Barriers to writing: the advantage of the paragraph essay

When we give writing assignments, we usually expect a range of reactions, varying from, "Do we have to?" to "How long does it have to be?" to just plain, "Oh no!" I have been trying to change the way I assign writing and even the way I think about what I'm assigning, and I'd like to share some of my ideas and strategies.

First, when writing is done in the target language, I am concerned above all with the coherence of ideas. After that, my main concern is the unity of paragraphs. Writing with detail comes next on the list of priorities, and after that I concern myself with grammar. Sustained writing over several pages is a goal, but it has dropped in importance since the time when I first began teaching. Ultimately, if I can get students to write sentences that contain meaningful expressions of ideas and if they can link these sentences together into small, self-contained unities, then I feel I have accomplished most of my task as a teacher.

All of this may seem obvious, but as I've looked at books and guides for teaching writing, I've noticed certain assumptions. First, there is the idea that you can simply alternate between teaching grammar and setting up writing tasks that employ a certain grammatical structure, with the result that students will learn to generalize in their use of that structure. For instance, essays on, "What is necessary in order to improve children's education?" will require the subjunctive, which students will then employ more often and more correctly. Second, many writing tasks in books give no thought to length or to audience. Students are simply given a task ("Retell a favorite fairy tale in a modern setting.") with the assumption that it is self-explanatory or self-limiting. Over time, however, I've noticed that these strategies don't work as we hope they will. Students forget about the subjunctive when the exercise isn't organized around it. And they find even -- or should I say especially? -- "creative" tasks daunting.

For all these reasons, I am turning more and more to short writing assignments. By asking students to summarize, to extract information, or even to make an argument in a single paragraph, I structurally eliminate much of the worst padding and repetitiveness (it still may turn up, but I don't have to deal with it by forbidding certain phrases or expressions). Most importantly, though, I can see the students' thinking much more quickly and clearly. A short writing exercise isolates both good ideas and thin attempts to feign understanding.

What about grammar, though? What about a variety of expression and depth and breadth of vocabulary? I agree that longer writing assignments are ideal for pushing students' boundaries and for expanding their usage. But many grammar problems can't be solved on the level of grammar correction, because they accurately put into words a student's unclear thinking. A sentence that runs: "Another aspect of the character is how she pretends to be someone she isn't but the author shows her real personality comes through in the end," Can you 'fix' the grammatical errors without dealing with the confusion between character and authorial intention? This kind of confusion, however, often runs through an entire (5 or 10 or 15 page!) essay, so that grammar correction becomes increasingly an attack on the underlying structure of the analysis or argument. It would be far better to focus on a few ideas at a time, clarifying them, learning to express them coherently, and bringing the grammar into line at the same time.

The result in my assignments is a semester that begins with 300-word paragraphs and advances slowly toward extended essays. I congratulate anyone whose students arrive at the upper levels of their language studies able to write clear, crisp paragraphs and to use evidence judiciously. I would be thrilled to see students in the third year of college language courses using logical connectors (first, thus, because, on the other hand, at the same time, as a result, etc) to create readable, smooth-flowing paragraphs. But until that is uniformly the case, I am backing away from multiple papers and moving towards paragraphs and more paragraphs.

How does this relate to student reactions to writing? It doesn't solve the problem of fear of writing. However, it does help students to return to the idea of an 'essay', an attempt, a sketch. It keeps the written form a little closer to speech, where many students are stronger, and much closer to a real exchange of ideas. The less time the student has to get lost in a string of ideas, the less likelihood that I, their main reader, will also get lost. And as they produce writing that they and I understand better, I hope that their confidence in their ability to express their ideas will grow, as well. And maybe they will have some more energy and attention left to devote to precise grammar, as well. That would be ideal.

Teaching French Phonetics

For the past several days, I've been taking a course in French phonetics. Unlike many of the other participants, I have never taken phonetics and for that reason, the material both interests me and makes me anxious. Having taught French for four years now, I am convinced that I need to make pronunciation and intonation a priority. There is little point in being able to formulate grammatically correct sentences if they sound so little like French that no other French speaker can understand them.

And equally important important, along with pronunciation, is requiring that students take the language seriously as a foreign language, and not just as a sort of word puzzle. In a different course in which I'm also enrolled, we have been examining all the material available on the internet for learning French, and it is disappointing to see how much of that material relies on mechanical fill-in-the-blank or multiple choice. Strangeness, irregularity, playfulness, and even confusion are mostly eliminated from such exercises in favor of a clearly isolated goal: the vocabulary of the kitchen or adjectives for describing appearance or relative pronouns or past participle agreement with antecedent objects. Of course we separate things or simplify in order to practice. But when the entire subject is dominated by this strategy, we offer a deformed image of the language. And it is no wonder that advanced students sometimes come to regard anything irregular -- different accents, comedy, incorrect ordinary speech, antiquated expressions -- not with curiousity, but with hostility. They have been prepared for neat, mathematical problems to solve, not for weird, spongy, unreliable reality.

As I look forward to my courses for the coming year, I am planning to include some of the material and practices I'm learning here. But while I usually think about how to make my classes well-organized and efficient, I also want to be sure to have some strangeness built in as well. Strange is good. Strange can even be fun. And ultimately, teaching a strange language is what I'm here for.

In the mean time, I've found that there are many beautifully organized sites for teaching phonetics, and some might even be useful.

For example, the phonetics site based at the Université de Lyon is comprehensive. It includes information on the physical aspects of the sounds, the phonetic symbols, as well as detailed descriptions not only of the sounds of French, but strategies for correcting vowel and consonant production. The same is true of the site at the University of Ottowa. Unfortunately, I have to add that I don't think I would have been able to use these strategies if I hadn't seen someone demonstrate them first.

Another site, simply title Phonétique has excellent exercises which I could imagine assigning to my students. The exercises model the different sounds of French, as well as the use of liaisons. The main disadvantage here is that there are many exercises which rely on listening and then clicking the right answer, so they would quickly become monotonous. And all of the instructions are in French. As a result, I'm not entirely sure how I would use them for a class. I would probably have to introduce them in class, show students how to use them, and then ask them to use them for practice at home.

This site is more promising, since the exercises are more varied, but it definitely requires teaching students the phonetic alphabet, which not everyone is willing to do. Now that I've just said that I want to keep the strangeness of foreign languages, I hesitate at the thought of baffling students with strange symbols, and maybe that's a mistake.

Learning practice

Beginning next week, for the first time in years, I'll be enrolled in classes. I decided to do this last fall, when I discovered some impressive work that had been created by a particular language institute. Knowing already that I wanted to spend some time in France, I decided that this would be the perfect place: a new region to discover, an organized program, and a month spent just thinking about how to be a better French teacher.

Of course, as soon as I saw how perfect it all was, I began to worry. I prefer traveling to destinations where I have no expectations and no one expects anything much of me. It's easier to learn when everything you do is learning. After one day in Senegal, for example, my knowledge of Senegal had already increased a hundred-fold. But France is a place where I am now supposed to be some sort of expert. How am I supposed to enjoy learning when I feel as if everything I learn is only proof of how little I knew before?

The fear of making a fool of myself, or worse, being exposed as a fool with pretenses of intelligence, may be one of the best lessons I can learn now. I have often felt, as many teachers do, that my success as a teacher depends on demonstrating what I know, on show confidence, on putting on a performance of mastery. But what does that communicate? What kind of class is it, when we know things only so that we can be in control, or seem worthy of our position of authority?

We may command the classroom, but it's all too easy to play the role of the wise teacher and to start to believe in one's own fictional persona. Worse, that persona can come between us -- and here I mean me -- and the students. A persona needs care, it has to be maintained. Do I have time to appear impressively learned and authoritative and to pay attention to what my students are telling me? Maybe others can manage that, but I can't.

I have asked for a chance to learn, and I think I'm getting it in the way I like the least. But maybe if I am sufficiently uncomfortable in this perfect situation, I will actually learn something. At the very least, I'll be a step closer to the feeling of being a student who's not sure of getting an A.

A Natural Teacher

Some people are born teachers, or so I've heard. I am not one of them. I have a soft voice, I have the stage presence of an electric blanket, and my answers to questions usually start at least three levels of abstraction away from the actual conversation. Despite that, and despite what we've all learned about pedagogy from television (professors are tyrannical geniuses -- no, they are inspiring martyrs -- no, they're from outer space!), I persist, and my students manage to muddle through as well.

I have my own methods and convictions when it comes to my own teaching, but in general, I don't believe in any one particular method for teachers, or even especially for language teachers. In teaching as in art, there are countless styles, very few of them new. And no matter how bizarre or tedious or counterintuitive or old-fashioned any particular method may be, there is always someone who realizes in it his or her particular genius. There are professors who crackle with energy and keep students laughing for the whole hour, and their students learn by leaps and bounds; there are others who pace and stare at their shoes, who stand for minutes at a time with a piece of chalk suspended in the air above the blackboard, and their students reach unforseen heights of insight.

The saddest part about contemporary teaching, though, is that we are constantly told that we don't know anything about it and that we have to invent a new system to persuade students to do what every conscious human does every day: learn.

On this blog, I'll stay away from teaching methodologies (note: there are hundreds of places on the internet where you can read about rubrics; this will not be one of them) and steer toward moments that offer me a chance to improve my own thinking. I teach two languages, so my perspectives will come from both of them.

There will be occasional advice for students, and some observations about teaching in general. Please note that not all of this advice is serious. I have no general and univerally applicable wisdom. My students and my classes may not resemble yours at all. However, I hope that by writing, I may at least learn to see what I am doing more clearly. I may not be a natural teacher, but perhaps that won't matter so much if I can learn to improve.