tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940197.post149792570619280919..comments2024-03-25T21:14:49.666-04:00Comments on Joel Swagman (Reviews / TESOL): Beyond the Sentence by Scott ThornburyJoel Swagmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14948746083822200906noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940197.post-2088945855526808482017-04-18T19:42:59.421-04:002017-04-18T19:42:59.421-04:00Addendum to this book review:
http://joelswagman....Addendum to this book review:<br /><br /><a href="http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2017/04/beyond-sentence-by-scott-thornbury.html" rel="nofollow">http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2017/04/beyond-sentence-by-scott-thornbury.html</a> <br /><br />Joel Swagmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14948746083822200906noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940197.post-79229913075508180402014-04-10T09:30:04.555-04:002014-04-10T09:30:04.555-04:00sorry, that was me. Using a shared Work Computer,...sorry, that was me. Using a shared Work Computer, and the previous person forgot to log out.Joel Swagmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14948746083822200906noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940197.post-38869222457458396242014-04-10T09:28:23.966-04:002014-04-10T09:28:23.966-04:00>>>Even worse is where students "hyp...>>>Even worse is where students "hypercorrect" their peers and rewrite correct sentences incorrectly.<br /><br />Yes, I agree. I try and pre-empt this as well by telling my students to read for comprehensibility and organization, and not grammar. But they still go through and focus on grammar and ignore comprehensibility. I think it's a hard wired habit they absorbed from when they were in the lower level classes that focused exclusively on grammatical correctness. <br /><br /> I like the idea of making copies of the best student from each term to show the next term's class. I may try that.octopus heartshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04764901822963983747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940197.post-84020636674840064192014-04-10T00:32:26.888-04:002014-04-10T00:32:26.888-04:00"Your probably not wrong about the model essa..."Your probably not wrong about the model essays though. I should be showing my students a lot more model essays before I set them lose. I don't suppose you have any idea about where to get ahold of them, do you?"<br /><br />Oops! I realize I may have confused two different things. I meant that when I write assignments for my university I find it very useful to see previous assignments to see what it is that the markers want. And then I was saying that our students could benefit from something analogous. Maybe a good way is to make copies of the best students each year and show the next grade what those students managed to do.<br /><br />As for peer-feedback, it certainly does not always work out how we might hope. I think that a lot of students worry about being critical with their friends, or perhaps they worry that the English is perfectly okay but that they just don't understand it because of their level. Even worse is where students "hypercorrect" their peers and rewrite correct sentences incorrectly.<br /><br />What I have done in the past is ask students to tell me what the message of the piece is. Or given them samples of "bad" essays (which I wrote) and had them explain what was wrong (too many changes of topics, or an abrupt change of topic, uninteresting etc...), and I insist on students expanding on topics, telling them to give me some examples or situations in which they had personal experiences. Perhaps if you then ask peers to look for those particular aspects in the piece then they can comment critically, but hopefully helpfully, on their peers.angrysobanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940197.post-57483970389297953472014-04-09T23:29:33.303-04:002014-04-09T23:29:33.303-04:00>>>Thornbury mention Chomsky at all?
......>>>Thornbury mention Chomsky at all?<br /><br />....Not that I remember. Or at least not in detail. (Chomsky might have gotten name dropped, but there was certainly no indepth discussion of his theories).<br /><br />As for the Peer-Feedback, I have tried this and am still having problems. I don't know, maybe I'm doing something wrong. I tell my students specifically to read their partner's essays for comprehensibility, and tell their partner everytime they don't understand anything. I was hoping that this would pre-empt a lot of the incomprehensible essays I receive every term, but to my dismay it hasn't been helping as much as I hoped it would.<br /><br />Your probably not wrong about the model essays though. I should be showing my students a lot more model essays before I set them lose. I don't suppose you have any idea about where to get ahold of them, do you?<br /><br />And I agree with you 100% here:<br />>>.I have thought that one way of potentially getting around this was to give the teachers an option to download supplementary material with more adult/risqué/controversial content.Joel Swagmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14948746083822200906noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940197.post-50221979820474263652014-04-09T21:19:08.694-04:002014-04-09T21:19:08.694-04:00“In Beyond the Sentence Scott Thornbury explains t...“In Beyond the Sentence Scott Thornbury explains that because ESL textbooks are usually aiming for a global audience, topics that would be taboo in any country are avoided for all of them. The textbook writers are told to avoid any PARSNIP topics (politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms and pork). (This is one of the reasons why many ESL textbooks are so inherently boring as well not inclusive.) “<br /><br />Ha! This is so true. I can’t think of one textbook that isn’t incredibly bland when it comes to content. I seem to remember that there is some other acronym that is often used to describe the tendency for textbooks to all show happy, smiley, affluent, middle class, predominantly white heterosexual men and women out shopping and enjoying themselves, or planning holidays or going to restaurants. I think it came up in an essay I was reading about textbooks by Brian Tomlinson. He said that he once was part of a team of writers who produced some books with slightly more controversial fare to be used for discussion. But the problems tend to be that commercial schools worry about scaring their customers away by not giving them the dreamy experience, or perhaps the fear that arguments will break out in the classroom, which in turn makes publishers wary about producing a textbook which doesn’t sell. The same reason also explains why many textbooks are supposedly behind the curve in terms of teaching methods. Whatever looks like a textbook should be is preferred over textbooks that may treat language more realistically.<br /><br />I also suspected there was something PARSNIPy going on as well, as I remember seeing textbooks which purported to teach British culture saying that an English breakfast consists of eggs and sausages, and was surprised there was no bacon, or black pudding (presumably because such items would be unpopular in Saudi Arabia, or Turkey where publishers may wish to flog their books.) And similarly, no beer! <br /><br />I have thought that one way of potentially getting around this was to give the teachers an option to download supplementary material with more adult/risqué/controversial content.<br /><br />Anyway, this book sounds interesting. I may have to look out for it.angrysobanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940197.post-8394495074801663052014-04-09T21:18:23.521-04:002014-04-09T21:18:23.521-04:00I have one of Thornbury’s other books called How T...I have one of Thornbury’s other books called How To Teach Grammar, in which he also complains that much of what is taught is sentence-level grammar, whereas he thinks that this is something of an artificial way of looking at language.<br /><br />There also seems to be a growing consensus that agrees with that. For example, many sentences in a lot of texts cannot really be understood if taken in isolation. The first sentence in this paragraph is an example. So is the previous sentence. And that one. In these cases the sentences require “anaphoric reference” to be understood, and anaphoric reference can only be understood at the level of discourse. In some previous posts I mentioned Daniel Everett who attacks Chomsky’s assumption that language is basically about sentence-level syntax. Does Thornbury mention Chomsky at all?<br /><br />Also, I recognize this problem:<br /><br />“Thornbury goes on to respond to the above quote by saying that spaghetti writing can not be solved after the fact, but it can be pre-empted before hand if the teacher tells the students to always keep their reader in mind.”<br /><br />Presumably this can be encouraged during peer-feedback if students are asked to be critical of their peers. Actually, there’s a relationship here with another point that Thornbury made:<br /><br />“Just as real texts and coursebook texts provide data for language study, so too can learners’ texts be exploited for the same ends. In fact, there’s a good case for learners’ texts being the best resources for a focus on language. After all, learner-produced texts are more likely to be closer to the developmental stage that other learners are going through.”<br /><br />I think it’s a great idea to use learners’ texts to encourage the students who produced them and also to show other students models of what you are looking for. I think the peer-feedback process also really helps encourage students’ sense of an “audience” (or at least that is the theory), as well as showing the readers what their classmates can produce. At Birmingham University there is an essay bank of previous student essays. I always look through these essays before I write my own. Presumably a similar thing helps students writing their own pieces.angrysobanoreply@blogger.com