Book Review
Jorge Ramos A.
Language IX
Crystal Hickerson
8th May, 2009.
Helping Teachers in the Learning Process
Woodward, Tessa. “Planning Lessons and Courses”. Designing sequences of work for the language classroom. UK: Ed.Cambridge University Press, 2001.1-108.
A vivid analysis of teachers’ work oriented towards how to improve their performances using practical steps and advice, this is what proposes the author in this book. Defining a plan, a good or a bad lesson is a reflexive exercise to help teachers in the process of learning, where there are many difficulties, problems and experiences they have to solve. Knowing students is fundamental according to Woodward, who believes that teachers need to be immerse not only in contents but also with students as central elements to plan classes. As a common mistake, the amount of time that teachers spend doing classes appears as another part to solve in the process. How long the lesson is? It reveals a normal problem for teachers when they are trying to teach content deeply and effectively. At the same time, this book contains pieces of advice oriented towards identify what teachers have to consider as valuable contents for students. However, this idea is absolutely relative and depends on students’ capacities or teachers’ qualities in the real scenario. Most of the author’ s suggestions are part of an analysis which gives some logical and regular stops? which does not mean that they have been used effectively by teachers, on the contrary, topics in this book are what teachers ought to follow to improve the quality of their classes and as a consequence, the quality of students’ learning process. Maybe, this book will help old and new teachers to be proactive or to be reactive if the process has been weak because all the ideas that this book contains are practical methods to create a powerful, dynamic and effective class.
Woodward, Tessa. “Planning Lessons and Courses”. Designing sequences of work for the language classroom. UK: Ed.Cambridge University Press, 2001.1-108.
A vivid analysis of teachers’ work oriented towards how to improve their performances using practical steps and advice, this is what proposes the author in this book. Defining a plan, a good or a bad lesson is a reflexive exercise to help teachers in the process of learning, where there are many difficulties, problems and experiences they have to solve. Knowing students is fundamental according to Woodward, who believes that teachers need to be immerse not only in contents but also with students as central elements to plan classes. As a common mistake, the amount of time that teachers spend doing classes appears as another part to solve in the process. How long the lesson is? It reveals a normal problem for teachers when they are trying to teach content deeply and effectively. At the same time, this book contains pieces of advice oriented towards identify what teachers have to consider as valuable contents for students. However, this idea is absolutely relative and depends on students’ capacities or teachers’ qualities in the real scenario. Most of the author’ s suggestions are part of an analysis which gives some logical and regular stops? which does not mean that they have been used effectively by teachers, on the contrary, topics in this book are what teachers ought to follow to improve the quality of their classes and as a consequence, the quality of students’ learning process. Maybe, this book will help old and new teachers to be proactive or to be reactive if the process has been weak because all the ideas that this book contains are practical methods to create a powerful, dynamic and effective class.
Annotated Bibliography
Improving Test scores. What teachers can do.
Burns, David J. “Will do as well on the final exam as I expect? An examination of students`expectations.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 8. 3 (2008): 1-19. The relation between students` expectations and final results is the leitmotiv of this analysis in which David J. Burns tries to support that there are internal and external factors that would impede success at the end of the road. The researcher assumes that students are more affected by mental factors and that their abilities are connected to their actions which have nothing to do with final scores. Higher or lower results are more than a demonstration of the amount of knowledge that students manage. However, there are not clear evidences about the positive effects of high expectations in students’ minds. In fact, those constructions are part of the environment which promotes diffuse theories without any support and few evidence that affects the learning process and the possibility of teaching in a cleaner and proactive scenario.
Jorge Ramos A.
ReplyDeleteLanguage IX
Crystal Hickerson
8 May 2009*
Helping Teachers in the Learning Process
Woodward, Tessa. “Planning Lessons and Courses”. Designing sequences of work for the language classroom. UK: Ed.Cambridge UP*, 2001.1-108. ((Check MLA style for what to capitalize and where to put periods. If this is a book review, why do you have a chapter listed as the citation? Your review should address the book as a whole and then focus on the chapter.))
((Your beginning sentence is a paragon of academic style, but do you recall that I asked you to begin with a discussion of your over-all topic before introducing the book? You need to begin with an introductory paragraph about teacher's learning processes, then tell us about the book.))
A vivid analysis of teachers’ work oriented towards how to improve their performances using practical steps and advice *is offered in Tessa Woodward's Designing Sequences of Work for the Language Classroom.* Defining a plan, a good or a bad lesson,* is a reflexive exercise to help teachers in the process of learning ((is this something Woodward says or does she offer exercises for this in the book?)), where there are many difficulties, problems and experiences they have to solve ((You can't solve an experience)). Knowing students is fundamental according to Woodward, who believes that teachers need to be immersed* not only in *content material* but also with students as central elements to plan classes. As a common mistake, the amount of time that teachers spend doing classes appears as another part to solve in the process ((What is the mistake here?)). How long *to make the lesson?* It ((What does "It" refer to here?)) reveals a normal problem for teachers when they are trying to teach content deeply and effectively. At the same time, ((Odd transition here--at the same time as what? It might be a good idea to restate the point you just made: "While the book (whatever your main point was), it also ..."))) this book contains (pieces of) advice oriented towards identifying* what teachers have to consider as valuable contents for students. However, this idea is absolutely relative and depends on students’ capacities or teachers’ qualities in the real scenario. Most of the author’ s suggestions are part of an analysis which gives some logical and regular stops? ?M which does not mean that they have been used effectively by teachers, P on the contrary, topics in this book are what teachers ought to follow ((consider?)) to improve the quality of their classes and as a consequence, the quality of students’ learning process. Maybe(,) this book will help old and new teachers to be proactive or to be reactive if the process has been weak because all the ideas that this book contains are practical methods to create a powerful, dynamic and effective class.
Overall, the style of your language is very professional, but at times I can't understand what you are trying to express (see notes in the text). Maybe ask me about particular expression problems in class. Otherwise, I am puzzled by the lack of paragraph structure--why is this all one paragraph? Breaking the text up into meaningful paragraph-structure will help the reader follow your argument.
Improving Test scores. What teachers can do.
ReplyDeleteBurns, David J. “Will do as well on the final exam as I expect? An examination of students`expectations.” ((Check that title.)) Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 8. 3 (2008): 1-19. The relation between students` expectations and final results is the leitmotiv of this analysis in which David J. Burns tries to support that there are internal and external factors that would impede success at the end of the road. ((Very nice!)) The researcher assumes that students are more affected by mental factors and that their abilities are connected to their actions which have nothing to do with final scores ((Doesn't he assume the opposite? THat they do have something to do with final scores?))). Higher or lower results are more than a demonstration of the amount of knowledge that students manage ((explain what you mean here)). However, there *is* not clear evidence* about the positive effects of high expectations in students’ minds. In fact, those constructions are part of the environment which promotes diffuse theories ((what theories are you referring to here?)) without any support and few evidence that affects the learning process and the possibility of teaching in a cleaner and proactive scenario. ((I don't remember cleanliness and proactivity being issues in the article...))
Well, I have a feeling that your enthusiasm for writing in high academic style is getting in the way of clarity. You say " there *is* not clear evidence* about the positive effects of high expectations in students’ minds," but this does not tell me that Burns' research in particular was inconclusive. The rather vague phrase that follows seems to suggest that Burns is contributing to a vein of research that makes claims without backing them up--is that what you mean to express, and if so, is that really important to the main goal of explaining how this article would help research about improving test scores?
In terms of more specific suggestions, I would like to see you give more concrete, clear critique of the article and say how it relates to the research topic at the end. Also, I would include a bit more detail in your summary of the article--why were the results inconclusive? How was the hypothesis tested? Your vocabulary and the general complexity of your expression are to be applauded, but be careful not to sacrifice communication of your meaning.