By now, everyone must have read Monica Lim’s letter to Minister of Education. Many readers have written to express support for her views about the school system. I won’t repeat them but you can read her original post here and the subsequent feedback she received. She also mentioned in her post that many readers took her words too seriously, dissected everything, and read too much into what she wrote. I hope I am not doing that in quoting and using part of her letter for this discussion. But there is one part of her letter that I want to comment on as it can be potentially misleading. I have taken the liberty of reproducing it here:
For example, I find that the way many subjects are taught in schools are based on the marking template, understandably because if the objective is to maximise scores, then you teach to fulfil this objective. I’m a corporate writer and one of my biggest pet peeves is the way composition writing is taught in primary schools.
Many teachers today are told to mark the language of a composition based on how many "good phrases" are used. In my son’s school, a commercial book of good phrases is part of the syllabus and the kids are told to learn these phrases, even for spelling. These phrases are often so bombastic and pretentious that nobody in real life would actually use them. Yet the students are taught them because “ticks” are given for each “good phrase” and added to their vocabulary score.
I remember during a parent-teacher conference, I raised my concerns to my son's English teacher. To my utter surprise, she agreed with me. She said that once the school started imposing the memorising of good phrases for composition, she ended up with 44 scripts of almost identical introductions (mostly about the "fiery sun in the sapphire sky"). Unfortunately, her hands were tied.
I know why this is imposed - it's to make marking simpler. This way, schools don't have to depend on the arbitrary standards of each marker and the marker just has to follow a matrix. It's certainly more orderly but don't mistake it for creativity. I don't know any other education system which designs its curriculum around the grading. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
I think there are some misconceptions here that should be clarified and perhaps someone has written to Monica about this. But the issues concern teachers as well, so I thought I’d address them here. Let me begin with first part:
For example, I find that the way many subjects are taught in schools are based on the marking template, understandably because if the objective is to maximise scores, then you teach to fulfil this objective
First, I don’t know if all schools use the marking template (what does this look like?) as a guide to teaching. Generally, schools give 20 marks for language and 20 marks for content when marking essays. As to what makes for good language and content, that has remained elusive until the recent introduction of holistic assessment. If the school is using some form of holistic assessment, teachers should have analysed the criteria that make for good writing. These criteria then become a part of the assessment criteria (in the form of rubrics) but these are also shared with students so that they know how to work towards achieving the goal of a good essay. If the school has used “good phrases and words” as part of their criteria for language, this is not wrong. What is wrong is their understanding of what “good words and phrases” are. They are certainly not a list from a commercial publication.
I don't know any other education system which designs its curriculum around the grading. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
I don’t think this is true. The curriculum is not designed around the grading. But it’s true that there is a move to make grading more transparent by articulating the criteria for each grade awarded. This is meant as feedback to students so that they understand what they need to work towards to get good grades. Articulating the criteria also helps teachers be very clear about the skills and strategies they need to teach to help students do well. Doing well in say writing, for instance, is not just about getting good grades in exams. Students who strive to be good writers have a right to know how well they are doing and what they need to work harder on.
Many teachers today are told to mark the language of a composition based on how many "good phrases" are used. In my son’s school, a commercial book of good phrases is part of the syllabus and the kids are told to learn these phrases, even for spelling. These phrases are often so bombastic and pretentious that nobody in real life would actually use them. Yet the students are taught them because “ticks” are given for each “good phrase” and added to their vocabulary score.
We all know about these fanciful phrases our students use. In fact, I wrote an article about this a couple of years ago (found in The Learning Teacher 2), under the title “Azure blue skies and magnolia clouds”, a favourite phrase then. I gather from Monica’s letter that schools have moved on to “fiery sun in the sapphire sky” now J. I completely agree with Monica about the “bombastic and pretentious nature” of these phrases and I also have to admit that teachers do count these as examples of good vocabulary. They shouldn't.
But then, I have to defend this method of teaching pupils to emulate good writers and to borrow their words. I personally think that there’s nothing wrong with this. In fact, I have a book helping children to do this ( My Collection of Words and Phrases for Vocabulary Writing and Composition Writing, co-written with Zenda Leu, Teachers’ Productions). Many established teachers and books recommend using mentor texts to teach writing. Try googling “mentor texts” and you’ll find many books on this topic. Typically, teachers will select examples of good writing (these include sentences and words) to show students how certain effects in writing are achieved through such choices.
As young writers, did you not copy words and phrases from your favourite writers and used these in your essays? I did, not just for English but also for History. I think the first step towards developing your own style is to copy (or emulate, my preferred word) your favourite writer. This is a natural part of writing development. So, the issue for me here is not the copying of words and phrases. It’s first, the kind of words and phrases that pupils were told to copy and second, the way these are taught to them. Who would give forty students 5 phrases to describe the weather? Would you blame them for giving them back to you? No. In fact, they should be given credit because they have shown you that they have learnt the phrases well and reused them as required. But this is exactly what’s wrong.
Teaching is not about spoon feeding kids with a list of words and phrases. It’s about showing them examples and then leading them to discover other examples by themselves. The practice of typing up lists of words for kids to memorise should stop. It doesn’t make the teacher look diligent; teachers should know that if students don’t do the copying and thinking themselves, they won’t learn anything. There are thousands of excellent words and phrases from any contemporary fiction written for children and young adults that can be introduced to students. Teachers can use these as resources instead of resorting to the convenience of “commercial publications”.
I remember during a parent-teacher conference, I raised my concerns to my son's English teacher. To my utter surprise, she agreed with me. She said that once the school started imposing the memorising of good phrases for composition, she ended up with 44 scripts of almost identical introductions (mostly about the "fiery sun in the sapphire sky"). Unfortunately, her hands were tied.
Frankly, I am a little peeved with the teacher above. I think she conveniently passed the buck and blamed school policy instead of giving a proper explanation. In doing so, I think she made teachers look foolish.
I am surprised that there are schools that still embrace this approach for teaching kids to write. I assume that Monica’s child is in a better than average school, and this makes this approach even more incomprehensible. And I wonder why the teacher was meekly accepting the policy when, in the same breath, she complained that all the children were writing badly as a result. Should she not have brought this observation to her Head? Could she not have taught other phrases and words to her children or taught them how to vary the use of these words and phrases? Was there really nothing that she could have done but follow orders?
Well, she could have done some the following. She could have discussed the words and phrases given and how they are typically used. Students could then decide what they could select from the list given. They could also work on creating a list of synonyms or similar phrases so that they have a lot more to choose from. She could have taught them to consider carefully the appropriateness of these words and phrases in the writing that they typically do. While there is nothing wrong with the “fiery sun” or the “sapphire sky”, they would be more appropriate in another type of writing rather than the picture compositions that primary students write. All teachers should be wary of using any commercial material (including textbooks) unquestioningly.
Finally, I don’t want to sound as if I am picking on this poor teacher. I am not. But it is unfortunate that her explanation was reported for the whole country to read. And reading it, I felt indignant, even angry, because here again is another misrepresentation of what is happening in our schools.
To reiterate: my main point is that it’s perfectly fine for young writers to learn by copying but
- Students should not copy words and phrases that do not fit with the type of text (story) they are writing.
- Students should not copy from amateur writers and commercial books.
- Teach pupils to copy judiciously and to develop their own list of words through reading widely.
- Don’t copy words for your students; let them copy these for themselves.
- Always give children a choice of words and phrases that can be used in their writing.
Finally, good writing is not just about fancy words and phrases or so called “big” words. It’s about using appropriate words. Many schools (and tuition centres) insist that children replace all their “small” words with multisyllabic words without considering the appropriateness of these words. The same principle applies to the use of figurative language. It is very tiring to read a simile or a metaphor in every other sentence, especially when the same old trite images are used. It’s not enough to teach students to use imagery; it’s better to have no imagery than an inappropriate one.
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