2015 Primary brochure
Transcription
2015 Primary brochure
Grammar = simple purposeful hands-on fun easy to teach discovery-based practical relevant linked to the Australian Curriculum Sound impossible? Find out how. “Finally, a way to teach grammar that makes sense. Thank you for a very informative day and the beginning of ‘making a difference’ to our school.” Mark Powell, Principal, Matthew Gibney Catholic Primary School, April 2014 The Australian Curriculum asks you to teach it 5.2.6 Attention should be given to the teaching of grammar across all the years of schooling to help students meet the demands of schooling and their lives outside school. These demands include reading, understanding, speaking, writing, and creating texts that describe, narrate, analyse, explain, recount, argue, review, and so on. Shape of the Australian Curriculum: English, p.7 But how well do you know it? Inquiries into Australian teacher education and literacy have highlighted concerns about the preparedness of teachers to teach literacy effectively. In the international literature, ‘knowledge about language’ has been identified as an important factor in successful literacy teaching. Helen Harper & Jennifer Rennie Charles Darwin University & Monash University, 2008 To successfully implement the functionally oriented model of grammar proposed by the Curriculum, many teachers will need to expand their expertise in grammar. Pauline Jones & Honglin Chen University of Wollongong, 2012 And how do you teach it? If we are teaching grammar, but the students are not learning grammar from us, then there is something wrong with the way we are teaching it. Mary Ehrenworth Literacy Staff Developer New York City Public Schools Columbia University, 2003 The Solution ? The foundational principles of English grammar are ridiculously simple. You can learn how to teach grammar effectively, powerfully and with nothing more than . . . . . . lead your students to discover these principles . . . . . . by themselves . . . . . . and then show students how to use them in their writing. Shoebox is . . . Simple. The Shoebox System shows students that grammar is not complex, fuzzy and full of strange exceptions. Instead, it uses discovery, stories and graphic charts to reveal some very simple principles, As one assistant principal said, it’s “a whole new approach, easy as 1-2-3.” Relevant. It is pointless to teach grammar unless it has a practical purpose. Since life is built on education, which is built on language, which is built on grammar, students really need to understand the language that they are educated in, and that they write in. The Shoebox System prepares students for writing better sentences, stories, recounts, narratives, expositions. Students who know how sentences work write better. Engaging. Shoebox teaches by discovery. Students discover how sentences work with nothing more than laminated cards, textas and discussion. As one teacher said, her “students responded exceptionally well to the idea of the three parts of a sentence. They caught onto the principles a lot more quickly than the staff did!” It never ceases to delight me when students, after one hour of a Shoebox demonstration lesson, realise how sentences work. Their eyes light up and they say words like awesome. Whole school Shoebox works from the time a child can speak a sentence, so teachers can use it from kindergarten onwards. Indeed, a pre-primary teacher wrote that she was “absolutely blown away by how engaging grammar could be and how an effective teacher can make it all so fun and simple to understand.” While a school can run Shoebox in one class or year level as a pilot scheme for a year, it is best run across the whole school for the sake of continuity and so that every teacher and student speaks the same grammatical language. Aligned to the Australian Curriculum. Demonstration lessons It’s always good to see if something works before you commit to it. I agree. If you would like to see what all the teachers, principals and assistant principals are talking about on the Testimonials page, arrange a demonstration lesson. These lessons are free of charge and obligation, and are a great way to see how Shoebox can engage your students and help them to learn grammar better. Demonstration lessons are simple. • • • • You choose the year level/s for the demonstration lesson/s to a limit of three lessons in a day. Arrange a time and date. You will need up to an hour for each lesson. Arrange classroom textas and baby wipes for the students, and organise the students into pairs. (Year 1 and 2 classes will also need three playground hoops, coloured yellow, green and red.) Ask other teachers to come and watch if you like. I have had extensive classroom experience so classroom control is usually not an issue. However, your classroom teacher should be in the classroom at all times. If you like what you see, the next step is the Shoebox System, a complete resource in two parts that both trains and equips your staff. The Shoebox System Part One / Training The Professional Development Workshop The workshop comprises six hours of content, delivered with visual materials, a discovery based methodology identical to that used in Shoebox lessons, and a great deal of hands-on discovery for teachers. You can schedule this in two ways. • • on a Professional Development day at the beginning or end of term. as three regular after-school workshops of two hours each. Using nothing more than the same laminated cards, textas and baby wipes that students use in Shoebox lessons, your teachers use collaborative, discovery-based methods to learn how to make grammar simple, relevant and fun. They then use this same collaborative, discovery-based methodology to translate their knowledge into practice and teach students how to write better stories - mystery, action, epic, suspense - functional writing - persuasive, descriptive, narrative, exposition, report - or anything else. Grammar underpins everything. Do you need to learn all the arcane grammatical terms? No. The Shoebox System carefully avoids overcomplication, and instead allows you to choose the traditional, grammatical terminology in your teaching or the more user-friendly Shoebox terms. It’s up to you. The Shoebox System Part Two / Equipping The Members Library This is the online resource that contains the complete Shoebox teaching system. Everything needed for teaching grammar is included, so that teachers only need to log on, download the resource, print it, laminate it (where necessary) and use it. The Members Library contains The Teachers Book. This is a 158 page document that contains everything a teacher needs to know about grammar, as well as some interesting extra information. It is colour - coded, written in user-friendly language, with a wealth of examples and aligns with the Australian Curriculum. Quick Reference Cards. A set of colour - coded cards that contain key content and teaching points for easy reference. Lesson Cards. Each one of these self-contained, sequenced, colour - coded cards contains a single lesson, which can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes, with teaching points and focus questions included. Resources. These are all the extra resource cards a teacher will need to teach effectively. Teaching videos. Planned for the near future. When your teachers conclude their training, you will receive your access codes for the Members’ Library. The Shoebox System Prices Ideally, and for the benefit of your whole staff, the Shoebox System is best implemented in its entirety. This has three benefits. • • • All staff speak the same grammatical language and use the same classroom methodology. This means that . . . Students can be assured of consistency of content and methodology throughout their school lives. Students don’t then have to unlearn or relearn grammatical content from year to year. Ongoing costs are greatly reduced (see the table below.) Prices Staff size 1-29 30-39 40-49 First year $1800 $2000 $2200 Future years $720 $800 $880 However, you might like to introduce the Shoebox System as a pilot program in one or more classrooms for the year and then consider its whole school implementation for the following year. This costs $200 per teacher for the Members’ Library and $100 per teacher to join an existing PD workshop (where available). Contact Greg to discuss. Testimonials Principals and Assistant Principals “Finally, a way to teach grammar that makes sense. Thank you for a very informative day and the beginning of ‘making a difference’ to our school.” Mark Powell, Principal, Matthew Gibney Catholic Primary School, April 2014 “Thank you, Greg, for a dynamic and inspiring workshop. Shoebox Grammar simplified the process of teaching grammar for our staff. Your expertise was unsurpassed and we thoroughly enjoyed the novel handson approach.” Noriel Crosby, Deputy Principal, Millen Primary School, June, 2014 “A difficult concept that you managed to engage us and even got us enthusiastic about. I appreciate the hands-on, fun and realistic approach to the topic, The level of chat and the sharing of ideas is testament to the way people received this learning. A whole new approach, easy as 1-23.” Julie Kay, Assistant Principal, Our Lady of Mt Carmel School, March 2014 “Greg’s presentation was, as the subtitle of his handbook claims, practical, relevant and fun. His passion for language is evident through the clear and easy to understand structures and patterns which build up teacher knowledge. Greg’s approach to grammar is based on problem solving. He does not talk about a meta language or a grand repertoire of grammatical terms but uses examples and metaphor. The staff members were impressed and appreciative with the opportunity to re-engage with grammar and the teaching of grammar in a comprehensive and relevant manner.” Margaret Dove, Principal Swan View Primary School Testimonials Staff “I was absolutely blown away by how engaging grammar could be and how an effective teacher can make it all so fun and simple to understand.” Michelle Wenzel, Pre-primary teacher, Swan View Primary School “A great deal of content presented. I loved the 1-2-3 approach. It will make writing and grammar much easier for all children. Thanks!” Jane Short, Year 3 teacher, St Brigids, Collie, January 2014. “Thank you, Greg, for your passionate presentation on grammar. As a school, we will take away many practical and hands-on activities to implement in the classroom.” Staff of St Mary’s, Northampton “After the presentation Greg made at our whole school professional development day, I was inspired to get going with Shoebox Grammar straight away. I felt confident that I could immediately work it into my established Literacy Block sessions and found that the students responded exceptionally well to the idea of the three parts of a sentence. They caught onto the principles a lot more quickly than the staff did!” Katrina Prodger, Year 6/7 Teacher, Beckenham Primary School “I actually enjoyed learning about grammar, which I didn’t think was possible! Excellent ideas and structure to help students make their writing more interesting and their sentences more varied. I feel like I have a much better grasp of main and dependent clauses.” Kate Price, teacher, Our Lady of Fatima School, March 2014 Greg Byrne A passionate fan of words and stories since he knew what pencils were for, Greg began as a primary teacher (together with a term as a primary principal) and worked in the State, private and Catholic systems. Following this, he extended his interest in language into teaching overseas students our baffling but beautiful language in several ESL schools across Perth, writing a text for them called ‘English is Stupid . . . but Beautiful’, learning (in part) Japanese and Italian, and presenting the ‘Renovating Grammar’ workshop at the 2012 CSA Perth conference . Now, as well as his Shoebox Grammar consulting practice, he also teaches undergraduate B.Ed (Primary and Secondary) students at Edith Cowan University School of Education, writes grammar texts for primary, university and ESL students, teaches ESL to adults, is working at a Masters at UWA, and writes novels in his spare time (his debut novel, Nine Planets, was released in November 2014). And he would like to share all this knowledge and experience with you. Contact and Information Enquiries for demonstration lessons, workshops or the Members’ Library to P: 9450 3555 M: 0411 715 712 E: [email protected] For further information about the Shoebox System, please go to www.shoeboxgrammar.com.au