There is nothing easy about learning to love. The real romantic must be very practical: it takes a lot of hard, unromantic work to sustain any human relationship. Naturally there are going to be differences between you and your partner. Identical twins have differences of opinion, so why should two people from, say, New York City and Paris, Texas, expect life together to be smooth sailing?

Even on the honeymoon there may be difficulties. You open Pandora’s box expecting a lot of doves and out come a couple of bats instead. You have to be ready to say, “The doves are there; they’re simply lying low. Why don’t we get to work and shoo away these bats?” Rather than dwelling on the negative, try to respect the potential in the other person and help him or her to realize that potential through your support. If you want a relationship to get deeper and deeper with the passage of time, you will go on strengthening it all your life.

"Transfering Anger into Compassion" Great thought, but difficult in practice

October 12

You are not the same, nor are you another.
– The Buddha


The Buddha is saying that we change from moment to moment. Personality is not cast in a rigid mold; the whole secret of personality is that it is a process. The nature of a process is that it can be changed. For a time, it is true, the changes you are trying to make will not seem natural. When someone is rude to you, you will still feel a wave of resentment inside. It does not matter; at the outset, it is enough to act kind, to pretend to be kind, to stage a sort of kindness performance.

Gradually, if you put your whole effort behind this transformation, using the tool of meditation, the seething will subside. Then it will not just be a flawless performance, you will actually transform anger into compassion. You will feel sorry for the person who has offended you. You will not be the same angry person you used to be; and yet you will not be someone else, either. To be patient, kind, and secure is our real nature; anything else is being false to ourselves.

The Thought for the Day is today's entry from Eknath Easwaran's Words to Live By.
(Copyright 1999 and 2005 by The Blue Mountain Center of Meditation.)

Extra teaching to high school students for O-Net Exam!

October 8, 2008

My colleagues and I were assigned to visit a high schoolin Nakhon Phrathom, out side of Bangkok, and give a terse lesson for the English subject in the O-Net and A-Net exams performed in Thailand to about 70 high school students . Many students came, mostly those who major in Science and some in Languages (such as Chinese and Japanese, and English). I hope they learned some thing from us...well only half a day won't do the trick, but at least they came here to learn...to pass the exam! And we promoted our university.

Learning for passing is something that does not buy me. I may seem negative with this a wee bit, since I do not wholeheartedly agree with testing much. They, as learners, don't seem to benefit from testing much compared to the practical outcome. Learners can receive 600 for TOEFL, but really they don't seem to be able to communicate effectively. However, many might disagree, testing is one of those keys to show whether or not the learners have made any progress. On another note, it possibly encourages the learners to learn and improve. Nevertheless,I would say that testing is the first step to further learners' knowledge (such as study abroad)or know where they are at in any fields. They are always pros and cons in almost everything.

Now, it reminds me of Lingua Franca! Many academia believe in this paradigm. They believe that learners should learn 2L for practical use. In other words, grammar and structure should be put aside and prioritise the use of the language per se--or I would say learning to practical use it in everyday situation. Learning English here might be more productive and perhaps could answer to the question as "Why can I not speak English after learning it for 12 years?!" Though, a question might have arisen here from the grammarians about its standard. Learners might be able to communicate only to get the message across--but with "broken English." This is interesting!

Anyway, back to the tutoring, we thought we did our best and hoped to make it better next time with the presentation. We were not quite organised and prepared due to short notice and preparation.

Rhetorical Pedagogy--Is it suitable for your young student writers?

A reflective writing on teaching pedagogies while I was working on a Master's degree. This on is Rhetorical Pedagogy by William A. Covino.

In a nut shell, it seems like Rhetorical pedagogy focuses on the relationship between the writer, and audience, and the context. In this pedagogy, teachers should have a good rapport with their students and let them ask questions, then the teachers break off instruction.

Kinneaey suggested that "the pedagogy consists in encouraging writing to keep in view the skills and contingencies that attend a variety of situations and circumstances. The current-traditional Rhetoric maintain unity, coherence, correctness as primary virtues, and produces textbook that emphasize four modes of discourse--nation, description, exposition, and argumentation.

In Twentieth-Century, Rhetoric Burke defines Rhetoric as, "The use of language as a symbol means of inducing cooperation in being that by nature respond to symbols." There was a form which must vary with reference to the audience and context to which it appeals. The form was answering questions, who, what, when, where, how. Rhetoric tended to be a science telling facts and truth.

In recent years, the relationship of rhetoric to literature has more fully known as using language to communicate. William Covino has recently called rhetoric "The performance of literacy." Rhetorical pedagogy has a conception as "Rules for successful paragraph." There rules are as follows:
1) Make an outline. List all the detail,
2) Start with a topic sentence,
3) Have an orderly plan,
4) Use transitional words,
5) Develop paragraph by means of examples, facts, statistics, and supporting details for each paragraph.

At any rates, Rhetorical Pedagogy is focused on precepts grammar structure, context and the readers. This pedagogy is more sophisticated than Process pedagogy. I remember struggling with my writing. Rhetorical pedagogy threw me back into my writing during my undergraduate years. I was inundated with all the rules. As a L2 learner myself, I felt so uncomfortable doing so as I had to follow all the rules strictly--I guess that Grammar kind of represents the power of a teacher. Undeniably, I agree that Rhetorical pedagogy is really regimented and beneficial; however, I am not certain if I agree if it's suitable for younger writers.

Teachnology can boost student's energy and trigger their curiosity!

I have found some fun activity (actually from my Australian colleague) for my students in a Business Negotiation course. It worked and my students from last semester loved it big time, so I am thinking about using it again this semester. This site is initiated by Michael Gibson. The web site is called "Zap Dramatic" It's an online-negotiation games...Fun stuff!

See the link http://www.zapdramatic.com/am1.htm

Commetary on Process Pedagogy

I read about Process Pedagogy once when I was taking a teaching course about 5 years ago at Arcadia University. We read the book entitled "A Guide to Composition Pedagogies" I did not quite understand what I was reading much back then, but now I think I understand some pedagogies better after teaching for 3 years. I wrote a reflective paper on the pedagogy and I thought it was very interesting.

Process Pedagogy:

It's originated by Donald Murray and Peter Elbow, who wrote "Learning by Teaching." Process Pedagogy, from my understanding, is the approach of teaching writing by teaching students in a series of steps and stages. Most importantly, teachers allow their students to write freely from their interests and believe that the students are writers. The teacher also allows students to choose most of their own topics, forms, and then work on it. The teacher employs invention, free writing and journals, and peer review or revision. Lad Tobin finds that Process Pedagogy is mandatory and essential, which I agree. I have to confess that I hated learning writing by spending the whole class time learning grammar, sentence structure over and over from high school through college. When it was time to write an essay, I freaked out (as well as other L2 learners I am sure)and worried that my grammar would not be correct. However, I question that if the teacher employs the process pedagogy alone, how could students write their stories or compositions grammatically correct, and how could the teacher evaluate students' writing skills?

There is a contradiction between Lad's views and some critics' views regarding the process pedagogy. They argue that process pedagogy cannot be used as the core of teaching writing. They suggest that it is outmoded. They encourage teachers to focus on the finished writing product by reading and more class discussions relating to the finished work of other writers. Furthermore, the teachers should concentrate on writing structure, grammar and usage. I disagree because I think writing students should write more in class not worry a lot about grammar and structure.

There are some powerful critiques criticising the process pedagogy many with different points of view. Some say that process pedagogy is too structured, but some say that that it is dead and suggest that we should use a "Preprocess" or "Postprocess" but they don't know what should replace the process pedagogy. At any rate, I think process pedagogy contains some good rationals that teachers should use. Each teacher has his or her own style of teaching; however, the teachers need to consider which process is best for their students. I believe that the more students write, the better they become. Teachers should not be the center of the whole teaching process. Instead, they should assist their students by correcting their works, showing them how to identify, how to cite sources, and how to write a good essay. I also like the idea of whole language pedagogy--teachers try to make connections to other subjects.

Commentary on Style (Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Williams)

Writing is another weakness of second language learners (let say for Thais and others in general). When it comes to writing, we seem to find ways or excuses to escape or run away for miles. It's difficult for those native ones, so I can tell (as L2 learners myself)that it's ten times harder and scarier!

My students here don't know exactly how to write a good paper/essay. One of my assumptions is that they were not taught properly what a good writing structure is in there native tongue. Often times, my students don't under certain concepts of Thai words, so they would have difficulties referring the Thai concept to the English one.

I once made a comment on Williams' Clarity to Coherence in Style (the book he wrote), which I thought very interesting.

Epilogue From Clarity to Coherence: "In this epilogue, I look at four elements that help readers see that larger sense of coherence, particularly how you use the introduction to what you write to motivate readers to read the vest purposefully and attentively." (p.209)

Having an effective introduction is very vital. I totally agree with Williams about this. From my experience as a reader, I was always captivated by an article or a text that had an interesting and mysterious introduction, and had an explicit thesis statement,so I know what I was going to find next, here thesis statement is like a heart to a paper. I, moreover, admired the writer who wrote the piece. However, when it came to me to be a writer, I always had a hard time (and still have) in opening my sentence, especially finding a thesis statement without making it seem too general.

As a non-native writer, I am more conscious about what I write. I most focus on sentence structure and rules in order to have less red marks on my paper when I get it back from my professor. This is a good thing when I follow rules; however, I realized that they did not really help my paper to be considered as a well-written piece of work. Because my paper did not have a concrete idea or thesis statement, so the paper was not coherent, then the reader did not really pay attention to it.By lacking coherence, it can draw away the reader's attention and makes many papers less value.

After finished reading this whole book, I found that my writing is getting better, compared to my papers I wrote in my first semester at Arcadia U. I now realized that whenever I write a paper I have to focus on three important features: clarity, coherence and cohesion.

In my Speech Communication class, currently I teach my students to prepare their speeches by using mind mapping and outline. I have them come up with topic, narrowed topic and a good thesis statement. After doing so, my students understand better on how important it is to organize their thoughts well, and how every important the introduction part is in both writing and giving a speech.

Love: An Ironic Concept!

Love makes everything that is heavy light.
– Thomas a Kempis


It is love that teaches us our real stature and reveals the heroism we never thought we possessed. The renunciation that might be well-nigh impossible in a vacuum can be blessedly simple when someone we love stands to gain. Turning down a second glass of wine might take some doing in ordinary circumstances, for example; but when you’re in the company of an impressionable teenager, you’ll gladly set it aside.

Suppose you’re tempted to add to your collection of antique fire screens: hard to resist, maybe, if your aim is solely to reduce your own acquisitiveness. But if the money you save can be spent on a tent for family camping trips, it can be a breeze. You feel so good inside! A knack for quiet self-sacrifice is the very life and soul of friendship. Reducing self-will needn’t be a joyless deprivation – it can be so many little acts of love, performed over and over throughout the day.