Jim Parker

How does the reinforcing of grammar in my Grade 8 Humanities

class help my students reflect on what they are trying to

communicate?

Communication in the world of today is dominated by social media. On average, we check our devices,

be it tablets, smart-phones or laptops, 85 times a day1. Americans check their devices 8 billion times a

day2. From my own observations, the amount the Chinese check their We-Chat accounts is beyond

comprehension. One of the main issues surrounding the ubiquitous use of social media is that people are

posting messages without taking that crucial moment to reflect about what they are writing. In other

words, there is a kind of impulsivity meaning they are not considering the consequences of their actions.

This is potentially dangerous in a world in which social media plays such an important role in structuring

social relations. While society has always been full of hearsay and gossip, the speed at which

misinformation and/or abuse can spread is no longer measured in days, but measured in seconds.

Information, or metadata, which piques the interest of the public can go viral. A piece of data can spread

fast and uncontrollably. Misinformation is an issue which is causing real damage to peoples lives across

the world.

For the benefit of functional society, both in terms of integration and stability, it is therefore important

to examine ways in which I as an educator can combat this. One of the central ways we can both look at

the issue and attempt to deal with it, is in the education system. This paper takes the stance from the

implications of influencing the reflective processes within the classroom. Per a paper called the Compass

1 Gazzaley, Adam and Rosen, Larry, The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World (MIT Press, 2016)

2 Gazzaley, Adam and Rosen, Larry, The Distracted Mind

Advantage3 these processes would include empathy, sociability and integrity. These processes are

negotiated and made actionable through self-awareness and self-reflection. From my observations within

educational institutions and outside of it (and this includes the 5 countries I have been an ESL teacher) 4, is

that there is an obsession with using Facebook, Snap Chat, Twitter et al. While on one hand, this has been

extremely useful in allowing students to communicate learning with each other, on the other hand it has

been damaging. Examples of this would include cyber bullying, revenge porn, trolling, or spreading

misinformation. At the extreme end, the effects of this have been children committing suicide. 5 The long-

term effects are self-evident: the damage to teenagers self-esteem and reputation at such a key

developmental stage has the potential to affect them for the rest of their lives.

The main element that we need to accept is that ubiquitous use of social media by students is a fact. In

an ideal world, we would go back and establish ethical guidelines before any of the platforms were

introduced. However, in modern day late-capitalism money and profit take precedent. In effect, we are

working not with a prognosis but with a diagnosis. The use of social media is not going to go away, so we

need to adapt and prevent rather than cure. Part of this adaptation is getting students to reflect on what

they are writing. One of the ways I believe this can be achieved is getting students to think about the

process of writing. Specifically, this is the use of grammar and the creation of temporal moments in which

students could potentially reflect on what they are writing.

My own experiences, both those in the present and the past inform the basis of this hypothesis. My

experience in the present refers to me as a language learner (I am learning Mandarin Chinese, Russian

and French) and as an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher. As a still practising ESL teacher, I

bring a great deal of experience from working with students from a broad range of cultures. Although

there is a great deal of stratification when cultural expectations are taken in account, there is one

consistency. This consistency is that students, the parents of students and the institutions themselves want

3 https://www.edutopia.org/blog/8-pathways-metacognition-in-classroom-marilyn-price-mitchell
4 China, Vietnam, Italy, Georgia, England and Canada
5 http://cyberbullying.org/school-based-efforts-to-prevent-cyberbullying
to be as proficient as possible. When I talk about proficiency there is a general and dominant trend

towards the correct use of grammar. Being within a learning environment that puts language acquisition,

and precision at the fore front, has made me aware of how important grammar is on how content both

written and spoken is subsequently moderated.

In regards to the former experience, learning a new language has revealed to me two crucial insights.

Firstly, it has added to my awareness of my own language. When I am constructing sentences in a

language that is not my own, I am far more conscientious ergo reflective about what Im saying. With this

has come a great deal of self-reflexivity regarding the use of my own language. In the context of the

essential question it has made me aware of the presence of how the temporal moment has such an effect

on what people say.

I am conducting my research in the relationship between grammar and reflection during my eight-day

practicum at a Secondary school institution. The players in my analysis and results are Grade 8

Humanities students. They are from various socio-economic backgrounds, but in a very general sense

based on my observations of the catchment area they are in the middle-class white collar bracket. Based

on previous teaching experience with grade 8s and due to the lack of physical evidence, I am not going to

make assumptions regarding their ability to reflect on what they are trying to communicate and their

grammar ability. However, based on the informal evidence I gathered during the previous practicum from

the one group I taught it could be said with a degree of confidence their understanding of grammar and

their ability to reflect is not sophisticated.

My own research structure is based on formal surveys and grammar based activities. These include: A

ticket out the door activity (conducted on the first and last days of the practicum). These are two integral

pieces of the research which would ascertain if the students felt any differently about grammar. The first

survey would also dictate if an actual grammar lesson was needed to address any issues; it is to be

handwritten so spelling and grammar is not autocorrected. Consequently, there would be a series of

creative writing activities at the end of the lesson using certain elements of grammar. These activities

would gradually become more anonymous, more time restrictive and related to increasingly contentious
subjects; these are subjects which would provoke personal reactions. As more responsibility was

transferred onto the students, their work would be analyzed for any changes in what they were

communicating and if they were reflecting as they became more responsible. Another crucial part of my

research would be conducted via informal observations of what the students were saying (or had said in

the past). These observations would be formed from my own and my sponsor teachers.

During the process of researching the literature surrounding the main themes outlined in the

introduction to the project, I discovered that most the articles were about why we should teach grammar

and were in many respects were not useful for this paper. As outlined in the introduction to this project,

my research is focusing on the ontological processes involved in the thinking of. In the context of

educational philosophy, the fundamental issue is that very little literature exists for this, and/or is so

obscure that it is very difficult to find. To adapt the research process by way of circumventing the

difficulties surrounding the deficit of information, both in terms of data and academic articles I needed to

reposition my critical lens to look at the whys of teaching grammar by relating it to the metacognitive.

Metacognition in the context of this paper is defined thus, an awareness and understanding of ones own

thought processes. Or, in other words with some justification, this describes self-reflection.

Essentially, my literature review breaks down into two interlocking sections. Taken in isolation, these

sections appear not to be interrelated. However, the way in which I am looking at them provides an

insight into how they could potentially interlock in a symbiotic relationship that creates the temporal

space students need for reflection.

Beginning with the literature about metacognition (reflection) being used in an educational context,

there a general trend that many of the articles tend to focus on student engagement with the work, and the

process of completing that work (e.g. an inquiry based project) at hand. An example of this would include

Donna Wilsons Metacognition: The Gift that keeps Giving. In her article, she advocates of these are

teleological in the sense that metacognition is directed means to an end; in other words, a part of a holistic
process that produces something concrete for example a piece of summative work. 6 In the context of my

research question, these articles provided a useful background as to regarding what metacognition in an

educational context meant. Furthermore, there was a consensus that both utilizing and understanding

metacognition is a valuable tool in todays classroom. After all, classrooms are needing to adapt to the

challenges of technology and applying metacognitive practices to the classroom is certainly playing its

part.7 However, as previously mentioned the problem is that metacognition within an educational context

tended to focus on outcomes rather than processes. What I am interested in is the creation of temporal

spaces during the process which do not lend themselves to material outcomes.

In terms of the articles about grammar, I consciously avoided articles that focused on advocating a

superior level of grammar. The reason for this is that the culture of modern classrooms, and we include in

this both summative assessment criteria (i.e. every students learning process is seen individually) that as

well as many other informal aspects, is non-hierarchical. As I experienced during my first practicum,

every student is assessed on their own merits. Furthermore, the BC Education system is further trying to

dismantle hierarchal structures by eventually abolishing grades. 8 Therefore trying to impose grammar in

the schooling system, with its connections to more traditional and/or connections to elitism is

disingenuous to students learning in the linear K-12 context.

One of the most effective methods I can use to adapt to a non-hierarchal system is to negotiate what

grammar means in my own terms. According to Talbert in his article, Why Teach Grammar? this was

one of the historical problems within educational institutions. This lack of consensus as to why did create

hierarchal structures (e.g. groups based on ability) which I experienced throughout my schooling in the

6 https://www.edutopia.org/blog/metacognition-gift-that-keeps-giving-donna-wilson-marcus-
conyers
7 https://www.edutopia.org/blog/metacognition-gift-that-keeps-giving-donna-wilson-marcus-
conyers
8 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-leads-the-push-to-eliminate-letter-
grades-from-school-report-cards/article33907027/?
utm_source=Shared+Article+Sent+to+User&utm_medium=E-mail:+Newsletters+/+E-Blasts+/
+etc.&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links
1980s/90s. However, from conversations with grade 8 teachers at the institution, assessments of grammar

proficiency are conducted on a discretionary basis. After my literature research, I decided to conduct this

negotiation in two interconnected ways. Firstly, I wanted to find out what I think what grammar means,

and secondly what the students think grammar means. If my own definition of grammar is established in

the absence of an institutional one, then it makes a diagnostic assessment of the students understanding

easier.

This was useful because it provided a solid basis for my research. My theoretical framework is not so

much about the teaching of grammar, but is about the process of thinking of (ontological) rather than

about (epistemological) grammar. I consider it is vitally important creation of a temporal space. Here, the

concept of the ontological is implicitly connected to the temporal. Using the work of the moral

philosopher Paul Riceour, the potential within this temporal moment represents a potential shift towards

self-knowledge.9 The temporal moment is not an abstract one, but is perhaps one of the most genuine and

real indicators of what and when meaningful reflection is created apart from impulsive reactions.

Overall, while my literature search has been useful, it has primarily functioned as a standing off point

for other ideas by creating spaces in which there are opportunities for temporal moments.

However, such is the contingent nature of teaching that when it came to conducting my action research

within the classroom my proposals hit several unanticipated obstacles. Due to the difficulties via the

restraints experienced during the data collection process, I was unable to make as many meaningful

observations that would help to support my action research project question in the context of a short-term

basis to the extent that I had outlined in the introduction. That said, I had gained enough information

through interacting with the class and a survey to make some potential long term connections that could

potentially justify further research. In the context of the limited time frame, meaningful observations were

achieved by triangulating three central pieces of available data. These included: A ticket out the door

activity (Appendix A), my sponsor teachers records of how proficient their grammar has been over the

9 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ricoeur/
course of the school year and informal observations of what the students were saying to each other during

my practicum.

Starting with the format of the Ticket out the door activity, I decided on using written responses. In

the institution, Google Classroom is the dominant medium for providing resources and what the students

use for producing their work. The latter means most the written work (both formative and summative) is

produced on electronic word processors. These are subject to sophisticated auto-correct systems that

corrected spelling and grammar. Therefore, the rationale for having Ticket out the door, meant that the

students would hand write them. This would give me a clearer indication of their actual grammar ability.

In the context in support of this during the diagnostic assessment using the Ticket out the door

activity, the more vocal students asked why they needed to fill in a survey about grammar. I interpreted

these comments in two central ways. The first was that the institution I was at conducted no formal

grammar lessons. Further to this, my students seemed a little surprised they were even being asked about

it. Secondly, it indicated to me that the institution where I conducted my research did not consider

grammar proficiency to be an issue they needed to macro manage and so it was not present within the

mainstream of the school culture.

During analysis, the Ticket out the door was an effective diagnostic assessment. It revealed a much

higher level of sophistication that I had anticipated regarding how the grade 8 students understood the

term grammar. Across the 3 groups, the majority of students understood that grammar is much more

than spelling the words the right way. This was represented by none of the students scoring above 3.

The interpretation of this was that the students base knowledge of grammar in a philological sense can to

a large degree be understood to be a more sophisticated understanding than I had originally anticipated. In

a diagnostical context, I interpreted this as students being aware of what grammar meant.

This conceptual understanding was confirmed when the data/responses from the third question (Is it

always important to use the correct grammar?) were analyzed. Most students acknowledged that

grammar was not always important. Taking these results, I considered that the relationship between the

two questions to be significant. It was significant because they knew what grammar was, and knew when
it was important to use it. This was reflected further in the symbiotic relationship between the low score

for question one, and a high score for question three. When asked to explain why, written samples to

support this would include, There are times that it doesnt matter, No, people know what it means, and

Yes and no, it depends on the situation. I considered these to be useful observations because the students

were clearly exercising both prejudice and appropriateness when it came to using grammar.

What made their interpretation of grammar even more interesting was its consistency when measured

against other evidence. Through the observations made during her marking of written work over the

course of the year, my sponsor teacher noted that in random testing of students work there was a definite

correlation between what the students had written on their ticket out the door and the summative

assessments they were producing. The effect of this was that their responses could, even in the absence of

substantial evidence reasonably be judged to be authentic as there was too much correlation for

connections to be judged as being circumstantial. What added more authenticity was their responses to if

grammar was important when sending a message via social media either by Snapchat, We-Chat, Facebook

messenger or text message. Based on their results, they considered grammar to be important based on the

text message. Furthermore, one of the most revealing responses for question d) was, Neutral, because if

youre going to be talking to your peers, but if youre talking to an adult, then yes. This was revealing

because it showed me not just the sophisticated understanding and use of grammar, but there existed a

level of reflection that I had not anticipated. In other words, to a significant extent the temporal space

already existed.

This observation was confirmed during my informal observations because it was illustrated that due to

the short time frame, it is impossible to ascertain if grammar would make any difference to student

reflections. Based on short-term observations, it does not appear that making students aware of grammar

would have any significant bearing on if they would be more reflective. What my informal observations

mainly revealed that I should have given the students more credit than I had anticipated. They are far

more responsible and more self-aware than I had given them credit for prior to my practicum. Their

ability to reflect on what they are is not dependent on their aptitude regarding grammar. Regarding the
students whom are less reflective and are much more prone to saying things that appear to be due to a

lack of self-reflection and/or an unawareness of what they are saying. However, here is an

acknowledgement of my own biases to what I regard as being unreflective. It is often the case that

primary socialization occurs in the home, and behavior or comments regarded as being acceptable

depends on several influences including parents. A direct example of this was during a conversation with

a student who wanted to talk about Donald Trump (being at this moment in time, a divisive and

contentious subject). During this conversation, I became very self-aware that despite my own biases I did

not engage the student in conversation. To further test controlling my biases, I occasionally and when was

appropriate referenced Donald Trump during a classroom debates. I informally observed the reactions of

the students, and could not establish any contrary link between those who were reflective and those who

were not. It was also without doubt at least likely some students possibly thought I was trying to get a

reaction and this affected their responses. Ultimately, I regarded this as both another example of

underestimating the students ability to reflect on what they were thinking and the fact that the temporal

spaces already existed.

What could have added a great deal of depth to my Action Research project was that during my time at

the school, there were growing concerns about increasing incidents of racism that culminated in a meeting

between the grade 8 leadership team. The response to this was that a questionnaire was to be presented to

the students. (Appendix B) The students had to fill in their responses in a hand- written form that was not

subject to spell checks, auto-correction etc. However, for ethical reasons, I did not have access to these

questionnaires and even if I did I would not include the findings within this action research project. In

retrospect, this would have been a valuable piece of information that could have significantly altered my

findings.

Considering the circumstances that I encountered during this Action Research project, there are many

things that I would do differently the next time. I think the most fundamental thing would be finding

different ways to collect efficient data in similar time and situation sensitive circumstances. One of the

main problems is that I was unable to even scratch the surface in terms of what I wanted to achieve. This
prevented a lot of potential areas of inquiry from being opened. I think to collect meaningful data beyond

the anecdotal I would need to create more efficient data collection systems. One of the main problems that

I encountered was that students are much more guarded within the classroom setting when there is a

teacher present. One of the ways in which this could be circumvented is by bringing recording media into

the classroom. This results of for example a video recording of their conversations could be analyzed.

This brings up obvious ethical questions, such as getting students permission to record them will make

them much more self-conscious. In an ideal world, there would be hidden recording devices in the

classroom. In practice this would represent a violation of privacy. In terms of a potential litigation, the

results of this would be disastrous for the credibility of the institution. Again, this is unethical, but I would

also want to get access to students social media accounts, and how they are using grammar. While the

collection of this type of metadata is certainly not possible in North America, it would be more achievable

in countries that more explicitly monitor their citizens use of social media.

In terms of my paradigms of what it means to be a teacher, they have been neither been confirmed or

denied. Prior to this action research project, I regarded being self-reflexive and adaptable as key tenets of

being a teacher. It seems obvious to say, but is still worth saying that if an individual enters a teacher

training program without any intention of developing their pedagogy, then they are not appropriate

candidates and should not be seriously considering teaching as a long-term career option. Teaching is not,

and should never be about the pay check. It is as a colleague suggested a moral imperative. Therefore, it

is self-evident that continuing and negotiating action-research throughout a teaching career is a non-

negotiable absolute. I consider this to be so important that the relative inability of being able to

implement and/or gather enough meaningful information, and to introduce any activities that would

confirm my hypothesis has left me very frustrated.

The most important outcome from my research is that students are reflecting on what they are saying.

Per my sponsor teachers analysis of their work throughout the term suggests there is a fundamental

consistency inherent in their work. If they therefore can reflect, then this should be built on in the school

environment not with focusing on grammar but with social education lessons, and/or specifically focused
sessions on an element within the school culture that needs to be addressed. As I have illustrated earlier

example of this occurred during my practicum when there was an emergency meeting called between the

Grade 8 Leadership group due to increasing incidents of racism (including, but not limited to, verbal

abuse and the drawing of swastikas on ethnic minorities lockers). The conclusion of this meeting was that

students were to be provided with an anonymous form (Appendix B) asking them to detail any incidences

of racism they had witnessed and how it made them feel. However, both since I am only a student-

teacher and the content of the forms was anonymous meant that I could not gain access to either their

content, and therefore being able to able to observe if there was consistency regarding their grammar. To

an extent, as I can again only speculate, having access to these forms could have provided me with more

data to cross reference. The fact that the subject (racism) is such a controversial topic would inevitably in

some cases provoked some revealing responses. I think it is also fair to say, that because they were

anonymous would have caused some students to let their guard down.

In conclusion, based on my informal observations and formal written data, grammar proficiency has no

significant or truly meaningful bearing on the students ability to reflect on what they are writing. If it

does, the margins are so minimal as to be ineffectual and are based within this particular short-time

frame, not worth investing in providing the students with extra grammar instruction. In other words, the

connections I sought to establish could be more than reasonably be called abstract. In this experience, the

reality that I was competing with was that students were expected to complete a project in a set-time

frame. This was a situation that was unique to this practicum the content and aims of which were

established. I remain frustrated that I was not able to conduct my research to the extent that I wanted to.

The connections between grammar, reflection and the temporal ontological space are elements that I will

both continue to explore and integrate into my future teaching career. Despite the time limits, I could gain

enough insight to ascertain some possible solutions to my central hypothesis. What needs to be done to

get the students to reflect on what they are thinking is not allocating time for extra grammar lessons,

because as suggested above the differences would be imperceptible, is that there needs to be objective,

concrete work on the reflective aspect of students thinking. I remain frustrated that I was not able to
conduct my research to the extent that I wanted to. The connections between grammar, reflection and the

temporal ontological space are elements that I will both continue to explore and integrate into my future

teaching career.

Bibliography

Books

Gazzaley, Adam and Rosen, Larry, The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World (MIT

Press, 2016)

Articles

Tabbert, Russell Why Study Grammar? (The English Journal, Vol. 73, No. 8., Dec., 1984, pp. 38-42)

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ricoeur/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-leads-the-push-to-eliminate-letter-grades-

from-school-report-cards/article33907027/?

utm_source=Shared+Article+Sent+to+User&utm_medium=E-mail:+Newsletters+/+E-Blasts+/

+etc.&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/metacognition-gift-that-keeps-giving-donna-wilson-marcus-conyers

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/8-pathways-metacognition-in-classroom-marilyn-price-mitchell

http://cyberbullying.org/school-based-efforts-to-prevent-cyberbullying

Appendix

Appendix A- Student Survey

a) Is grammar just about spelling words the right way?

b) Is my knowledge of grammar excellent?
c) Is it always important to use the correct grammar?
d) Is it important even when I am writing a message using social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to

always use correct grammar?

Appendix B (DBL 8 Check In)

What acts of kindness have you heard somebody say or do this year at school? How did that make you

feel?

What hurtful thing(s) have you heard someone say or do this year? How did that make you feel?