Annotated Bibliography

This annotated bibliography is done in collaboration with JiHae Park, SeockHyoun Yun,and me.


Citation 1:
Graff, G (2001). Hidden intellectualism. Pedagogy 1 (1): 22-36

Summary:
This article explores the field of hidden intellectualism, which can be explained as two: “Street smart” and “academic smart”. Street smart – that does not deal with schooling – can be described as anti-intellectual interests. This is the opposite concept of what the school seeks which is described as “intellectualism”. The author asserted that there is a converge or channel between them, and the connection has to be made.

As a connection between hidden intellectualism and non-hidden one, the author found that argument could play a good role to bridge the gap. Schools are ,however, reluctant to try it concerning with developing violence. It is described “the school maintains an appearance of harmony and choice that denies the realities of conflict”. As opposite, the author asserted argument will make students stronger. However, all the importance and need of argument, students do not see it as. Although schools often bring it to the curriculum, it would be much less valuable if children do not develop an intellectual and public voice about subjects given.

In this context, the author suggested that bringing it right into the class would be the best way. As the way, questioning about intellectualism can help by uncovering the differences between terms using in intellectual and non-intellectual situations. Debate is another tactic given in this article. It does not only intrigue students but also help understand the distinction by contradictions and ambivalences. Students will be led to express their opinions over the issue in debate. While arguments and answering questions over the issues, students would reflect them, and recognize the distinction between street smart and intellectualism. As a teacher, the author will try student to find out the hidden intellectual.

Review:
In this article, the major concern is how to bridge the gap between “Street smart” and “academic smart”. The author suggested the way of argument and questioning in order to contrast and understand the ambivalence between vernacular and intellectual discourse. Through argument, students are able to close to intellectual discourse by contradiction and analyzing. Through questioning, the differences are uncovered between “street smart” and “intellectualism”. However, there are more studies to be taken.



Citation 2:
Ronald, K. (2001). ‘Befriending’ Other Teachers: Communities of Teaching and the Ethos of Curricular Leadership. Pedagogy 1.2: 317-327.

Summary:
The author was a writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) administrator at Miami University. She mainly depend on the Gregory’s ethos when facing problems. She explained the importance of ‘befriending’, teachers, curricular, and so on by storytelling her experiences at Miami University.

She emphasized on the link between teaching and curriculum. Curriculum often changes with hard working, and the teachers seem to take the changes difficult because of more things to do to catch up with. The author asserted that it is necessary for teachers to be passionate and committed to the changes in order to succeed the curriculum. In the context, teaching and curriculum are not separate.

The relationship between content and pedagogy was also mentioned in this article. Content seems to be powerful in curriculum but also pedagogy does. She agreed with Gregory that content rarely draws person’s imagination but teachers can do it. She also stressed content and its coherence among courses.

Lastly, but not least, she suggested the concept of ‘befriending’ which could mean giving overviews of curriculum in interaction with other teachers. She also termed ‘curricular leadership’ which might mean aiding each other to do well in their class. To befriend other teachers, ones have to bear charity, love, tolerance, just, and so on. Plus, there are problems with curriculum such as disconnection which means that classes are separated and under controlled by teachers so that it is possible to disconnect to curriculum. Therefore, teachers should be befriended to achieve the new curriculum.

Review:
The author explained the importance of understanding the relationship between teaching and curriculum, and bearing characteristic such as charity, love, tolerance, just to befriend each other. Of course, the change is hard, but the success of the curriculum depends on teachers. Teaching and curriculum are not separated so that teachers should help each other to deliver and understand the curriculum by befriending.




Citation 3:
Nunan, D. (2001). Syllabus design. In Celce-Murcia, M. (2001), Teaching English as a second or foreign language. (pp. 55-65). Boston, MA: Heinle&Heinle.

Summary:
This author introduces a variety of syllabus like grammatical syllabuses, notional-functional syllabuses, content-based syllabuses, task-based syllabuses, and integrated approach to syllabus design. And the author briefly illustrates the background that how each syllabus comes into the world.

According to the author, syllabus is based on the broader concept of curriculum and syllabus design means the selection of the content of the curriculum. At first, content selection in curriculum includes linguistic features, and it is reflected in a grammatical syllabus. In 1970s, however, notional syllabus appeared opposing the previous syllabus. Then more recently, with the need of the adoption of a process approach, there has emerged task-based syllabus and content-based syllabus. Most recently, an integrated approach has been prevalent.

The author investigates each syllabus one by one chronologically. First, grammatical syllabuses, which is underlain that language comprises a finite set of rules combined in various ways to make meaning, are yet popular today. During the1970s, it was put in attacks on two aspects; one was the linear of sequence of grammar, which was not represent the complexity of language, and the other was revealed by the development of the field of second language acquisition: the questioning about the necessity of the sequential enumerating of grammatical fragments. Notional-functional syllabuses express various criteria on content of the syllabus: situational, contextual, and extralinguistic factors. The next flow of the designing syllabuses is the content-based syllabus, in which learners acquire the target language in the course of doing others, not direct teaching of language itself. It emphasizes that learners can acquire language in active engagement in communicating. Task-based syllabuses consist of two tasks. One is target tasks, which the learner might do outside of the classroom, and the other is pedagogical tasks, which is for pushing the learner into practicing with each other in the target language to prepare the learner for the real world. In the last part of this article, the author argues for integrated syllabus, which incorporates all of the key experiential and linguistic elements from grammatical syllabuses to notional-functional, to task-based, and to content-based syllabuses.

Review:
The article presents the variety of the syllabus types chronologically. And the author details one by one to make readers understand the flow of the trend in syllabus design in the second language education. In curricula, syllabuses are so important and essential part that this article is helpful for second language teachers. However, it could be more beneficial if this article would present each example syllabus at each explanation of syllabus because some conception of syllabus is abstract without the detailed description and showing the examples.


Citation 4:
Jensen, L. (2001). Planning lessons. In Celce-Murcia, M. (2001), Teaching English as a second or foreign language. (pp. 403-413). Boston, MA: Heinle&Heinle.

Summary:
This article investigates planning lessons. A lesson plan serves as a guide for novice teachers who should make formal lesson plans, and as a convenient tool for experienced teachers. The author of this article first defines what is a lesson plan, and then explains why teachers should make lesson plans, and when and how teachers create lesson plans. Next, the author describes what traits are needed to be a good lesson plan. Moreover, by attaching five brief sample lesson plans at the end of the article, the author shows what is a lesson plan to help readers to understand.

The author insists that all teachers whether they are novices or experts should get into their classrooms with their own lesson plan. This lesson plan can be a form of mental checklist, but a form of written formalized lesson plan is recommended because teachers usually plan lessons from their viewpoints, and yet they sometimes create lesson plans in the terms of an observer or supervisor. According to the author, there are a few reasons why teachers should create lesson plans. First, a lesson plan guides teachers for what to do next and these sequences of activities remind teachers of the goals and objectives for the students. Next, a lesson plan tells teachers what they did in class and this is valuable in that teachers can give students proper assignments and they can use it for regular assessment. In addition, teachers can avoid the repeated same situation, which could occur if teachers do not have a record of lesson plans. There are, moreover, some incidents, which teachers cannot come to class, so their students cannot help meeting an unfamiliar substitute teacher. In this case, if there is no prepared lesson plan, the substitute teacher and the students would be in chaos altogether. Finally, teachers should prepare for their class just as their students should walk into class with their complete assignments. Then when and how teachers plan? Teachers should create both macro planning and micro planning. That is to say, teachers’ lesson plan is a mirror of a philosophy of each teacher and this macro planning affects the micro planning such as methodology, syllabus, texts, and specific lessons. And consulting with colleagues is sometimes needed.

To create a good lesson plan, teachers must consider the students, goals and objectives, methodologies, materials, activities, time constraints, and each lesson plan must be staged as a beginning, a middle, and an end. Lesson plans should begin with a brief description of the class and students, the review of the previous class, the day’s goals and objectives, the list of materials and equipment. The middle section consists of the lesson’s content including procedures with warm-up and review activities, time management, and sequential activities for satisfying the day’s objectives. Teachers should anticipate where a lesson might break down in the middle of the lesson plan. The final component has to mention about summary of the lesson and assignments, and brief next class. It is also good idea to include space for lesson evaluation by the teacher at the very end of the lesson plan for showing what is good or not explicitly and improving the next one. On the whole, good lesson plans show coherence, exhibit variety, and possess flexibility.

Review:
The article presents the overall of lesson planning and helps readers to understand what is a good lesson plan briefly but exactly. It is also show lesson plan template for a 50-minute class, course overview for ten weeks, module overview for five weeks, weekly overview, and sample lesson plan as a form of appendix, so that this article looks helpful and concrete, otherwise, it could be abstract. This article seems helpful especially for novice teachers, who do not know what they should do in class and how they should create a lesson plan in reality even though they know them in theory.


Citation 5:
Bruton, Anthony. (2009). Grammar in not only a liberating force, it is a communicative resource. ELT journal, 63(4), 383-386.

Summary:
The author is currently focusing on language teaching and research methods with his academic profession and also directing a group researching the learning of EFL in state secondary schools. From his professional backgrounds, he argues, in this article, his considerably different points from Richard Cullen’s on the essay of Widdowson (1988) ‘Grammar, and nonsense, and learning’, which may attractive enough to who are interested in communicative language teaching (CLT).

The author wants us to consider grammar as a meaning not as tedious rules or constraints, which indicates contrast between grammatical and lexical meaning. During a language acquisition process, the grammatical meaning will be expressed specifically with highly frequent rate of usage in real contextual or contextualizing situation by putting emphasis on formulating meaning choice into utterances to express meaning not based on a given lexical content or text, according to the author’s counteroffer against Cullen’s perspective.

With these obviously distinct opinions, the author really urges the readers to rethink about the slot-fillers or pattern practices emphasizing the forms or structures without appropriately contextualized communicative drills.

Review:
This article shows that how much inefficient effort Korean English teachers make to have their students successful in learning English. Even though the text is a little bit short of practical examples of implying his opinions to a real classroom, it will be very helpful for Korean English teachers to read this article for their better implementing with innovative thoughts about teaching English involving grammar, especially when they design a curriculum in the beginning.


Citation 6:
Scheffler, P. (2009). Rule Difficulty and the Usefulness of Instruction. ELT journa 6(1), 5-12.

Summary:
From the professional experience the author has had by writing books related to English grammar teaching and doing researches on modern English grammar, second language acquisition, and corpus linguistics, this article contains a refreshing approach to teaching grammar in regard to learners’ perception and expectations about L2 learning.

The author practiced a questionnaire-based study to find out how learners perceive relationship between rule difficulty and the usefulness of explicit instruction, on the basis of the assumption that implies adult L2 learners can be more successful with the structural syllabus and analytical procedures applying explicit code-focused instruction rather than mainly implementing meaning and communicative lessons because adult learners use the domain independent mechanism not like child L1 acquirers. The outcome of the questionnaire that was answered by two Polish adult learner groups with a college academic background shows that the degree of the candidates need for ‘usefulness of instruction’ is almost match with that of perception for ‘level of difficulty’ among the categories of English grammar, i.e., tenses, modal verbs, etc., if just two from eleven categories are excluded in the result.

The fact that the research was performed in limited conditions, including a geographically restricted area, participants’ background and age, and subjective notion to objective one is admitted by the author. However, the author asserts that the respondents requires explicit grammar teaching particularly in difficult grammar areas, and that teachers should take into account what learners feeling about the target language in general.

Review:
Even if the article has to be complemented with further researches and broader investigations, the result of this research indicates that the needs of learners cannot be disregarded when teachers design their lesson plan or syllabus to make the class fruitful. The over 20-yesr-old adults participants of L2 learners’ characteristics might be applied to, at least be helpful for understanding middle and high school L2 learners’ SLA process because adolescents, almost like adults, have already developed their L1 system in their brain.