Pre-Service ESL Teachers’ Knowledge about Language and its Transfer to Lesson Planning
FINDINGS
Journals from the English Grammar Course
Becoming Confident in KAL and Transfer of KAL
After the final session of the grammar class, 17 of 20 participants expressed increased confidence in their knowledge and ability to teach grammar, while the other three did not comment about their confidence level. One participant summed up her individual progress as she looked back over her previous journals in a way that matches our analysis of the trends for the class as a whole:
I can see a progression in my journals from worry about being able to master the structures, to worry about being able to make that knowledge accessible to students to finally using the knowledge I have gained as I see the need arising in class. (M.J., journal, 12/12/01)
Several other participants wrote about how the course emphasis on seeing grammar in context had led them to view greater potential for context-embedded grammar instruction and they mentioned ideas about using student writing or children’s literature as sources for their grammar lessons.
Many aspects of the course were mentioned as contributing to participants’ learning: the class discussions, small group activities, examination of grammar structures in authentic texts, examination of sample ESL student errors, and the course tests, which one person said focused her learning. Many of the applied aspects of the course (analyses of student errors, highlighting of particular grammar structures in authentic texts, presentation of teaching activities) were mentioned as helping them to apply their knowledge to teaching. Eleven out of the 20 offered some suggestions for improving the course. Ten out of those 11 called for an expansion of the applied aspects of the course either by asking for more discussion of teaching suggestions and looking at grammar in context. Some asked for a new project that involves analysis of the grammar needs of the ESL students in their student teaching placements. These expressions of appreciation for the links between KAL and its applications to teaching, as well as the desire for even more of that instruction, tell us that participants wanted practice applying their developing KAL.
In conclusion, the journals suggest that participants face many challenges when learning to use their KAL to integrate language and content. The first obstacles included overcoming anxiety and learning the technical grammar terminology. Given that this group of participants had extensive language-learning experiences, we had not expected these problems. Prior experience with language learning often reinforces traditional views of grammar and does not prepare participants for the view of grammar as structures whose meaning varies according to context. As they grew more comfortable with their KAL and this new view of grammar, participants expressed some anxiety about how to adapt this knowledge to instruction for young, beginning-level ESL students. The applied features of the course seemed to play an important role in building participants’ confidence in learning the material as well as using it in teaching. Overall, the progression shown in the journals indicates that by the end of the course participants felt much better equipped to analyze grammatical structures and to teach them in meaningful contexts.
