Teacher Trainees’ Explicit Knowledge of Grammar and Primary Curriculum Requirements in England
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Case Study 4: Holly
Holly taught the use of connectives (NLS term), then adjectives and adverbs to a mixed group of 8-10 year old pupils. She explained her purpose in the SRI:
…to get the children to think about their writing when they’re giving pieces of information to try and make their sentences more interesting for the reader. It was one of the objectives from the strategy to look at re-ordering sentences and using connectives and subordinate clauses so that’s where I sort of picked that up.
Her explanation took the form of teacher demonstration and talk-aloud modelling, during which she explained the choices she was making:
when we’ve written our sentences we can think about making them more interesting.
This approach led to longer stretches of uninterrupted discourse than in other case studies. Holly used terminology suggested by the NLS, as in the following demonstration of how ‘sentences can be joined together’:
Holly: So what I’m going to do, I’m going to demonstrate for you on the board how I would add a bit more information into
that writing. So, I think what I’ll do is, I’ll stick with the first sentence ‘The earth takes a day to spin on its axis.’ And the
next sentence down to here (pointing to the board) I think I might join together. Because what can we use in our
writing to join sentences together? Sean?
Sean: Connectives? (rising intonation)
Holly: Connectives, can’t we? So, let’s start off then. What was my first sentence? ‘The moon spins on its axis like the earth.’
So, that sentence is OK to start off with. And then I thought I can use a connective to start my next sentence so I think
I might say (writing quickly on the board) ‘Where the earth takes a day to spin on its axis…’ Now I’ve used a connective
there at the beginning (pointing to the word ‘where’). I’m going to link this information together. So, before I start my
next bit of information, I ’m going to use a comma here.
Holly pursued the talk-aloud modelling fluently. Although the use of ‘where’ as the connective seemed inappropriate, this was not remarked upon in the SRI. She gradually involved pupils following the demonstration to provide examples of conjunctions and subordinate clauses to complete the following sentence:
The haunted house stood empty although....
although there was crying inside.
although the curtains were moving.
Then, pupils were invited to make sentences using other ‘connectives’ e.g. after, when, but, because. No distinction was made between co-ordinating and subordinating conjunctions. Pupils remained attentive and responses were correct.
For adjectives and adverbs, similar talk-aloud demonstration was used but there was also recourse to meaning-related definitions (like Linda) to remind pupils of the function of adjectives and adverbs. Here, the lesson was less ‘scripted’:
Holly : But what else can we put in our sentences to make them interesting? What I’m thinking of are more describing words [emphasis]. Yes, Sonia?
Pupil: Adjectives.
Holly : We can use adjectives, can’t we? What does an adjective do?
Pupil: Describes something.
Holly : Describes something, doesn’t it? Remember yesterday when we were talking about the dog. The black dog. Black. Describing the color of the dog. What else were we talking about that we can put in our sentences?
Pupil: An adverb.
Holly : Yes, an adverb. What’s an adverb? It describes how something happens like ‘weakly’ or ‘strongly’.
Holly followed advice from Grammar for Writing (DfEE, 2000: 117), and pupils appeared to respond well. She wanted them to think about their writing, re-drafting sentences to make them complex or more interesting by adding adjectives and adverbs. However, in the episode above, she failed to check whether pupils could produce examples of adjectives. Perhaps this arose from the transmission model of direct instruction that the NLS has implemented. She had been given a linguistic description in the NLS and transmitted this to the pupils through recommended procedures. Pedagogic considerations were given less attention, an issue for the PGCE team when reviewing our guidance. Perhaps we need to find ways of explaining the grammar syllabus of the NLS more effectively so that trainees use it successfully even when NLS advice about grammar is flawed. Holly explained the usefulness of her grammar activities:
...It’s something they’ve got to know about to know what a connective is or a subordinate clause…I think that will probably help them in their learning, because I know, really I didn’t have that.. I didn’t have that grammar teaching the way it is now.
In answer to a question about whether knowledge of technical language helps with her own writing she argued that her own writing had not been adversely affected by lack of grammar terminology:
I mean I could write and add that information in myself but I wouldn’t think: Ah I’m going to use a subordinate clause now.
Influenced by NLS guidance, she was expecting her pupils to think in such ways. We are uncertain, with regard to 8-10 year old children, that such claims can be made at this time. Research needs to be done to investigate whether the NLS has influenced children to think in such ‘grammatical’ ways while they are engaged in written composition.
