Teaching Basic Sentence Structure 1
Running Head: Teaching Basic Sentence Structure
Teaching Basic Sentence Structure
in a
Web Site Incorporating Dual Coding Principles
Jessica Warne
CaliforniaStateUniversity Northridge
Table of Contents
Abstract …………………………………………………………. 3
Introduction ……………………………………………………... 3
Literature Review ……………………………………………….11
Methodology …………………………………………………… 21
Results …………………………………………………………. 34
Discussion ……………………………………………………... 54
Acknowledgements ……………………………………………. 65
References ……………………………………………………… 66
Appendix I: Observation Journal ………………………………. 69
Appendix II: Exit Interview – Student Responses …………...... 80
Appendix III: Parent Permission Letter ……………………….. 83
Table 1: Student assessments over a 3-month period
Table 2: Student assessments showing concrete language italicized
Table 3: Instances of sentence structures in each assessment for each student
Table 4: Summary of exit interview responses
Teaching Basic Sentence Structure 1
Abstract
ESL students in a continuation high school used a web sitecalled Write Now(a hypermedia learning environment)which provided instruction on how to write a number of basic complete sentence structures. The instructional design of the web site, based on Dual Coding Theory, utilized simultaneous visual and textual presentations for all instruction and assignments. After using the multimedia content for a 3-month period, students demonstrated they could successfully create the sentence structures in writing tasks outside the web site. The dual coding instructional design played a role in creating a high level of engagement for learners which encouraged them to stay on task. Extensive repetition and drill in the assignments and prompt teacher feedback also contributed to student success. Students acquired learning from the web site in independent study programs without teacher-directed classroom lessons.
Introduction
The Importance of Teaching Basic Sentence Structure
All high school students in the state of California are required to pass the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) in order to receive their diploma. Part of this exam requires that students demonstrate writing proficiency by completing an essay that may be expository, persuasive, a biographical narrative, a business letter or some form of literary analysis. The exam graders look not only at the depth and quality of the content, but also at the quality of the grammar. Some specific grammar standards that are assessed include the following (from the state Department of Education web site
1.1Identify and correctly use clauses (e.g., main and subordinate), phrases (e.g., gerund, infinitive, and participial), and mechanics of punctuation (e.g., semicolons, colons, ellipses, hyphens).
1.2Understand sentence construction (parallel structure, subordination, proper placement of modifiers) and proper English usage (e.g. consistency of verb tenses).
1.3Demonstrate an understanding of proper English usage and control of grammar, paragraph and sentence structure, diction, and syntax.
These grammarstandardsrepresent fundamental skills required for writing any kind of coherent, communicative, passableessay. Yet, as will be demonstrated in a moment, the lack of these basic skills is very problematic for the large body of ESL and otherremedial students throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). As a high school English teacher, I have seen that ESL studentswho lack proficient English skills – as well as students who have failed to master English grammar skills for other reasons – cannot express themselves adequately, even if their ideas are quite substantial and valid. When students can’t write a good sentence, they can’t form a good thesis statement with supporting sentences. When they can’t write a good paragraph, they can’t write a good, cohesive multi-paragraph essay sufficient to pass the CAHSEE.
If students haven’t mastered these basic grammar skills by the time the CAHSEE exam comes due, the only recourse is to suddenly focus on their deficiencies and teach to them specifically for a few weeks. This is just what the lauSDdoes. LAUSD conducts “boot camps” for CAHSEE preparation and sponsors other preparation programs as well. These programs appear to be modestly successful; but of course, this instruction was supposed to have gone on in the classroom much earlier. In high school, grammar skills should have become second nature in order to allow students to be focusing on the higher order thinking that produces acceptable grade-level essay content.
There may be many reasons why these deficiencies haven’t been corrected earlier. Possibly the requirement for standards-based instruction tends to coerce high school teachers into following a regimented program that does not invite deviation. That is, perhaps teachers are reluctant to abandon their required program for however long it would take to focus on students’ grammar deficiencies and overcome them. Whatever the cause,certainly teachers and students would benefit from some kind of program that would address student deficiencies while they continue to pursue all other required English standards.
This study examines just such a computer-based program which I created, a multimedia website(sometimes referred to as a hypermediaenvironment) calledWrite Now,which provides multimedia instruction on creating basic sentence structures. This computer based learning program allows students to acquire skills independently, apart from directed lessons given by a teacher in a classroom environment. It could be an effective solution for English teachers who want to provide students with means to acquire requisite skills, but who don’t want to dedicate classroom time to the task. In the Literature Review section which follows, many studies are cited which examine how hypermedia instruction is implemented in various subject areas with positive learning results.
This study examines two questions related to student use of the Write Now web site: 1) Does the web site’s dual coding instructional design (defined and discussed in the Literature Review section) effectively teach students to create targeted sentence structures? A related question nested within that question is: Do the image-based assignments in the dual coding instructional design encourage students to put more concrete detail into their complete sentences? 2) Does the Write Now web site successfully deliver the instructional design to students in independent study programs for students in continuation high schools? (In continuation high schools, students do not learn in a traditional classroom setting with teacher-directed lessons; instead, students fulfill a 75-point contract of individualized assignments to complete required classes.) So again, simply put, the research questions are: Does the web site effectively teach, and does the delivery medium – the computer based instruction—work for students in independent study programs? In the Literature Review section, many studies are cited which evaluate the efficacy of (hypermedia) instructional design in general.
Illustration of the Skills Targeted for Instruction
Here is a typical writing scenario atthe continuation high school where I’m an English teacher for the participants. The enrollment is predominantly Hispanic ESL students. I tell 15 bright, responsive, bi-lingual 10th to 12th grade students a detailed story about a college student, Luis, who has been working as an intern in an advertising agency, and who gradually learns he doesn’t have sufficient talent for a graphic arts career. Now he has decided to go to business school so he can enter the management level of the graphics business. (These students are familiar with graphic/digital arts and pursue it in this school, so the subject matter is not unfamiliar.) Then I ask them to write a completesentence to answer a series of questions about the story I just told. First, I ask: How do you think intern felt when he learned his work wasn’t good enough for the graphics job? One student’s sentence-answer is:
I think is good, coming to the end on something he doesn’t know, he is okay with that.
The student, of course, does not write a grammatical sentence; and notice there is no elaboration of any kind. Just the use of general words like “good” and “something” and “okay.” The student uses “he doesn’t know” to barely and loosely convey verbal concepts like “trying, failing, getting fired, accepting, disappointment.” There are no words to convey “graphic arts, advertising, job or finding a new job.” Instead of using “Luis” or “intern,” the student says “he.” When I told the story I used a wide spectrum of words and images, yet the students were able to utilize only the most general language.
Next I ask: Why did you say that what happened was a “good” thing? And the student writes:
Making something like he wants and he goes to school for it, that’s why.
Again, notice the entire, somewhat complex situation of thinking about what to do next, and coming up with a totally different career path to take, is tossed into one basket called “something.” The word “school” is used instead of the more concrete “college” or “business school.” Concrete words such as “artist” and “manager” “career” never appear anywhere even though they were critical elements of the story. What the student was probably trying to convey in the words “making something like he wants” was simply “making a plan,” which would have been a more concrete expression. These students know very well the words “college, business, career, artist and plan”; they simply are totally unaccustomed to – and unpracticed in – incorporating this kind of detail in their writing.
Another question: How would you describe the work the intern was doing at the advertising agency? Only two students out of 15 students indicated any of the details I provided in the story such as “making colorful brochures that a bank could use to mail to customers” or “creating motorcycle magazine advertisements for the Honda Corporation.” The most typical sentence-response was something like this one:
Doing art or something on the computer.
Notice that all the answers reveal little detail, creating an overall impression of a lack of concreteness, lack of information, or too much generalization. And of course, they don’t demonstrate an understanding of how a complete sentence begins and ends.
These three representative responses are examples of students who scored Below Basic and Far Below Basic on California’s English proficiency exams. Notice the content of the responses indicates that they understood the question; and possibly they “know” more than they expressed in the answer, but are simply completely deficient in their ability to conjure up detail to articulate in a correctly structured sentence.
What, then, do these writing samples above indicate about the skills required to raise the scores of these students? There are two main problems: their inability to write complete sentences and their inability to include sufficient detail within the sentence. To overcome these problems, students needthese skills:
- Recognize and be able to write a verbal structure that is a grammatical complete sentence.
- Incorporate more detail and imagery in their structures to make the content more concrete and informative.
How the Write Now Web Site Address These Two Skills
I created theWrite Now web site with multimedia instruction and assignments to specifically build the skills listed above, and also to ensure as much as possible that the site was designed to:
- create a high probability of success for this student group;
- be engaging and enjoyable so that students would want to use it;
- present carefully scaffolded instruction to build skills gradually;
- present visual information with all textual information;
- encourage students to incorporate detail into their sentences as well as write them correctly;
- enable self-teaching thatwould create results equal to or better than ordinary classroom instruction (since participants were in independent study programs);
- ensure that after students work through the entire Write Now site, they can write complete and grammatically correct declarative, imperative and interrogative sentences, as well as compound sentences utilizing clauses;
- take advantage of the visual and intuitive skills many ESL students possess.
This latter characteristic, taking advantage of their visual and intuitive skills, is very important because the web site focuses on teaching students the “feel” of a complete sentence rather than the grammatical analysis of a complete sentence. The reason for this approach is that I’ve found that teaching students the parts of a sentence – such as adjectives, adverbs phrases, prepositional phrases, etc. – is most meaningful only to students who already know what a sentence is and how to write one. Since these students don’t know how to recognize or write a complete sentence, the web site instruction does not take an analytical approach. Analyzing the parts of sentences to learn how to write one is something like analyzing the parts inside a radio (the receiver, the transistors, etc.) without understanding what a radio does. I believe it is possible to help students feel and recognize what a sentence does without initially analyzing the sentence parts and structure.
Having said that, I also believe it’s possible to do both at the same time to some degree – that is teach the grammar parts while teaching the “feeling” of the complete sentence – and I do this as much as possible because students do need to recognize and use the vocabulary of English grammar.
Of course, it is impossible for this site to teach every possible type of sentence or every possible type of structure. What I have done is select just a few types of sentence structures (representative of the standards), and teach them completely and repetitively such that they could possibly start to become second nature for students (more about that in the methodology section). If students were able to master just this set of sentence structures, they would have enough to create a passable essay on the Exit Exam.
Teaching Basic Sentence Structure 1
Literature Review
The instructional design of the Write Now web site is based on Dual Coding Theory (DCT) as described by Alan Paivio. This theory, discussed in the paragraphs below, describes how learning is enhanced when students are provided with simultaneous verbal (textual) and visual (imaginal) input as they learn. TheWrite Now web site is designed to reap the learning benefits DCT offers by deliveringall contentas multimedia instruction. That is, images and text in lessons and assignments are presented simultaneously in the form of the form of movies, photographs and sound correlated with text. The reasons for choosing to deliver a multimedia instructional design in a computer based program are also discussed in this section.
What is Dual Coding Theory?
Dual Coding Theory (DCT) was pioneered by Alan Paivio starting in the nineteen-fifties when he was a graduate student at McGillUniversity working on bilingual processing. He is now Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario. Zhou (2005) summarizes the core of Paivio’s theory this way:
...dual coding theory offers a conceptual understanding of how humans process two streams of information: verbal and nonverbal. When the sensory systems detect these two stimuli, referential connections between them are made. The strength of the connection affects the degree of cognitive elaboration.
This means that as we cognize the world around us, we are constantly capturing verbal and visual information that appears to us externally, and then we internalize it in the form of two types of symbol systems in our awareness. One symbol system is the verbal system which stores what Paivio calls logogens (symbols such as words or text); and the other is the imaging system which stores imagens (symbols in the form of mental pictures).
To repeat, the verbal system processes logogens, language generators such as audible and textual words; the imagery system processes imagens, image generators, which are things which cause images to form in our mind’s eye, but — and this is important — only after we have some kind of direct external experience with the image or one related to it (Sadosk & Paivio, 2001). That is, before we encode imagens or logogens in our cognitive awareness, and whatever the “content” of these imagens and logogens, we must first have had some kind of direct experience in the external world that leads to their formation. Does this mean that we can never generate ideas internally unless we have had a specific external experience? No. Imagens and logogens stored in memory can interact with each other and “expand” into new meanings by themselves without some specifically related external experience. But you need some direct experiences to at least get the systems started.
EEG studies indicate that the left hemisphere of the brain is primarily in control of verbal processing, while the right and left hemispheres both contribute to performance in nonverbal tasks (Ley, 1983). Paivio sees this as evidence that the two cognitive systems are functionally independent even though they work together. Interestingly, research has also shown that there are gender differences in dual coding: males tend to excel in visual coding, and females in verbal, and these differences have been shown to result in different levels of academic performance by men and women in certain areas (Bart, Baxter& Frey, 1980).