journal

Abbreviations for Errors in Compositions

Sp    I went whit my mother.          (Spelling)

Tense If I will win, then I will be happy.
    Yesterday I go with my mother.               I ate a pie, starting my car, and drove away.

S/V    The dog run many miles    (Subject Verb Agreement)      He have three sisters.

Count He eats much bananas         He has many informations (countable or not countable)

WW    I ran fastly        (Wrong Word) I have two differents things to do.

WO    (Word order) I bought a car red.

MW    Steve likes ice cream and is eating it now.    (Missing word) Is cold today.

Teachers are encouraged to use abbreviations. Sometimes the teacher will place the abbreviation on the margin and the student needs to find the error.
It’s okay to work with a partner to find the answers.

Corrections: I went with my mother.         If I win, then I will be happy.
Yesterday I went with my mother. The dog ran many miles.     He has 3 sisters.
He eats many bananas.    He has much information.
I ate a banana, started my car, and drove away.    I ran fast. I ran quickly.
I have two different things to do. I bought a red car.
Steve likes ice cream and he is eating it now.    It is cold today.

Principal Objection to Journals

1. The students want to be corrected. They want EVERY sentence and EVERY error corrected. Who has time for all of that correcting and writing?
Response: "I'm checking the most prominent and most frequent error for you to work on this week." The abbreviations will let you indicate the type of errolr, but the student must find the solution. The student can work with other students and then resubmit the composition later..

2. The students are bored.
Response: Tacher cna clip photos from Time and Newsweek magazine. "Write about one of these photos. Do you know someone who looks like this? What is happening in the photo? What happened next? If you want, you can write about anything else. Remember, my dear student, this is free writing to SWITCH you into English!"

3. The students don't know what to write about.
Response: see number 2.

4. The procedure seems rigid and unchangeable.
Response: The structure is one of several that are proven to maximize the student's opportunities to produce and think in English. If the teacher has another way to switch on English, let's try it.

5. The students are still bored.
Response: One teacher asks the students to read something ACTIVELY (taking notes) and then they need to write a summary of what they read. The important thing is for the students to write something in English between 9 and 9:10 a.m.

6. I can't think of another topic for them to work on. The curriculum is about "AIDS" this week, but we already did death, doctor and gay. Where can I find more topics?
Response: see the answer in Number 2.

                                     Procedure      Typical day

Arrive at 8:45
Enter the class at 8:55 or 8:50
Go into the class room at least 5 minutes before class. Students who have programs will get the idea that you can be reached at that time.

Check the information on the board.
Put your phone number up there to be sure that
Put Alex’s number   288-4760 and write “What did Alex say yesterday?”
(This can be any student volunteer who kindly agrees to take calls between 8-10 pm. It’s good practice for the student who calls and for Alex who receives the call.)

At 8:58 Put these words on the white board
JOURNAL    PRACTICE     NO DICTIONARIES     FREE WRITING
An embarrassing moment     -- President Ford walked down some stairs. He tripped and fell in front of millions of people.

Example -- Instructions to the students: “Write about an embarrassing situation. You don’t need to write about yourself. What does this say?”
One of the students reads the sentence.     “OKAY, start writing!”

Journal 9 to 9:10     At 9:08 say, “Two minutes”
While the students are writing, the teacher (T) writes the plan for the class. Ideally, the plan is placed on a separate board or on a separate piece of paper and – as the items are covered – they are checked off.

Write on the board the day’s topic and explain how it relates to the week.

At 9:10 a.m. the Teacher says “STOP WRITING”