As it turns out, there are at least two persons named Scott on this list: Scott with no last name given and Scott Woods. The one who sent the email to which Ron Sheen just responded is Scott Woods. The one with whom he has been having an ongoing discussion is Scott with no last name given. It may be helpful to differentiate between the two.
It would probably also be helpful to differentiate between civil academic discourse and personal attacks.
Regarding example sets and repetition, regardless of the explanations given by the teacher, does anyone disagree with the claim that people do not need examples and non-examples to learn concepts? Does anyone disagree with the claim that people do not typically need repetition of input and output to learn language? Does anyone disagree with the claim that the number and range of such examples and non-examples needed for mastery and the number and spacing of such repetitions needed for retention vary widely in a population? Does anyone disagree with the claim that it may be very useful to adjust the range and number of examples and the number and spacing of repetitions to meet the needs of our students?
Scott Woods
(not Scott with no last name given)
Ronald Sheen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Scott asks if anyone disagrees with his latest assertion.
What I disagree with is his misrepresentation of what is entailed in grammar teaching. I have already disagreed with his other offering on grammar teaching. The one entailing problem solving. based on exemplars. (what he called the 'inductive' approach) I provided a detailed response thereto but apparently he chose not to respond to it.
Now, he offers it in a different guise but he is still proposing that students learn grammar by reaching generalisations based on few or many exemplars, completely ignoring the approach to grammar teaching used by most teachers and learners. That is the one which he termed 'deductive'.
May I suggest that he first respond to my previous post and then provide us with reliable empirical evidence from the literature demonstrating which grammar learners have learned based solely on exemplars - few or many. Failing this, perhaps he could provide anecdotal evidence derived from his own teaching. However, if he chooses to do so, may I suggest that he will need to provide a detailed account including:
a) what the grammatical problem is;
b) which examplars he gave and how he presented them;
c) how many of the students reached the correct generalisation without direct help.
d) how many failed to do so.
Ron Sheen.
----- Original Message -----
From: Scott Woods
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2007 10:28 AM
Subject: New discussion intelligence and grammar learning
Intelligence matters, yet it is difficult to measure, and such measures we have are difficult to apply and controversial in meaning and effectiveness. Possibly, instead of arguing about intelligence, applied grammarians could acknowledge that some people seem to need more example sets to generalize and more repetitions to remember, and that others seem to need fewer. This is not a claim about what we should do with the various sets of students, but a claim about what we ordinarily observe in the classroom regarding the teaching of language. Is this controversial? Does anyone disagree with this?
I have some ideas about what we teachers can do about this, but before any proposals are discussed, I would like to find out what people on the list think.
Scott Woods
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