Or, have everyone think for a while individually and write down his/her
proposed "rule" (no blurting!). After a reasonable interval, I would go
around the class and check or make suggestions. This way, all must think;
they cannot sit back and let the quick, aggressive ones do it for them.
For example, my classes had fun discovering a spelling principle when I
would write the following on the board:
refer + ing = referring
refer + ence = reference
occur + ing = occurring
occur + ence = occurrence
After most "got" it, we'd think of other examples. Like marvel + ous =
marvelous.
Much more active a process for students than if I just said, "Now learn
this."
Jane Saral (retired, hence the past tense)
Atlanta
On 9/24/07, Johanna Rubba <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Inductive approach to finding the subject of a sentence:
>
> Create a tag to go with the sentence, then use the pronoun in the tag
> to "erase" or replace the appropriate portion of the base sentence.
>
> For example:
>
> The students chosen to compete in the spelling bee will take a bus to
> New York City tomorrow.
> Add tag: The students chosen to compete in the spelling bee will take
> a bus to New York City tomorrow, won't they?
> [The students chosen to compete in the spelling bee] They will take a
> bus to New York City tomorrow.
>
> This is a problem-solving approach, as it gives the student a
> procedure to apply to data in order to find a solution (identifying
> the subject of the sentence.) The student proceeds by constructing a
> tag, then using the pronoun in the tag to find the subject of the
> base sentence. It's very important that this exercise is for native
> speakers, who do not need to consult conscious knowledge to construct
> the tag; this is done in milliseconds and without deliberation. The
> "erasure" procedure is, however, done explicitly, with the check of
> the result relying on native-speaker intuition.
>
> There are many such tricks, for tasks ranging from deciding what is a
> complete sentence, to deciding between 'who' and 'whom', to
> identifying participles vs. gerunds (among verbs ending in '-ing'. No
> explicit knowledge of grammar is needed to apply these tests; they
> are tools for making one's subconscious knowledge of grammar explicit
> and learning terminology and analysis skills to do so.
>
> Deductive approach:
>
> The subject of a sentence is the noun phrase that would be replaced
> with a pronoun in a tag added to the sentence.
>
> To my mind, this would reverse the procedure: The student would look
> for the subject of the sentence, then create a tag, making sure that
> the pronoun in the tag agreed with the subject. The choice of pronoun
> would not be intuitive, but explicitly thought through.
>
> Maybe this is bogus, but this is my understanding. To give an example
> from my German classes: I would present students with paired
> sentences, and ask them to discover a rule, in this case, verb
> placeement in subordinate clauses.
>
> Peter war heute nicht in der Klasse. Er ist krank. (Peter wasn't in
> class today. He is sick.)
> Peter war heute nicht in der Klasse, weil er krank ist. (Peter wasn't
> in class today, because he is sick.)
>
> Ich lernte in der Bibliothek. Nachdem bin ich schwimmengegangen. (I
> studied in the library. Afterwards, I went swimming.)
> Ich bin schwimmengegangen, nachdem ich in der Bibliothek lernte. (I
> went swimming after I studied in the library.)
>
> Students would notice that the verb "moves" to the end when a
> sentence becomes a subordinate clause. This is the rule.
>
> A deductive approach would be to state the rule: In German
> subordinate clauses, the tensed verb occurs at the end of the clause.
> Then I would present the sentence pairs in order to demonstrate the
> rule. No action except paying attention and copying the rule is
> necessary here. To me, that's boring, dry, external to the learner,
> and not engaging.
>
> To me, the first way of presenting things just seems naturally more
> interesting and engaging. The students' own discovery of the rule is
> what, to me, gives the oomph necessary to retain the rule better than
> in the deductive method. The student might remember the experience of
> discovery more keenly than the dry presentation of the rule -- the
> accustomed way of learning language rules, which so many students
> find deadly boring.
>
> In my experience of learning folk dances and drum rhythm sequences, I
> retain patterns better once I discover whatever logic they have --
> logic that is difficult for a teacher to point out unless s/he is
> quite talented. But this kind of learning involves motor skills,
> which, if Oliver Sacks is correct in citing and claiming in a recent
> New Yorker article, are stored elsewhere in the brain than factual
> knowledge (the procedural/factual difference). Perhaps I find
> inductive learning more interesting because it does draw on
> procedural skills, while deductive learning depends on memorizing
> factual statements, and applying them afterwards. Maybe the
> difference is not all that significant. But I truly believe inductive
> presentations are more engaging. I take care of the poor problem-
> solvers by providing a deductive statement as a kind of review.
> Perhaps this puts them at a disadvantage, but I usually have the
> inductive work done in groups, so weaker students can observe the
> stronger ones and still see what the answer is; they can also try the
> procedure quietly on their own paper and not be punished or
> embarrassed if they fail.
>
>
> Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
> Linguistics Minor Advisor
> English Department
> California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> Tel.: 805.756.2184
> Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
> Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
> URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>
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