How’s your English grammar knowledge? Are you confident and fluent with analysing text grammatically? Do you sometimes wonder about the differing grammatical terms used and priorities emphasised depending on what you read or hear? Dr Jannie van Hees will share the core elements in her grammatical toolbox that she regards as essential for all teachers to know and feel confident with. These elements are directly transferable to the classroom, where learners can be supported to understand and apply these.
Jannie will focus at the paragraph and sentence level and below, at the heart of which is the clause. She will use examples and invite you to ‘have a go’ at identifying the core grammatical elements in text. Explore with her why grammar is ‘not scary’ and how to capture learners’ interest in and confidence with the metalinguistics of English – in other words, how words work to make meaning in English.
There will be a follow-up ‘deep dive’ session where attendees can choose to join one of two break-out room sessions.
In one room, members will hear from Jeremy Spruyt, Tamaki College English teacher, who is now using Jannie’s grammatical toolbox with his Year 9 and 10 students with resulting noticeable impact. Most of the session will be dedicated to discussion and Q & A based on your ponderings and practice in applied grammar in the classroom…with your students. It is a chance to converse and interact in a fluid exchanges of ideas and practice queries.
In the other break-out room, Lucy Macnaught from Auckland University of Technology will give a talk about a workshop that introduces research students to the editing tool, ProWritingAid. Although the tool generates statistics, like a report on sentence length, students need knowledge about language to consider where and why to make changes in their writing. She will share examples of teaching ‘Power Grammar’, including writing in layers and crafting complex Things, as powerful choices for writing in a more condensed or elaborated way. She will conclude by discussing the creative process of transforming and repurposing linguistic knowledge from fields of linguistics for teaching purposes. Issues around accessibility and student uptake of classroom metalanguage will also be raised.
https://auckland.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAtc-uoqzsqGNyc_tEBFkw7WzM77M9vJqaJ