Featured videos: language, literacy, writing

Reading Together

Perusall logoWe’ll use Perusall to annotate and read together. Link here to Perusall. Instructions for joining on the Assignments page.

Calendar: link here

Author: hgill8

ESL grammar quiz- Hayden Gill

ESL grammar quiz- Hayden Gill

I started googling grammar quizzes for ESL students since I intern with them I was interested to see what an average grammar quiz for them would look like.  I found a website that has all different types of grammar, writing, reading comprehension, etc. quizzes.

This is a quiz for verb tenses http://www.eslcafe.com/quiz/vtr.html

The website has many more grammar quizzes for ESL students if you poke around I find this one funny

http://www.eslcafe.com/quiz/aus1.html     Australian slang

Remedial classes and the IRE

Remedial classes and the IRE

Like many others who have gone through the k-12 system I find myself frustrated that teaching systems like the IRE are still in use.  For many subjects this style of teaching is necessary, subjects like math and science with clear-cut right and wrong answers.  Classes where there is only one way to arrive at the correct answer and stringent rules must be followed.  While certain aspects of English may meet this criteria, such as grammar or citation styles, writing is a flexible creative tool that shouldn’t be taught in a way that classifies wrong or right.  Rather teachers should view it as a students thoughts not clearly being expressed in the best way possible.

 

I find that the most profound learning experiences I’ve had in the classroom come from direct experience with the subject of interest.  Instructors should model correct use of whatever topic is being taught for the class instead of relying on IRE type models that seem more like drill practice.