Analytic Essay Correction

Marco Ibarra
Language IX
Crystal Hickerson
25 May 2008

BAD RESULTS IN TEACHING ENGLISH

In this chapter, the author states that there are two marked tendencies in school, Teachers and Testers. The first ones are centered on students’ learning process; the second ones are more focused on testing students, and both have different points of view that could be considered dangerous, when any of them thinks that can do the best without the other one. This is directly connected with the idea of getting bad results in when teaching English, for the reason that some teachers tend to believe that what they do is the best, and what other teachers do is wrong or does not work in class.
The way Johnson explains the topic, is basically organized and schematic, he takes an idea, such as ‘The psychometric approach’ and explains it clearly step by step and with useful examples, which helps to comprehend much better the chapter. Keith argues that instead of having these differences between Teachers and Testers, they can have integrative testing, in order to group these. Another characteristic that we can find, is a communicative test in which we get information from the for basic skills, and we have the necessary information to come up with results to be used in further tests, because with the results, we are going to have the evidence that will support further learning process, avoiding results that can be interpreted as bad results through the learning process and the assessment.
Apart from that, the author let us know that there are some easier ways of testing the four skills: receptive (reading and listening) through note taking, information transfer, matching, and passage assembly; speaking, oral interview, role play and simulation, imitation; writing, picture stimulus (from a picture, the teacher has to suggest students to write something about it, maybe a letter of complain, if it’s about buying an mp3 player). Not until we read the whole chapter, we realize that the author sometimes is lacking of deeper examples, due to they tend to be superficial, and they do not get the idea of making ideas much clearer.
Therefore, it is suggested to have in consideration more detailed examples, that truly help readers to put in practice what they are reading, not just getting information from the text in a lecturing way with not-well developed examples. Finally, the idea of keeping together Teachers and Testers is accomplished, the author makes us think of a complete process, in order to facilitate the students’ learning process, for the reason that they together make a positive impact on education, and provide more tools for teachers throughout their performance in the classroom.

Reference:

Johnson, Keith. An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching, chapter 15. Harlow, England: Longman 2001.

Book Review

Bibliography
Rose, Mike; Kiniry, Malcolm. Critical Strategies for Academic Thinking and Writing. Boston: Bedford, 1998.

In academic thinking and writing, we can find information and detail explanations to develop further strategies to increase students’ skills. Rose & Kiniry try to help students in college that present a lack of critical strategies when they have to do papers, research or essays.
The authors state that students don’t know to differentiate whether a text is suitable or not to write an essay, and when they choose the book, the book is not appropriate for the essay. For that reason, in the text appears an introductory discussion with examples that make easier to comprehend the mistakes students make, followed by an explanation (examples included) that help to realize and point out the main ideas of how a good paper, essay or research have to be done. It can also be found, some suggestions to develop and increase the critical strategies.
Nevertheless, the book after introducing the main ideas, changes into a group of papers that are hard to follow and tiring, which is not attractive for young readers. This kind of help, we can take it to the school life, for the reason that students in High School do not think and write critically, their works are mostly vague, lacking of deep opinions and thoughts. They just follow weak structures to develop papers.

Annotation

Burns, David. "Will I do as well on the final exam as I expect? An examination of students' expectations". Journal of the scholarship of teaching and learning. 8.3 (2008). Burns states that students' expectations play an important role when they anticipate results before a test. Throughout the article, we can find detailed information that indicates that many factors are related to test results. Thus, we find important aspects, such as that this behavior could probably have an impact on the amount of effort or that the absences during the semester. These students, when they begin a course, tend to bring previous expectations on how good they are going to do. But if they get bad grades, at the end, they will have low expectations on the final exams, due to the fact that they think it reflects on what they did from the beginning. On the other hand, we find that there are some Hindrances which are: self-handicapping, test anxiety, time spent studying and absences. These hindrances are not detected by students realize but they are going to be reflected on the preparation and results on final exams. As a consequence, the results and the information of this article, can be useful for the research objective because it helps us to be aware of that there are other factors - self-handicapping, test anxiety, time spent studying and absences- that directly affect the improvement of test scores, therefore it is a suitable article to be considered in our research. Finally, the author came up with privileged information that might help to think about the implication of the results, which showed that expectations and factors such as anxiety or self-steem can be an influence which is evident in results they get.

Good Online Sources For Research In Education

academic or professional journals

1. QUESTIA: this journal has information about where researchers studied or where they teach, which is an evidence that gives reliability. There is a free trial for a couple of weeks, then you have to pay for it.

http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=JycK1tvNbq1hqbGRGrbHqDG0mT8FGQpSDTg0zGK2xHQV89B1vMnd!569501316!-957050587?docId=5000422134

2. ELT OXFORD JOURNALS: as part of a well-known university, this journal has the support of an important school. It has advice for teaching English as a foreign or second language. Downloadable for free!

http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/

3. TEACHING JOURNAL: Mr. Belzs, a literature teacher, publishes every week articles about poetry, it's a complete course on-line. Free!

http://www.belz.net/teaching/journal.html

4. THE HIGHER EDUCATION ACADEMY PSICHOLOGY NETWORK: an online psichology network with articles about psichology and teaching. There is a link for resource searching. Free!

http://www.psychology.heacademy.ac.uk/html/teaching_practice.asp

5. IDEAS.REPEC: this website has authors, institutions, chapters and bibliography. Free!

http://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/econom/v3y1975i2p123-150.html


database

1. WIKIPEDIA: This database has articles wich include links to let you know every meaning of what you don't know. Free!

http://www.wikipedia.com

2. RIPE: it has settings to accurate the research that even include organisations or persons. Free!

http://www.ripe.net/db/whois-free.html

Religion in the classroom

As it is known, lot of people have the sense of life alter life, therefore, they might believe in superior life or lives that rule/s the World and their lives. It helps to make life easier, due to that to be part of certain religions or believes, people have to live under directions .On the other hand we have education, which is a way of learning and getting use to life in society. Thus, these two important aspects in some people’s lives are defined by their relationship and how they live together in education. As Sacerdote and Glaeser state in their study "Education and Religion," "The positive effect of education on sociability explains the positive education-religion relationship"(8).

When teachers have to teach, they certainly express personal experiences to help students understand some concepts. It is almost impossible not to show personal ideas or ways of seeing life in general while teaching. Therefore, if a teacher believes in god, or belongs to a religion or believe, he will probably share what he thinks. But in this case, there should be done carefully, because in public education we find dissimilar religions that have different concepts about simple topics such as life or family.

However, in Education we have another discussion, which is about how good the Education is, and how much students learn. Cline, an atheist blogger, argues that "Teaching about religion has some value, but not nearly as much as a more comprehensive education that includes philosophy as well"(145). Some people can say that other subjects such as Philosophy or Language might be more important than religion. Others can say that Math is important. But the important point is that students learn, no matter what they or teachers believe in.

Subjects are free to believe or do what they want to do, but respecting others. In this aspect, teachers have to be neutral in what they truly believe, because, as important adults for students, they can make a deep impact on students’ thoughts unwillingly. Education will always be important in life, generating discussion on sensitive matters, and religion plays a relevant role when teachers, parents and students talk about how a good education has to be.

Sources:

Sacerdote, Bruce; Glaeser, Edward L. Education and Religion. NBER. January 2001.

< http://www.nber.org/papers/w8080>

Cline, Austin. Education and Religion. September 17^th, 2006.

< http://atheism.about.com/b/2006/09/17/education-and-religion.htm>