by Timothy Nerozzi
Bio: Timothy Nerozzi is an American ALT living and working in Niigata City through the JET Program. He is a third-year teacher and works at both the elementary and junior high school levels.
“I like my town. We have a convenience store. We don’t have Tokyo Disneyland. I want a department store. Thank you.”
This is the kind of short essay I have been asking my students to regularly produce at the elementary level for the past two years.
These sentences are the textual equivalent to a child’s paint-by-numbers. Instead of allowing children to write the kinds of essays they want to write, we’re forcing them to simply choose words out of chapter-specific word banks and fill in the blanks.
I believe that the most effective way we can encourage children to write with both feeling and personal investment is to offer greater autonomy for them in choosing their own topics and essay prompts and using that freedom to build enthusiasm for self-expression.
And, in order to achieve this goal, I have implemented a weekly system of English composition practice with elementary classes at the fifth and sixth grade levels. This system is easy.
Though the curriculum is still ongoing and I have yet to see the full culmination of my composition-focused supplemental material, the results so far have been stunning, and fellow JETs may find a lot of use in reading about my experiences so far.
I am not a certified teacher. Outside of tutoring in my university days, I had very little experience in any form of education until being accepted into the JET program two years ago. Because of this, I am perhaps unequipped to dissect and explain my methodology in academic terms.
However, I hope that my experiences as related here can help readers consider new ways to engage with their students on effective composition.
The problem:
Our current elementary school education curriculum is undeniably speech-oriented. Writing, it feels, is a complete afterthought, shoved haphazardly in at the end of chapters or brought in from outside by ALTs or JTEs that want to supplement the course with more composition.
The alphabet, for example, is taught for exactly one chapter in fifth grade. Students memorize the general shape of the letters and their names. But they learn no phonics and that chapter contains no writing assignments or in-class writing practice – not even of just the individual letters.
As of this year, I’ve taken my students’ composition education into my own hands.
The methodology:
In both fifth grade and sixth grade, I begin the school year by setting aside ten minutes at the beginning of every class to practice writing the alphabet. This time is usually preceded by a standard call warm-up activity or discussion to get students into an “English mindset.
During the ten minutes of composition practice, the students practice four or five letters each class, from A to Z. Each letter is written five times in both upper-case and lower-case back to back in order to reinforce the two different forms of each letter.
All 26 English characters (upper and lower case) are memorized over the course of two months.
Most students do not finish those two months with a powerful recall ability for all 52 symbols.
However, they finish the alphabet course with a more effective grasp of the alphabet and the ability to think through the selection of a letter. You would be surprised at how effective this small gesture is in encouraging students to write.
Using a printed worksheet with the entire upper-case and lower-case alphabet printed in order, the students then begin each class with spelling practice. I read out English words to them, give their meaning, and then spell each one slowly. The students listen and try and write each letter as I say them.
After I spell the word three or four times, I go to the board and ask the students to spell out the word for me. Students check their own spelling against mine.
The twist, however, is that I am not typically teaching them vocabulary from the textbook.
The students select the majority of our words by putting their suggestions in a box outside the classroom, from which I select the best ones for class practice.
An “English Words I Want to Study” box is kept outside of a classroom in the school for one week and students are free to submit as many words as they like by writing them down on small paper ballots with their name and putting it into the box.
While any student can submit regardless of what classroom the box is kept outside of, the classroom changes each week in order to give each group of students a convenient chance to submit.
Students quickly fall into the schedule of the lessons – the submissions box never empty and often full.
The benefits:
While I wasn’t exactly sure how this lesson plan would turn out, I’ve noted a surprising variety of positive outcomes to this system.
Firstly, the students are ingraining the English alphabet into their brains through repetition and frequent writing practice. They are getting weekly exposure to the names of the characters and individually composing based on their own memory.
There are no cheat-sheets or hints. By attempting to write each letter I say as I say it, the students are training their recall ability and learning which letters they cannot generate quickly when writing. Repeated lessons strengthen this recall and make their writing faster and more fluid.
Secondly, the students are accumulating a greater understanding of how English words are constructed, and often pick up on spelling patterns not normally taught at their level. Silent “g” and “k” words most notably.
While our limited weekly time for composition means that there are very few opportunities to delve into and teach the quirks of English spelling thoroughly, I have observed some subtle improvements in students’ intuition for spelling abnormalities and patterns.
Thirdly, the students are selecting their own vocabulary, and in doing so, actively participating in furthering their own writing abilities. Allowing students to orientate, even to a small degree, their own education brings out a more spirited learning environment.
My suggestions box is often packed to the brim with slips of paper requesting a variety of words. We’ve covered “dinosaur,” “firefighter,” “knight,” and more.
Some Japanese words cannot be translated into a single word, so we’ve also done more complex terms such as “the four seasons,” “ceiling fan,” and “the United Kingdom,” among others.
Because these exercises were pre-empted by extensive alphabet practice, the length or spelling of the word(s) is irrelevant. Longer, more complex terms may require three or four spellings from me before everyone can finish, but it’s all possible, and the students know it.
Looking forward:
As we move into the last months of the school year, I look forward to pushing this composition practice as far as it can go. I will attempt to introduce small sentences instead of just words and may begin to experiment with allowing the students to guess spellings before I give them the information as a fun challenge.
This is my first year using this system, and so how it will move forward has always been fluid.
I don’t have a concrete plan for the classroom in the final months of this school year, but I’m eager to push my kids and encourage them to have fun studying the English words they choose to learn and using that knowledge to enhance their regular curriculum.
- A note from ALT training online’s David Hayter
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Bio: Liang Ye is an accidental English teacher. Her previous professional experience was in public policy with the Singapore Government.
She holds a Bachelor of Social Science (double major in Sociology and Psychology), a Masters of Arts in Sociology, and also a Level 7 Diploma in TESOL.
She currently speaks four languages and is learning another two.
Now, she works as an English instructor in Kansai Soka High School in Osaka, Japan.
It all began with a Facebook post. Well, perhaps even before the Facebook post.
I have lived in Japan for a total of six years so far, and had only started teaching English in classrooms three years ago. Even before starting a formal career in teaching, I found myself correcting English essays from children of acquaintances and entertaining odd requests from time to time. Then, I started noticing something peculiar.
Occasionally, I would receive essays that were written in flawless English, but I had no idea what they were talking about.
How is that even possible? The grammar was perfect! But the sentences had no apparent logical link with each other, and the clauses were put together as if the author was talking in circles or even broken spirals. It reminded me of sample speech patterns of patients with schizophrenia or cognitive dissociation in psychology textbooks. How should I even begin to correct them?
Thus began my quest to help English learners straighten out their writing.
A couple of years ago, I joined a senior high school in Osaka as an ALT for the first time. Among my other classes, I was tasked with teaching 6 classes of about 25 students on how to write English essays, all by myself. I was anxious and excited at the prospect. The students had up to that point only learnt how to make sentences. The earlier encounters with “flawless but undecipherable” essays stood out in my mind.
How do I help students learn how to write clearly? Out of ideas and with no other recourse, I turned to Facebook.
One of my friends, upon reading my bewildered post, suggested that I give explicit instructions in the target logic (reason being that most students in Japan are not exposed to logic in their classes), and pointed me to some resources.
From there, I went on to build a 1-year writing course, through trial-and-error, with explicit instructions in logic built into the class. Inevitably, being a newly-minted ALT, I made mistakes and some activities fell flat on their faces. However, there were also elements that worked out very well. In fact, so well that towards the end of the academic year, I had students who reportedly passed Eiken level 2 as they got nearly full marks in the writing section, despite failing the Reading and Listening section. Back then, I had no idea that this hardly ever happens until I told my spouse (a JTE, or Japanese teacher of English, in another school). He had looked at me, his mouth agape, and said in wonder, “That has never happened before”.
Although I have only anecdotal evidence that incorporating logic into a writing course works, I suppose what I did is still worth sharing.
So for those who are interested, I have outlined four basic steps (with some sample activities thrown in as well) to help students learn how to build an argument in English writing.
Although there are many ways to build an argument, the most basic style of writing, when stripped down to its barest form, requires the writer to follow the “If A, then B. Therefore C.” pattern (also called Chain Reasoning).
The key aim here, therefore, is to use the concept of “cause and effect” as a foundation, and then use scaffolding activities to help students learn how to use chain reasoning to write coherently, while avoiding complicated meta-language or brain-twisting Aristotelian syllogisms.
These four steps can either be expanded into a full semester course with lots of practice and examples, or condensed into one lesson, depending on the level of the students and the aim of the writing course.
Teachers can also consider including higher-order thinking strategies such as inductive/deductive syllogisms, logical fallacies or introduce different types of evidence in advanced writing courses.
By teaching students how to build stronger arguments, we also teach students how to think more critically; and this, I believe, should be the cornerstone of a balanced curriculum.
Step 1: Start with the importance of time sequence in cause and effect.
Example activity:
- Introduce the following two clauses:
- (A) The window was broken.
- (B) The boy threw a ball.
- Draw a timeline on the board and ask students to indicate whether A or B happens first.
- Then, show the following sentences:
- Sentence 1: The window was broken because the boy threw a ball at it.
- Sentence 2: The boy threw a ball at the window because it was broken.
- Emphasize that sentence 2 is incorrect due to the wrong order of cause and effect.
You can reiterate the time-sensitivity of cause and effect with several other (obvious) examples, depending on the level of your students. You may also consider using games or create worksheets to emphasize this.
Suggested grammar: “A because B”, and “A, so B”.
Step 2: Introduce and go through the following logical errors related to cause & effect.
- Circular reasoning*
- No relationship in cause and effect
- Cause and effect are reversed
- Insufficient explanation
Example activity:
- Use obvious examples and ask students what is wrong with the sentences. Here are some examples of sentences with their corresponding logical errors:
- Fast food is unhealthy because fast food is bad for your health.
- The sakura trees are blooming because it is raining.
- (No relationship in cause and effect)
- The students passed their Eiken test because the teacher is happy.
- (Cause and effect are reversed)
- I am poor because I eat fast food.
- (Insufficient explanation; this can also fall under error 2 or even 3, but I’ll be using this as an example to introduce chain reasoning later in Step 4).
* Among the four types of errors, circular reasoning is a very common writing pattern among Japanese students, in part due to a lack of control and vocabulary in English. I found the following example (adapted from a student’s essay, and modified for dramatic and comic effect) to be very helpful in driving home what circular reasoning is:
I agree that it is important to learn a foreign language. First, if I learn a foreign language, I can speak a foreign language. If I can speak a foreign language, I can speak to foreigners. If I do not learn a foreign language, I cannot speak to foreigners. For example, because I speak a foreign language, I can speak to foreigners.
To help students recognize and avoid circular reasoning, I find it useful to ask students to think in very concrete terms, by using specific situations, rather than thinking with abstract concepts.
Step 3: Introduce hypothetical scenarios.
Example activity:
- Introduce the following two clauses:
- (A) The window will be broken.
- (B) The boy throws a ball.
- Draw a timeline on the board, this time with a mark in the middle indicating “now”. Ask students to indicate where on the timeline should A or B happen in the future.
- Then, show the following sentences:
- Sentence 1: If the boy throws a ball, the window will be broken.
- Sentence 2: If the window is broken, the boy will throw a ball.
- Emphasize that sentence 2 is incorrect due to the wrong order of cause and effect.
Suggested grammar: “If A, (s) will B”.
Since “If A, then B. Therefore C.” is the most basic pattern in building an argument, using the grammar “If…, (s) will…” is probably the easiest way for students to string ideas together in an argumentative essay.
Step 4: Introduce chain reasoning.
Example activity:
- Introduce the following sentence and ask students why does the author think this way:
- I am poor because I eat fast food.
- Then, show the following paragraph:
Fast food is more expensive than home-cooked food. If I eat fast food everyday, it will cost me a lot of money. Therefore, I will become poor if I eat fast food everyday.
Break down the paragraph in the following way:
- Pattern 1
- Fast food is more expensive than home-cooked food. (Link 1)
- If I eat fast food everyday, (Link 2)
- it will cost me a lot of money. (Link 3)
- Therefore, I will become poor if I eat fast food everyday. (Conclusion)
Teachers may consider using a variety of examples, or introduce different grammar that follow the same thought pattern. Another pattern is to move the conclusion up in the paragraph and make it the topic sentence:
- Pattern 2
- I will become poor if I eat fast food everyday. (Topic sentence)
- This is because fast food is more expensive than home-cooked food. (Link 1)
- If I eat fast food everyday, (Link 2)
- it will cost me a lot of money. (Link 3)
This second pattern is useful in writing courses where students are taught that topic sentences come at the top of paragraphs. Students can then practice building longer chains of supporting sentences into their paragraphs and work towards writing a full essay.
- A note from ALT training online’s David Hayter
If you have something 'ALT' to write about that hasn't been covered in these blogs, email me at alttoblog@gmail.com so we can work together and spread your story.
Don't have any ideas? We have a list of topics to write about that need a writer. Email in your interest to write and we can set you up.
