English 537 Syllabus

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English 537: A Survey of Modern English Grammar

Accelerated Career Enhancement Program (ACE Program 2006)

USDE Grant: T195N02014

Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD

Course Designer/Instructor: Dr. Wavie Gibson, Jr.

Office Hours: Appointments

Course Description/Objectives

This course is designed to achieve two primary objectives: (1) to help practicing and prospective teachers of ESL/EFL students develop a comprehensive knowledge of English grammar and (2) to provide such teachers with the most promising strategies for helping students develop the proficiency in English grammar necessary for effective communication. The two primary objectives translate into several subordinate objectives:

- to help teachers recognize and analyze the structures and rules represented in English phrases and sentences

- to provide teachers with the language and processes used to discuss grammar problems and their related solutions

- to enable teachers to prioritize the attention to be given to the various grammar‑related problems that challenge ESL/EFL students

- to expose teachers to the most promising pedagogies for helping students develop acceptable levels of proficiency in English grammar

- to assist teachers in identifying instructional strategies for helping students apply grammatical competence toward communicative competence

Course Materials

Byrd, Patricia and Joy Reed. Grammar in the Composition Classroom: Essays on

Teaching ESL for College Bound Students. New York: Heinle and Heinle, 1998.

Celce‑Murcia, Marianne and Diane Larsen‑Freeman. The Grammar Book: An ESL/EFL

Teacher Course. New York: Heinle and Heinle, 1999.

Ferris, Dana. The Treatment of Error in Second Language Student Writing. Ann Arbor:

University of Michigan, 2002.

Liu, Dilin and Peter Master. Grammar Teaching in Teacher Education. Arlington:

TESOL, 2003.

Course Requirements

To complete this course, you must submit all of the assignments and projects listed below according to the stated criteria and due dates.

1. Five Exams (50% of Course Grade) – One exam per week

At the beginning of each weekly institute or class session, you will be required to take a one‑hour exam on the content covered or assigned the day before. The exam may include a variety of formats—e.g., short essays, objective items, grammar exercises, text analyses.

2. Field Observation (20% of Course Grade) – March 4

To ensure that you develop a serious appreciation for the problems and challenges that English grammar presents for ESL students and their teachers, you will be required to do a field observation of a K-12 educational setting. For the observation, you will spend at least three hours observing an ESL class or a mixed class that includes ESL students. During the observation, you should identify grammar/language problems that ESL students are experiencing and the instructional strategies used to address such problems. The typed observation should include the following:

- the time, date, and school

- a brief description of the students

- a brief description of the lesson being taught

- a description/discussion of any grammar/language‑related problems observed

- a brief description of the instructional strategies used

- a critical evaluation of the instructional strategies used

- suggestions for improving the observed instruction or classroom situation.

Should you not have access to ESOL classes, you may observe any K-12 language arts, foreign language or English class, preferably one that includes ESOL students. For such non-ESOL classes, you should include the following two discussions in the critical evaluation of the report:

a. existing aspects of the class that could have accommodated ESOL students, had such students been present.

b. ESOL modifications necessary to accommodate ESOL students..

3. Mini‑Research Paper (20% of Course Grade) – March 11

You will be required to submit an eight-to-ten‑page research paper that discusses promising strategies for helping ESL/EFL students reduce their problems with English grammar. Essentially, the paper will satisfy the criteria below:

- identify some grammatical structures or concepts likely to present significant problems for ESL/EFL students

- offer theoretical and research evidence that the identified structures or concepts are problematic for certain groups of ESL/EFL students

- share some promising instructional strategies for helping students reduce the identified problems.

- satisfy the general criteria of an academic research paper and use either the APA or MLA style guide. Papers must be typed.

To satisfy special interests and professional needs, you may be allowed to substitute an instructor-approved project for the research paper. Such project must reflect time and effort comparable to the time and effort required by the mini-research paper. Moreover, the project must be directly related to the objectives for this course. Students who wish to do substitute projects must share a concrete plan of action with the instructor and meet the same deadline set for the research paper.

4. Portfolio Project – March 18

During the first course of the ACE program, you were given detailed and comprehensive instruction and criteria for developing an ongoing electronic portfolio. The required portfolio will include samples of your course work and discussions of such course work in reference to NCATE and TESOL standards. Accordingly, you will adapt at least one piece of work from this course (e.g., exam, class assignment or project) to the portfolio criteria and submit the adaptation in two formats: disk and paper.

Essentially, your portfolio will satisfy the broad standards and requirements under NCATE Standards and MSDE Technology Requirements cited on pages 3 and 4 of this document. However, the instructor will share specific criteria for the content and format of the portfolio project with you during the first class session or institute.

Special Note

Detailed instructions and written criteria for each class project will be discussed during the first class session or institute. Moreover, weekly workshops will be held to address ongoing problems and concerns you may have with the projects required for this course. The instructor will also discuss rubrics for his evaluation of such projects.

NCATE Standards

Students seeking certification in TESOL must satisfy a variety of standards required by NCATE and the TESOL program at Salisbury University. While this course may address several of such standards indirectly, it is designed to address standards related to Domain I: Describing Language and Language Acquisition and Development. In fact, this course will emphasize Standard IA. The instructor will discuss the details of the requirements as needs suggest. Please refer to pages 18‑30 of the document below:

TESOL/NCATE Standards for the Accreditation of Initial Programs in P‑12 ESL Teacher Education (2002) at http://www.ncate.org/standard/new%20program%20standards/tesol.pdf

MSDE/NCATE Technology Requirements

Students counting this course toward TESOL certification must place in an electronic portfolio at least one piece of work done for the class. When selecting the class projects for the portfolio, you should be reminded that the item will become part of your professional image.

A written discussion satisfying the general criteria below must accompany the piece of work placed in the portfolio:

- a brief explanation of why and how the ideas or content of the selected assignment should become part of the classroom pedagogy

- a discussion of how the assignment helps to satisfy the objectives for this course

- an evaluative statement indicating the extent to which the selected assignment satisfies the NCATE/TESOL standards addressed by this course. (See the NCATE Standard above.)

For additional details on portfolio criteria, see the Web page at http://trc.salisbury.edu/portfolio/portfolio.htm.

NCATE: Data Collection Statement

The M.A. TESOL at Salisbury University is an NCATE accredited program. In order to meet national accreditation requirements and to collect data necessary for annual program review, selected samples from work completed in courses in the ACE program may be copied and retained for review, including videotaped teaching samples. All material thus obtained will be kept confidential and used for the purpose stated above. For further inquiries related to this matter, please contact the Chair of the English Department.

Grading Scheme

90 – 100% = A

85 – 89% = B+

80 – 84% = B

75 – 79% = C+

70 – 74% = C

65 – 69% = D

0 – 64% = F

Special Needs

Students with disabilities requiring special needs or accommodations should feel free to call such concerns to the instructor’s attention.

Attendance/Make‑Up Work

You will be required to attend every class session of this course. Moreover, you must submit all assignments on the dates specified in the schedule of assignments. Any waiver of these requirements will only be considered under three conditions:

- the absence, late work or make‑up work has resulted from a documented emergency

- the waiver of requirement will not violate any policy requirement set by the ACE program

- the instructor is convinced that you have made every effort to prevent the absence, late/missed work.

Structure of the Course

This course will reflect the fact that all of the students are practicing teachers, skilled in making presentations and facilitating discussions. Accordingly, in addition to lectures, demonstrations and other activities by the instructor, the course will involve all of you in individual presentations, group projects/presentations and general discussion.

Writing Across the Curriculum Commitment (WAC)

The required assignments and projects for this course are designed to help the instructor assess your course‑related achievements and to satisfy the WAC requirements of the university.

Collectively, these items will require you to submit several pieces of writing that respond to a variety of rhetorical situations.

Academic Dishonesty/Plagiarism Policy

The English Department takes plagiarism, the unacknowledged use of other people’s ideas, very seriously. As outlined in the Student Handbook under the "Policy on Student Academic Integrity," plagiarism may receive such penalties as failure on a paper or failure in the course. The English Department recognizes that plagiarism is a very serious academic offense and professors make their decisions regarding sanctions accordingly. Since the research paper is a very important component of this class, please familiarize yourself with the details below.

Each of the following constitutes plagiarism:

1. Turning in as your own work a paper or part of a paper that anyone other than you wrote. This would include but is not limited to work taken from another student, from a published author, or from an Internet contributor.

2. Turning in a paper that includes unquoted and/or undocumented passages someone else wrote.

3. Including in a paper someone else’s original ideas, opinions or research results without attribution.

4. Paraphrasing without attribution.

A few changes in wording do not make a passage your property. As a precaution, if you are in doubt, cite the source. Moreover, if you have gone to the trouble to investigate secondary sources, you should give yourself credit for having done so by citing those sources in your essay and by providing a list of Works Cited or Works Consulted at the conclusion of the essay. In any case, failure to provide proper attribution could result in a severe penalty and is never worth the risk.

Schedule of Assignments

The assignments and activities below are generically phrased to allow for special needs and interests as they may arise. The instructor reserves the right to change or modify the schedule or the assignments to address such needs and interests and will give due and timely notice of any such changes.

Institute I: February 11

- Introduction to the Course

- Diagnostic Surveys of Students’ Backgrounds in Grammar

- Sentences According to Structure (Lecture)

- Sentences According to Style (Lecture)

- Sentences According to Function (Lecture)

- Language and Processes for Describing Problems/Errors in English Grammar (Lecture)

Institute II: February 18

Chapters 1 and 2 in The Grammar Book

- Approaches to Teaching Language

- Definitions of Grammar

- Pedagogical vs. Linguistic Grammar

- Parts of Speech

- Sentential Terminology

- Suprasentential Terminology