by Malorie Seeley-Sherwood, ESL and middle school English teacher
Learning the basics of grammar presents challenges to native speakers and non-native speakers alike, but if we are to imbue these challenges with excitement, authenticity, and a bit of the unknown, then our hard work will lead us to fulfilling achievements, not boredom – which is all too familiar to many students, including the famous character, Scout, in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.
At the beginning of Harper Lee’s classic, Scout’s expectations for her education exceed its dismal reality. Jem explains that her first-grade teacher, Miss Caroline, is simply embracing a new way of teaching: “The Dewey Decimal System.” Scout reflects, “The Dewey Decimal System consisted, in part, of Miss Caroline waving cards at us on which were printed ‘the,’ ‘cat,’ ‘rat,’ ‘man,’ and ‘you.’ No comment seemed to be expected of us, and the class received these impressionistic revelations in silence. I was bored . . .” (18-19).
With Scout’s experience in mind, and a firm aversion to card waving, Shirley Rinaldi (MS Humanities teacher and advisor) and I decided to join our 6th grade and ESL classes together for some grammar teaching and learning.
On December 9, the ESL juniors and seniors taught grammar lessons to the sixth-grade humanities students. When I first presented this assignment to the ESL class, they reacted with confusion. Questions arose, such as this one, “Are you serious, Malorie? We are in this class because we are trying to learn English, and you are asking us to teach native speakers English now?” One student even reflected (later, in writing), “Before the first time I did this presentation, I thought it would be a very terrible experience for me.” Still, most students embraced the uncertainty of this assignment despite initial mixed reactions; they meaningfully engaged in their own learning and collaboration to create presentations and activities aimed to teach a small component of grammar or punctuation to a sixth-grade audience.
“Without a doubt, presenting in front of those sixth graders was the most successful movement in ESL class.”
Sure, I could have waved cards at them with different punctuation marks, clauses, or parts of speech. We could have done it that way. But rather than following the “Dewey Decimal System,” we embraced John Dewey’s philosophy of learning by doing, on which our school was founded.
“Saying goodbye to the students, I felt that not only did they just have a class, but I also had a class.”
Juniors and seniors wrote blog entries reflecting on their experience, and their writing speaks for itself. Here are a few additional quotes summarizing the benefits of this opportunity for cross-divisional collaboration:
“In retrospect, I would regard teaching the sixth graders grammar lessons at PDS as a unique and beneficial experience, in which my oral presentation and organizational skills have been greatly crafted; it was also a fabulous opportunity for us high school students to interact with the students from the middle school at PDS.”
”. . . [w]hen [my partner] and I presented our lesson, I felt extremely happy and proud when I saw the sixth graders’
reaction. . . they all liked it, and all of them were paying attention and vying to answer questions. After our lesson . . . we were both happy because we saw our work paid off, and I guess what this assignment was really about is to make ourselves understand the knowledge that we once didn’t pay enough attention to, and feel the happiness after the hard work paid off.”
And the student who thought it would be a terrible experience? He wrote about how his confidence increased through this experience, and explained that it helped him “become more familiar with the American kids . . .” That’s something that can’t be achieved through simple card waving.
Read more of students’ entries at:
https://pdsworldservice.wordpress.com/
