Teaching Grammar and Writing by: Matt Dickman

Teaching Grammar and Writing by: Matt Dickman
Oxford Teaching Guides: How to Teach Grammar 
by Bas Aarts, Ian cushing, and Richard Hudson
  1. What was this text about?
Half of this text was about the subject matter that is English Grammar and the other half of this text was ways in which a teacher can implement the subject matter and different ways that they may want to incorporate grammar and grammar lessons into their classroom.This book is very much an informative English language and grammar refresher for English teachers; therefore, making the book nearly vital for all educators to have on their shelf. Educators will be able to take this book off of the shelf, use the very detailed and well structured table of contents to be able to navigate through the book and find exactly what the teacher is looking for. By doing so, the teacher will then be able to refresh their memory and find a definition for the sub-subject in grammar that they are looking for more information about, or creative ideas that they are seeking while lesson planning. The lesson plans in this book prove to be very well constructed and provide details of how a classroom may be led while teaching a certain subject in grammar. This provides a teacher with classroom practices that provide for great instruction, as well as model discussions that teachers should be having with their students in order to make sure that they are learning what the teacher has planned for them to learn. The book may also help build upon their previous knowledge that the students have and if they do not have any they will hopefully learn at the same time, because the book is so informative, no matter where the students are in their English Language studies it will have something for them to learn. 
          2.) Why did I choose this text?
I chose this text because of the credibility that Oxford has in both the education world and English world. It was also written by teachers, which I found very beneficial reading the last book that I did my presentation on because learning from a teacher and seeing the way that they have structured their classes makes building your own curriculum a lot easier. When choosing this text I was also thinking that it would help me with the grammar side of English a lot as I hoped to understand root words and sentence structure more than I did before reading this book. I would say that I did learn a lot about grammar, more than I expected to, especially when it came to the different ways to teach grammar in the classroom, especially all of the different discussion questions that the book provided as well as all of the visuals that they offered in the book. I also liked how straight forward this text was when I was reading its description as well as its table of contents, I knew that it was going to be very informative and that I was going to be able to easily navigate it and that’s something that I was looking for in a book because I want to have texts that I know I can quickly turn to for information for myself or for a student. 


3.) Teaching Ideas
As far as teaching ideas for this text go I think the most important idea that I had while reading this text was making sure that a lot of discussion takes place when I am teaching grammar, which is something that I would not have thought of before reading this book. I am glad that it provided so many questions that could be used in a classroom to help students learn and as well as express their questions about the subject matter. I also liked all of the visuals that were used in the book as most of the classroom practice had some sort of visual to go along with it. I felt that the visuals even helped me learn and were simple enough to just quickly glance at and then be able to re-create and draw on the board, then move on to ask questions that would be able to help explain the lesson. This would also give students the chance to respond, so the teacher could tell how well their lesson plan was working and make modifications to it or guide the discussion as needed. In this way, I see this book as something that can help guide my classroom when I need it to. I don't think this book is something that I would use in my everyday classroom as a teaching guide, but more of a tool to have in my tool box in case/when I need it. The final idea that I have for this book is to be able to take some of the bigger and more general ideas discussed in the text and implement them into the classroom such as spelling and prefixes. I think this section really helped my understanding of how spelling is structured, as well as root words and where a word’s origin is and how they helped to form different words and create meaning. My last thought for teaching strategies while reading this book was that the book would be a good tool for being able to incorporate many different categories of Common Core Standards into one lesson as the book does provide very brief descriptions of ways two lessons can be combined into one lesson as well as providing other texts and mediums that can be used in further readings to gain more understanding of English Language Arts. 


4.) Difficulties in teaching these methods
Some of the difficulties in using this book in a classroom is that it was very informative, and therefore very hard to read the book cover to cover. It can also be difficult to check the students' understanding of what is being taught through classroom discussions; especially when the discussions taking place are not taking place at a college level. Some students may feel like if the rest of the class has a better understanding or has learned something new that they may not fully understand. This can cause fear in a student and make them feel as though they cannot speak up in front of the class without being judged by their peers. I think this is something that is really important to note, especially if a future teacher is planning on teaching middle school or a lower grade level high-school classroom as these kids may not be ready to have their learning be checked without some form of worksheet or other medium to help check their understanding of what they have learned through discussion. Another problem that I thought of while reading this text was that the definitions that it provides for certain grammar rules and their functions are very heavy in words that a younger student may not understand, and sometimes it is nice to have a simpler example for something as it can help more easily define a concept or idea to the classroom, especially when working with younger aged kids. 
5.) Anything else that you want students to know?
I would like the class, or anyone reading this, to note that I think that this book would be worth buying if you are interested in teaching, grammar, spelling, punctuation, or just English in general. I think that this book offered a lot of good ideas for future teachers that want to expand their knowledge in the rules and structure of English, and think that it would make a great tool on almost any teacher’s shelf. The only other recommendation that I have for anyone reading this, is that it is probably not the best idea to try to read this book all at once. As I have said previously, this book should be used as a tool in the classroom, not something a teacher should rely on to plan a whole lesson off of. 
(link to text: https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Teaching-Guides-Teach-Grammar/dp/0198421516)

Link to PowerPoint: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1uEw17Ty4yyibfhWxCVTVW8-4km1CGIfeyTxh2Q7yhC0/edit?usp=sharing

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