ANALYTICAL ESSAY

Paulina Clavero
Languague IX
Crystal Hickerson
30 May 2009

Teachers tormented by pupils in every lesson

In the article called “The teachers tormented by pupils in every lesson”, Sarah Harris presents the study’s results carried out by the National Association of Schoolmasters, where it states that the indiscipline and the poor behavior of students is an “endemic” problem. The article shows scientific data; however, the way that Harris expresses the information is superficial. The arguments are well known for the citizens and they do not need a deep study to come up with such ideas related to education.
Sarah Harris’ article revealed the behavior problems that teachers have to deal with, everyday. The situation is always the same, students talking almost the whole class, shouting four letter words, playing out of the class, etc. According to the study team, the half of the class is dedicated to control these “Behavior Problems”, what is also bad because it leaves the good students without being educated.
The study is centered in new teachers who work at states schools because they are the ones who are more prone to leave. They come with a different mentality, however, when they are inside the class, they realize that things are more difficult that they have thought. By the time, they cannot see any difference; they decide to immigrate to the private field, where the behavior problems are less. The study also suggests that parents should also be involved trying to diminish the behavior problems of their kids at schools because this job is not only teacher’s responsibility, as many parents think. That is why, the study put on stage the fact that the behavior problem is endemic. Even though we know that, there should be a strong factor, which produces this problem.
The information contained in the article is supported by a deep study carried out by the National Association of Schoolmaster; however, there are times when it is not necessary to have such reliable source, if the information given it is not new for the citizens. It would be better and more useful if Harris would focus her article in the roots of this endemic problem. The answer to it would be more enriching for everyone.
Considering everything, we can say that it is not obligatory to have a study as a support for the paper but the arguments, which ones are the paper based on, are essential. The article could be better if the main idea of the article would be the actions or the decisions taken from the study’s results or the roots of the problem. I feel that the article could not fulfill the expectations of the reader. Harris’ article strikes me the need for evidence that demonstrates the roots of this endemic issue.



Reference:

Harris, Sarah. “The teachers tormented by pupils in every lesson.” The Daily Mail (London, England). Solo Syndication limited. 2005. HighBeam Research. 18 May. 2009

BOOK REVIEW

Davis, Paul., Eric Pearse. Success in English Teaching: handbooks for Language Teachers. London: Oxford University Press.

Along time, we have seen many changes in the structure of the educational system, in relation to the teaching of English as a foreign language. Thus, trying to accomplish the main objective of the education “to communicate” However, many of these changes have not given a real result inside the classrooms. Children are still in need of real knowledge that let student to achieve this goal. What is more, learners reflect a major problem that starts in teachers, and their lack of methodology in their classes. This means, teachers do not know, how to focus on the teaching in order to get results in SLA.
In “Success in English Teaching” the teacher’s trainers, Paul Davis and Eric Pearse introduce us to the teaching of English for foreigners. Through a format easy to follow, they present activities that despite to engage and entertaining students, they learn. In a world where teaching a foreign language is relegated to old methodology, even more, there is not allowing new ideas or tendencies. The need for activities that demonstrate the achievement of meaningful knowledge is an urgent teacher’s priority.
Moreover, the book gives guidance on activities that have they already tried in classes, where the amount of students is not a significant difficulty. It is quite good because it gives teachers enough confidence to be in front of a class, and obtain good results. The book is very helpful for initial teachers of English. Nevertheless, it also can be a help for those who want to make a change in his/her teaching, thus contribution towards a better education.
The book is structured in twelve chapters; each of them covers the main weaknesses in the teaching of English. Moreover, it gives guidance on management of designing material for activities in classes or tests. The book has been developed to enchant students with English but to open them the doors for their future. However, the activities contained in the book have been try in a context different to ours. It is probably that many of the situations written in the book will be a failure in our classrooms.

Annotated Bibliography

Burns, David. “Will I do as well on the final exam as I expected? An examination of students’ expectations.” Journal of the scholarship of teaching and learning 8.3 (2008): 1-19. In the educational system, there is an important factor to motivate learners. Students’ expectations can change the students’ performance, if they truly believe in themselves. In this research, the author states that, even thought, students have expectation in their test performance based on what they have done before. The result is also going to depend on how much effort and dedication they have put in the study before hand because having the expectations alone is not enough. In fact, the researchers did not show any result on what they have thought and investigated, what leaves in the reader a sense of dissatisfaction and without fulfilling the expectations. However, the research introduces you to more ideas related with this issue. Indeed, teachers should participate being the support and the facilitator for new experiences that let students to grow up in all areas. It is necessary that teachers understand, that, they are the ones that can truly help students change in their minds.

Reliable sites for investigation

JOURNALS

Oxford Journals: Belonging to one of the most important Universities, in these journals, you can find hundreds of articles specialized in any area of interest. The best part of this site is that you can download the articles free of charge.

http://services.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/searchresults?fulltext=education


AERA SIG Communication of Research: it is not a well-known site but not bad. The site is full of information not just for academics, teachers or investigators. Student also can find an easy and a reliable way to get the data for their tasks.

http://aera-cr.asu.edu/ejournals/


Cambridge Journals: Reliable Journals with many years of investigation in the area of education. Here the study is a priority. Unfortunately, you can download just a part from the whole paper.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/login;jsessionid=9CB3A6165541176D6E0E141FE6AA9E60.tomcat1


ERIC: a prestigious centre of information on Education. ERIC has been used in hundreds of study and books. In addition, it has been a source of information for many students when doing their thesis.

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=JournalPage&logoutLink=false


Journal of Technology Education: Education has been always one of the most important fields of investigation. That is why this site has been included in this list because we think, that, it could be a good tool and support for teachers using technology in classes. It is full of useful data that can be applied to increase the performance of teachers’ teaching.

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/


DATABASE

Wiki Pedia: this database it is not reliable enough but it can help you in some basic aspect of an object of nterest. Even thought it has much information, it is not recommended to use it for an academic paper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database


Monografías: the most helpful source of information for students. It contains a gret number of information, however the deep of the data is not quite reliable for academic papers, just for simple tasks. Moreover, to get the information you have to have an account in the web page, so it is not as easy as you can imagine.

http://www.monografias.com/trabajos11/basda/basda.shtml

Academic Search Premiere: a database based on education but where you can find other fields of invesitgation. Free of charge, it gives you the opportunity to access a confident and reliable data.

http://biblioteca.udesa.edu.ar/bases/basedu.htm

Learning to Cite.

Many people who are involved in education know that one of the most important themes to teach and even more, to deal with is religion. Not because teachers do not know anything about it. But the difficuly that it presents in managing the theme into a class of 40 or 45 students is completely daunting. How to deal with religion without transgressing students’ believes? Or which are the acceptable forms to raise this issue in the classroom? These are the questions that many Chilean teachers are afraid of facing.

The importance of raise this theme in the classroom, it s not to get students agitated but show them the different culture that exist within each religion. It is important that they can value the differences because this improves their cultural knowledge and let them to have a point of view more engaged with the society.

The problem with this issue is the lack of teaching in class. Teachers try to ovoid it or even worse, teachers impose their believe against students’ own. The unexperience of teachers make them to do this error, leaving in students a sense of incomprehension and frustration.

At this point, we differ a little bit with the comment made by an important man in front of this issue. Franklin D. Roosevelt, quoted in The Wars of the Godly, by Reuben Maury “[T]he public schools shall be free from sectarian influences, and above all, free from any attitude of hostility to the adherents of any particular creed.”(213) From the Chilean perspective the only way to make people respect the differences, thus, avoid a future being a target of maltreat is teaching those differences at schools. At this time is when you can make a real change in people’s mind. Moreover, in this cite we can see the misconception of Roosevelt when refering to Religion as “Sectas”. All the religions should be respected even if we do not agreeg with their creeds.

cite:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/quote-r1.htm

correcting myself... (old posts)

A GREAT PAINTING!!

The first time that I saw this Picture I got scared. Actually, it has threatened me until now!! However, every time that I find this picture in anywhere, I can stop and look at it a long time (SM). This is a very good painting that represents the anguish of somebody that is lost or has lost something valued for him/her. When you see this painting you are not strange to it, you can feel exactly the same as the character. (SM)That is the main purpose of all the paintings. (P) And that is what the painter expects of you, through the colours and details.

I HATE MATHS!!

I don’t know why I always have hate maths (WO). Actually, this subject is like my trauma (SM) (WO) (WT). I try to put much effort to accomplish all my tasks in it. However, when I am in front of a test, something happened to my (WT), that I did all the exercises bad. Actually, before take the test I tried to study with some of my classmates (WT). But my performances in it were deplorable. But, this problem was not only at the school. When I entered at the university, I had to take maths (again!!) I was so nervous because I have never been good at maths (P) so I had a prediction on my mind. Thankfully, I could pass the subject without too many problems.

answering hector's letter

Dear hector, I have not answered you because I did not come to classes last wed. However, today I caught myself up with my duties.

First of all, the symbols mean the following:

Ww: wrong word

We: wrong expression

Wt: wrong tense

Sp:Spelling

C: Capital letters

P: punctuation

wo: word order

Wf: wrong form

Nn: not needed

?: not clear

Sm: something missing

Now, I hope you can understand my correction.

Telling you about me, I can say that I like English so much. Want to be an English teacher, because I believe that I can make a little change in the way how it has been teaching. I want to work in the south of Chile. I know the weather is awful but I really like the one that they have. About my hobbies, I like to practice sports. Actually, now I practice: spinning, aero box and aero-step, I practiced tae kwon do but I had to left it because of the time. I love to dance and listen to English music.

Sorry I have classes of literature, so I have to go now!

Take care!!!

Regards

Pauly

PD: I am the one with glasses!!