Teaching first year English

peanuthead

Hey

I usually teach seniors English and this is my first year teaching first years. I do find them hard work but thats not why I'm here, I'm just wondering what is acceptable and whats not - I feel my expectations are maybe a little high??

Anyway, we are doing story writing. I'm trying to get them to use adjectives, which they are getting the hang of just fine. However, I've a few problems, I will list them here and hopefully someone can help me out as to what I should concentrate on and what I shouldnt.

Spelling - with some of them it is very bad. I was told not to focus on it too much in first year when teaching as if it is spelled phonetically correct, then it is correct. But should I really be passing a blind eye to 'dose' for does and 'sticked', 'hous' , 'trew'
Is a spellings test too babyish for first years? Although I'd say a third of them need it badly.

Handwriting - there is one student in particular whose handwriting is atrocious. Should I intervene? And how do I do it in a nice way?

thanks

oh well

as a parent of two in secondary (and another heading that way) I think you should definitely knock bad spelling and grammar on the head as quickly as possible. Just had parent teacher meeting for boy in 2nd year and the consistant comment from teachers was the bad spelling and grammar in most of the boys. I love english and I despair sometimes as to what my fella is allowed to get away with by some of the other teachers. I am constantly telling him to use better adjectives, descriptive words and phrases and I fell sometimes that I'm just hitting my head against the wall as some teachers let them away with murder. He did have spelling tests last year ( you know those lists of common words which people get wrong).

Handwriting is another big gripe with me - now boys tend to be worse than girls on this one. There is so much difference with mine over their level of handwriting. Might be too late to try correct this with secondary school students but I always say if teacher/examiners can't read it, they can't correct it. I used to make them go back and redo homework if I couldn't read it relatively easily.

good luck

peanuthead

oh well wrote: »

as a parent of two in secondary (and another heading that way) I think you should definitely knock bad spelling and grammar on the head as quickly as possible. Just had parent teacher meeting for boy in 2nd year and the consistant comment from teachers was the bad spelling and grammar in most of the boys. I love english and I despair sometimes as to what my fella is allowed to get away with by some of the other teachers. I am constantly telling him to use better adjectives, descriptive words and phrases and I fell sometimes that I'm just hitting my head against the wall as some teachers let them away with murder. He did have spelling tests last year ( you know those lists of common words which people get wrong).

Handwriting is another big gripe with me - now boys tend to be worse than girls on this one. There is so much difference with mine over their level of handwriting. Might be too late to try correct this with secondary school students but I always say if teacher/examiners can't read it, they can't correct it. I used to make them go back and redo homework if I couldn't read it relatively easily.

good luck

If only all the parents of my students were like you!!

Thanks for the input, to be honest I find that teachers are reluctant to give advice to one another for some reason, this is not the first time I've posted here looking for advice and my posts were never answered.

But yeah, I was thinking about him (and other students) and I have decided to do a bit of grammar work. I think I will start introducing a set of rules gradually. Already they have three rules for answering questions:
1. Question and Ans
2. Full sentences
3. Don't start a sentence with 'because'

I plan to follow this up with 3 more rules after Xmas. One being a captial letter for I (sheesh!!)

I plan to concentrate on commonly mixed up words too

their/there/they're
where/wear/were/

etc..

Again, thanks for the input!

implausible

I do a grammar and punctuation section early in first year, starting with capital letters and follow up with exercises every month (unpunctuated passages).

For all Juniors, I insist on them correcting their spellings. Incorrect spellings from their submitted work are written out 5 times and this multiplies with repetition. A lot of them soon start to make an effort if they've had to write out 'their clothes' 15 times!

Don't ignore it. At the same time, it can be soul-destroying for very weak students, so I tend to just mark the obvious and common ones.

gaeilgegrinds

I was slatted by a parent when I first started teaching over doing spelling tests on Friday. I also taught useful ways to work out spelling and she said I was being overly babyish. Needless to say it was needed then and is still needed now. No longer teach English but recently taught one class during S&S and was appalled. Not blaming anyone in particular here but the lack of ability to spell was unreal. Teacher asked my opinion on her return and I told her the truth. She just said they seem to be reading less and coming in with less vocabulary and know-how. Just my opinion, but am a huge advocator of basic grammar and punctuation. Fair play to you for tackling this.

peanuthead

gaeilgegrinds wrote: »

I was slatted by a parent when I first started teaching over doing spelling tests on Friday. I also taught useful ways to work out spelling and she said I was being overly babyish. Needless to say it was needed then and is still needed now. No longer teach English but recently taught one class during S&S and was appalled. Not blaming anyone in particular here but the lack of ability to spell was unreal. Teacher asked my opinion on her return and I told her the truth. She just said they seem to be reading less and coming in with less vocabulary and know-how. Just my opinion, but am a huge advocator of basic grammar and punctuation. Fair play to you for tackling this.

Well I have a strong ESL background so thats where it comes from. I'm not at all racist either, but I do feel that SOME foreigners who have a good command of English take great pleasure in telling me how little the Irish know of "their own language" (I know, I know :rolleyes: - but you get the idea) and I hate that - primarily because it's true

To be fair to the teachers, there is a lot of exception given to spelling int he exams and if the word is spelled in a phonetically correct way, then it's technically correct, so as much as I hate it, I can see why it's last on their list.

RonMexico

Are you talking about 1st year of secondary school op? I have encountered some truly awful stuff from 1st year college students studying English and I am trying to figure out what the hell is going on in our schools!

spurious

Please intervene with the handwriting.
In terms of a child's self-esteem, their handwriting is one of the reasons many say they are 'no good' at learning.

It doesn't have to be copperplate, but a legible standard is relatively easy to achieve with even short term use of the 'writing copy'.

peanuthead

I'm talking 1st year secondary.

Well I have spoken to various teachers in the school and they have asked me to hold out on doing anything about this until after christmas.

Apparently the student has such bad attendance (never even knew as he's always in for my class) that they think another knock may push him away altogether.

Not sure what 'another knock' was referring to but I sense he's not having a great time of it in school.

spurious

He comes in for your class so he likes it. You're already doing something right.

He knows his spelling is not good. I wouldn't hold off. I'd do something tomorrow, even if it's just asking him to stay back for a minute or two and show him something like Wordshark. He could take it away and play it to his heart's content over the Christmas break.

peanuthead

spurious wrote: »

He comes in for your class so he likes it. You're already doing something right.

He knows his spelling is not good. I wouldn't hold off. I'd do something tomorrow, even if it's just asking him to stay back for a minute or two and show him something like Wordshark. He could take it away and play it to his heart's content over the Christmas break.

Can you tell me what wordshark is?? I've never heard of it.

spurious

It's a set of computer games that can be used with kids with dyslexia, letter recognition problems, all sorts of reading and spelling problems.
It was originally made years ago so looks quite clunky but the games are excellent. They can be set to remember each individual child and can be set from more or less basic reader (3 letter words) right up to fairly long words. You can add your own custom word lists too.

Your special needs co-ordinator should have it and if they haven't, it and it's fellow CD Numbershark for Maths are well worth having in your school.

Some more info here

Official site

peanuthead

spurious wrote: »

It's a set of computer games that can be used with kids with dyslexia, letter recognition problems, all sorts of reading and spelling problems.
It was originally made years ago so looks quite clunky but the games are excellent. They can be set to remember each individual child and can be set from more or less basic reader (3 letter words) right up to fairly long words. You can add your own custom word lists too.

Your special needs co-ordinator should have it and if they haven't, it and it's fellow CD Numbershark for Maths are well worth having in your school.

Some more info here

Official site

Thanks a lot, I will definitely have a look at this and will forward this information to our co-ordinator