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Grammatically Speaking download to PDF 
Richard Firsten explores English grammar
and answers your grammar quandaries.
From now on, look for Grammatically Speaking bimonthly! |
Dear Mr. Firsten:
I recently came across the following sentence: “Mental health experts say one in 10 people has some form of depression.” But I found the following somewhere else: “… one in 10 people have at least one in their lifetimes ― most people have mistaken ideas, or no ideas at all, about what do to.”
My question is, should the verb be has or have after saying one in 10 people? I really don’t want to teach this incorrectly if it ever comes up in my classes.
Thanks for helping me out.
Confused
Amarillo, Texas USA
Dear Confused:
Even though I’m not at all happy to tell you this, both forms are acceptable these days. Strictly speaking, and for formal usage, after phrases like one out of ___, one in ___, and also one of ___ the singular form of the following verb (in this case, one out of 10 has) is right as it agrees with the singular subject, one.
In conversational English, however, it’s become acceptable to follow the rule of proximity and use the plural form following that plural number (in this case, one out of 10 have).The thing is, as more time goes by, less and less attention is being paid to a strict delineation between the formal written language and the informal spoken language; ergo, the overlap.
My suggestion is that you teach your students, who I assume are a more advanced group, that they should still maintain strict agreement between the subject (one) and the verb that follows, but that if they go with the rule of proximity, they won’t be committing a linguistic sin, so to speak.
Thanks for sending in a question that I’m sure many teachers have wondered about.
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Dear Richard,
I have recently had one of my unusually curious Japanese university students ask me relentless questions about how to properly use the words price and cost. He seems to use a dictionary for his examples, but my own answers just add to the confusion.
The price of war is in human lives.
The cost of war is in human lives.
Which is correct, and why? Price, cost, fee, charge, etc. are all so close in meaning, and I can find no source to help define precisely when each is used (or not used), and why:
- the price/cost/fee/charge for a haircut
- The store is cutting the cost/price of meat.
- At what price/cost does John study, study, study (and avoid his friends)?
- a lawyer’s fee, but not a lawyer’s charge/cost/price
A lawyer’s fee is fine because he does a service. A doctor’s fee is all right for same reasoning, so why not a barber’s fee or a carpenter’s fee?
Advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Glen Hill
Hokkaido, Japan
Dear Glen,
Whew! Okay, I’m going to roll up my sleeves and tackle these one at a time. All I can offer is my own interpretation and how I would use these terms in the contexts you’ve supplied. There may well be those who disagree, but here’s my take on these terms. Let me mention right up front that I’m going to discuss nouns only, not verbs.
the price/cost/fee/charge for a haircut
The only word I don’t think can work is fee. To my mind, price and charge seem to come from the barber’s point of view. The barber is the person who sets the price or the charge for a haircut. I’d say that cost seems to come from the customer’s point of view. This is what the cost is to the customer. So those three terms work, depending on who is using them.
The store is cutting the cost/price of meat.
I find these interesting, again depending on the point of view. If I say The store is cutting the cost of meat, it makes me think that the store has found a more reasonably priced wholesaler or middleman, thereby reducing what the store will pay to procure the meat. The store is cutting the price of meat makes me think that they’re reducing what their customers will have to pay for meat. (This is all quite arbitrary, perhaps, but it’s the intuitive way I’d interpret the use of cost and price in this context.)
At what price/cost does John study, study, study (and avoid his friends)?
In this context, I think the answer is that only cost works. The reason is that cost doesn’t only refer to dollars and cents; it can refer to something that you lose, give away, or damage in order to achieve something. And that’s how it’s being used in this context.
Yes, we do have idiomatic expressions like to pay a price for something, but that’s not in use here. Just as the question is, I think only cost works well.
a lawyer’s fee, but not a lawyer’s charge/cost/price
Right, Glen. We usually use the term fee for a service rendered, which is what a lawyer offers a client. In fact, that’s normally why the people are called clients, not customers, because they pay for a service rather than a product.
Why not a barber’s fee or a carpenter’s fee?
What barbers and carpenters offer I think falls more in the realm of a product (such as a new cut or hairstyle that a barber creates) and not a service, so that’s why they have customers, not clients (as lawyers and accountants do) or patients (as doctors and dentists do). For that reason, I think we’re more comfortable saying that charge or price is more suited for situations involving trades people.
I hope I’ve helped, Glen. We all know how the subtleties of words can be hard to pin down, and we also know that sometimes our idiolects contribute a lot to how we use one word over another in any given context. You certainly gave me a challenge, Glen!
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Dear Richard,
Could you shed any light on this? In the "Modern Love" column in the May 28, 2010 issue of the New York Times, I read something that struck me as wrong, jarringly wrong―a misuse of the subjunctive out of fear of failing to use it when needed (much as people say between you and I, shunning the appropriate me out of fear of being lumped with those who would say Me and my friends are going ...)
Here's the (possibly) offending paragraph:
“He asked if I were seeing anyone, if I were in love, and I told him that I have bad luck with men. Seeing him, hearing his vibrant voice, I wondered if I were still single because he had been in my life for so long, and in my heart. At least I’d never met another man I loved as much.”
To my mind, the subjunctive is misused here. In the first two uses of were, this is not a hypothetical, but a query about the fact of the matter. In the third use, the fact of the matter is implied. But if I am right, how on earth could this have escaped the attention of New York Times editors?
Sharon Mast
Bronx, NY USA
Dear Sharon,
“Jarringly wrong” is a very apt description for what you’ve cited, even though you can find lots and lots of examples of such inappropriate usage if you do a Google search. I think it’s a hypercorrection such as the example you pointed out with between you and I. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, and since the sentences you’ve cited are examples of indirect or reported speech, all we need to do to test out if they’re grammatically correct is put them in the narrative present:
He asks me if I’m seeing anyone, if I’m in love, and I tell him . . .
I wonder if I’m still single because he has been in my life for so long, . . .
There you go. There’s nothing imaginary or hypothetical in the sentences above, so if reported speech is used, the sentences are
He asked me if I was seeing anyone, if I was in love, . . .
I wondered if I was still single because he had been in my life for so long, . . .
That inappropriate usage may escape some people in that specific context, but what about a sentence like He asked if I *were the new secretary or She asked me if I *were leaving in a few minutes? Such sentences are even more jarring, wouldn’t you say?
As for the New York Times editors, I don’t know if these actually escaped their attention or if they just don’t recognize that using the present subjunctive form (were) in these sentences is hypercorrection and doesn’t even make grammatical sense. Frankly, Sharon, since language arts became a not-so-important subject in our public school systems, I have found that many educated people are making grammar mistakes that my public school and college teachers wouldn’t have found at all acceptable. But as they say, “Don’t get me started!”
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to bring up a very important but controversial topic, Sharon.
____________________________
Hi, Richard.
I came across the following sentence when I was reading a book. I know what it means but I could not understand what grammar rule was used. Is it an inversion? I consulted many grammar books, but I could not find an answer. I would like to know why the sentence is formed like this so that I can explain it to my students. The sentence in question is, “The job of the linguist is to reveal and make explicit this knowledge about meaning that every speaker has.” (from An Introduction to Language)
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely Yours,
Chikako
Niigata, Japan
Hi, Chikako!
I’m afraid that you’ve misinterpreted the role of certain elements in the sentence ― which is perfectly grammatical, by the way. There’s a verb (reveal) and a verb phrase (make explicit) that both precede their one direct object (this knowledge about meaning), which is followed by a relative clause. It’s really as simple as that.
I hope that clarifies this for you. Thanks for sending in the question.
____________________________
Now let’s get to the Brain Teaser from my last column. The question was: Is the grammar in the following sentences acceptable?
1. This is a relatively new phenomena.
2. We haven’t seen this bacteria before in our water supply.
3. It’s now thought that red algae was responsible for the Nile River turning red in the Old Testament story of the Exodus.
4. The data you have isn’t enough to allow us to make any final conclusions.
If the grammar isn’t acceptable, why isn’t it? And if it is, why is that?
The first correct response was sent in by Charles Nelson of Union, New Jersey USA.
For #2, 3, and 4, these nouns can be considered collective nouns, such as family, which allow for a singular verb in American English.
In the case of #1, although I imagine many people use phenomena with a singular verb, it is not being used as a collective noun, and so it is better to use a plural verb with it.
Succinctly explained, Charles. I find your explanation for no.’s 2, 3, and 4 acceptable, but I seriously wonder if these Latin plural nouns have taken on singular usage in English more out of ignorance of their role as plural nouns than out of any grammatical alternative, such as sometimes using a word like family with a singular noun and sometimes with a plural, depending on how family is being viewed by the speaker or writer.
Strictly speaking ― or perhaps speaking in “old fashioned” terms ― the correct phrases should be this bacterium/these bacteria; red alga was/red algae were; and the datum is/the data are. But as we all know, data has gone the way of agenda (whose original singular form is agendum), and both are commonly used as singular nouns these days. And, sadly, I think phenomena is beginning to take the place of phenomenon as a singular noun.
I still have a problem with using bacteria as a singular noun, just as I do with media. When I look under a microscope, I don’t see just one little creature swimming around; I see lots and lots of them, so for me, bacterium is still singular and bacteria is a plural noun. And frankly speaking, I just don’t get it when it comes to using media as a singular noun. When I think of the media, I think of radio, television, newspapers, and magazines, not to mention the Internet, which includes Facebook and Twitter. I don’t picture them as one collective entity in my mind, so for me the radio is a medium of communication, newspapers are a medium of communication, etc., and all together they’re the media. That’s why you’ll always hear me say the media are.
Here’s one final word on this subject: I’ll never understand why Taliban is considered a collective noun used with a singular verb (the Taliban is). To my way of thinking, reporters and others should be saying the Taliban are, just as we always expect to hear the police are and people are.
Thanks for sending in your answer, Charles!
____________________________
Here’s where I would normally place my next Brain Teaser, but there won’t be a new Brain Teaser, for this is my last column. I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of writing “Grammatically Speaking” for over eight years, and have enjoyed doing so very much. I’m retired now, and have decided to wean myself off all professional activities that I’ve kept up since my official retirement date. This is the last such activity, and the time has come for me to end this as well.
I sincerely hope that all of you have enjoyed reading my column over the years and have benefited from the information provided. Your questions have always been thought provoking and very useful for the many people who’ve read my column, and I want to thank each and every one of you for participating in making “Grammatically Speaking” such a successful feature for TESOL.
I wish you all good luck and successful careers, and I want to thank TESOL for supporting my column from its inception in TESOL Matters and through the transition when it went online. I hope I’ve made a difference in our field, and I hope you’ll make a difference in the lives of all of your students.
Sincerely,
Richard Firsten
TESOL thanks Richard Firsten for his many years of service (and impeccable grammar), and would like to introduce T. Leo Schmitt as your new Grammatically Speaking columnist. Leo is assistant director of the Intensive English Communication Program at Penn State University and has more than 20 years of English teaching experience. He has lived and worked all over the world, including in the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, and Taiwan. TESOL welcomes Leo as your new grammar expert.
Leo’s first brainteaser:
Look at the two sentences below. Each sentence gives an example of an exception to a general rule. Explain the rule and the exception.
- The doctor did not have any idea what answer would please the patient most.
- It did not make any difference that the student had done the work on her own.
Please e-mail your grammar questions to Leo at GrammaticallySpeaking@tesol.org.
When writing to Grammatically Speaking, please include your name and location (city and state, province, or country). If your question or response is selected for publication, your name and location will be printed unless you specify otherwise. |
Read the Grammatically Speaking Archives in Essential Teacher (2003–10/2009)
Read Grammatically Speaking in the TESOL Connections archives (12/2009–present)
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This article is from TESOL Journal, Volume 1, Issue 3
The full issue will be available soon, free for members
 TESOL Journal
Free Article:
Unpacking the Language Purpose:
Vocabulary, Structure, and Function
by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey
download to PDF
Although learning objectives are a hallmark of lesson planning, it is rare for these to be shared with learners, even though best practices suggest doing so. This article examines the practice of establishing purpose for English language learners as a means for developing conceptual schemas. Participants in this study were 332 southern California K–12 teachers who submitted 500 examples of the language purposes they used with students. The authors analyzed these surveys and identified the predominant language purpose forms as those that featured vocabulary, language structure, and language function demands. Implications and future lines of research are discussed.
Establishing the purpose of a lesson, often through a written objective, is a common educational practice. From the time teachers begin their professional licensure, they are encouraged to consider what their students will know and be able to do. Written lesson plans feature a list of objectives to be used as a gauge for success and are usually accompanied by a further recommendation to state them to students. There is an assumption that the teacher-initiated behavior of stating the objective will result in student understanding of the forthcoming content. This statement of the objective for students, what we call purpose, is thought to serve as a priming mechanism for new learning (Gagne´ & Briggs, 1974; Mager, 1962). And there is evidence for the effectiveness of a clearly established purpose. Simply said, when students understand the purpose of a lesson, they learn more (Fraser, Walberg, Welch, & Hattie, 1987; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).
The establishment of purpose is accomplished through the teacher’s intentional use of lesson objectives to alert students to what will be learned and what they will be expected to do with it. Whereas the lesson objective is constructed by the teacher, the act of carefully communicating it to students is the purpose. Stated another way, the objective is the mind of the teacher; it becomes the purpose when it is shared with learners. The reason for doing so extends beyond regulating academic behavior. A clearly stated and understood purpose lays the foundation for a schema of concepts, skills, and information.
A challenge for all learners, and especially for those learning English as an additional language, is that the talk of school is decontextualized and requires students to discuss events, objects, and people that are not present. This ‘‘decontextualized discourse relies heavily on the language itself in the construction of meaning’’ (Justice, 2006, p. 66), and students must use highly conceptual vocabulary to make themselves understood in the classroom. There has been debate about whether the classroom discourse can be accurately identified as decontextualized (see Schleppegrell, 2004, for a more complete discussion of this), but it is worth noting that learning about events, objects, and people that are not in the room can be more completely understood through the social nature of interaction. This extends to text-based demands as well. Fang, Schleppegrell, and Cox (2006) examined elementary, middle, and high school textbooks in language arts, science, and history and note the ways in which they become more lexically dense and linguistically unique to the particular discipline. They further state that they ‘‘believe that explicit, shared knowledge about the way language works can help students better handle academic texts’’ (p. 269), thus equipping them for the ‘‘discursive conventions that shape and are shaped by disciplinary practices’’ (p. 248). A first step to fostering academic discourse in a subject is to establish a clear purpose.
In actuality, there are multiple purposes for each instructional event. Teachers of English to speakers of other languages have at least two purposes for each lesson: developing content understanding and developing language proficiency. If teachers were to simply focus on content, language learning would only occur incidentally; if they focused only on language learning, content understanding would not likely develop (Hill & Flynn, 2006). Hill and Flynn further explain, ‘‘The educational environment also becomes a friendlier place for ELLs [English language learners] when they have a clearly stated target for learning’’ (p. 22). A clearly established purpose also allows students to assess their own progress in learning. The importance of establishing content goals as well as language goals has been well documented in the professional literature (e.g., Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 1989; Dong, 2004/2005).
Communicating a language purpose is important because learning involves language. Across learning contexts, students use language to think. While they are doing content work (e.g., math, science, social studies, art), students are also reading, writing, speaking, and listening. However, there is limited guidance for teachers about establishing a language purpose. Even the most widely used professional book on teaching ELLs, Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2008), notes that teachers should establish a language purpose for students, but the guidance offered occurs through examples. Although these are helpful, it seems reasonable to suggest that the language purposes teachers use could be better articulated. Thus this study was designed to uncover an organizational system for language purposes such that teachers can receive guidance in this aspect of instruction.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
The Nature of Goals and Objectives
The terms goals and objectives have been used for decades to refer to broad categories of written or verbal statements that describe the purpose of a unit or lesson. Goals most often represent a larger curricular focus, whereas objectives represent smaller, more specific segments of learning that lead to the goals (see, e.g., Gronlund & Linn, 1990). Interpretative variations of this occur in subfields of education. For example, in special education, a goal on an Individual Education Plan typically encompasses a year of instruction, with stated objectives representing incremental benchmarks toward the goal (Billingsley, 1984). These objectives further require that the time and evidence of learning be specified. This perspective is influenced by Mager’s (1962) work in the development of behavioral objectives that contain (a) a measurable verb that describes the performance, (b) the conditions under which it is to happen, and (c) the criteria for success. However, as Marzano and colleagues (2001) explain, a narrowly defined objective can result in a negative effect, causing students to do less well than if no objective had been stated; they go on to state, ‘‘This phenomenon might occur because setting a goal focuses students’ attention to such a degree that they ignore information not specifically related to the goal’’ (p. 94). This can be especially troubling for teachers of ELLs, who are attempting to build schema by encouraging students to draw on their background knowledge and prior experiences. An overly narrow objective may result in students editing out salient information in an attempt to meet the terms of the lesson’s objectives.
Classifying Objectives
Various frameworks representing types of knowledge further complicate the educational landscape. The most well known is Bloom’s taxonomy, developed in 1956 and intended as the first in a series of volumes that were not completed. The three volumes he and his colleagues conceived were to represent the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains; the second volume, on the affective domain, was written in 1964. Bloom’s original taxonomy described six categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. Many years later the cognitive taxonomy was revised (Anderson et al., 2001) and updated to reflect changes in instructional methods. The 2001 version now describes the six categories as Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating. In addition to a change in language to the present progressive verb form, the revised taxonomy places Creating (Synthesis) above Evaluating. These terms are most often used to categorize the type of objectives for a lesson or unit.
Another lens for describing knowledge, and therefore the learning objectives in the classroom, is what Paris, Lipson, and Wixson (1983) label as declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge. They applied this schema to ‘‘strategic readers’’ (p. 293): students who know what comprehension strategies to use (declarative), how to apply them (procedural), and when and why to deploy them (conditional). These descriptors have been used by others to categorize teachers’ level of knowledge in providing instruction in reading (Reinking, Mealey, & Ridgeway, 1993). Teachers informally use declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge to describe the kinds of learning that will occur.
Language Demands on English Language Learners
Many students may benefit from clearly stated objectives, but it appears that ELLs are more sensitive to this, due to the additional language demand placed on students who are simultaneously learning in English. Although obvious, it bears repeating that many ELLs are less able than monolingual English speakers to process verbal and written directions (August & Hakuta, 1997), even when factors such as socioeconomic status are controlled for (Brown, 2005). This impacts not only students in courses that require high levels of literacy, but also students in those that are perceived as requiring relatively fewer language skills, such as mathematics (Brown, 2005). However, making the purpose of the lesson clear to students can mitigate this. A study of secondary mathematics instruction for ELLs found that a stated lesson objective was a useful component for learning (Hudson, Miller, & Butler, 2006). Some researchers recommend the use of intentionally stated and written language objectives for ELLs in other disciplines such as science (Carrier, 2005) and physical education (Clancy & Hruska, 2005), noting that the language demands can undermine the student performance. This idea is consistent with the findings of Echevarria, Short, and Powers (2006), who, in their 7-year study, found that analysis of the language demand of the task, paired with stated purposes about written and verbal language production, resulted in higher levels of achievement for ELLs.
But the question remains: What is a language purpose, and how do teachers write it? This study was designed to uncover and unpack the types of statements teachers make relative to language purposes. Although language purposes are inextricably linked with content purposes, our analysis is limited to the linguistic demands that teachers place on students.
METHODOLOGY
Participants
The participants in this study were 332 teachers from southern California who were invited to submit current language purpose statements via an electronic survey tool. Recruitment of participants occurred in a number of ways, including as part of trainings and workshops at which we presented, requests at a summer reading conference, via e-mail from district offices, by word of mouth as preservice teachers invited their cooperating teachers to submit examples, and via e-mail to members of various professional organizations. The teachers who responded to this invitation ranged from 1 to 33 years of teaching experience, with a mean of 8.5 years. The respondents represented a range of formal educational credential, with 38% reporting that they held at least one master’s degree in either education or the subject in which they taught. A larger percentage (41%) was enrolled in a master’s degree program, possibly due to recruitment at a large university. A smaller number (3%) held a specialist degree.
All of the participants held a current California teaching certificate, indicating that they had completed the state licensing requirements for teaching ELLs. These mandated courses include work in English language development, multicultural education, instructional strategies training in specially designed academic instruction in English, and total physical response. In addition, 52% reported that they had completed guided language acquisition design (GLAD) through their school districts. (Project GLAD is promoted by the California Department of Education as a promising practice and is eligible for Title III funding by school districts.) Respondents who did not possess a current California teaching credential (such as interns) were excluded from this study.
As part of the data collection, teachers were asked to indicate the grade level being taught, the subject or content standard being addressed, and the demographics of the classroom. Teachers were invited to submit more than one example, provided that the examples came from different lessons and standards. The majority of participants held a multiple-subject teaching credential and taught in elementary (K–5) or middle schools (6–8), comprising 73% of the respondents. The remainder (27%) held a single-subject teaching credential and taught in Grades 7–12. The single-subject participants held teaching credentials in English (51%), history/social science (25%), science (17%), and mathematics (7%). The demographic data, in terms of student population, for the teachers who submitted examples suggests a diverse pool, with 92% of them currently teaching ELLs. Eight percent of the participants were not currently teaching ELLs but reported having done so in the past 3 years. The majority of participants who answered the demographic questions were female (77%) and White (85%).
Instruments
An electronic survey instrument was developed to collect demographic information and the content and purpose information noted previously. The instrument asked participants to submit purpose statements, defined as ‘‘the spoken and written statements you make to students at the beginning of the lesson so that they know what is expected of them.’’ Teachers who contributed were entered into a pool with the possibility of winning Starbucks gift cards. The data submitted were confidential, and contact information was submitted separately for individuals who wanted to enter the pool. In addition, teachers were invited to indicate whether they were willing to participate in a follow-up survey, member check, or both once all samples had been collected and the initial analysis had been completed. The member check is a qualitative research technique that allows a sample of the larger participant pool to read and react to preliminary findings. The intent of the member check is to increase validity and accuracy and reduce researcher bias (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
Procedures
The electronic survey instrument was available for teachers to access for several months. It was monitored weekly, and recruitment efforts continued until the data set included 500 examples. Once the examples had been collected, we analyzed the data, looking for trends and categories using a constant comparative method (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Of the 500 submitted, 34 were discarded because they did not contain a complete thought or were primarily behavioral in nature. For example, the response ‘‘The students will raise their hands and wait to be called on’’ was not considered in this study because it did not meet the initial qualification of a language objective. As categories emerged, we reread all entries to classify them accordingly. In addition, representative samples for each category were coded. A random selection of the teachers who agreed to be interviewed were contacted for follow-up questions. The draft findings were used during member check meetings. At each of the three member check meetings, five randomly selected participants were invited to read and comment on the initial findings. These discussions allowed us to ask questions based on the categories that emerged and allowed participants to compare the study findings with their own experiences.
FINDINGS
An analysis of the 500 examples submitted by teachers resulted in the identification of three categories: vocabulary, language structure, and language function. The most common language purposes included direction on the use of discipline-specific vocabulary (e.g., tectonic plate, vertices, adverbs). This type of language objective comprised 47% of the submitted samples. Single-subject teachers appeared to favor this type of language objective, as these objectives comprised nearly 60% of their submitted samples. The second most common were those that focused on language structure, accounting for 29% of the submitted samples. Language structure purpose statements provide students with a focus on the way information is organized, such as ‘‘You will tell your partner the stages from tadpole to frog using past tense words.’’ The final category, language function, comprised 24% of the total number of submissions. Language function purpose statements draw students’ attention to the linguistic tools of the language, such as ‘‘Justify your answer’’ or ‘‘Explain your position.’’ Table 1 contains a summary and examples of each of these.
Together, these three categories represented all of the various ways that teachers established the language purpose for students in their classrooms. The five teachers who participated in the member check interview confirmed that these categories were consistent with their experiences and that ‘‘they provide some information about planning language purposes.’’ Interestingly, the teachers who participated in the member check discussed the difference between goals and objectives and noted, as did we, that there was not a consistent use of either term. Instead, it seemed that the participants focused on purpose, with some people submitting goals and others submitting objectives. We will return to this discussion after exploring each of the three categories.
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TESOL Congratulates the Winner
of the 2nd Annual SpellEvent Championship download to PDF
On August 10, 2010, TESOL and Franklin Electronic Publishers, Inc. cohosted the 2nd Annual Global SpellEvent Championship in New York City. The culmination of 18 months of planning, the event saw student participants from 12 different countries competing in an English spelling competition for a grand prize of US$10,000.
Now in its second year, the Global SpellEvent started with regional events in 12 different countries. Working together with TESOL’s affiliates, TESOL and Franklin held regional events in April and May of 2010 in the following cities:
- Ankara, Turkey (hosted by INGED)
- Beijing, China
- Buenos Aires, Argentina (hosted by Argentina TESOL)
- Dakar, Senegal (hosted by ATES)
- Dubai, United Arab Emirates (hosted by TESOL Arabia)
- Mexico City, Mexico (hosted by Mexico TESOL)
- Moscow, Russia (hosted by NATE Russia)
- Munich, Germany
- Paris, France (hosted by TESOL France)
- Rome, Italy (hosted by TESOL Italy)
- Santiago, Chile (hosted by TESOL Chile)
- Seoul, South Korea (hosted by Korea TESOL)
Over 500 students, ages 15 and under, participated in the local events. To prepare for their local SpellEvents, teachers and students were provided with a list of practice words that included pronunciations, definitions, word origins and example sentences. The participating schools were also provided with participation kits that included both print and electronic dictionaries provided by Franklin. Affiliate leaders coordinated the regional events, with a member of the TESOL Board of Directors and a TESOL staff member serving as judges at the events. First and second place winners from each regional final SpellEvent competition were awarded an all expenses paid trip to the United States along with a parent or guardian, and the opportunity to win the Grand Prize US$10,000 scholarship at the Global SpellEvent Championship in New York City.
The Global SpellEvent Championship was held at the Jumeirah Essex House Hotel in New York City, and was hosted by TESOL member and New York Times 2009 ESOL Teacher of the Year Tamara Kirson. Serving as judges at the Championship were TESOL Past President Mark Algren and Executive Director Rosa Aronson.
Prior to the start of the competition the participants received welcome greetings from affiliate leaders Debbie West of TESOL France, Maria Trapero Davila of Mexico TESOL, and Mawa Samb of ATES, who were all on hand to watch the competition. The participants, who had gotten to know one another during several social events prior to the competition, demonstrated a true spirit of sportsmanship by cheering and encouraging each other throughout the competition. After 2 hours and 14 rounds, Hyun Soo Kim of South Korea was crowned the winner by correctly spelling the word judicial. Coming in second place was Eduardo Zueck Garcés of Mexico, with Mikhail Khodan of Russia coming in third, and Ahmet Oğuz Atli of Turkey in fourth.
Plans are currently under way to expand the Global SpellEvent in 2011 to an additional three countries, bringing the total number of participating countries to 15. In addition to all the countries that participated this year, TESOL affiliates in Brazil, the Czech Republic, and Spain are all expected to host regional SpellEvent competitions in April and May of 2011.
The list of all the Global SpellEvent championship participants, along with photos from the championship and regional events, are available at www.SpellEvent.org.
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The TESOL Blog Spot:
Why We Shouldn't Use Test Scores
to Evaluate Teachers
by Brock Brady, TESOL President
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 It was bad enough when No Child Left Behind (NCLB) went into effect and we had to start evaluating schools based on standardized tests that put the entire focus of public education on math and language arts to the detriment of science, social studies, and the arts—when teachers for the sake of their jobs and their schools’ survival had to put all other teaching considerations aside and focus on the tests.
Back in 2002 I was invited to speak to a group of Ukrainian English teachers in a State Department International Visitor Program. They had asked to hear about developments in the U.S public school system. I began to explain NCLB’s policy of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in which student performance had to improve every year on mandated tests until all schools were performing at 95 or 96% in reading and mathematics. Suddenly, my listeners protested. Some even banged the table. One member summed up their concern: “Don’t let them do that. The Soviets did that to our educational system and they destroyed it. “ The essence of their argument was that unrealistic demands had led to (very understandable) corruption.
While the Obama administration has shown considerable interest in revising elements of No Child Left Behind, it seems to have put a new emphasis on evaluating teacher effectiveness based on student test results. Frequently, as much as 50% of a teacher’s effectiveness and compensation would be based on student test results.
This concerns many of us. Even the most powerful statistical models have difficulties capturing the complexity of what occurs in the classroom. Beyond such measurement problems, there are situational problems that make it difficult to evaluate the impact of individual teachers. Some include students who come and go during the year, “summer learning loss” (which seems to affect lower socioeconomic level students more than others); what the students managed to learn (or failed to learn) from a previous year’s teacher; which students are placed in a particular classroom; the effect of other teachers students have in the same academic year; the contribution that parents and other family members make (or don’t make) at home, and the effects of inclusion classrooms, team taught classrooms, and outside tutoring.
The stakes in this debate have shot up recently. On August 15th, the Los Angeles Times provided access to a database of teacher effectiveness related to student test results using a Value Added Modeling (VAM) approach. When asked about the ethics of publishing this data, Arne Ducan, Obama’s Secretary of Education replied, “what’s there to hide?”
We should not hide Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers, (2010) a briefing paper that the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has just released. While the briefing paper acknowledges that the VAM approach can lead to stronger analyses than single point analyses of student test results, the paper also reports on a number of studies critical of the VAM approach, including several studies with surprising results. In the study of one VAM assessment, less than one third of the teachers who rated in the top 20% remained in the top 20% the following year, and another third of that top 20% moved to the bottom 40% the following year. Another study found that students’ fifth grade teachers were among the surest predictors of students’ fourth grade test scores.
The EPI’s critique focused in particular on VAM, as it is one of the most sophisticated models in use. However, the paper’s warning about using student test results to rate teachers for raises and firing is more general. It lists five ways that effective (or ineffective) teachers can be misidentified due to statistical limitations and lists several practical limitations (such as inappropriate tests) of relating student scores to teacher effectiveness, and the unintended consequences of this kind of teacher rating system (which include disincentives to work with the neediest students and decreased teacher collaboration).
The paper makes recommendations that we teachers are very familiar with—that increasing teacher effectiveness can be done by using systematic observation protocols, videos, and teacher interviews, and that items such as lesson plans, assignments, and samples of student work can be used to identify effective and ineffective teachers and provide support for those in need. This kind of teacher collaboration, the essence of professional development, can make ineffective teachers effective and make the effective ones even stronger. With such support, even those who just can’t make it can leave knowing they weren’t disrespected.
We need to stand up and stand together on this issue. If no one makes the counter argument against basing teacher effectiveness decisions on student test results, it will become practice. I know these arguments are complicated and it can be hard to translate what you feel into talking points, but Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers provides the tools to help you do that.
Contact your congress people. Send a message to the Department of Education. If you need to find the contact information, go to TESOL’s Advocacy Action Center. And please, talk this issue up among colleagues. It’s the start of a brand new year and a good time to act.
To comment on this blog or read past postings, click here.
Thank you,
Brock Brady
President, TESOL
References
Baker, E. L., Barton, P. E., Darling-Hammond, L., Haertel, E., Ladd, H. F., Linn, R., . . . Shepard, L. A. (2010). Problems with the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers (Briefing Paper No. 278). Retrieved from Economic Policy Institute Website: http://epi.3cdn.net/724cd9a1eb91c40ff0_hwm6iij90.pdf
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