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This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

The Syntactical Structures of Freshmen
Students in a Developmental English Course
Based on Selected Media and the Nature of
Language
presented by

Anne Smart Williams

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph.D. Education

degree in

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Date May 10, 1972

 

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ABSTRACT

THE SYNTACTICAL STRUCTURES OF FRESHMEN STUDENTS
IN A DEVELOPMENTAL ENGLISH COURSE BASED ON
SELECTED MEDIA AND THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE

BY

Anne Smart Williams

The complexion of the college community has changed
drastically in the last decade with colleges opening their
doors to students of diverse training, experiences, and
backgrounds. Many of these students have language habits
different from those of the college community. The varia-
tions are more than different vocabulary and pronunciation.
Sentence patterns, usage, phonemes, and intonation reflect
the fact that those who lead culturally different lives
develop in culturally different ways than those of the
main stream. The needs of these students are of concern
to the English teacher. Thus, the purpose of this study
was to explore the effects of a mediated course in the
nature of language on student's attitudes toward English
and their success in the acquisition of other dialects in
speech and writing.

The subjects consisted of fifteen students who
scored in the bottom 7 per cent on the Michigan State

entrance examination. Nine of these students were

Anne Smart Williams

native—born Black Americans; five were native-born white
Americans; one was born in Poland but had lived in America
for the last six years.
The assumption was that if students approach
remedial courses with positive attitudes, they are more
likely to retain and use the material presented over longer
periods of time than students who have negative attitudes
and that each student could expand his dialect in a form
which communicates across the American culture without
undue abrasiveness.
At the completion of the case study four students
admitted that they were not ready for the next phase of
English. One admitted that she had not invested enough
time in her studies. The other three students, even
though they had made more progress than anticipated and
had acquired a better understanding of the English lan-
guage, felt that they started too far behind the other
students to go to the next level of English.
Recommendations generating from the study include:
1. That mini-packages on principles of grammar and
syntax indicated in the student's papers be
designed and tested before being used.

2. That in-service training involving the findings of
the linguists be required of instructors who teach

developmental English.

Anne Smart Williams

3. That instructors should be flexible enough to have
sympathy and empathy for the students needs, teach-
ing to the point of error.

4. That the best possible instructors be hired to teach
developmental English with compensations being based
on credentials.

5. That the laboratory-lecture method be used to teach
developmental English with the instructor serving as
a guide in the discovery process.

Thus, the major concern of any remediation program
should be to help individuals acquire the tools and skills
necessary for life adjustment. It should not be the
concern of courses in remediation to tamper with the
student's dialect or even force him to acquire another.

On the other hand, it is a concern of remediation to

provide the student with alternatives in both the written

and spoken English, allowing him to make his choice.

Through the study of his language, the student might

discover "standard" forms without being stigmatized for

his ”folk" dialect.

THE SYNTACTICAL STRUCTURES OF FRESHMEN STUDENTS
IN A DEVELOPMENTAL ENGLISH COURSE BASED ON

SELECTED MEDIA AND THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE

BY

Anne Smart Williams

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

College of Education

1972

a? ‘h
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a,“ -‘

©Copyright by
ANNE SMART WILLIAMS

1972

Dedicated to:
My husband Tommy for love and
understanding, and Pepi and Albert

Einstein who almost forgot me.

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am extremely grateful to so many people for
assisting me in so many ways. Of particular importance
is Dr. Elwood E. Miller who served, not only as thesis
advisor, but also as a friend and confidant. Also, my
eternal gratitude is extended to Dr. Paul W. F. Witt for
providing initial guidance and direction and to Dr. Z.
George Barnett for his philosophical insights and interest
in my work. My special indebtedness, appreciation, and
gratitude is extended to Dr. Robert J. Geist who pro-
vided invaluable guidance and assistance in the design
of the study and my understanding of the linguistic prin-
ciples employed in the study. His availability, patience,
and humaneness made the venture enjoyable.

In addition, for sincere friendship on a univer-
sity campus, I am grateful to Mrs. Bethel Baker, Dr.
Curtis McCarty, and the Arthur I. Boones'. Further
gratitude and appreciation goes to Mrs. Jane Featherstone
for providing the opportunity to do the study in the
American Thought and Language Department.

A special appreciation is expressed to all the
Smart's wherever they are, especially my mama and daddy

who always inspired me to pursue knowledge.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
DEDICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
LIST OF APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Chapter
I. RATIONALE FOR THE INVESTIGATION . . . . . . 1
Purpose of and Need for the Study . . .
Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . .
Methodology . . . . . . . . . . .

Definition of Terms . . . . . . . . .
Organization of the Study . . . . .

KDONU'lrbi—J

II. A SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE AND RESEARCH . . . ll

Research in Composition . . . . . . . ll
Pattern Practice . . . . . . . . . . l8
Composition and Linguistic Structures . . . 22
Linguistics and the Classroom Teacher . . . 28
Dialect Studies . . . . . . . . . . 31
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

III. PROCEDURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Statement of the Problem . . . . . . . 37
Origin of the Study . . . . . . . . . 37
Identification of Problems . . . . . . 38
The Students . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Planned Schedule . . . . . . . . . . 60
Writing Assignments . . . . . . . . . 60
Special Projects . . . . . . . . . . 6l
Examinations . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Class Days . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

iv

Chapter

Unit I.—-"The Importance of Language" . .
Unit II.-—"Some Basic Facts About Language"
Unit III.—-"The Individual and His Language"
Unit IV.--"Social Dialect". . . . . .
Unit V.--"Place and Time in Language" . .
Unit VI.--"Grammar" . . . . . . .

Unit VII.--"The Sounds of English" . .

IV. DESCRIPTION OF ACTUAL CLASS ACTIVITIES .

Dictionary and Sounds . . . . .
The Individual and His Language . .
English Syntax Via Transparencies

History--"Place and Time in Language
Writing Assignments . . . . . .
Out of Class Activities . . . .
Final Projects . . . . . . .

V. EVALUATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . .

The Students . . . . . . .
Evaluations . . . . . . . .
Recommendations . . . . . . .

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . .

Page

62
63
64
65
66
67
68

7O

72
74
75
81
83
85
86

91
92
120
126

128

Appendix
A.

B.

LIST OF APPENDICES

Course Syllabus . . . .

Materials Used . . .

vi

Page
143

158

CHAPTER I

RATIONALE FOR THE INVESTIGATION

Purpose of and Need for the Study

 

The purpose of this study is to explore the effects
of a mediated course in the nature of language on students'
attitudes toward English and their success in the acquisi-
tion of other dialects in speech and writing.

The complexion of the college community has
changed drastically in the last decade. Colleges are
opening their doors to students of diverse training,
experiences, and backgrounds. Many of these students
have language habits different from those of the college
community. The language habits of any large nation vary
with the different cultures found in that nation. The
variations are more than different vocabulary and pro—
nunciations. Sentence patterns, usage, phonemes, and
intonation reflect the fact that those who lead culturally
different lives develop in culturally different ways than
those of the main stream.

The needs of these students are of concern to the

English teacher. There is wide recognition of the fact

that existing traditional programs, especially the tradi—
tional workbook and grammatical method, have not completely
satisfied the needs of the students in developmental
English. After an intensive study of existing remedial
programs, John E. Roueche concluded that a "Clear defini-
tion of intent and more imaginative procedures are neces-
sary if . . . colleges are to implement the open door
policy successfully. Traditional approaches simply are
not doing an effective job of educating the low-achieving
student."1
There is a need for linguistic principles to

infiltrate the English classroom. The practice must catch
up with the theories. There is a need for instructional
materials which explain these principles to the student,
usually a native speaker, who is unaware of the complexi-
ties of the language he uses so fluently either in
standard or nonstandard forms. The Commission on Instruc-
tional Technology places emphasis on the role of technolo-
gical media in the instructional process in the following
statement:

What instruction requires is an arrangement of

resources whereby the student responds and
learns, reaching new plateaus from which to

 

1John E. Roueche, Salvage, Redirection or Custody?
Remedial Education in the Community_Junior College
(Washington, D. C.: American Association of Junior
Colleges, l968), p. 57.

 

 

2To Improve Learning. A Report to the President
and Congress of the United States by the Commission on
Instructional Technology, Committee on Education and
Labor, House of Representatives (Washington, D. C.:
Government Printing Office, 1970), p. 19.

 

climb to higher levels of understanding. Implicit

in such an arrangement, if it is to be effective,

is the adaptability of the process to the individual

student's differences-~in pace, temperament, back—

ground, and style of learning.

Like other institutions of higher learning, Michigan
State University "must educate the students they do accept,
and many freshmen . . . need special help if they are to
speak and write English effectively."3 Thus, if the
developmental English program is to be responsible for
helping students with diverse preparation acquire other
dialects, a look at nonstandard speech must take a new
focus, and as Labov puts it, "not as an isolated object
in itself but as an integral part of the larger sociolin—
guistic structure of language."4
The acquisition of a dialect other than the

familiar one is a formidable task for the college student.
If change is to be effected, the individual must volunteer
to make the change. An understanding of the nature of the
English language could best serve the desire to change.
But the problem of changing dialect must be understood.
Sapir5 defines language (dialect as a variety of language)

as a non-instinctive, acquired cultural function. With

this in mind, then the task of the English teacher

 

3Thomas C. Pollock, William C. DeVane, and Robert
G. Spiller, "The English Language in American Education,”
reprint in PMLA, LXVI (February, 1951), p. 74.

4William Labov, The Study of Nonstandard English
(Champaign, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of
English; special arrangements with the Center for Applied
Linguistics, 1970), p. l.

 

5Edward Sapir, Language (New York: Harcourt,
Brace and World, Inc., 1921), p. 4.

becomes, despite the fact that the terms standard and
nonstandard dialect often "introduce moral judgments
which are repulsive to the linguistic scholar,"6 to try
to develop in each student the ability to use a form of
English which communicates across the American culture

without undue abrasiveness.

Assumptions

 

In teaching composition classes this writer makes
some basic assumptions about the learner. Too often a
college freshman enters his composition class suffering
from inhibitions that can seriously impede his ability
to speak and write and, perhaps, his general capacity to
learn. The remedial student has an even greater problem
compounded by such factors as the following:

1. Remedial courses in college carry with them
a stigma which often produces negative
results in class work.

2. Remedial courses influence the self—concept
and affect the willingness to make overt
changes.

3. Remedial programs for some ethnic groups may
be seen as an attack on heritage rather than

a step toward diversity in social dialect.

 

6W. Nelson Francis, "Revolution in Grammar,"
Quarterly Journal of Speech, 40 (October, 1954), p. 302.

 

Thus, the writer believes that if students approach
remedial courses with positive attitudes, they are more
likely to retain and use the material presented over
longer periods of time than students who have negative

attitudes.

Methodology

 

This dissertation is a case study concerned with
a re-appraisal of remedial English, considering the
peculiar needs of students in a developmental English
.class at Michigan State University and the implication of
these needs for program design. The investigation did in
no way attempt to destroy the dialect common to each
student. It was kept in mind that good and bad styles
are possible in any dialect, and that one is conditioned
by environment to assume a meaning of what is said or
written. Moreover, the investigation was concerned with
the entire process of communication, starting with the
spoken word, meaning being the point of focus. The con-
cern was that of dialect expansion. The ultimate goal
of such an experimental course was to give to the student
a tool for looking at his language so he could do the
exploring for himself. This involves the use of media--
a design for personalized involvement.

The media used in this study included transpar-
encies, still projection, cassette tapes, and record
discs. As a common tool to enable the student to look

at his language so that he could explore it by himself,

An Introduction to Language (Macmillan, 1970) by Robert J.

 

Geist was used along with two other references. Assign-
ments made from this book were used as a basis for class
discussion. In addition, students were asked to write a
paper on topics of their choice for each class period.
Once a week students wrote in-class themes on a variety
of assigned topics, usually about the communication process.
Common errors in syntax and morphology were projected by
overhead transparencies. Drill in basic sentence patterns
reinforced student learning. Still pictures and record
discs were used as stimuli in the creative process.
Cassette tapes (given to each Student) were used to pro-
vide feedback from teacher to student and from student to
teacher.

As a pre-test, the Nelson Denny Reading Test Form
A was administered on the second day of class. Form B
of this test was given as the post-test at the end of the
ten-week period. A course opinion survey was taken at

the end of the quarter.

Definition of Terms

 

Determiner

 

A word preceding a noun and signalling that a

noun will follow.

Dialect
A specific form of a language spoken (or written)

by the members of a single homogeneous speech community.

If the speech of a geographical area is relatively homo—
geneous, the dialect of that area is said to be regional
or geographical. If the speech community consists of a
social class, one speaks of a class or social dialect.
Dialects differ from one another to such degree that they

5

are considered separate languages. The "standard" iorm

of language is itself a social dialect.7

Garble
Extraneous matter or any group of words that could

not be understood as American English syntax.8

Grammar
A body of generalizations describing a language; a
grammar usually excludes the purely lexical (vocabulary)

and phonetic aspects of language.

Instructional Technology

 

"A systematic way of designing, carrying out,
and evaluating the total process of learning and teaching
in terms of specific objectives, based on research in
human learning and communication, and employing a combina-
tion of human and nonhuman resources to bring about

effective instruction."9

 

7Harold G. Shane, Linguistics and the Classroom
Teacher (Washington, D.C.: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Department, NBA, 1967), p. 105.

 

8Kellogg W. Hunt, Grammatical Structures Written at
Three Grade Levels, NCTE Research Report No. 3 (Champaign:
National Council of Teachers of English, 1965), p. 6.

 

 

To Improve Learning, p. 19.

 

Idiolect

The sum total of an individual's language. Prac-
tically all features of a dialect idiolect are shared by
other dialect, but specific terms and the combination of

items make each idiolect unique.

Language
"A set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each
finite in length and constructed out of finite set of

10 Language is a "purely human and noninstinc-

elements."
tive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires
by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.

These symbols are, in the first instance, auditory and

 

 

they are produced by the so-called 'organs of speech.”11
Linguistics

The scientific study of language.
Morphemes

The smallest unit of meaning. This may be a word

or a part of a word.

Morphology

 

A study of the forms of language, of the meaning-

ful units we call morphemes.

 

10Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures (The Hague:
Mouton and Company, 1956), p. 13.

 

llSapir, p. 8.

Nonstandard Language

 

Deviation from standard speech or writing.

Social Dialect

 

Language characteristic of a social class. (See

dialect.)

Speech
"A non-instinctive, acquired cultural function"12
produced by the articulatory organs of Homo sapiens and

arranged in accordance with the grammatical pattern

underlying a language.

Syntax

The study of the way words are arranged to form
phrases, clauses, and sentences; the ordering or arrange-

ment of morphemes.

Organization of the Study

 

This case history is developed in five chapters.‘
Chapter I begins with the statement of the purpose and
the need of the study. This chapter also relates some
basic assumptions about remedial students, presents an
overview of the methodology, and defines terms used in
the study.

Chapter II reviews the professional literature in
composition, pattern practice, and linguistic science as

it relates to the teaching of English.

 

12Ibid., p. 4.

 

10

Chapter III covers, in detail, both objectively
and subjectively, the procedure employed in teaching,
including the planned schedule.

Chapter IV presents the description of actual
class activities.

Chapter V evaluates the academic progress of the
students, the attitudes toward English, the use of media
in teaching English, and the emphasis on language. This
chapter, also, draws some generalizations about the
approach and suggests further exploration for the nature

of language as a basis for teaching remedial English.

CHAPTER II

A SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE AND RESEARCH

Courses in the nature of language are frequently
taught to advanced college students, but the idea of
using selected media to teach the nature of language to
remedial classes seems to be a new approach. The litera—
ture in this area is limited, yet facets of the idea may
be seen in some of the research and publications regarding
composition, pattern practice, and linguistics in the
teaching of English.

Even though there are numerous studies comparing
methods of teaching composition, this review will include
those recent studies that used the selected media employed
in this investigation to present cognitive information,
those dealing with writing frequency upon proficiency,

and those that are concerned with linguistic structures.

Research in Composition

 

Maize reported that "students learn their language
by using it continually thru repeated and varied writing

experiences," and "the act of writing is in itself a

11

12

discipline which requires organization of ideas and use
of language to express those ideas."1 His experiment
conducted at Purdue University was with freshmen students
with IQ averages of 99 and an average reading level of
tenth grade. The control group taught by the grammar
drill method wrote about 250 words per theme each week
for a total of 14 themes. The experimental group was
taught by the laboratory method. Students in the eXperi-
mental group wrote 42 themes, essentially one theme a day.
From the research Maize concluded that students taught by
the laboratory method, involving increased frequency of
writing and student evaluation of their peers, showed
significant gains over the control group.

The Buxton experiment conducted at the University
of Alberta was concerned with the effect of frequency of
writing and practice upon skills in written expression.
The experiment sought to determine 1) whether or not
regular practice in writing would result in a significant
improvement in writing skills, and 2) which of the three
methods used--control, writing, or revision was superior
in improving writing skills. All three groups had regular
practice in writing for a period of seven months. The
writing method employed no corrections or suggestions for
improvement but commented generously upon the efforts of

the students. In the revision method both positive and

 

1Ray C. Maize, "A Theme a Day," NEA Journal, 42

(September, 1953), pp. 335-336.

 

l3

adverse comments were made, papers were thoroughly marked
and graded, and suggestions for revisions to be made in
class were given.

The following conclusions have been taken from the
study:2

1. . . . the students in the three groups did not
differ significantly in their gain on the two
objective post-tests, but did differ signifi—
cantly in the gain on the post-test essay
examination. . . . Essay examinations can be
used to measure changes which may not be meas—
ured by objective tests.

2. College freshmen whose writing is graded and
thoroughly marked and criticized and who revise
their papers in the light of these matters can
improve their writing more than college fresh—
men whose writing receives a few general
suggestions but no grade or intensive marking
and who do not revise their papers.

In 1952 Dressel, Schmid, and Kincaid at Michigan
State University designed an experiment considering two
groups of freshmen students--"those who had the most and
those who had the least essay~type writing."3 This study
supported the idea that writing without emphasis on
quality will not yield improved writing skills. The final

theme grade for the two groups did not differ signifi-

cantly.

 

2Earl W. Buxton, "An Experiment to Test the
Effects of Writing Frequency and Guided Practice Upon
Students' Skill in Written Expression," Research in
Written Composition, Summarized by Richard Braddock,
et al. (National Council of Teachers of English, 1963),

pp. 69-70.

3Paul Dressel, John Schmid, and Gerald Kincaid,
"The Effect of Writing Frequency Upon Essay—type Writing
Proficiency at the College Level," Journal of Educational
Research, 46 (December, 1952), p. 287.

 

 

 

14

The recommendation and conclusions include the
following:

One salient and deplorable finding in the study was
that there are many college students who apparently
do no composition work during their freshman year
other than that required in the communication skills
course. This may be taken as a severe indictment of
the modern college curriculum which purports to train
the students in methods of analysis with little or no
opportunity for the student, himself, to organize
knowledge acquired in the various courses, other than
that necessary to answer objective type examination

questions. Apparently, the only synthesis required
for some students is that of relating lectures and
textbooks. Unless synthesis involving more extensive

original thinking is encouraged, the achievement of
desired outcomes of education is questionable.

Frank Heys5 generalized his research at the
Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Sudbury, Massachu-
setts, in the following manner:

1. Frequent writing practice probably yields
greater dividends in grades 12 than in 9,
10, and 11.

2. Frequent writing practice probably yields
greater dividends with low groups than with
middle and high groups.

3. Frequent writing practice with low groups yields
greater dividends within the area of content and
organization than within the area of mechanics
or of diction and rhetoric.

The statistical findings in this research are

referred to as chancy, yet Heys concluded that:6

 

41bid., p. 292.

5Frank Heys, Jr., "The Theme-A-Week Assumption:
A Report from an Experiment," English Journal, 51 (May,
1962), p. 322.

61bid.

 

 

 

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15
l. The claim that the way to learn to write is to
write is not substantiated by this experiment.
2. The claim that ability to write well is related

to the amount of writing done is not substanti-

ated by this experiment.

Supporting the research findings of Dressel and
Heys on the effect of frequency in writing upon perform-
ance in writing compositions is the cooperative research
project directed by Burton and Arnold in 1963. The
analysis of data revealed "no differences in group per-
formance resulting from writing practice or intensity of
evaluation."7 The researchers concluded that in the
improvement of writing 1) intensive evaluation is no more
effective than moderate evaluation, 2) frequent practice
does not assure improvement, 3) no one combination of
methods involving frequency and intensity of evaluation
is better than another, and 4) neither method is more
effective for one ability level.8

Wolf also tested the hypothesis that writing
proficiency improves as more writing demands are made of
freshmen English students. His secondary objective was
to test the correlation between knowledge of grammar and

ability to write well. From the experiment in 1964-65

 

7Dwight L. Burton and Lois V. Arnold, Effects of
Frequency of Writing and Intensity of Teacher Evaluation
Upon High School Students' Performance in Written Compo—
sition, United States Office of Education Cooperative
Research Project No. 1523 (Tallahassee, Florida: Florida
State University, 1963), p. 62.

 

81bid.

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16

with two regular English classes and four remedial English
classes at the University of Massachusetts he concluded
that: 9

l. A statistical analysis of the test essay scores

in this study does not support the hypothesis

that writing proficiency improves as writing

frequency increases in a college freshman course.

2. The results of this study support the hypothesis

that there is a high correlation between a

student's knowledge of English grammar and

mechanics, as demonstrated in an objective test,
and his ability to write well, as demonstrated

in his expository prose.

An experiment at the Metropolitan Junior College
in Kansas City during the fall semester of 1963-64 was
conducted by Mark A. Christiansen "to discover whether
there was any difference between two groups of students
in the kind of improvement . . . in composition writing
at the end of the first semester in Freshman English."lO
One hundred forty-eight students randomly enrolled in
either an experimental or control group. The control
group wrote eight themes and read prose selections while
the experimental group wrote 24 themes without reading
prose selections. Two teachers along with Christiansen

were given an equal number of classes in the experiment

and were told to follow two syllabi, one for each group,

 

9Melvin H. Wolf, Effect of Writing Frequency Upon
Proficiency in a College Freshman English Course, United
States Office of Education Cooperative Research Project
No. 5-0857 (Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massa-
chusetts, 1966), p. 31.

10Mark A. Christiansen, "Tripling Writing and
Omitting Reading in Freshman English: An Experiment,"
College Composition and Communication, 16 (May, 1965),
p. 122.

 

 

 

17

and to consider on a fifteen point grading scale the points
of central idea and analysis, supporting material, organi~
zation, expression and literacy in evaluating compositions.

Emerging from this experiment are conclusions
similar to those of Dressel, Heys, Burton and Arnold, and
Wolf. Christiansen concluded that there was no significant
difference between the two groups at the end of the eXperi-
mental period. However, he noted that both groups showed
significant improvement in one semester. Thus, he
postulated that student writing can be noticeably improved
in a semester's time.

Carter's study of remedial English at Grambling
College compared two methods of studying composition to
determine their relative effectiveness in improving written
and spoken English. The two methods used were 1) the
traditional, involving lectures, use of textbooks, grammar
drills, class discussion, and impromptu essays, designed
to emphasize the most frequently occurring errors of
typical college freshmen; 2) the laboratory method, using
structured, unrehearsed verbal recordings of classroom
responses and mimeographed copies of the same material as
teaching content for better student understanding of

English without the use of textbooks or workbooks.

18

The major conclusions of this study are as

follows:11

1. The traditional method and the laboratory or
experimental method are equally productive as
means of teaching written English skills.

2. The laboratory method is apparently somewhat
superior to the traditional method as a means
of teaching spoken English skills.

3. The two methods are equally effective in con-
tributing to immediate subsequent improvement
in written and spoken skills.

4. Under conditions described in the investigation,

no demonstrated difference is to be expected in
the two methods of teaching remedial English.

Pattern Practice

 

Significant to the present writer's investigation
are studies which used pattern practice. The rationale
behind pattern practice is best stated by Marckwardt in

. . 12

the follow1ng lines:
. . . most of us would like our students to achieve
in their writing a greater dexterity in the manipu-
lation of the structural patterns of the language
than is usual with them. In order to accomplish
this, we must get them to recognize the patterns
that they normally employ first of all, then show
them ways in which these may be expanded.

Ruth Golden's study in the Detroit public schools

used patterns to expand dialect. The purpose of her study

was to evaluate the audio—language laboratory technique as

 

llLamore J. Carter, Bessie E. Dickerson, and
Tilden Lemelle, Comparison of Two Methods of Teaching
Composition to College Freshmen (Washington, D. C.: Cooper-
ative Research Project No. 1704, 1963), p. 44.

12Albert H. Marckwardt, Linguistics and the Teach-
ing of English (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1966). pp. 81-82.

 

 

 

 

19

a means of improving regional speech patterns of students
who spoke primarily Southern Rural and whose immediate
speech environment was that of Northern Urban. An objec-
tive of the study was the production of magnetic tapes
designed to explain the structure of the English language,
improve articulation, and to meet the language requirement
of the area.

According to Golden, the audio—language laboratory
should 1) aid in the enculturation process since language
and culture are interwoven, 2) offer a constructive plan
for meeting a problem of national interest--the teaching
of English, 3) help to cope with increased enrollment by
enabling the student to get a sense of individual instruc—
tion and at the same time freeing the teacher to work
creatively with students, and 4) improve the student's
vocational potential.

Golden summarized her findings in this statement:13

In changing speech habits . . . the most significant
factor is Group, meaning the instructional auditory
learning through tapes. This auditory instruction
was significant in contrast to the visual learning
at the .01 level and showed more significance when
combined with other factors than did any other
single variable. The second most pertinent factor
is education, also significant by itself at the .01
level. The third most significant factor is Sex,
showing significance by itself at the .05 level.

The fourth most significant variable is Teacher-Time,
and the fifth is Mental Abilities, neither of the

latter two showing significance when partialled out
alone.

 

l3Ruth I. Golden, Effectiveness of Instruction
Tapes for Changing Regional Speech Patterns (Washington,
D. C.: Title VII, Project No. 559, 1962), p. 108.

 

 

20

The investigation of the use of pattern practice in
college revealed only two studies at the college level.
The three-year cooperative Research Project directed by
San-su C. Lin at Clafin College was concerned with the
extent to which pattern practice techniques might help
Black students to master standard English. The second
concern of the project was to work out materials and pro-
cedures to teach English as a second language. The
students in the experimental part of the project went to
the language laboratory one class period per day, six
days a week, using four lessons in pattern practice each
week with two periods for review. The students in the
control group had exactly the same class instruction and
laboratory time as the experimental group, but their
laboratory time was spent in discussion of current events
rather than on pattern practice. The results of these
drills show that:

1. With the help of pattern practice many students
established control of the new patterns; however,
the control was not always consistent.

2. Students in both groups, control and experimental,
developed a keen awareness of acceptable usage.

3. The students acquired greater self—confidence and
determination for improvement in dealing with
dialect problems.

4. Out of enthusiasm the students shared their under—

standing with others not in the project.

21

Even though not directly related to the aim of the

U1

project, the scores of the project students on the
Cooperative English Test showed that the experimental
group made greater gains in reading after a year of
patterns than did the members of the control group.

Finally, Dr. Lin discovered that "techniques which
involve repetitious drill to establish the control over
one unit of grammatical structure at a time, do not appeal
greatly to college students."l4

Fisher designed a linguistically based study to
teach remedial composition at the State University College
at Oswego, New York. First, he determined what errors
students made, then devised lessons based not only on the
errors, but also on suitable teaching methods. The method
used with the experimental group was the oral practice
approach; the control group was taught conventionally with
traditional textbook.

In order to determine whether the oral practice
lesson would prove to be more effective than traditional
methods, the group had to be tested. The objective
testing device used for both pre-test and post-test was

the American Council on Education's Cooperative English

Test, Mechanics of Expression.

 

l4San-su C. Lin, Pattern Practice in the Teaching
of Standard English to Students with Non-Standard Dialect
(New York: Bureau of Publication Teachers College,
Columbia University, 1965), p. 140.

 

22

Pattern practice exercises in repeating, substitu-
ting, and transforming were devised from two papers of
approximately 300 words each written by each student of
the experimental group during the first week of classes.
These papers totalled 10,000 words.

The greatest number of errors in the 10,000 words
written by the students were found to be in verb tense
and sequence with omission of affixes causing most of
the errors. Numerous run—on sentences were counted;
unbalanced verb forms caused errors in parallelism;
misplaced prepositions and sentence groups accounted for
a large part of the total errors. To sum up the findings
Fisher included an analysis of errors.

The results of the study show that pattern prac-
tice is more effective than traditional methods. The
t-value of the control group was 2.86, and the t—value
of the experimental group was 5.98. Subjective tests
showed that eight of the fourteen in the control were to
be admitted to regular freshman composition; all twenty-
two of the students in the experimental group were

admitted to freshman composition.15

Composition and Linguistic Structures

 

Among the studies in composition dealing with

linguistic structures is Golub's investigation of some

 

15John C. Fisher, Linguistics in Remedial English
(The Hague: Mouton and Company, 1966), pp. 1-54.

 

23

linguistic structures which distinguish compositions that
teachers rate high from compositions that teachers rate
low. He concluded that of the 35 predetermined linguistic
items appearing in examples of eleventh grade speech and
writing, rated high or low by experienced teachers,
students very frequently used such items as V-b+N, a verb
phrase containing a verb 29 and a noun, adverbial words,
or transitionals and connectors. Students quite frequently
used nine other items such as T-neg, negations, and
figurative language. Included in six items virtually
unused in the students oral and written discourse were
constructions such as T-passive, the passive voice, and
V-t + N + N, a transitive verb followed by a direct object
preceded by an indirect object. Implications of his
findings place the emphasis in grammar study on those
items that are not part of the linguistic pattern of the
student. "By rapidly pointing out to the students what
they already use and then emphasizing the linguistic
structures which the students have a potential for using
or which they use not at all, the teacher can economize
and focus class time."16
Emerging from this study are questions concerning

the connection between language and thought:17

 

l6Lester S. Golub, "Linguistic Structures in
Students' Oral and Written Discourse," Research in the
Teaching of English, 3 (Spring, 1969), p. 84.

17Ibid., p. 85.

 

 

24

1. Why are lexical ambiguities almost nonexistent
in student discourse, but syntactic ambiguities
are present?

2. Why do students who do poorly in oral discourse
use an abundance of negatives?

3. Why do students who do poorly in oral discourse
use an abundance of present tense?

4. Why are there fewer interpretive statements in
the writing of students who appear to get high
ratings from teachers and significantly more
interpretive statements in the writing of
students who receive low grades from teachers?

5. Why, among the students who receive low ratings
in oral and written discourse, is there consid-
erably more content specific vocabulary in their
written than in their oral discourse?

The Whalen study sought to clarify the relation—
ship between a student's knowledge of grammar and his
ability in composition and to show the relationship of
total language ability to writing skills. Whalen points
out that research dating as far back as 1906 indicates a
positive but low correlation between grammar and composi-
tion. His "Total English equals writing competence"
exposes, he claims, some areas of the weakness in the
reported research. The subjective reading of composition
and nonmlinguistic definitions of grammar affect the low
correlation. His study showed that only 5.8 per cent of
the total errors found in the papers of the students were
grammatical, yet the grammar test was used as a predictor
of composition skills. A canonical correlation of 91 per

cent between total language and ability to write techni-

CZally competent English composition proved, to him, that

25

there is a positive relationship between the components
of total English instruction and how well students perform
in written discourse.l8

Since research on whether writing will be improved
by using the linguistic "method" over the traditional
method on the college level is limited, this section of
the review will report those notable secondary school
studies in composition which used the research of the
linguists.

Using the principles of linguistic science as

found in Paul Roberts' Patterns of English to teach one

 

group of students and the traditional grammar to teach
another group of students, Suggs conducted his experiment
in eleventh grade English classes in Avon Park, Florida,
in 1959-60. Students were matched on mental ability and
past performance in English; instructional programs for
both groups except during the thirteen-weeks experiment
were the same; standardized writing tests of identical
forms were used as pre- and post-tests. Mrs. Suggs con-
cluded that "From the results obtained . . . it seems
quite safe to conclude that the difference of ten points
in the average converted scores (Group A=300, Group B=290)
lends definite proof that instruction in the English

language according to the principles of linguistic science

 

18Thomas H. Whalen, "Total English Equals Writing
Competence," Research in the Teaching of English, 3
(Spring, 1967), pp. 52-61.

 

26

is superior to traditional grammar in its practical
application to writing."19
Hunt's study comparing grammatical structures
written in grades four, eight, and twelve attacks the
question of how sentence structures used at one grade
level differ from those at another grade level. Using
what he called the T—unit, he defined the bounds of a
sentence and thereby established a base for his systematic
investigation of sentence structures. His study, however,
did not delineate a well-defined sentence, yet it did
point to the "linguistic maturity" within age groups.

The T-unit length is tied in some way to maturity. Hunt

concluded his investigation with:20
. . . not all structures . . . increase with age.
Verb complements . . . do not. Consequently this

study can be said to have identified, to have
isolated, some of what are apparently growth buds.

The Bateman-Zindois study sought to measure the
effect that the teaching of generative grammar had upon
ninth and tenth grade writers. Specifically the study
was concerned with the application of generative rules
in writing, the increase in grammatical structures, the

increase of well-formed sentences, and types, occurrence,

 

19Lena Reddick Suggs, "Structural Grammar Versus
Traditional Grammar in Influencing Writings," English
(Journal, 50 (March, 1961), p. 178.

20Kellogg W. Hunt, Differences in Grammatical
EStructures Written at Three Grade Levels, The Structures
tr: be Analyzed by Transformational Method," United States
Cfffice of Education Cooperative Research Project No. 1998
(CFallahassee: Florida State University, 1964), p. 141.

27

and decrease of errors. An implication of the study is

that an understanding of the generative grammar process

enables the student to write well—formed sentences.21
A method of enhancing the development of syntactic

fluency in English composition was designed by Mellon.

This experiment assigned treatment to three groups:

1) Experimental--receiving sentence combining problems,

2) Control—-receiving traditional parsing exercises, and

3) Placebo--receiving no grammar but receiving extra

instruction in literature and composition. Transformational

sentence combining was not treated as a part of the

student's grammar work. Mellon's rationale for the study

was to test whether "as a natural result of prior sentence

combining practice, the student would produce sentences

whose structures would be more mature than those of

"22 Mellon

sentences he would otherwise have written.
concluded that the growth of the experimental group was
significantly greater than that observed in the control

and placebo groups.

 

21Donald Bateman and Frank Zidonis, The Effect of
a Study of Transformational Grammar on the WEItigg of
Ninth and Tenth Graders, NCTE Research Report No. 6
(Champaign: National Council of Teachers of English,
1966), p. 39.

22John C. Mellon, Transformational Sentence-
Combining: A Method for Enhancing the Development of
Syntactic Fluency in English Composition, NCTE Research
Report No. 10 (Champaign: National Council of Teachers
of English, 1969), p. 25.

 

 

 

 

 

28

Linguistics and the Classroom Teacher

Early works by Americans that paved the way for
the linguistic look at how English should be taught were
written by Sapir,23 Bloomfield,24 and Fries.

Among the recent publications dealing with linguis-
tics and the classroom teacher is Gleason's comprehensive
book that places the new grammar beside several other
grammars. Gleason believes that English grammars should
be discussed historically first.26 Owen Thomas' publica-
tion describes those aspects of transformational grammar--

a term that came into prominence with Chomsky's Syntactic
27

 

Structures—-that have relevance for teachers of English.

 

Warfel and Lloyd's publication deals with English and how
it works in American society. Of significance in this
book is the treatment of basic sentence patterns of

English speech.28 Marckwardt, another contributor to the

 

23Edward Sapir, Language (New York: Harcourt,
Brace and World, Inc., 1921), p. 242.

24Leonard Bloomfield, Language (New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston, Inc.), p. 564.

25Charles C. Fries, American English Grammar (New
York: Appleton Century-Crofts, Inc., 1940), p. 314.

 

 

26H. A. Gleason, Jr., Linguistics and English
Grammar (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc.,
1965), p. 27.

27

Owen Thomas, Transformational Grammar and the
Teacher of English (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
Inc., 1965), p. 240.

28Donald J. Lloyd and Harry R. Warfel, American
English in Its Cultural Setting (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1956), p. 553.

 

 

 

29

literature for teachers, focuses his discussion on the

role of grammar. He states that "the role of grammar in

the curriculum has been both shrinking and changing focus."29

Conversely, Shane discusses the nature of linguistics and

its implications for the classroom teacher.30
The "classic" of all journal articles is David I.

McDavid Jr.'s article, "Mencken Revisited." As he traces

some of the problems, people, and claims of linguistics,

he focuses his discussion by means of H. L. Menckens'

American Language.31 W. Nelson Francis, a prolific writer

 

on the nature of language, stated in 1954 that the revolu-

tion taking place in grammar is long overdue.32 Ten years

later he adds:33

. that teaching in the light of the latest,
the most compendious, and the most profound
thinking on the subject is a paramount duty of
the English—teaching profession for the loftiest
of reasons.

Harold B. Allen relates the advancement in linguis-

tics to a journey from prairies to mountains:34

 

29Marckwardt, p. 7.

30Harold G. Shane, Linguistics and the Classroom
Teacher (Washington, D. C. Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development, NEA, 1967), pp. 1-120.

31Raven I. McDavid, Jr., "Mencken Revisited,"
Harvard Education Review (1962), pp. 211—225.

32W. Nelson Francis, "Revolution in Grammar,"
Quarterly Journal of Speech, 40 (October, 1954), pp. 299-312.
33W. Nelson Francis, "Linguistics in the English
' College English, 26 (October, 1966), p. 15.

34Harold B. Allen, "From Prairies to Mountain,"
College English, 26 (January, 1965), pp. 260-266.

 

 

 

Program,‘

 

 

30

The foothills are the first disturbing impact of
English study, English linguistics upon the field
of composition. The Rockies are the heights to
which I think the discipline of composition can
rise through the uplifting power of new research
in rhetoric and the application of new linguistic
knowledge.

On the subject of composition, Sumner Ives discusses the

difference between linguistics and rhetoric:35
Any piece of writing whether it is a student theme
or a literary classic is a linguistic performance.
When looking at any such performance, we are
entitled to consider it as an attempt at communica—
tion. An analysis of what the writer has done-—of
his performance itself—-may legitimately include
consideration of how he has utilized the linguistic
resources available to him—~which include both the
lexical and the syntactic components of the language
he is using.

Not only is the literature filled with analyses of
the principles of composition, but there are attempts at
presenting methodology. Among those specific in the
analysis of linguistic concepts is Sister Marie Aquin,36
who writes about using a structural approach to teach
composition. The detailed analysis of basic sentences is
related to pattern practice without rules but with
descriptions of writings. Another work in methodology
was written by Frances Christensen who believes, "We need

a rhetoric of the sentence that will do more than combine

the idea of primer sentences. We need one that will

 

35Sumner Ives, "The Relevance of Language Study,"

College Composition and Communication, 14 (October, 1963),
p. 155.

36Sister Marie Aquin, "A Structural Approach to
the Freshman Theme," College Composition and Communication,
11 (February, 1960), pp. 43-50.

31
37

generate ideas." An analysis is made of the modifier,

the essential part of the sentence.

Dialect Studies

 

Of final importance to the discussion is the impact
of dialect research on the teaching of English. The
literature in this area if voluminous. Only a well chosen
few will be reported here.

The stages in the development of dialect studies
are somewhat similar to the stages in the development of

English. In Raven I. McDavid's38 review of social dialect

in America, he points to the now" stage of social dialect.
Instead of a new dialect, a new mode of communi-
cation, being offered as a replacement of the
habitual home patterns, it was suggested that
it be presented as an alternative mode, expressly
suited for the classroom, the department store,
the clerical office, and other places where a
non-standard variety of speech (and writing) would
put a person at a disadvantage; if he chose to use
the old mode in the home, on the playground, at
camp, or in other relaxed situations, it was to be
recognized that such modes, too have their proper
uses. The aim, in other words, was to foster
conscious BI-DIALECTUALISM . . .

Labov's investigation, reported in 1966, of social
stratification of English in New York City opened avenues
for many of the later studies in social dialect. Labov's

impetus for his investigation was found "in the conviction

 

37Frances Christensen, "A Generative Rhetoric of
the Sentence," College Composition and Communication, 14
(October, 1963), p. 155.

8Raven I. McDavid, Jr., "American Social Dialect,"
College English, 26 (January, 1965), p. 257.

 

32

that language is no less determinate than other forms of

social behavior" and that language "is more highly

39

determined than other forms." Using five phonological

variables--/r/ as in SEE! /ae/ as in Egg, /3/ as in caught,
/8/ as in Ehing, and /J/ as in Ehgn~-he postulated that
variation exists within a social dialect in different
styles and in different situations.

Roger Shuy's4O Detroit research on disadvantaged
Blacks, the impact of which is not fully accepted and
rightfully so, neatly and provocatively sums up the dialect
problem in the following way:

1. That each dialect has a structure quite
adequate for its users. 'Omissions,’ if
they exist, are not merely careless. Varia-
tions in tense may be quite patterned.
Apparently 'unnecessary repetition' may,
within that system, be quite necessary.

2. That there are certain features of pronuncia-
tion, grammar, and vocabulary which can be
considered indices of special stratification.
These indices will become the focus of English
teachers' attention.

3. That in most cases, it will be best not to
destroy a lower class social dialect, for
its user may need it to survive in certain
social situations. Instead it may be best
to add to it a new social dialect which will
be useful for getting ahead in the world.

 

39William Labov, The Social Stratification of
English in New York City (Washington, D. C., 1966),
pp. 48-49.

40Roger W. Shuy, "Detroit Speech: Careless,
Awkward, and Inconsistent, or Systematic, Graceful, and
Regular?" Elementary English, XLV (May, 1968), p. 568.

 

 

 

33

4. That in order to build this second dialect, it
is best to know the structure of both the lower
class dialect and the target dialect.
At the present time, according to Professor Beryl
Baily, methods of teaching English are directed toward the
refinement of already existing skills of the native speaker.
He laments that another segment of the population can not
profit by the techniques commonly used. For this part of
the population he suggests a special approach to the
teaching of English--the foreign language technique. To
support his argument, he uses the grammatical structures
of 100 pre-freshmen at Tougaloo College in Mississippi.
Thus he states:41
. . . that formal grammar training in correct usage
and extensive exposure to formal texts have produced
high school graduates with a facile and confident
use of language, and that persistent deviant lan-
guage behavior is directly traceable to a dialectal
substratum, which has not felt the effects of years
of effort at change in the classroom.
As an answer to the idea of teaching English as a
foreign language to disadvantaged students, Nick Aaron

Ford and the late Walter Turpin of Morgan State College

make the following assumptions:

 

41Beryl Loftman Baily, "Some Aspects of the Impact
of Linguistics on Language Teaching in Disadvantaged
Communities," Elementary English, XLV (May, 1968), p. 575.

42Nick Aaron Ford, "Improving Reading and Writing
Skills of Disadvantaged College Freshmen," College Composi-
.Egon and Communication, 18 (May, 1967), pp. 102-3.

 

34

We assume that culturally disadvantaged students
not only can learn to master standard English as
a primary—IEnguage but that the majority of them
want to do so. We deny the doctrine of Dr.
Riessman, Professor of Educational Sociology at
New York University, who says in an article in
the Saturday Review, September 17, 1966:

The key ground rule of the Dialect Game—-for
both teacher and teaching situation--is
acceptance of the students' nonstandard pri-
mary language. The instructor who makes
clear to his pupils that their primary lan-
guage is not something to be denied or
suppressed, but is in fact a linguistic
entree to that other language which, in more
formal curcumstances, can produce more effec-
tive results, is building firmly on positive
grounds.

We believe a teacher who is guided by this doctrine
will not be building on positive grounds, but
rather on sinking sand of condescension and denial
of the ability of the disadvantaged student to
master the predominant dialect of his native land,
a dialect that he and more than fifteen generations
of his forefathers have intimately lived with from
birth. It is the duty of the teacher to demand
that disadvantaged students discard their substan-
dard dialect as the first step in the process of
discarding the ghetto and second class citizenship.

Professor Sledd's43 comment on social dialect

research should be carefully studied.

The immorality of that effort is the chief reason
why enforced bi-dialectalism should not be
tolerated even if it were possible. Predators

can and do use dialect differences to exploit and
oppress, because ordinary peOple can be made to
doubt their own value and to accept subservience

if they can be made to despise the speech of their
fathers. Obligatory bi-dialectalism for minorities
is only another mode of exploitation, another way

of making blacks behave as whites would like them
to.

 

3James Sledd, "Bi-Dialectalism: The Linguistics
of White Supremacy," English Journal, 58 (December, 1969),
p. 1314.

35

Professor Sledd sums up his discussion in this
44
manner:
. . . the direct attack on minority language, the
attempt to compel bi-dialectalism, should be
abandoned for an attempt to open the minds and
enhance the lives of the poor and ignorant. At
the same time, every attempt should be made to
teach the majority to understand the life and
language of the oppressed. Linguistic change is
the effect and not the cause of social change.
If the majority can rid itself of its prejudices,
and if the minorities can get or be given an
education, differences between dialects are
unlikely to hurt anybody much.

Summary

Studies cited have related the impact of certain
findings about the nature of language to the teaching of
remedial English. The studies in frequency in writing
indicate that increased writing alone does not increase
proficiency in writing. There must be a well defined
purpose in writing.

The pattern practice studies indicate that pattern
practice can increase proficiency in acquiring new patterns,
but there is also an indication that for adults the pro-
cedure is dull and uninteresting.

The linguistic studies further advance the claims
of the linguists that an understanding of how the English
language is put together does help the writer to generate
better sentences. These studies support the idea that a

new approach to teaching English does not impede the

 

44Ibid., pp. 1315, 1329.

36

progress of students toward proficiency in writing, and in
most cases it helps.

The literature citing the need to use a grammar
that generates sentences rather than a grammar that pre-
scribes sentences is of the utmost importance if we expect
students to handle the native language.

The dialect research and literature clearly indicate
that the study of syntax of patterns of English that
deviate from that which is considered standard has been
done, or rather overdone. The issue now becomes how we
can make use of these findings. The time has come to stop
the "awing" about interesting locutions. The time is here
to design those instructional materials necessary for the
disadvantaged student to handle his language in a variety
of ways as he deems necessary for whatever purpose he

needs.

CHAPTER III

PROCEDURES

Statement of the Problem

 

The primary concern of this case study is to
explore the effects of a mediated course in the nature of
language on the attitudes of students toward English and
to their success in acquiring a form of English which
communicates across the American culture without undue

abrasiveness.

Origin of the Stugy

 

During the Spring of 1970 the writer along with
several other fellows from the V-E Institute in Instruc-
tional Development and Technology1 took internships in
the Learning Resource Center which serves some of the
needs of University College, including the Developmental
English program at Michigan State University. The direc-
tor of Developmental English, Jane Featherstone, articu-

lated the interest of the department in trying different

 

lElwood E. Miller, Director, ”An Institute for
Pre-Service and In-Service Training of College and Univer—
sity Teachers in Instructional Development and Technology,"
1969-70, Michigan State University.

37

38

methods and materials which might help those students
having difficulty speaking and writing standard forms of
English. As a result of these articulated needs, in the
fall of 1970 the writer was given an experimental class
in Developmental English which permitted an approach to
the improvement of remedial English using selected media

to teach the nature of language.

Identification of Problems

 

In isolating errors Fisher's2 intention was to
teach at the point of error. Following a similar format,
the most frequent errors found in student's papers in the
experimental class were isolated. Using around 500 words
written by each student during the first week of class,
the greatest syntactical errors consisted of run-on
sentences, sentence fragments, and verb tense sequence.
Students frequently omitted the verb suffixes of 3g, g,

es, ing, and SE affixes. Other problems found in the

 

papers were lack of sentence variety; that is, failure to
use adjectival and noun clauses, prepositional phrases,
participles and gerunds. Faulty parallel structure was
also noted.

The problem of spelling was not of specific concern
to this study and was too involved to attack in ten weeks

along with syntactical errors. One could say a whole new

 

2John C. Fisher, Linguistics in Remedial English,

 

p..33.

39

way of spelling was introduced. Some examples may be

seen in hads for have or has, gpplice for apply, and fite

 

 

for fight. After the first set of papers students were

allowed to use their dictionaries for in-class writing.

The Students

 

Fifteen students scoring in the bottom 7 per cent
on the Michigan State entrance examination chose the
experimental section of English 101A. Of the fifteen
students choosing the class nine were native—born Black
Americans; five were native-born white Americans; one was
born in Poland but had lived in America for the last six
years. Fourteen of the group had received their high-
school education in Michigan. One was educated in a

military academy in Virginia.

Descriptions

 

The following notations about each student were
made after the first week of class and after the first

set of papers.

Student 1, Paula

 

Background and Attitude.--Paula was an eighteen-

 

year-old tall, heavy Black female who completed her high
school training in a suburban town just outside of Detroit.
Paula arrived three days after the first day of class, but
did not inquire about requirements. She was asked to come
to the office to get the necessary information. During

this interview, as she smiled sweetly, she mentioned that

40

her grade point average in high school English was "B,"
but that she didn't know "nothing." She did add that she
really wanted to be good in English, but that she really

didn't like English, not that she had anything against it.

Quality of English.--An analysis of her papers

 

showed that her greatest problems were run-on sentences,
sentence fragments, and limited terminal marks. One
paper used 100 morphemes with only three terminal marks.
This language should be taught to them by someone
who needed help and you couldn't tell anyone you
would just be in very deep trouble because if you
couldn't communicate well enough to receive help
for anyone.
"And" was used to connect any two ideas, usually unrelated
ideas.
I'll pull the blinds and see it raining and when

I went to the bed the skies were clear.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 17 20 37 216
National % ll 7 7 32
MSU % l 0 0 3

 

Paula's writing was often illegible and her spelling weak.

41

Student 2, Thad

 

Background and Attitude.--Thad was an eighteen-

 

year-old white male interested in playing football because
he loved the game. Coming from a town of 94,000 peOple,
he felt that attending Michigan State was an honor and an
accomplishment. His personality was outgoing and his
laughter was hearty. He often joined the young men in the
back of the classroom who expressed their pleasure in a
volume that often disturbed others.

Last summer he worked for his dad in a plastic
factory. From this experience he stated that he really

knew the value of getting an education.

Quality of Engligh.--Thad mentioned that he never

 

had any problems with English in high school because he
rarely had to write. He indicated that he liked English
all right, but he didn't like to write. In fact, in one
of his papers he wrote:

I really gig the clas. Its great.

His greatest problem was spelling along with his
poor penmanship. It took twice as long to read through
his papers as it did the average paper. Often he would
write fragments, use comma splices, and include some
garble. Many of his verb errors could be attributed to
his spelling. Examples are ipg for EELE and ghpg for

she's. He made every effort to keep his papers short.

42

To all further chemistry majors; change before

its to late. Chemistry is too difficult for

any normal human. As far as I'm concerned its a
waist of time and energy. There has got to be a
subject that I can major in. I haven's foud it yet
and I better hurry. At least I have eleminated on
possibility.

An example of garble is, "Its a adored."

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 33 42 75 216
National % 47 51 49 32
MSU % 16 22 17 3

 

Student 3, Nelle

 

Background and Attitude.--Dlelle's age was eighteen.

 

She was a tall Black female from a town of 19,000. Her
attitude toward college was wholesome, and she felt that
"college is what you make it." She has selected nursing
as her field of interest.

Three out of five of her papers made some remarks
about her family. College was her first experience away
from home for any time period.

When she was placed in Developmental English, she
was disappointed because her high school record in English
was 3.0, and she had been in the college preparatory track.
Thus, her attitude was that it was a waste of time for her
to be in the course. The entrance examination was "just

one of those things."

43

Quality of Writing.——Ne11e's writing was careful to

 

the extent that it was uninteresting. Often she omitted
periods, but one could tell the end of a sentence by the
capital letter. Often she wrote with correct interpreta-
tion of rules. Her knowledge of parallel structure was
good.

We were starting to ask questions, demand answers,
and work out our difficulties as best we could.

She did have difficulty with ing forms and sentence
fragments.

His conscious mind saying one thing and his better
judgement saying another.

How he can still be thought of as a man without
being under rated because of the way he handles
his own strifes.

Her penmanship was beautiful, but her printing

was illegible. It was suggested that she not print.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 30 40 70 359
National % 39 45 42 87
MSU % 9 17 10 31

 

Student 4, James

 

Background and Attitude.-—James was a slim Black

 

male who walked with a limp. He was nineteen years old.
Before coming to Michigan State University he attended a

six-week summer program offered to inner-city high school

44

students by Michigan State. His high school grade-point
average was less than required for admission to college.
He attributed his success, if any, to his experiences with
Upward Bound. On the other hand, he felt that another
course in English was not going to help him. He has had
many remedial courses.

James was quiet and somewhat shy. He responded
when spoken to but did not initiate a conversation.

His papers indicated that he had strong ties with
his family. He wrote about his parents and about how he

missed his brother who played football in high school.

Quality of Writing.--James' problems did not glare

 

at one. He hesitated to develop ideas. A sample para-
graph looked like this:

People use language to run for political office.
People use language for social activities.

There was a need to work on the verbs particularly
the ing forms and the verb to be.

Everyone on our street is probably doing the same
as my family except for Mr. Eli the old man across
the street. he is probably in bed asleep with his
light on. He has been doing that lately, and his
wife always fussing at him for this because she
says he runs up electricity.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 29 20 49 238
National % 37 7 16 44

MSU % 7 O 1 6

 

45

Student 5, Tim

 

Background and Attitude.--Tim, a sophisticated

 

27—year-old Black veteran of four years in the air force,
chose to stay in Developmental English even after it was
suggested that he might be more comfortable in a regular
English class. His Nelson Denny Test score was above
average for the class. He stated that he thought that he
would profit from the course since his grade point average
from a local high school was only 1.5. Tim's identifica-
tion with the ethnic origin of the teacher also influenced
his decision to remain in the class. He planned to become

a medical doctor.

Quality of Writing.--Tim understood English syntax,

 

His problem was with mechanics. These included especially

those mechanics that related to comma splices and run—on

sentences. Sometimes he used the wrong preposition and/or
pronoun. The excessive use of commas often got his
sentence structure in trouble. Like most of his classmates,

he had trouble spelling.

Our environment is composed of beauty far greater
than any man is able to completely appreciate.

Man has been trying for long as history can record
to try to capture and express the beauty which
surrounds him in his environment. In order to
capture this infinite amount of beauty man has to
have an infinite ability to see all that surrounds
him. By just looking one does not always see, by
just talking one does not always communicate, by
just listening one does not always hear it is for
these reasons (and many more) that man has limited
his self to living in a world that he can not
contr01.

46

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate

 

Raw Score 40 56 96 226
National % 63 86 75 38
MSU % 34 65 51 4

 

Student 6, Marie

 

Background and Attitude.--Marie, an eighteen-year-

 

old white American female, came to Michigan State from a
small town of 3,334 located in the Upper Peninsula.

Not passing the entrance examination was a shock to
Marie. She just couldn't believe it since her high school
grades were always satisfactory. The test result
embarrassed her.

Marie chose nursing as a career, but was hesitant
about which program to follow--a hospital training program
or a university program.

Responding in class was difficult for her. "It's

all so new,‘ she said.

Qualipy of Writing.-—Marie had considerable skill

 

in English, but limited her writing to short paragraphs.
Her papers showed that she needed to develop ideas starting
with a thesis sentence. Occasionally she would misplace
modifiers.

Walking up several flights of stairs, I lodged

myself in a seat and listened intentively to

the loud speaker which filled the statium with
announcements.

47

Marie would often stick commas in and would make
errors in pronoun agreement. Her spelling was sometimes
a problem. Like many of her classmates, she wrote whether
for weather as in her phrase "notern[northern] whether."
Even at that, her problems could not be classified as
serious. With some effort plus a healthy attitude she

could get the job done.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 32 44 76 275
National % 44 57 51 62
MSU % 14 26 18 11

 

Student 7, Harry

 

Harry was a twenty-two-year-old white male who had
just returned from two years in the navy. He mentioned
that he was slow and had to attack a problem at his pace.
He verbalized that Developmental English was necessary
for him if he planned to be successful in college. He did
not make any overt gesture to improve his competence.

Harry's home town is near the university and has
49,000 people. He was concerned about getting ahead in
the field that he had chosen--crimina1 justice. Along
with writing about criminal justice, he wrote about experi-
ences with his navy buddies. There was no indication that

he had a family.

48

He was a personable and relaxed young man. In

conversation he appeared to be rather intelligent.

Quality of Writing.--Harry's problem was serious.

 

He had so much to say but had not found an effective way to
say it. He did not understand English syntax. Almost
immediately it was evident that he did not know verb tense
and sequence. He would call "the" a verb.
The following is an example of his sentence

structure:

The field of criminal justice for it's expanding

field in so many different ways of criminal law

enforcement, also public safety, the correction

and type of probations, to help the youths and

adults of today and tomorrow.
The problem with the verbs he did use may be seen in the
following:

As in the case last night. A roommate of mine

decided it being a splendid idea to stop off

at his bar for fast beer, drinking pitcher by

pitcher.

In his spelling he substituted 3 for g; he spelled

 

 

standard as standerd and than as then; final e s were
often omitted.
NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A
Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score l6 16 32 207
National % 9 4 5 26

MSU % 1 O O 2

 

49

Student 8, Sigred

 

Background and Attitude.--Sigred was eighteen years

 

old and was very serious about school. In fact, she seemed
much more eager to learn than the other students. She
wrote about working hard to prove herself.

Sigred wore braces on her teeth and with her thick
EurOpean accent was not able to communicate effectively.
Even though she came from a town of 96,000, her overt
gestures revealed that her acquaintance with multi-ethnic
societies was limited, perhaps not welcomed. Once she
became visibly shaken when addressed by someone from an
ethnic group different from hers. This uneasiness did not
show in her relationship with the teacher. She was the
first to come to the office on her own volition.

Her high school grade point average was 2.88.

Quality of Writing.-—Not being a native speaker

 

present problems in syntax and in American idioms.

My hart is overjoyed from happiness that I have
so good.

When I have a free time during my periods, I
studied my subjects and read magazines fo my
pleasur.

I am proud to go here to school and study for my
bread later on . . .

In spelling she would often drop final e's and
would double consonants where traditional spelling requires

single ones.

50

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 26 44 70 384
National % 28 57 42 91
MSU % 4 26 10 39

 

Student 9, Ted

 

Background and Attitude.-—Ted was twenty-three years

 

old and had some difficulty in being admitted to the
university. As a Black American he felt that many of the
hardships that he encountered were unfair. He kept up his
guard to protect his sensitive feelings. His desire to

be recognized and to excel made him argumentative. During
the first week of class he indicated that he did not wish
to change and that he did not plan to lose his identity
with his ethnic origin. Black English was good enough for
him.

When he explained his point of view, not allowing
anyone else to speak, his brother who was seated on the
other side of the room agreed with him in tones equally as
forceful as his. Others joined him in his point of View.
Both he and his brother were hats and sunshades during
the class period.

It was impossible to get any specific information
from him. The records show that he came from a city of
200,000 peOple. To make sure that his brother did not

reveal any information, he started many of his orations

51

with, "My brother and I feel . . ." To really follow his
rationale was most difficult at time. He had a negative
effect on the timid members of the class.

Ted stated that his high school grade point aver-

age was 2.0.

Quality of Writing.--Ted passed in the first paper

 

that was requested of him, but he did not do the other
three out-of—class papers. This evaluation was based on
two rather lengthy papers. The out-of—class paper
attacked an issue that was important to him.

I would like to express my encoutment experience

of the past about this . . . The ordeal that I

went through was extremily fatigue experience

with authorities here about the . . . policy.

I did this laboring work not for my personal
goal, but for Black people was one deprived of
something that we felt will bring us some freedom
of learn something of life pleasure.

He loved multi-syllable words and would include
as many as he could remember. Too often he did not hear
all of the syllables. Thus he had a serious spelling
problem. Usually he could recall the first two syllables.

The last syllables were not always correctly reproduced.

His ideas became fused at times or could be

labeled garble:

. . There is one signilying word in this above
statement, that is ulgy as my experience became
enlightment through the years I found out this
word ulgy had a great impack on me it seem to me
that word will seperete the mass society in which
I live in. How someone value judgment decide
what woman is pretty or ulgy.

52

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate

 

Raw Score 14 38 52 207
National % 6 40 19 26
MSU % 1 17 l 2

 

Student 10, Carl

 

Background and Attitude.-—Carl was twenty-one. He

 

was a congenial Black male from a town of 200,000 people.
When things pleased him, he broke out in hearty laughter,
encouraging others to join him. It was suggested that he
decrease the volume of his laughter, but he did not remem-
ber the suggestion the next time he was pleased. He
expressed his interest in English because he planned to
become a journalist. Because he was able to identify with
the teacher, he hoped that instant success would be
achieved.

Most of the time he echoed the sentiments of his

brother Ted.

Qualipy of Writing.--Car1 had many problems in the

 

way he handled English syntax. Verbs were often omitted;
subject nominals were omitted; English inflections might
not occur.

He Head of Special Development Programs

Then he talk to Dr. Blank said there been a
cut back . . .

53

As the day go and the clouds lifted up and the
temperature have risen it looke like it going
to be a nice day after all.

Taken this in conciteration, he . . .

There was a problem with spelling. The letter E
was frequently substituted for g. In his haste to increase
his vocabulary, he used words that he had not fully com—
prehended. Each time he used the word, there was a
different spelling.

The syntax was not standard, making the thought
difficult to follow:

America is a beautiful land, being for peOple
its has it own individual features, like the

land itself provide farning, landscraping (for

sightseeing), [sic] planting beautiful flowers,
and for also animals life.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 14 28 42 161
National % 6 17 9 10
MSU % l 2 0 0

 

Student 11, Mac

 

Background and Attitude.--Mac came from a town of
81,000 peOple. It was difficult to establish rapport with
this eighteen—year-old Black student because he wore very
dark glasses during class. He also wore his hat and
joined anything that would upset the routine of the class.
To show his boredom with English he looked out of the

window.

54

Mac would not turn in the required papers. From

those received it was obvious that he did not have a
problem with English syntax but needed additional informa—
tion about punctuation.

The world today is traveling in many directions.

Black way, white way, young way, old way, Viet

Cong way, American way, militant way, poor way

and rich way.

. . There is very little that these opposing
sides have in common, but there is on thing.
All people have to live in thise world together.

His treatment of verbs did not demand any special

attention. He might substitute was for were or something

 

of that nature.

His high school grade point average was 2.75.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 18 24 42 226
National % 12 11 9 38
MSU % 1 l 0 4

 

Student 12, Calvin

 

Background and Attitude.--Ca1vin's grade point

 

average from high school was 1.2. He spent two years in
the service and worked four years in a factory. This
twenty-four year old Black male accidentally got in the
Detroit Geographical Expedition Institute directed by
Michigan State and Wayne State. It was through this

project that he was admitted to Michigan State.

55

Calvin did not feel that another English course
was going to help him. He stated that he had as much
English as he could digest.

His fervor for equality of treatment of all man-
kind was his major interest. Since he was personable, it
was easy to tell him that if he had the same fervor for
standard English usage, he would demand and command an

audience to listen to his message.

Quality of Writing.--Calvin's treatment of verbs

 

and spelling was serious. The following indicates what
happened in his treatment of verbs and in his spelling:

Maybe you seen some students passing out pamhlet
with . . .

Of particular significance is the persistent use of hads.

The older generation hads just rejected the
younger generation.

. . the instuctor hads come to the point of
brainwashing the class.

He used commas excessively and ran sentences
together. His ideas on his favorite subjects flowed
spontaneously.

College is an escape from th real world. You
may read this statement and say this guy is
crazy but think about it for a minute. Ask
yourself why you are in college or wont to
college . . . Do you believe it takes as many
years of school that is requred just to get a
job? Well, the answer is no, because on most
jobs the training received in school, only
gives the employer a idea on your ability.

56

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 16 36 52 161
National % 9 35 19 10
MSU % 1 8 1 O

 

Student 13, Kent

 

Background and Attitude.--Kent was an eighteen-year-

 

old white male from a suburban town outside of Detroit. He
spent the last three years of high school in a military
academy.

From the first day of class it was apparent that
he was a cooperative student. He seemed happy to assist
in assembling the equipment to be used in class. His

response to his classmates was warm.

Quality of Writing.--The assignment to respond to

 

the total environment and to write reaction papers was
misunderstood. Three reaction papers were similar to the
following:

Second day great, still can't think of anything

to write except it is a very nice day and all is

going fine. Bye.

Responses during class discussion revealed that his

knowledge of the rules of formal grammar was superior to

the rest of the class. Yet his papers showed something

different.

57

Old women a white fur covered animal that also
live in the nomes of thousand, Just setting
around and doing nothing excepting to get free
room and board, meals, and a staff of servents
waiting on them hand and foot.

He also had a special way of spelling and would

misplace modifiers.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 30 50 80 327
National % 39 74 56 80
MSU % 9 44 23 23

 

Student 14, Mark

 

Background and Attitude.--Mark was an eighteen-year—

 

old white male who was not the least bit apprehensive about
articulating what he wanted. He wanted to enjoy his
English assignments and to write long organized papers.
He too was surprised that he had to take Developmental
English because his high school grades in English were
good. Of course, he stated, "I never liked the stuff."

His family and home town were mentioned in his
papers. Life for him in a town of 27,000 people was

colorful and rarely boring.

Quality of Writing.--Mark omitted forms of the

 

verb "to be," important punctuation marks, and ran

sentences together in his papers.

58

Finally motorcycles are ver manuverable for
example if you caught in a traffic jam all
you have to do is ride between the cars . . .
or if your in a hurry . . .
He had some difficulty organizing ideas and often

got carried away with his ideas. His spelling left some—

thing to be desired.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate

 

Raw Score 22 44 66 262
National % 20 57 37 56
MSU % 2 26 6 9

 

Student 15, Charles

 

Charles was a seventeen-year-old Black male from
Detroit who really acted like a juvenile. Because he
seemed to need recognition, he often led the class into
routines not usually found in a college class. These
routines seemed to make him happy. Charles went out of his
way to confuse things. His answers to questions were
evasive. His routine was confusing because he did not
look the role that he played. (It was learned later that

his father had a Ph.D. from Michigan State.)

Quality of Writing.--The confusion found in Charles'

 

mannerism became more perplexing after the first set of
papers. Typical in the set is:
I feel like I felt yesterday, only better. I

can see with 20-20 vision today. I'm just a
little disappointed about some though. Physically

59

am find, mentally my ego has been deflated.
The sun is shinning like yesterday and I feel
like singing my heart out.

Carl used English syntax. His problems were
similar to the general problems found in the class. When
the following lines were turned in, a new reaction
occurred:

I believe I need my head examined, I don't
know what's wrong with me but I need help.

The confusion mounted after the first paper written
in class was evaluated.

Socially the disadvantaged are not concerned
about college, although they are concerned with
living and grabbing for every slice of life they
can get. The poor brave soldiers who die to
protect the wealthy college student's freedom
are the true heroes of society.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM A

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 23 26 49 161
National % 22 l4 16 10
MSU % 2 1 l 0

 

An analysis of the student's papers indicated that
the major writing difficulties could be attributed to
limited knowledge about American English syntax with most
of the difficulties being in the malfunctioning of phrase
and clause structures, verb tense sequence, and the ability
to embed ideas to acquire variety in sentence patterns.
Thus, the emphasis was placed on those habits that were not

considered standard. To serve as an instrument to effect

6O

dialect expansion, an elementary look at the nature of
the English language was presented. The following general

format was used:

Planned Schedule

 

Since language belongs to mankind, this course in
Developmental English, which met four times a week for
fifty minutes, attempted to give some specific information
about how language works in different settings and to
suggest some ways that communication could be more effec-

tive.

Writing Assignments

 

Writing assignments were classified as at-home and
in-class. The at-home assignment grew out of reactions
to the total environment. Students were asked to record
in an 85 by 11 inch notebook, using a number two soft lead
pencil, one reaction per day, totalling a reaction paper
for each scheduled class period. The soft lead pencil was
used for convenience in making transparencies of these
papers, which were used for class discussion on Friday of
each week. Conversely, the in-class papers were somewhat
more structured. Topics on a variety of subjects were
assigned and writing was completed during the fifty minutes

of class time.

61

Special Projects

 

Students who wanted to do special projects had to
allow for time outside the regular class period. Assis-
tance in doing a project was obtained from the Learning
Resource Center. The hardware used included the ektographic
copier, the 8mm camera, overhead projector, record discs,
and audio and video tape recorders. The projects had to
be completed and presented in class at least one week

before the end of the quarter.

Examinations

 

The final examination was designed as both essay
and an objective test. The essay was taken from assigned
readings and the objective test was the same as the pre-
test-~The Nelson Denny Reading Test Form B. The mid—term
examination was an essay written during class period.
Students were informed that unannounced quizzes could
follow any unit. The quizzes were designed to check on
readings and to serve as feedback of the student's under-
standing of materials presented. Grades placed on papers
were not necessarily totaled in the final grade. The
major and final concern in the course was the ability to
demonstrate effective communication in oral and written

discourse.

Class Days

 

A week of class assignments was to be divided

according to the following plan:

62

Monday and Tuesday-~Material from the textbook, Ag

Introduction to Language, by Robert J. Geist.

 

Thursday--In-class writing assignment.

Friday——Grammar and reading. Materials for discussion
were taken from both sets of writing. The refer-
ence to be used for grammar and syntax was Steps

in Composition by Lynn Troyka and Jurold Nudelman.

 

On Mondays and Tuesdays only was the class to
follow structured format. On these days discussions on
the nature of language followed, as closely as possible,

a planned outline divided into seven units. (For detailed

outline see Appendix A.)

Unit I.--"The Importance of Language"

 

A. Objectives

 

The behavioral objectives designated for each
student were to make a list of five items illustrated by
the text showing knowledge of the importance of language
and to prepare a two-minute oral discussion on one of the

five items chosen.

B. Materials

 

Materials to be covered included: 1) the import-
ance peeple place on language, the need for accuracy, and
the interest people find in language; 2) the prevailing
attitudes toward language including the "real" language

and "bad" language.

63

C. Exercises

 

It was hoped that each student would do all of the
exercises, but the following were specifically assigned:

1. Collect from newspapers and magazines samples
which show language as interesting and
important.

2. Use the OED to trace the history of five
words that are interesting.

3. If you feel strongly about language being
associated with character, write some
specific examples which indicate that the

association was not just.

Unit II.-—"Some Basic Facts About Langpage"

 

A. Objectives

 

The behaviorial objective covering this unit asked
the student to demonstrate in writing the definition of
language by elaborating on eight of the eleven characteris-

tics found in the text.

B. Materials

 

Materials for discussion in this unit included
language as a human accomplishment, language as purposive,
language as arbitrary, language as symbolic, language as
a code or a system. This unit stressed the idea of no
"best," no "most beautiful," and no primitive languages.

The discussion of facts about language were concluded in

64

this unit with the primacy of speech and the variation of

language.

C. Exercises

 

The exercises suggested for all students was to be
an expression of two basic facts about language in a draw-
ing accompanied with dialogue, exposition and/or descrip-
tion. The drawings were to be placed on transparencies
and used in class discussions. The best examples will be

expanded into transparency-tape presentations.

Unit III.--"The Individual and His Language"

 

A. Objectives

 

Two objectives will identify this unit. The student
will be asked to state in writing 1) the definition for
idiolect with specific examples from the text which show
variation in idiolects, and 2) to list three functional
varieties as explained in the text and three from personal

experiences explaining and illustrating each.

B. Materials

 

This unit was concerned with two major ideas.
First, a language is a collection of idiolects--an idiolect
being the sum total of an individual's language; second,
"functional variety" refers to variations in language in
accordance with the function the speaker intends and
includes such varieties as formal, informal, slang, profan-

ity, technical language.

65

C. Exercise

 

All students were required to write a paragraph
which depended heavily on slang. The slang paragraph was
to be rewritten for a more formal occasion. A second
required exercise was to list ten colorful words with

multiple meaning from the individual's speech.

Unit IV.--"Social Dialect"

 

A. Objectives

 

Behaviorally the student differentiated between
standard and nonstandard dialects through oral discussion
and showed the effect of tradition on standards of English

in the twentieth century.

B. Materials

 

Ideas to be advanced in this unit included standard
and nonstandard English. As Geist puts it, "Standard
English taught in the schools has often followed a rather
nebulous 'authority' rather than the observed practices of
educated people."3 This unit proposed to take an objective
look at imposed standards of present-day English growing
out of the eighteenth-century attitudes of Samuel Johnson,
Bishop Lowth, and Goold Brown. Persistence of the authori-

tarian tradition, the doctrine of usage, and varying

 

3Robert J. Geist, An Introduction to Language,
Teacher's Edition (London: The Macmillian Company, 1970),
p. 43. (Teacher's Manual.)

 

66

standards of language were related to current attitudes

toward correctness.

C. Exercises

 

To demonstrate an understanding of the materials
covered in this unit, the exercise assigned to all students
was to write two passages which exemplified the definition

of standard and nonstandard speech.

Unit V.--"P1ace and Time in Language"

 

A. Objectives

 

The objective behavior expected at the completion
of this unit was a classification of twenty items accord-
ing to geographical and historical dialects found in the

English language.

B. Materials

 

Proposed for the cognitive information in this unit
was pointed discourse on differences in pronunciation,
vocabulary, and grammar. Discussions were focused through
regional dialect, differences in American and English
dialects, prestige dialects, and regional variations in
other countries. Another facet of this unit was to look
at the changes of language in the course of time. An
elementary look at comparable passages in Old, Middle, and
Modern English was presented. The students were not
expected to learn any details of Old or Middle English,

but were to become aware of change as a fact of language.

67

This unit was to culminate in a television tape of a

lecture by the author of the textbook.

C. Exercise

 

The only pre—planned exercise for this unit was to
conduct a dialect survey. The students were to interview,
if possible, a co-operative older person such as a grand-
parent, or he might select a person who had lived in one
place most of his life and then record specific data about

this person.

Unit VI.--"Grammar"

 

A. Objective

 

At the end of the grammar unit, the student was
asked to prepare three transparencies for class presenta-
tion which would illustrate each of the three descriptions

of grammar.

B. Materials

 

This unit was primarily concerned with three stages
of English grammar-—Latin-based, structural, and transfor-
mational. The rationale behind this presentation was to
get each student to think about grammar and to understand
that descriptions of grammar are most useful when they
reflect the language habits of the users of that language.
The students were to focus on some comparable definition

of determiners, questions, sentences, and verbs.

68

C. Exercises

 

Each student was asked to prepare exercises A-D on
pages 130-131 of the text. The answers were to use the
following format:

Auxiliary + Main Verb
.A

f *\F‘Lfi
tense + (modal) + (have + en) + (be + ing) + V

 

Students were also asked to duscuss verb patterns
and sentence patterns that were presented by overhead

transparencies.

Unit VII.--"The Sounds of English"

 

A. Objectives

 

Students were expected, upon the completion of this
unit, to correctly write in phonemics eighteen of the
twenty-five words spoken by the teacher. They were

expected to learn the articulation of the English speech

 

sounds.
B. Materials

This unit focused on the phonemic alphabet and the
production of English speech sounds. The unphonetic spell-

ing of English words were stressed, calling attention to
our system of spelling as "an accident of history, not
something carefully planned ahead of time."4 For a better

understanding of the production of sounds, the organs used

 

41bid., p. 133.

69

in the production of speech sounds--vowels, consonants--
were discussed in some detail. The definition of a phoneme
as any sound capable of indicating a difference in meaning
in a given language, and allophone as a non-significant
variation of a phoneme occupied some of the discussion
period. Along with this material was a discussion of other
elements of speech, such as pitch, stress, and juncture,

which are also capable of indicating meaning.

C. Exercise

 

One exercise was to be required in this unit.
Students were asked to articulate two tongue twisters.
The difficulty in articulation was to be identified by
means of the phonemic alphabet. The use of the tape

recorder was suggested.

CHAPTER IV

DESCRIPTION OF ACTUAL CLASS ACTIVITIES

The procedures described in the preceding chapter
were presented as planned for Unit I--"The Importance of
Language" and Unit II--"Some Basic Facts about Language."
An exploration of the unique treatment of language by
projection of transparencies produced lively discussions
for some students and defensive hostility for other
students. The curious students remained silent while the
defensive students indicated that they were not interested
in any English dialect other than the ones they had used
all of their lives. More precisely, they did not ascribe
to any English course which might conceivably serve to
alter their beliefs. Not only were these students not
interested in a discussion of dialects, they made it
impossible for the discussion of dialects to continue.
More specifically, the students stated that a continued
discussion of dialect might serve to make them lose their
ethnic identity—-a process that is taboo in their cultures.

During the first week of class an in-class paper

was written and the Nelson Denny Reading Test Form A was

70

71

given to each student. As a result of dialect discussions,
in-class writing assignment, and the Nelson Denny Test
scores, it was apparent that the students had limited
skills in the English of the immediate community, that they
failed to accept the fact of their limitations, and that
they were not ready to absorb cognitive information. At
this juncture, the planned procedure was abandoned for a
more flexible syllabus. Latitude for the completion of
assignments was given. Instead of following the planned
outline, class procedures were rearranged into major
activities. The new procedure may appear to be a "round-
about" way of arriving at the intended objective. But, it
seemed to the writer that the postulation of recognition
and possibly the understanding of multi-dialects might
serve as a chance for students to reconstruct their beliefs
as they related these beliefs to the self image, the nature
of knowledge, and experiences in the learning process.

The first major activity covered the dictionary
and sounds. Student's lack of proficiency in dictionary
skills detracted from both their spelling and their ability
to complete enrichment exercises. Circumstances dictated
the teaching of Unit VII--"The Sound System in a modified

form."

72

Dictionary and Sounds

 

The vowels were classifiedaccording to positions--
front, back, and central.1 Each vowel was given a musical
note, and the student intoned the sounds. The musical
presentation lent itself to a more relaxed class with each
student trying to stay within each phoneme family. This
exercise allowed for freedom of expression along with
freedom of inquiry. A list of key words was vocalized
followed by isolation of the vowel sound. The intonation
of sounds continued until each student was able to set his
limits for each sound and was beginning to identify his
idiolect.

The technical definitions for the consonant sounds
were omitted. Instead, a diagram showing places of arti-
culation was projected by transparencies. Starting from
the lip position preceding through the diagram, the place
of articulation for each sound was identified. An
exaggeration of each sounds was encouraged. Using the
idea of the Tommy stories,2 many of the sounds were
associated with familiar sounds from the student's daily
activities. Some of the positions were more difficult

to master than others. Often /d/ was substituted for /th/.

 

1Robert J. Geist, An Introduction to Langpage
(London: The Macmillan Company, Collier-Macmillan Limited,
1970), PP. 153-57.

2Empress Young Zedler, Listening for Speech Sounds
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1955),
pp. 1-143. ' p

73

Dis, dem, dose, and dat were juxtaposed with this, them,

 

 

 

those, and ppgp. No value judgement was made about the
substitutions since both sets of words communicated. A
description of the initial sound in both groups of words
indicated that the average student in this class was not
aware of the places of articulation. Other sounds which
proved to be difficult to master were the /s/ and /z/.
The most effective technique followed the Tommy stories
which referred to the /s/ as the hissing-snake sound3
and the /z/ as the buzzing-bee sound.4 The diphthongs
were also intoned.

All of the sounds, particularly the vowels, were

related to the key to pronunciation in the dictionary.

Even though each student was asked to bring Webster's

 

Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary to class, other diction—

 

aries were used. A comparison of the keys found in the
various dictionaries was made with the phonetic symbols
used in the text. A typical example used was blackguard.
When the class was asked to pronounce the word, there was
no response. One group was embarrassed while the other
group did not wish to offend. An examination of the word
broke the silence and an eagerness to continue the dic—
tionary exercise prevailed. Instances of skepticism were
decreasing. Each student was beginning to follow his own
line of reasoning, a line which, more or less, helped him

to decide upon the right course for him.

 

3Ibid., p. 78. 4Ibid., p. 72.

 

74

The dictionary drill was followed with tongue
twisters. If the student was not effective in delivering
his tongue twister, he discussed his errors in articulating
the sounds. When errors were made, from his own choice,
the student was eager to try until he perfected his sounds.
The usefulness of this approach was unlimited. Implicit in
the procedure was, perhaps, a fuller appreciation of the
nature of the English language. The modified approach of
the sound system set the stage for a more detailed treat—
ment of Unit VII. At this point the students were ready
to accept cognitive information about the language. They
were not asked to memorize the technical definitions for
the consonant sounds, but found it fun to be able to
articulate and identify such definitions as voiced alveolar
nasal continuant. Reading the definitions became a drill

in articulation.

The Individual and His Language

 

The transition from the dictionary unit to Unit
III-~"The Individual and His Language" was not a problem.
Attitudes had changed; students invited friends to attend
the class. As they put it, "the class is not another
boring English class with tired materials in grammar."

The unit was introduced with a copy of a page from

the Oxford English Dictionary being given to each student.

 

The word selected for discussion was one that was not

intended for the writer to hear when the students chatted

-'

before the class. The initial discussion of funk and

 

75

funky5 provoked laughter, but a curiosity about the origins
of words soon became apparent. Later, each student selected
a word of interest to him and checked the usage through the
years. The choices ran the gamut. Among the more colorful

ones chosen were bitch, fool, freak, dam, aint, and hep.

 

Those students who chose "swear" words apologized for their
choices but admitted their curiosity about the origin. The
QED experience was an extra—ordinarily profitable one for
students. In fact, they got excited about words, word
origins, and pursuing semantic change.

The selection of slang words set the stage for
students to write slang passages and to translate the
passages into what they considered standard language. When
the slang passages were read, students tried to interpret
the meanings. From this measure, the group concluded that
slang is language and each segment of society invents its
own slang which does not necessarily communicate across

cultures.

English Syntax Via Transparencies

 

To have begun a discussion of English syntax with
subject-verb agreement or the identification of nouns and
verbs with this class would have been chaotic. Thus, the
prepositional phrase as a modifier began the unit in English

syntax. A mimeographed list of words that may be used as

 

5James A. H. Murray and others, eds., A New
English Dictionary on Historical Principles ["Oxford
English Dictionarywj (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933),
Vol. IV, p. 608.

 

76

prepositions was passed to each student with each student
being informed that whenever these words were identified
as prepositions, a noun would follow.6 The patterns for
prepositional phrases were given:

Preposition + noun

Preposition + determiner + noun

Preposition + determiner + modifier + noun

Determiners were identified as words that pattern

like g, pp, and php, signalling that a noun would follow.
When operational meanings of prepositions and determiners
were established, a transparency of ten lines taken from

the Saturday_Review was projected. The students were to

 

list all prepositional phrases in the order in which they
occurred in the passage. Out of sixty-two words in the
passage, thirty-three of the words were part of the ten
prepositional phrases. The endeavor was to show the
importance of the prepositional phrase as a modifier and
to take some of the "biting sting" from introducing grammar.
The students were able to identify the phrases and a dis-
cussion of the difficult passage followed.

From the prepositional phrase four basic sentence
patterns were presented:

1. Noun + verb

2. Noun + verb + adjective

 

6Paul Roberts, Patterns of English, Teacher's
Edition (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1956),
p. 88.

 

77

3. Noun + linking verb + noun

4. Noun + verb + noun
The first expansion drill used pattern one by adding prepo-
sitional phrases after the noun and verb.

Students dance.
The pattern was further expanded by adding determiners,
auxiliaries, and adverbs.

Those students in college dance at night.

Those students in college dance wgll.
The student who wrote, "He Head of Special Development
Programs," expanded this pattern into the following:

All of those interesting students who attend

college in the fall of the year happily dance

the latest dances in the lounges of their

dormitories when they have completed their

lessons for their classes.
(It must be noted that the students were permitted to use
the dictionary as they wrote their sentences.)
The same procedure was followed for all basic patterns.
Patterns were repeated orally, but not necessarily with
any degree of structure. If the student felt uncomfortable
repeating the patterns, he was allowed to do exaggerated
mouthing. Mouthing also decreased the boredom that is
often connected with sentence drills. Many patterns were
written in class, individually checked without being graded.
When a student thought that he had written a good pattern,

he wrote his pattern on a transparency with a grease pencil.

78

He also supervised the drill. The exercise proved to be
competitive and exciting with some sentences being designed
for shock treatment. The approach that the students took
was not discouraged because it was remembered that Dr. Lin's
research had established that highly structured drills

did not prove interesting to college students.7 The real
test, however, of how well a student understood the patterns

was determined from the next set of papers.

Now that the patterns had been presented and
mastered to a degree, a list of subordinators and coordi-
nators was given to each student. The use of these words
was to establish variety, eliminate run-on sentences, and
comma splices. To check the understanding of these
principles, student papers were placed on transparencies
and projected. The students were told not to identify
their papers even though they could discuss the good and
bad points. The emphasis was on communication of the
intended message. They were to consider two questions:

1. Was the intended message communicated?

2. If the message was not received, what

distorted the message?
At this point the students were enthuiastically discussing
the papers and having fun laughing at their "crazy" errors.
The writer sat at the edge of the arena as the students

regained confidence in their innate ability. They were

 

7Lin, p. 140.

79

learning without being taught. Only one student seemed
uncomfortable about the activity. His paper was not
projected. Sometime later, however, he admitted that he
was glad that his paper had not been projected. He later
felt that he was able to accept his errors and asked for
his papers to be projected. Other students asked for the
paper-transparency exercise to be repeated. This was, to
them, one of the most enjoyable activities.

The next set of papers were at-home themes which
followed, in time sequence, the drills in English syntax.
Papers were evaluated by students. They knew that they
had made progress but also knew that they had a lost of
work to do. Their comments on the use of verbs led the
class into a discussion of the description of the verb of

a sentence.

AUXILIARY + MAIN VERB

L~—--IIIII-____,/A\______----——__‘ ,_,A‘,\
Tense + (Modal) + (have+en) + (be + ing) + Verb
The description of the formula was reinforced with selected
pages from the text. The discussion exercise were state—
ments taken from cassette tapes that had been passed in to
be evaluated. Some examples are:

I going home.

Where you been?

The girl been gone.

80

Errors that eliminated part of the formula were quickly
detected and explained in relationship to the formula.
Again, no value judgment was made about the eliminations.
The idea was to show what is expected in the English verb
pattern. On the other hand, it was hoped that those who
did not use the formula correctly would make overt changes,
if they found it a feasible thing to do. Fortunately, the
efforts were made. It was also recognized that lifetime
patterns would not be changed by a mere suggestion. The
important thing is that the students had a tool that could
work if they needed it.

Another major activity focused attention on the
omission of third person singular /s/ as in "It look good,"
and the addition of the /s/ with the first person singular
as in, "I thinks it is correct." After facts were visually
presented, the class was divided into two groups. When
one group gave the person, the other group made a short
sentence using that person. Correct verb answers gave
points to the group. Scores were tabulated to determine
the high scoring group. Students asked that the game
continue. After the scores were tied the game stopped.
Repetition of the game reinforced the necessary principles.

Fisher's8 technique of oral practice was used to

show the relationship between verb ending and time expressed.

 

8John C. Fisher, Linguistics in Remedial English

(The Hague: Mouton and Company, 1966), Appendix A, p. 55.

 

81

 

S V ed Time Expression
John need ed his warm coat last night.

He arriv ed safely yesterday.

They walk ed on the campus last Friday.

It dawn ed on him as he drove home.
We hurri ed to class this morning.

 

From this format showing the -ed form of the verb
to indicate past time expressions, students were able to
make charts showing time relationship. Later they were
able to group the irregular verbs such as sing-sang-sung
on patterns.

After introducing the incomplete -ing form of a
verb, the participle and gerund, the enrichment exercise
in syntax required the student to supply his own words
for the elements indicated below the blanks in proposed

sentences:

is not always easy.

 

(gerund phrase)

- , the policeman caught him
(participle phrase) at the gate.

 

Historyj-"Place and Time in Language"

 

By taking a look at the structure of the English
verb and the basic patterns of the English sentence, con-
sidering modification, predication, complementation, and
subordinatiOn, the students were eager to know more about

the nature of their language. Even though there was some

82

apprehension on the part of the writer to introduce a look
at earlier forms of English, a look at Unit V--"Place and
Time in Language" proved rewarding. The unit began with a
look at regional dialects in the United States with the
writer identifying her Southern background. The "I say,
you say" technique was used. For example, in the South I
say faucet, what do you say in Northern Michigan? I say

cornbread. What do you say in Flint? From regional dia~

 

lects in the United States, we moved to British vs American
English. There was little apprehension on the part of the
student to try to approximate the British pronunciations.
The lesson was excellent for showing the stress on syllables.
Instead of reading the Old English from the text,9
a sample was projected. A translation was rendered after
certain directions had been given. A close look revealed
specific correlation. Surprisingly, the poor spellers
were among the first to identify the words. On the other
hand, translating the Middle English passages did not
present a great problem. When the Shakespearean quotations
were presented, one student remarked that he always won—
dered why he never liked Shakespeare, adding that, if the
man were living today, he would be in remedial English
because he would have a problem with modern English syntax,
not to mention subject-verb agreement and spelling. The

introduction of the older forms of English did not attempt

to go into specifics of the periods, but attempted instead

 

9Geist, pp. 101-2.

83

to take a good look at the changing English language.
Students alluded to changes that are taking place today.
Since no student in the class had identified him—

self as being an Ozark mountaineer, it seemed safe to

introduce the following passage for discussion:lo

To the mountain child toys are "play-pretties,"
whether homemade or store-bought. A mantel is
referred to as a "fire-board"; twilight as
"dusky—dark"; sunrise as "sunup"; sunset as
"sundown"; a storm cellar as a "fraidy-hole";

a relapse as a "backset"; a widow as a "widow
woman"; chores about the place a "morning work"
or "nightwork." Children speak of God as the
"Good-Man" and of Satan as the "Bad-man" or the
"Booger-Man." These and the many other self-
explaining compounds in every day are an
inheritance of the Old English tradition.

A recordll of voices approximating how people of
these periods sounded was played. The dialect record,
"Our Changing Language—History of the English Language"
led the class back to the idea of social dialect, an idea
that was rejected earlier. From this point, the defensive

hostility was gone. Attitudes had truly changed.

Writing Assignments

 

The proposed writing assignments were followed as
closely as possible. Students turned in three at—home
papers a week until the last two weeks of school when they

were told to turn in only one paper a week. One in-class

 

10Jewel Kirby Fitzhugh, "Old English Survival in
Mountain Speech," English Journal, 55 (November, 1969),
p. 1225.

 

llHelge Kokeritz, "A Thousand Years of English
Pronunciation" (EAV Lexington LE 7650/55, 1967).

84

paper a week was to be written. When papers were not
written in class, work in sentence variety was done.
Marjorie F. Benton believes that one sentence is a reason—
able assignment. She states that:12
. . . on varying days the class may be asked to
construct original sentences demonstrating prepo—
sitional phrases, the use of dependent clauses,
introduction of appositives, opening sentences
with participle phrases, or using passive verbs.
Compounding sentences, using additional predicates,
placing modifiers after linking nouns suggest
equally adaptable requests . . . Using his per-
sonal discoveries brings him the satisfaction of
mastering the problem, and it further reinforces
his new learning by its immediate application to
a practical performance.

In-class writing was often motivated by playing
record discs of several types which included classical as
well as popular music. Students wrote reaction papers to
the music. Other reaction papers were written after
seeing 35mm slides. Descriptive papers were written
after groups created stories from the Kodax literacy flat
series. Papers to persuade on social problems were taken
from the assigned reader.l3 To serve as a guide, examples
of creative writing were given to each student. Uptaught

by Ken Macrorie had the greatest impact in influencing

the topics selected by students.

 

12Marjorie F. Benton, "A Reasonable Assignment:
One Sentence," English Journal, 54 (November, 1965), p. 717.

l3Lynn Troyka and Jerrold Nudelman, Steps in
Composition (Englewood Cliff, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1970), p. 395.

 

 

Out of Class Activities

 

Each student was given a cassette tape to use in
communicating with the teacher when he did not have the
time to come to conference, or when he wanted to discuss
issues that he found difficult to do in a face-to-face
situation. Tapes recorded by the students were not only
on the academic material in the English course, but also
on problems that beginning college students face. Responses
to tapes included discussions of papers found in the
student's folder and some directions relating to other
articulated problems. The tapes from the students served
as good feedback and thereby influenced the class pro-
cedures.

Another out-of-class activity proved to be useful
in getting the members of the class involved with each
other on a personal level was the field trip to Erickson
Hall's media laboratory. Even though the students were
responding to class materials, up until this point, in a
sense they were anonymous to one another and isolated to
a degree. A typical written reaction paper to the field
trip included the following comments:

The project work at Erickson gave students a good
chance to talk with other students. Many students
often discussed their pictures with others. This
made us understand each other better.

Mac
The time spent at Erickson on our field trip was
a wonderful experience. There were so many things

to learn. I was actually fascinated. You were
able to make whatever you wanted whichever way you

86

wanted. When and if you had a problem, the
supervisors were more than helpful . . .

I enjoyed the feeling of being able to do what
I pleased. It was a change from a regular class
room where you were under the teacher . . .

Nelle
Observing Sigred's smiling face after she had

completed one of the laboratory projects, a remark about
her big smile was made to her. She chose to respond to
the field trip by cassette:

As you mentioned, I gave a big smile. I was

happy with what I had done. Actually, I am

only happy for a moment or two. I am never

satisfied with whatever I do. I always want
something better.

Final Projects

 

After taking one lesson from Dr. Elwood Miller in
the use of the 8mm movie projector, Mark and Kent made an
8mm movie on "The Frustrations of College." The scenes
were shot in their dormitory where they simulated places
for registration, the cafeteria, and the college library.
They also showed scenes of the many interruptions in try-
ing to study in the dormitory. Mood music served as
background for the film while a tape explained the scenes
in the movie. The class thought that the movie captured
the typical frustrations of college students and that the
presentation was good.

Another special project made use of student-made
transparencies to illustrate important points in presenting

class papers. Marie's paper discussed "The Generation

87

Gap. Prior to writing her paper, she made a sentence
outline which included the use of fifteen articles from

such magazines as the New York Times, Saturday Review,

 

and U. S. News. She explained to the class that it took

 

many hours to find illustrations which could be made into
transparencies and that as she searched for visuals, she
became more involved in her paper. In the summation of
her paper she stated:

Young and old peeple are not entirely self—
centered. They want to try to work together
exchanging ideas; however, before either group
can work together, they must accept the fact
that there is a generation gap and that only by
understanding, cooperation, and patience can
each obtain the desired goals. Both sides of
the situation must be looked at carefully. The
young and older generations must come out of
their separate groups before it is too late to
help one another.

Sigred's paper-transparency presentation was on
"The Giant's Militaristic Future." Her thesis idea stated
that "Once China's forces become better equipped, she is
on the road to becoming a militaristic power." Of signi—
ficance in her discussion are the following lines that
she vividly illustrated by projecting her transparencies:

Although China's nuculear technology is only

a couple steps behind the United States and
U.S.S.R., she still needs many more years to
work on military transportation and better
equipment of her army. Because China has had

a long struggle in feeding her people, she has
used most of her capital and technology in
agriculture instead of militaristic defense . . .
. . . She must wait, hope, and struggle to
increase her technology so that it will be
sufficient enough to produce enough food for
her people and then enough to be used for
military purposes. China is progressing slowly
but surely.

88

The last set of final projects were slide-tape
presentations. The technical directions for these projects
were given by Mr. Dan Preston of the Learning Resource
Center. After the students had presented a general idea
of what they wanted to do and made outlines, Mr. Preston
assisted them with the story board which did not neces-
sarily follow the proposed outlines.

For weeks these students collected pictures which
were to be copied and made into 35mm slides. They viewed
slides, edited and reviewed; music and narration had to
be taped and edited, then synchronized with the slides.
Charles, the youngest member of the class, choose drug
addiction as his topic. His presentation asked questions:

Is it possible that human beings are slowly
losing their instinct to survive and to
preserve self? It certainly seems that way.
The way people continue to smoke and inject
themselves with every kind of drug that they
can get their hands on seems to suggest that
they are losing or have lost their capacity
to reason. How desperate, how ignorant, how
lacking in basic human intelligence and self
control one must be to take drugs already
known to destroy the minds and bodies of
thousands of users.

"A Message from a Black Man" was also a final
project. Tim's sophisticated approach to the racial issue
visually pictured, along with voice and music, the feelings
of every Black man in every segment of society. He stated

that he wanted the impact to be shock therapy for a world

that forgot to care. He added that:

89

One of the gravest problems conforting our
society is the inability of many of its people
to communicate with one another. I suggest that
any person who wants to understand the message
that the Black man has for his fellow citizens
that he use every means of expression available
to get a complete unbaised, yet accurate picture
of the needs of a peOple.

The director of the Developmental English program,
Mrs. Jane Featherstone, was present when the final projects
were presented in class the last week of the quarter. She
was pleased to see the students involved and relaxed,
particularly after some students question the selection of
some visual materials. The questioning period was lively.
It was apparent at this juncture of the quarter that
students had consideration for the opinions of others, and
no one student monopolized or killed the discussion. Those
who were questioned about the materials had good reasons
for their choices and found it easy to state them. It
must be noted that no one questioned "A Message from a
Black Man." The shock therapy left the viewers thought-
fully silent.

The last two projects described were presented to
an American Thought and Language Committee of faculty
members interested in the instructional process. Several
members of the committee played the role of the devil's
advocate in questioning the relationship of the use of
media in an English class. One student answered by stat-

ing his purpose was to effectively communicate his message,

and he found organization for writing when he visually

90

organized his thoughts. This, he felt, kept him from

lack of unity and coherence. He added that before he wrote
his final paper, he was able to rearrange the slides in

the most effective method to communicate his message. No

other questions were asked.

CHAPTER V

EVALUATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The general objective of the course states that
since language belongs to mankind, the course is designed
so that the student will have a better understanding of
how his language works. In light of this general objec-
tive, it is believed by this writer that students in this
class discovered many meaningful facts about the origin
and nature of the English language. A review of the
intended behavioral objectives shows that each objective
was accomplished in varying degrees. Since the syllabus
was re-arranged as major activities, it is felt that, in
a sense, the goals were obtained. A change of procedure
dictated a change in behavioral objectives. Specifically,
when the student was asked to list twenty items according
to geographical and historical dialect, the approach did
not merit the suggested treatment. Instead, students
spelled out these facts in class discussions. The only
other behavioral change that did not follow the syllabus
involved the sounds of English. To ask the student to

correctly write in phonemics eighteen of the twenty—five

91

92

words spoken by the teacher and to identify 85 per cent of
the speech sounds would have defeated one of the purposes--
to master acceptable speech forms of the immediate commun-
ity. The idea was to give a workable tool which could be
used long after the course had terminated. Students did
make use of the tool.

The academic progress of the students varied. A
brief description of the student's progress includes
excerpts from papers and tapes. All final papers are
not included since the students chose one topic from three
which were based on Jonah J. Goldstein's essay, "Give

Drugs to Addicts So We Can Be Safe."

The Students

 

Student 1, Paula

 

Paula's first papers revealed that she did not
completely understand the English sentence. As a result,
her sentences ran tOgether, and she used limited terminal
marks. Paula re-wrote most of her papers. If an error
was corrected on the second paper, the same error would
be repeated in the third paper. She seemed to have under—
stood the principles of grammar, but would not work to
retain them. An at-home paper might follow this format:

Last Thursday at dinner was the best time I ever
had in Gilchrist Dorm. We celebrated Halloween by

waring customs to dinner. Two Black girls were
dressed as slaveoweners and, two white girls were

dressed as slaves. Some girls on the first floor
were dressed as pumkin patch. One girl was dressed
as a little girl with a diaper on. Another girl

came dressed as a nun . . .

93

Paula's final essay written in class showed that
she had doubled the amount of writing and did not show as
many run-on-sentences; however, she used excessive commas
or the wrong terminal mark. Also, she continued to spell
words as she pronounced them.

The though of legalizing drugs, never really
entered my mind, until I read J. Goldstein's
essay, which I agreed with 100%. I can see
where legalizing drugs will danger anyone lives
or helath any more than the legaliztion of
cigarettes or alcohol. If they are all harmful
in some way, they should receive the same treat-
ment . . . Why band something from the market
that is not as harmful as what we are selling.
If drugs were leagalized they would be sure to
be safer than alcohol or cigarettes and cost
about the same or less . . .

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw ScOre 18 22 40 235
National % 10 10 9 52

 

Paula recognized that she had not invested enough
time in her studies to advance to the next level. We
agreed that she should try the same phase of English

again.

Student 2, Thad

 

After football season, Thad put a lot of time in
his studies. First he improved his penmanship; then he
improved his spelling. From the following tOpic sentence
he develOped an interesting essay on nuclear war and the

first aider:

94

The threat of nuclear war is very prevalent in

our society, and if we are not prepared to cope
with the problems that arise, our society could
be doomed.

. . . The fourteen days following a nuclear attack
are always the most critical. These are the days
when radioactivity is in the largest quanity and
is most harmful to human beings. After a nuclear
war, the job of a first aider is to alleviate
suffering and to substain life for the critically
injured. In a national diaster the lives of many
people could rest with the first-aider's ability
to perform life saving measures to injured

victims . .

Thad's final essay was five times longer than his
first and much more organized. He kept his dictionary
with him as he wrote his paper. Spelling the words that
he wanted to use was no longer a problem.

Drug addiction is a problem which should be given
immediate attention by every law enforcement
agency in the country. If we do not nip it in

the bud, drug addiction will be allowed to
blossom into a problem of uncomparable proportions
in our society. Strict laws must be created by
our legislators to help combat the situation . . .

There is no single solution for curbing the drug
addiction problem in the United States today. In
the last several years advocates of strict
penalities and fines for drug addicts and pushers
have stated their arguments profusely. Several
penalities were enacted by our legislators but

to no avail. Severe penalities regarding drugs
pushers have not helped to stop the mammoth flow
of drugs to this country . . .

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate

 

Raw Score 39 42 81 309
National % 55 53 56 79

 

95

Thad knew that he had improved in many aspects of
English. He was recommended to take the next level

English course.

Student 3, Nelle

 

Nelle remained confused for some time. It was
difficult for her to forget that she failed the entrance
examination after having been in the college preparatory
track. Finally, she understood what was interesting
writing. In her attempt to broaden her tOpic she wrote:

There has been a spot of dust under my roommates
bed for the past three days. No matter when I
clean, this is always the spot I miss. It looks

or appears to be telling me, ”Say, you missed me."
Now I don't particularly enjoy being dirty even
though this feeling never bothers me enough to
clean the spot. I still think about it laughingly.
It will have to wait until next time; maybe it will
have more luck.

From the many papers written by Nelle, her comments
on'College is more than just books" showed some of her
frustrations and anxieties in a new environment. After
seeing several slides of scenes on campus, she wrote:

College is a new world that everyone should
have the experience of living. This does not
mean all work and no play because life itself
will determine how a person spends his life
long after his college days have died. College
really is a chance to know oneself and to make
it as an individual. Most parents would never
dream of letting their seventeen or eighteen
year old get apartments, but they actually
push their children to go to college. To me,
this is much of the same thing. In college
you are on your own with many temptation.

For example, when everyone else is going out
and you must stay home to do your homework,
temptation is there . . . Believe me, college
is a world apart from everything you have

ever known. College is more than just books.

96

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 39 38 77 403
National % 55 42 50 95

 

It was important to Nelle to successfully complete
the course, even though it was difficult for her to expand
her ideas. Nevertheless, after mid-quarter she worked to
do some creative thinking. She too was recommended to take

the next level of English.

Student 4, James

 

James was deeply concerned about people. He was
also concerned about grades. When a mark less than 3.0
was placed on his papers, he became concerned. He often
mentioned, always on tape, that he had never written an
English paper graded under 3.0. In our discussion of his
papers he agreed that he did not develOp ideas and had
many writing problems that he never knew about. James
was deeply concerned about people. After seeing several
slides on different types of women, he wrote:

My experience with the Opposite sex leads me to
conclude that there are no ulgy women. All
women are beautiful in some way or another.

The beauty may not be in her face, eyes, nose,
or even her hands, but it is there. The only
reason that people say there are ulgy women is
because society puts labels on women. If a
woman is too fat, too skinny, or just doesn't
have sharp facial features, many in society
consider her to be ulgy. It makes me happy to
be able to see beautiful qualities in all of
God's creatures. To me, there are no ulgy women.

97

In another paper he wrote:

Looking out of my window on this lovely fall day,

I can see many different things happening. I can
see some guys playing ball across the street. I
can see people going to class. Most of all, I

notice the small girl sitting on the grass with no
expression on her face—-no feeling, no concern,
just a blank stare toward no place. Has someone
hurt her? As I see her soft black hair blowing
gently in the wind, I wonder if she has physical
pain. Now I am beginning to wonder if she is
really there, or am I just seeing things. I
wonder because if she is real, I would like to
reach out, touch her, and protect her from harm.

In his final essay he comments on drugs:

I agree with Goldstein that society, not the
addict, could best be served by making narcotics
readily accessible to addicts. Imagine a society
without pushers, crime and murderers because of
one thing--drugs could be easily obtained from
some type of drug center. Imagine a society with
less taxes. Yes, with drugs easily obtained
people would not have to pay so many taxes to
help the addicts and pushers in jail.

It soon became apparent that James worked at a
rather slow pace, but always managing to complete enough
of the exercise to show that he understood. James was
recommended to move to the next level; however, he was
warned that it is not always possible for him to go at
his rate. He agreed to try to work with speed and
accuracy. The fact is that he never completed an exercise
that was timed, yet it was apparent that he understood the
directions and the material. James' Nelson Denny test

score did not show much gain, but his writing skills were

improved. He had learned to communicate his message.

98

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 33 22 55 290
National % 40 10 20 72

 

Student 5, Tim

 

Tim's test scores and first papers revealed that
he did not share very much in common with this class.
After mid-quarter he was allowed to work outside the
class room, reporting to the office once a week with his
assignments and tape. He was asked to follow the syllabus
and to do certain exercises along with special library
assignments that would not have interested the entire
class. Because of his interest in medicine, he was often
assigned articles from scientific journals. His report
on the genetic function as a determinant of IQ was
informative for the writer and him. He wrote on an
occasion, ”There is no one best language:"

To quote an idea from the text--Each language
is adapted to the social requirements of the
speech community. Hence, each is best for that
country. My four years of service in the air
force took me to several different countries.
The prevelant attitude that Americans seemed to
carry with them was that English is the best
language. This attitude disturbed me. An

example of this attitude could be seen in the
average G I who might have been right out of

high school. For some reason the G I felt
superior to a Filipino or to a Japaneese person
with a Ph.D. This may seem to you as an iso-

lated incident, but let me assure you that it
is not isolated. This superior attitude was
true in every country that I visited. As a
result of this attitude, there was a widening
of the gap between natives and the American
G I's, particularly in the Phillipines, where

99

I spent the majority of my time in the service.

At first the people were very receptive and

opened to the Americans. Later, in talking with
them, I discovered they though of the Americans

as being 'stuck up.’ They mentioned that the
Americans did not want to talk to them and that
they yelled when they were not understood. Often
they asked why Americans did not try to understand
their language.

. . For us to go to Japan demanding that the
Japaneese speak English just to please us is an
utterly rediculous attitude. . . . There is no
one best language.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 46 58 104 235
National % 73 88 82 52

 

Tim was recommended for the next level of English.

Student 6, Marie

 

Marie finally arrived at a point where she did not
hesitate to write down her ideas. She knew that her final
grade would not be the total of all graded themes but
progress of the student would be a major consideration.

The stately dormitory where I live is not only

the residence for students, but a home for a
number of God's lesser creatures. On any given
day you may come across a four legged creature.
Standing outside at the bus stop, if you look

up, you can watch kittens walking along the sills
of the dorm windows. Though it is against the
regulation, it is a pleasant sight to see. Cats
are not the only creatures inhabiting my dorm.
Many students prefer fish and keep large varieties
in tropical aquaria. Still others are bird lovers
who can't part with their parrakeet or mynah birds.
But for me. the puppy is the best choice of God's
lesser creatures. Wouldn't you know that's the
only animal not around my dorm.

100

On justice she wrote:

Man hates his enemy but builts courtrooms to
free him. Our democratic system of government
is so corrupted with promises of freedom,
justice, and equality for all that it blinds
society to its true purpose. Our society likes
to believe that the United States has the most
advanced set of laws. I believe that we must
have more justice. Our laws must be strickly
handled and enforced for all who have broken
the law. Today too many men walk the streets
free--free after committing crimes that are
punishable by imprisonment. Freedom from the
penal institutions is too easily bought by
paying lawyers or bribing judges. Is this a
security where we can feel safe, or are my
enemies-—the law breakers--standing next to me?

In her essay on drug addiction she concluded that:
Giving drugs to addicts doesn't solve all of our
problems. The addict is still hooked on a harm-
ful drug that drives him almost crazy. Yet, if
the addict can live confortably and can do his
work, well why not let him live in society?
. . . Many innocent law abiding citizens would .
not have to walk around in fear of being robbed
or beaten if the laws would let the doctors
handle the problem, not the policemen and the
pushers.
Marie had developed her ability to handle words.
In her first essay she used eighty words to complete her
idea; in her final essay with the same alloted time, she
used 320 words to express her ideas. Her national per-
centile score on the Nelson Denny post—test moved seventeen

points. Marie was ready to move to the next level of

English.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate

 

Raw Score 44 46 90 379
National % 69 64 68 93

 

101

Student 7, Harry

 

Harry did not belong in this class. It was not
just a matter of syntax. His problem required special
work starting with the most elementary principles. It
must be pointed out that he was working hard to improve
his work.

While serving in the United States Navy, at first
I often wondered why any man would prefer to
remain an enlisted man in the service of his
country, untill retirement. Untill spending more
time in the service under Supervision of these
career minded individuals that I begin to see

the solution to my problem. I first begain to
realize the importance and corresponding respon-
sibility that was accompanyed with advancement

in rank . . . As time passed on I could see more
of my close friends getting married and accepting
responsibility. They became to worry about what
was going to happen to them, as their time for
seperation from active duty came within sight . . .

He wrote the following about drug addiction:

On the other hand, let us look at some of the
many disadvantages concerned with this problem.
If a law passed by either our State of Federal
legislature were to be approved, think of what
good our present day laws could mean to influ—
encing youth of America. A free "turn on" at
the government expanse, and why not would be
the question being asked to parents. Would it
realy stop the illigal pushers from disturbing
the legal drugs to the open society.

The following information was taken from a tape:

Obviously, my grades haven't improved much, as
far as my work goes in class. Although I feel
that I have gained quite a bit from it, I have
got a long way to go. It really has helped me

quite a bit. I have got some basic knowledge
on what to expect and what areas need most
improvement . . . At least I am able to write,

and I am a little more fluent with my words.

My spelling is still terrible, and I am not

use to carrying around a dictionary in my pocket,
in order to make it . . . . I need to spend more
time with you, a few more times before the term

102

is actually over with. I am going to need the
help, and I not willing to give up in it yet.
So, kind of bear with me in some of my ignorant
remarks. . . . This brings up another interest-
ing point. I don't plan on taking 112 next term
because I don't want to get in over my head. I
think that if I try to work at my own pace and
keep at it, I might, as you said, have the
ability to make it. It is a long slow road and
will.not rush things or hurry into them. I got
time. I'll get it . . . . I think that once I
have some of this down, some of the basics, I
can understand some of the more difficult sub-
jects. I can make them up through summer terms
or an extra year or so. But I want to make it;
I want to go through it. As long as I've got
the desire, I am not willing to stop. Eventually
I'll get what I am looking for.

Harry did not go to the next level of English.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 22 28 50 235
National % l6 19 15 52

 

Student 8, Sigred

 

Sigred was a tenacious student. It was sometime
before she relaxed and wrote about something other than a
desire to get an education or the need to help solve the
problems of the world.

Butterflies are beautiful especially the one
which landed on my arm while I was riding my
bicycle to my chemistry class. It was a beautiful
red and yellow butterfly with black dots here and
there like freckles on a child's face. I tried
to shake him off so that he could go on his way,
but the butterfly clung to my arm not feeling
obligated to move a single step. He was riding
with me for almost two blocks enjoying the free
ride. Finally he decided to spread his flawless
wings, departing to his abysmal freedom.

103

On nature she wrote:

Autumn is to be admired even though some days are

gloomier than others. As I was walking from class
alongside the Red Cedar River, I noticed how
beautiful the nature was at sunset. The warm rays

were striking the trees which had already begun to
change their attire to crimson and golden colors
without much embrassment. The warm zephyr came
down from its resting place from time to time and
added its sweet sound to the falling water, people
talking and walking, and the quacking of ducks
swimming freely on the river. Above all, the
peaceful meditating changing greenry was undis-
turbed. As I continued to walk, I could see the
beauty mingling with the sun without the help of
the man . . .

These lines were from her final essay:

. . . There is a big question if this plan would
work. Many people are too conservative to have
any such drastic changes. Second, many people
would think this kind of treatment would be in
human. But what can one do when the country is
rotting inside? People will have to make up
their minds and decide what they want-—more
crimes or treating addiction as a disease.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 37 38 75 488
National % 50 42 48 98

 

Sigred had worked hard learning to organize and to
add to her knowledge of the nature of English. She moved

to the next level of English.

Student 9, Ted

 

Ted's problems in syntax and Spelling did not
diminish. For some reason that he never articulated, he

was unable to discipline himself to follow suggested steps.

104

Once an in-class assignment was completed,he too often
tried to jump to a profound conclusion. The fact that he
was able to follow directions in class and did a good
job, did not encourage him to master a technique. Often
he refused to write assignments. On the conscientious
objector he wrote:

The cases of conscientious objection is the most
critical condition area in the draft system. To
determine who is a conscientiois objector you
must conduct a very serious examination. This
particular examination is conducted by a special-
ized person who is trained to speculate your
conscientous objection is negative or positive.
If this psychcnalysis or psychiatory find out
from your examination that you were trying to be
deceptive in there tests, He would than declare
your test negitive, The man, whoever he may be,
may become very repulsive and burn his draft card
in his revolting; which is against the draft code.
His last resource may be to escape from his coun-
try and go to another country. My case is who is
the most responsible for these types of actions?
The country in which he lives in, the psychiatry
who reject him, or the man himself who can not
live up to his responsibility.

Ted was asked to come to the office for confer-
ences, but he could never find the time. In a tape the
writer listed certain of his personality traits that
stood in the way of his making progress. His response
was surprisingly cooperative.

I would like to improve a whole lot in English
because it is necessary. I believe that. The

difficulty comes in choosing my words that I
might be able to spell. I got a very small

vocabulary. I use very small type words. I
believe if I could improve, if I use some type
of method and I am going to do that. . . . I

would like to express that I can only go the

way I know. And if I see it a different way,

if they haven't showed me any great way that

was the correct way, then I have to use the one

I know. Is this the correct say? It may be . . .

105

I look to work out this problem I have with
anyone, for its been bugging me for a long

time. I believe that I will change in some

way . . . I am inspired by a Black teacher

or one concerned with students. I believe that
coming up in my educational field that I haven't
had that yet. I've seen some that act like it,
but when it came to points of extra time or work,
I haven't got that. I am inspired right now . . .
I'll need some time on that mechanics thing and
spelling . . . I hope that I'll be able to meet
you as often as I can and get as much help as I
can. I want to earn my grade. If you feel that
I can't get it, and you feel that I haven't got
it, I would appreciate if you come straight out
with it even though it may not be to my benefit.
There are not too many peOple who will come
toward me directly. I get a lot of indirectly
things, but I know you will tell me. I don't
want to be repulsive to anyone . . . Thank you
for your time in listening to this tape.

After several forced conferences, it was apparent
that some degree of progress was being made. He often
asked for a grade to be placed on everything that he did.
His research paper in another class was returned without
a grade, just a comment. It displeased him when he dis-
covered that grades were placed on the other student's
papers. He asked if I would read his paper because he
had devoted many hours in writing the paper. He also
felt that the instructor had been unfair.

The following paper is on "Darkness":

I should perhaps emphasize at the outset that
darkness is domination. My brothers feel this

is a higly controversial subject because there
is no or little doctrination or documentary work.
Although most of the ideas developed in this
paper have been borrowed from the writings and
coversations of others. The synthesis presented
here in this paper is my own. The rest of the
paper is mainly concerned with explaining how
the influence of darkman geology has risen and

I think its consequences are. I am concerned to
whomever the reader is of this paper. There is

106

no need for the knowledge of color formation,
physics or astromomy nor great need of studies
any particular science; but willingness to
follow the controversial argument to its logical
conclusion. This paper concerns the question:
Is darkman existence accidental or can it be all
accounted for in theoretical terms? For my part
I believe that the darkman existence should be
to diminish the realm of the accidental as much
as possible. This question has a bearing on

the current controversy about the remote past
and future of the darkman geology. Of course the
last word on the history of the darkman has not
yet been spoken

In the taped response Ted was told to brace himself
because all spades would be called. He was told that he
must follow English syntax and that he could not line up
words in any manner that he choose if he expected his
message to be understood. A line by line analysis was
made with the concluding remark that the instructor was
kind when he withheld a grade, particularly since Michigan
State did not use a scale less than 0.00. He was also
told that his message, if he really had one, was lost in
his emotions to fight without equipment-~a good knowledge
of American English syntax.

Ted sat through the final essay but did not turn
in his paper. He knew that some learning had taken place
but not enough. He left the class showing as much warmth
as the other students who had the same experiences in the
class. Ted's national percentile score on the Nelson

Denny post-test showed no increase. Ted was not recom-

mended for the next level of English.

107

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate

 

Raw Score 23 30 53 226
National % 17 23 13 48

 

Student 10, Carl

 

Carl made a lot of progress but not enough to be
able to handle the next level of English. His paper on
the "New Morality" indicated that he was beginning to
understand the sentence:

There can be arguments on new morality, but I
would like it to boil down to the individual.
It's really up to the person to decide on its
personal endeavor. Most males dosen't have
moral standards. It would be impossible for
me to judge someone by his or her actions.
That is what moral standard is, a placement
test. In this modern world it is believed
that a person who does had pre—marital sex has
to be a bad person particilal a female. Like
this country, if you keep everything within
ourself. there would not be a new chasity.

It was important for him to receive praise for
his efforts. He was often praised, and he was often
asked to explain his meanings. When suggestions were
made about his papers, he responded with long tapes
about his feelings.

I know that we can communicate through talking
instead of writing. I can express my feeling,
then you know what I mean when I say it verbal
than what is coming on a piece of paper . . . -r I
mean, you read the paper. How it comes to you

is another thing. It comes to me a different

way from the way it comes to you. I have been
trying, but there is so many arbitrary techniques
that we have to use in this standard English, and
they go against my beliefs some times--some of
them. If we want to pass ATL, we got to do the

108

arbritary things. I would like to come up and
talk to you. I want you to help me out. Show
me. Write it, and let me use that as a step-
ping stone or a background to this . . .

Carl's final essay contrasted drugs with legalized
alcohol and tobacco products.

The comparison of alcohol and smoking with drugs
addiction is very simular. These three addictions
only performed as a stimulate to the physical
body, and they performed in a period of time.
Scientists say that all three is hazardous to us
because it has a whole influence on physical fea-
tures. Smoking is said to stunt your growth,
alcohol is said to causes slower reactions, drugs,
like alcohol slown your reaction and take over the
mental sectment of our body. Each has or are
going through prohibition stages. Alcohol been
through it, and smoking is having a slight prohi-

bition period. Drugs is still in. Alcohol and
smoking became legal. It is ineviable that will
be soon . . .

For Carl to move to the next level could prove
embarrassing for him. He was aware that his performance
was not the best, yet he kept trying. He agreed that
sometimes his efforts to improve got in the way and that
he often skipped important steps in the learning process.
Mini-lessons programmed step by step on some basic

principles could help him to overcome some of his diffi-

 

 

culties.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 22 24 46 188

National % 16 13 12 26

 

109

Student 11, Mac

 

Time passed and Mac took off his dark glasses,
removed his hat, and appeared to be interested in what was
going on in the class. His earlier papers were short with-
out development of ideas.

I miss home-cookin and my ATL teacher didn't
make it any better today. She gave us sentences
to expand. The topic was biscuits, and the way
she described them reminded me of home so much.
I could taste the biscuits.

After several conferences, not initiated by the
student, he agreed to work in the language laboratory to
improve his vocabulary. He included some of the new words
in his papers.

Every individual has certain abilities. As one
reaches a much maturer intellectual mind, he

often insues deep thought of his goal in life.

The vertex of my goal can be met only through

a college education. The environment in which I
orginated influenced my decision. I find the life
of the inhabitants of my environment full of
depression, debts, and downfalls. Their life is
the "street life." They live day by day not really
knowing what might come up tomorrow. For some of
these people this pattern of life is acceptable,
but my philos0phy of life is much too repugnant for
that type of life.

The years prior to my decision to come to MSU
I almost had a nervous breakdown living the "street
life." The street life also caused my parents
excessive worry.

"Street life" compared to college life is much
different. College restrains one from the streets.
As a freshman I am not able to travel around and
stay out as I was able to do in my home city.
Transportation is the main cause behind that.

The books cause me to be more of a recluse than I
was at home. College offers a more adequate social
life with a large amount of intellectual dialogue.
The recreation is very substantial. I find myself
never bored. College life is completely different
from "Street life."

110

The accomplishments I wish to achieve are
really prosaic. I enjoy the family man position.
I want my children to have no part of the rough
life I tasted. Since I have always enjoyed busi-
ness work, I have made my decision to major in
Business Administration.

More important, as I scrutinize myself, I
notice above all things I want respect from
everyone. The best way to achieve respect from
others is to obtain respect for yourself. A
college education helps one to pursue this
respect. College really helps a person to know
himself better-the type of person you are. If a
person has respect for himself others will respect
him. And since college initiates thoughts from
oneself, these thoughts should lead to great
accomplishments and a life of fulfilled dreams.

Mac has acquired a curiousity about the language.

Even though his post-test did not show a sizeable gain,
his papers were more developed, especially his final
essay. We agreed that with effort he could successfully

pass the next phase of English.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate

 

Raw Score 20 28 48 214
National % 13 19 13 42

 

Student 12, Calvin

 

Calvin's discussion of his usage of hads did not

shed any light on the meaning. He understood the differ-

ence between have, has, and had, yet he could not explain

 

why he often used hads. He was encouraged to use his

 

dictionary but often forgot to bring it to class. On one

of those days he wrote:

111

Today in my English class the teach brought up
a point about how a nation can be defeated.

Our teacher point out how a nation, if divided
than it can easely corcorded. Her statement
about divide and corcord was on of the oldies,
an affective political move known to man. This
political move was re—created in a novel by
Basil Davidson in The African Slave Trade.

In Mr. Davidson novel dealing with history from
1450-1850, he put together how the White World
used the political move of divide and corder so
tacticly against the Black World. This political
move was so tactfully impotetated within the
Black World that it inableable for the most
unhuman crimes of history to take place.

Prior to reading the aforementioned essay, errors
on his paper were tactfully discussed. Tact was abandoned
at this point. Since Calvin did not come by the office,
the cassette tape was used to point out his errors. He
was told that the next paper could and would not have as
many spelling error, particularly since he was told to
use the dictionary. In fact, he was ordered to stay
after class to check his spelling. Fortunately, he did
not object to the edict.

Calvin swore when he became upset. This fact was
mentioned to him by tape. He responded by tape:

In Monday's class I finally realized what you
meant by little words I am saying in class. My
profanity at times comes out when I am relaxed

and also upset. I had never given much attention
to it. But I can see where it could be harmful

in a class setting especially when people come
from different environments. I can see where they
would be offended. So, if I plan on maintaining
this college level environment, I must do some-
thing about speaking and writing. I thank you

for bringing this to my attention.

A few days later the following letter was handed in:

112

Dear ,

I know that your husband is proud of you
because you are probabile the most concerned
teacher about your students that I ever come
across. If that's why you call yourself an
old fuddy dutty, then the words have taken

on a new meaning. Someday when I start a
family I hope my son won't have to wait 24
years before he have a fuddy dutty for english.

 

The reply to the letter stated that no one would
be proud if the kind of errors found in his letter were
permitted to go unnoticed. He was asked to re—write the
letter correcting the mistakes. He did.

Calvin's final essay was detailed with improved
spelling, but he did go back to h3g3.

Jonah J. Goldstein's proposal to give drugs to
addicts is a feasible solution to the drug
problem within the Black community. This would
be a feasible solution because drugs don't bene-
fit the smaller community in anyway. Only the
large white society receives the profits from
the drugs that come into the Black community.
The White society benefit in other ways also.
Once a person becomes an addict then he is
readily gullible to persons who hads the drugs

. . . It's one thing to analyze a problem but
coming up with solutions is something increas-
ingly complex. At the present time drugs within
this society exploit the poor and make money for
the rich. Since the laws are, in the most part,
to benefit the rich and not the poor, legalizing
drugs would be very contradictory. The laws
would maximize total profit from the poor with
the rich benefitting from this profit . . .

There is no feasible solution to the drug
problem, but I whole heartly agre with Goldstein
in making narcotics available to the addicts.
Once the addicts have easy availability to drugs,
dealing with the channel of distribution of drugs
is the next problem to solve. If the illegal
distrubution of drugs is stopped, there would be
no new members of our society being addicts.

Calvin's work was not consistent, for he often

went back to old patterns. He desperately wanted to move

113

to the next level of English. It was finally concluded
that he had mastered some skills, and if he really tried,
he could make it in the next course. On his Nelson Denny
test he was only able to get half through before time

was called. He could not be rushed. Hesitantly he was

recommended for the next level of English.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 25 26 51 129
National % 20 16 16 9

 

Student 13, Kent

 

Kent wrote on many subjects. His papers were
filled with questions and spelling errors. When he did
increase the amount he wrote, he still asked questions.
He wrote, ”Where is the World Going":

People are throwing everthing they can put there
hands on the ground. Why not? It's easier then
walking to a waste pail. In a couple years the
litter will be so deep that we can end problems
like grass, small animals, maybe even people.
You see, litter has good sides too. Where would
the government get money if it couldn't sack
peOple for throwing paper on the hiway? Animals
like rats will have homes and can eat in all the
beautiful litter. The water will get covered
over then no one can drown. Life guards will be
out of jobs, but we have to give and take for the
better. What would we do without the beautiful
litter?

In another paper he wrote:

Have you ever just sat around and watched the
world go by? Just sit on a hill under a tree
or next to a clear running stream (if you can
find one). Just sit in your own world. This

114

world has no wars, no poverty--nothing that can
upset you. You sit for hours, you and the brown
sky, Sorry, I mean blue sky. As you sit soaking
up sun, forty million ants have picked you for
lunch, but turn back on seeing the brown pile you
you are sitting on. Isn't having your own little
world wonderful--No wars, no poverty, and nothing
to upset you. Go out and sit on a hill but watch
out for the ants.

At one point Kent's attitude toward his studies
changed. From reading his papers it was obvious that his
thoughts were jumping here and there. When asked what
was wrong he answered by tape:

This term paper that I am writing for Nat.

Science has really got me going around in cir-
cles. I don't know. Oh well, that will be out

of the way Tuesday-still pretty close to the end
of the term. Maybe worrying about it has affected
my papers. But its been riding me because I
never had a clear thought on exactly what was going
on in that class. I signed up for a science
course, and it turned out to be a science philoso-
phy course, or something like that. As I said in
the paper, I really don't care what the world View
18.

He chose to write a reaction paper to the world

View.

On November 19, 1970 in the time slot of 12:30

to 2:10 my head was going around trying to find

out why any world View is really necessary. While
talking to my professor, I stated that Plunck and
Newton were really out of their minds, and so am

I to try to write this paper. I was told that the
paper was to be short, not as long as the greats
wrote theirs. I was to include as much as I can

on different points along the lines of science,
government, church, astronomy, and matter. Of all
these things, I must write not what they are today,
but what they will be in the new world View. In
the new view I have to tell if light will be a
particle, a wave, or both, as it is now. Also,
will the speed change? 186,284 miles per second

is a fast speed to measure. Will Plunck's constant
become a bigger number? Numbers like the constant
.ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo6624 maybe hard to find
on a yard stick. All these things and many more

115

like them are no concern to me. I don't care

if I'm in the new world view, old or even an

older one. I can take the fact that the

universie spins around the earth and the

planets are on spears. All this I can take.

I can even take the watermellon atom over

the quantum atom if it comes to that. So why

should I think of a newer world when the old

one is fine?

Kent did not care to write the scientific paper.

He was advised to stop overreacting to the assignment.
He noted that if he didn't stop overreacting, he would
have to be taken away. When things were clear in his
head, he handled interesting subjects. His gain of
twelve points on the post—test and his writings indicated

that he had made progress. He was recommended to take

English 112.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 36 54 90 461
National % 47 82 68 97

 

Student 14, Mark

 

Mark's paper on language was written early in the
term. He wrote:

There are a lot of people who feel that language
is in some way associated with a persons character.
I think that it is really unjust in judging a
person this way. Some examples of this unjust
judgement would be some of the following. Say for
instantence that a person doesn't have a big
vocabulary and isn't very articulate. We would
probably say "boy that guy is stupid," yet he
could be really full of bright ideas. We just
don't give this person a chance because he can't
express himself that well. Or it could work the

116

other way around. If we see a person our age
that talk like he has his PhD, we probably

say he is conceeded and he knows too much. It's
possible that this guy could be one of the nicest
persons you might ever meet. There are a lot of
ways that language is discriminatory, but these
are probably two that really stand out in our
every day life.

Mark came by the office to get directions for his
next paper. The next paper had the same type of mistakes.
He replied to the notations on his paper by tape.

Usually what I do when I sit down and write a
paper, I formulate a thesis where I try to take
a specific stand to prove something. What I

try to do after that is use tangiable points to
prove the main thesis so that I can actually use

examples and stuff like that . . . I guess, from
reading over my papers, I do find that I have
trouble formulating my sentences. The structure
of my paragraphs comes out poorly. I have run
on sentences or short sentences . . . I'll just

work to improve myself.

Mark did work to improve himself. He understood
what he was doing to produce fragments, choppy sentences
and run-to- together sentences. He had to work on his
spelling. He commented in his last tape that, "I'll
treasure my dictionary forever." His paper on overpopula—
tion showed that he had been working to improve his
writing. He was happy to write a thousand words with
very few fragments.

Throughout the world today we are hearing more
and more about the environmental problem we are
faced with. Almost every day we hear or read
something that seems to indicate the relevance

of this problem. One might ask, what is this
environmental crisis? I guess the best possible
definition could be man's self destruction of his
own means of survival. But the important ques-
tions are what is the basic causes of the problem,
and what can be done to curve it? Personally, I
think that the root of the problem is people.

5“. ‘oAdfi hibi-

117

It's simple. We have too many people already
living in this world. Consequently, we must
start some form of population control in order
to prevent the destruction of our environment.

His development included detailed descriptions of
facets of the environment that could be controlled. He
concluded that:

Unless we start some form of pOpulation control,
we are going to be faced with an unbelievable
environmental crisis. There will be massive
wide spread famines. There will be a time
reached when the land will run out. People will
be living on top of one another. Finally, all
of our natural resources, which are a must for
our survival, will soon be extinct. It's up to
us to learn to control population.

Mark was interested in his language and enjoyed his
writings. Even though his post-test score did not show a
great improvement, Mark's papers showed that he could

handle English syntax. He was recommended to advance to

the next level of English.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate
Raw Score 29 40 69 356
National % 30 48 39 90

 

Student 15, Charles

 

Charles was a confused person at the beginning of
the term. His papers were fragments or confusing. After

seeing several 3x4 slides, he wrote:

Death is real. Let's speak on the reality of
death. Why is death real? If death was not
real, than it would be unreal. Real is true-

something actual. If real is true, than unreal

118

is false. Death is real, therefore death it is
true. How real is death? Death is not unreal
because it exist. Death is true. The fact that
death exist and is actual, supports the statement
that death is reality. If death were false it

would be unreal. Therefore reality would be
unreal. Death could not exist if death was
unreal. Then death and its reality is a condition.

Therefore death is neither real or unreal, true or
false; death is a condition.

He finally found the courage to come by the office.
From this point on his papers took a different slant. On
television he wrote:

Television is the glorifier of the nation's ills.
Some people wonder why young people today are
rebelling against most of the things which have
been accomplished by their parents. More and

more massive doses of sex, violence, corruption,
and rebellion are drilled into the minds of young
peOple by the mass media called television. Young
people have seen through television the shrewness
of men of war and even the passion of a mother
bringing a baby into the world. Many see grotesque
police officers beating on young and old helpless
women. They have seen the free advertising of
immoral sex affairs glorified to the point of
non-belief.

We as people shun drug users, violent demonstrations,
pot pushers, and those who disrupt justice. Yet we
do not condone the very instrument which is the root
of the evil in society. For example, we applaud
programs like "Easy Ride," "Gunsmoke," "The F.B.I."
These are all based around sex, violence, and
corruption.

It is time for us as members of a human society to
help change the society for the better instead of
talking about those who have been trapped in the
evils of society.

Another stage of Charles' writing revealed a
different personality. He commented on beauty:

In nature one may find beauty in softness as well
as harshness. For example, a common house dog is
beautiful. His beauty lies in the softness of his
eyes, his large furry ears, and the touch of sad-
ness at the edge of his mouth. The dog radiates

119

a certain warmth, an inexpressible glow as he
curls up by an open fire in his deep undisturbed
moment of sleep.

Although we may find beauty in one breed of dog,

the sleek, stubbled haired muscular type dog is

also beautiful. Though his coat isn't smooth as
silk, shinney as diamonds, and his ears are crooked,
he still maybe deemed a lovely creature. However,
it is not because of his physical attractiveness,
but rather his forcefulness and agressiveness that
he is elegant. His pulsating veins, his alert eyes,
and his hot panting breath combine to form an image
of power and speed. Consequently, he is a true image
of beauty.

Charles' summary of drugs in his final essay
established that he understood the nature of his language.

. . . Medical technology uses drugs to cure
diseases. With all good there is some bad.
There are drugs that preserve life and drugs
that take life away. To give drugs to the
addicted is a slow process of killing life, a
life which might have benifitted society if it
had been helped. Society will never be served
by making narcotics accessible to addicts. The
end results would be a generation of addicts,
a slowing down in human accomplishments, and a
generation of malformed genetic off-springs
would be the only reward to drug legalization.

Charles increased his national percentile score
on the post-test twenty-one points. He had worked to

move to the next level of English.

NELSON DENNY READING TEST FORM B

 

Vocabulary Comprehension Total Reading Rate

 

Raw Score 34 34 68 327
National % 42 30 37 84

 

120

Evaluations

 

Student's Attitude Toward English

 

At the end of the term an ATL 101 Course Opinion
Survey was passed to each student. Questions three and
four of the survey related to attitudes. The following
is the percentage count tabulated by the Michigan State

Testing Center.

Question 3 Before you started the course, what was your

 

general attitude toward ATL 101?

8.3 1. Exceptionally favorable (enthusiastic)
8.3 2. Very favorable
25.0 3. Favorable
25.0 4. Probably favorable
25.0 5. Neutral, no feelings one way or the other
.0 6. Probably negative
.0 7. Negative
.0 8. Very negative
.0 9. Exceptionally negative (disgusted)

Question 4 Now that you have completed the course, what

 

 

is your general attitude toward ATL 101?

33.3 1. Exceptionally favorable (enthusiastic)
41.7 2. Very favorable
16.7 3. Favorable
8.3 4. Probably favorable
.0 5. Neutral, no feelings one way or the other

.0 6. Probably negative

121

.0 7. Negative
.0 8. Very negative
.0 9. Exceptionally negative (disgusted)

Items five through ten of the survey asked that

the student rate his improvement on a scale from one to

 

 

five.
Key: 1. Very much improvement
2. Definite improvement
3. Some improvement
4. No improvement
5. Got poorer in this area
1 2 3 4 5
5. Reading Comprehension 8. 16. 75.0 .0 0
6. Vocabulary development 41. 50.0 8.3 0
7. Theme writing 8. 58. 33.0 .0 0
8. Grammar and language
skills 8. 33. 41.7 16.7 .0
9. Logical and orderly
thought 16. 33. 33.3 16.7 .0
10. Study skills 8. 33.- 16.7 41.7 .0

 

Question 11 stated, I believe my laboratory participation

 

made a major contribution to my reading improvement.

25.0 1. Yes
16.7 2. I don't know

.0 3. No

122

Students in ATL 101A track were not required to
attend the laboratory. Only those who felt that the
laboratory experience would be profitable for them
attended. Thus, questions 12-21 were not answered. Ques-
tion 22 of the survey was not requested. Instead, the
following questions had been given for student reactions:

React to the Followinnguestions:

 

‘1. Do you feel that you have the necessary skills
to function adequately in English 112?

2. What is it that you did not like about the

course? State specific examples.

3. What is it that you liked about the course?

4. What would you recommend for students who take

the course?
Note--Please omit the "Sugar and spice and everything
nice." Be honest.

Four students admitted that they were not ready
for English 112. One admitted that she had not invested
enough time in her studies. The other three students,
even though they had made more progress than anticipated
and had acquired a better understanding of the English
language, felt that they started too far behind the other
students to go to the next level of English.

Question 2 received two responses. Charles thought

 

that he did not receive as much attention as he needed. He

indicated that a few students received more attention than

123

others. The vocabulary-drill was unrealistic. The words
were meaningless for the student at the freshman level of

his college program.

Question 3 received many favorable responses which

 

will be related in the attitude toward the media used.
Underlying most of the comments was the idea of variety
and actual involvement.

Question 4 did not receive any responses.

 

Student's Attitude Toward the Media

Some of the positive attitudes toward the use of
media in the English class were found in the student's
papers. Their reactions to making transparencies of their
handwritten papers produced the greatest reactions. They

felt that while they learned about the nature of English

the process was enjoyable. The first reaction toward the
cassette tapes was not good. Students found it difficult
to talk into a microphone in an empty room. Some resorted

to playing music in the background to break the silence.
Others said only a few words. This fear, however, was
shortlived when they disagreed with a comment or a grade
on their papers. In the final analysis they were using
the entire tape admitting that they enjoyed the feedback.
They felt that the use of 2x2 slides and flat pictures
stimulated the imagination and helped in the organization
of their ideas. They also stated that since they usually
studied while music was playing, the use of record disc

merely made writing less tedious. Some did object to the

124

choice of music and offered to bring some records that

were not so dated.

Student's Attitude Toward Emphasis on Language

 

The initial approach emphasizing the nature of
language was not well received in this class of diverse
backgrounds. Programming the same information in a
different method changed the attitudes. The class reached
the point where they joked about their limitations. After
calling attention to some misspelled words in a paper
where the use of the dictionary was permitted, one student
responded by saying he merely wanted to show his knowledge
of Old English spelling and to prove that he had understood
the need to have multi-dialects.

More specific attitudes about the emphasis on
language came about after a discussion of a conclusion
reached by the linguists at the Dartmouth Conference.
Students were told to react to the following statement:

No education can be adequate in which

knowledge of our native language, knowledge

of the mother tongue, is false, or shallow,

or trivial.

Most of the comments were made on tapes. Some of

the comments are listed:

I am an under-achiever. A course with emphasis
on the language is good background that I am
in dire need of. I am sure it will help me

through the rest of my college here. I believe
I understand English.

I never realized that there are so many accept—
able varieties of the English language. Although
you may live in the same country, be of the same
ethnic group, and speak the same language, your

125

manner of speech may not be the same. English
has many inconsistencies. Americans have
borrowed from so many languages. It is possible
to be a foreigner in your own country.

I feel fortunate to be in a class which places
emphasis on the language. I enjoy my assignments.
Now that I am learning to manipulate my words (as
you say), this week I put forth a special effort

to broaden my topics and to communicate my message.
Really, I think I am getting something valuable out
of this course. I can really feel improvement on
my part. Thank you for so much understanding.

When I first came to the United States, I learned
basic English. When I advanced to grades 9, 10,
and 11, the teacher taught us only grammar. No
one ever pin-pointed how the language is put
together as you have. I'll tell you that in this
approach I learned a lot about how English is put
together, more than all those four years in high
school or any place else.

I would like to tell you that I like the approach
you use. I enjoy class because you make everybody
listen. It is interesting to learn about the
history of English. English and writing has never
been my main subject, but now I enjoy coming to
class. You see, grammar bores me. I am so glad
you don't spoon-feed us grammar. I know all those
rules.

I think this course is probably the best English
course that I have had, and I have had a lot of
them, maybe not as many as you. I know that I
have had more than I really wanted. Since English
has never been my thing, I think I probably like
this one best because I learned a lot about the
English language.

When criticisms of the approach were withheld, all
efforts, even goading, failed to get criticisms. Thus,
the writer can not report any information in that area.

Miracles were not expected in one quarter. To
the writer, the students were interested in language, and

in varying degrees, they learned about their language.

Without hesitation, it is safe to conclude that based on

126

careful evaluation of each student's papers and close

association for a quarter, not a single student can be

classified as uneducable. Moreover, if colleges are to

continue the open door policy, materials focusing on the

operational aspects of English should be designed to

meet the needs of the students.

Recommendations

 

It is recommended that:

l. Mini-packages on principles of grammar syntax indicated

in the student's papers be designed.

A.

These lessons should include several pre- and
post—tests on the principles explained in the
lesson.

The lessons should make use of the media used

in the case study.

Lessons should be designed by the ATL instructors
who work with the Developmental English Program,
along with the linguists and instructional
developers found on campus.

There should be released time for those involved
in the designing and testing processes.

All mini-packages designed should be tested and
approved before being placed in the Learning
Resources Center as a tool required for students
to use.

Once these lessons are designed and tested,

controlled and experimental groups should test

 

[I‘ll]- III

127

the impact of the use of a mediated course in

the nature of language as a means of teaching

remedial English.

2. In-service training involving the findings of the
linguists be required of all ATL instructors of
Developmental English.

3. Instructors in the Developmental English program
be flexible enough to have sympathy and empathy for
the student's needs, teaching to the point of error.

4. Instructors should be hired as regular teachers with
compensation being based on credentials.

5. The best instructors should be at the level most
needed-Developmental English.

6. The laboratory-lecture method should be used to
teach remedial English with the instructor serving
as a guide in the discovery process.

Thus, the major concern of remediation is to help
individuals acquire the tools and skills necessary for
life adjustment. It should not be the concern of courses
in remediation to tamper with the student's dialect or
even force him to acquire another. On the other hand, it
is a concern of remediation to provide the student with
alternatives in both the written and spoken English,
allowing him to make his choice. Through the study of his
language, the student might discover "standard" forms

without being stigmatized for his "folk" dialect.

SELECTED B I BLIOGRAPHY

128

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Bloomfield, Leonard. Language. New York: Henry Holt,
1933.

Bloomfield, Morton and Newmark, Leonard. A Linguistic
Introduction to the History of English. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1963.

Cahell, N. R. The Design of English. Melbourne:
Heinemann, 1966.

 

Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton
and Company, 1956.

 

Cook, Albert 8., III. Introduction to the English
Language. New York: The Ronald Press Company,
1969.

Corey, Stephen M. Action Research to Improve School
Practices. New York: Bureau of Publications
Columbia University, 1953.

 

Fisher, John C. Linguistics in Remedial English. The
Hague Paris: Mouton and Company, 1966.

 

Francis, W. N. The Structures of American English. New
York: Ronald Press Company, 1954.

Fries, Charles C. American English Grammar. New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1940.

 

. Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign
Language. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1946.

 

. The Structure of English. New York: Harcourt,
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129

130

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APPENDICES

142

APPENDIX A

COURSE SYLLABUS

143

English 101B
Michigan State University
Fall, 1970
GENERAL OBJECTIVE OF THE COURSE: Since language belongs to
mankind, this course is
designed so that you will

have a better understand—

ing of your language.

TEXT: An Introduction to Language by Robert J. Geist

 

The Macmillan Company, 1970, Price $1.80.

DICTIONARY: Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary

 

REFERENCE: A programmed text in Grammar will be available

in Bessey Hall.

CLASS DAYS: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 1:50-
2:40 p.m. in Bessey Hall.

Monday and Tuesday - Materials from textbook
Thursday - In class writing assignment
Friday - Grammar and Reader (Materials for

discussion of grammar will be taken from
your papers.)

AT HOME ASSIGNMENTS: You are to react to your total
environment. Write down your reactions before

each class period. Be sure to put your name

144

SPECIAL PROJECTS: Much of the work on the special project

TEST:

145

and the date of class period on each of your
papers. These papers are to be kept in your
notebook. At the end of the term you should
have in your notebook a short paper for each
class period. Please bring your notebook to

the Friday class and to conference.

will be done outside the regular class period. ‘1
You will be able to check out tape recorders

from Bessey Hall; however, you must supply

the tape. Recorders must be returned by

9:00 a.m. the following morning. Arrangements

will be made for you to make overhead trans-

parencies. The ektographic copier, the 8mm

camera and the videotape recorder will also

be available for your use.

The mid-semester test will be an essay. The
final test will consist of essay questions

and an objective grammar test. Very short
quizzes may follow any unit. These unannounced
quizzes are merely to check on your reading
comprehension and to serve as guides to
materials that may need reviewing.

*Unless notified, you are to write your in-
class and notebook papers on regular 85 x 11

notebook paper using a number 2 soft lead pencil.

CHAPTER I

OBJECTIVES:

INTRODUCTION

I.

II.

146

"The Importance of Language"

At the completion of this unit, you will make
a list of five of the seven items illustrated
by the text to show your knowledge of the
importance of language. You will prepare a
two minute oral discussion on one of the five

items that you have listed.

Importance placed on language.

A. By people

1. In political situations
2. In social situations
3. In academic situations

B. Need for accuracy in communication
1. In translations from one language to
another
2. In transferring within a language.
Interest placed on language
A. Relating to self—improvement
B. Relating to profits
C. Relating to just peOple
EXERCISES:
A. Collect from newspapers and magazines
samples which show language as interesting

and important.

III.

147

B. Write a short paper on, "And all the world
was silent." Complete details regarding
format will be discussed in class.

C. Use the OED to trace the history of five
words that you find interesting.

D. Tape a conversation, lecture, radio or
television report. Comment on the effec-
tiveness of the communication. Suggest
alternative treatment for the same message.

Attitudes toward language

A. The "real" language

B. "Bad" language as it is associated with
character

EXERCISES: Discuss the following ideas: (Be

sure that you are able to support
your belief.)

A. A person just needs to know the meaning of
two or three words to know what a sentence

means .

B. It's my belief there is only one sure way

to make English easier for a student,

whether in high school or college. That is
through the study of Latin. Have the study
of Latin made compulsory in grammar or high
school grades for at least one year. Then
you willproduce students who will understand

the parts of speech, and they will know how

CHAPTER II

Objectives:

11.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

148

to decline nouns, conjugate verbs, and to

parse, analyze and diagram sentences.

C. Advocates of undesecrated English and

undefiled French indicate ignorance of
linguistic history. As long as a lan-
guage is used by the living, it will
create, borrow, discard, and alter meanings.
"Language is a working tool, not a picture
on a museum wall."

D. If you feel strongly about language being
associated with character, write some
specific examples which indicate the

association was not just.

"Some Basic Facts About Language"

At the end of this unit you will demonstrate
in writing the definition of language by
elaborating upon eight of the eleven charac-
teristics found in your text.

Language as a human accomplishment

Language as a purposive

Language as arbitrary

Language as symbolic

Language as code or system

Language as a social rather than biological
No one "Best" language

No one "most beautiful" language

No primitive language

XI.

149

Speech as primary

Variations in language

EXERCISES: React to the following:

A.

Japanese is a beautiful language. English
is a functional language.

No, English spreads and spreads today for
one main reason--the economic, educational,
technological, and diplomatic strength of
the Anglo-Saxon nations. And of all these,
it is the economic strength which is
perhaps the most important. Were the power
of this Anglo-Saxon world to fade seriously,
so in time would the global influence of
its speech.

Express two of the basic facts about
language in a drawing. Write a short
dialogue explaining the drawing. The

class will decide which drawings that
should be placed on transparencies. A

group will write the dialogue for the tape.

CHAPTER III "The Individual and His Language"

OBJECTIVES:

At the end of this unit, you will be expected

to state in writing:

1)

The rules for idiolect with specific
examples from your text showing variations

in idiolects.

II.

150

2) You will list three functional varieties
explained in your text, illustrating each
by citing one illustration from the text
and three from your personal experiences.

Language as a collection of idiolects

A. Language and the individual

B. Variations
1. Time
2. Region

3. Social and occupational class
4. Formality or informality of the
occation

Functional variety

A. Slang

B. Profanity

C. Trade language

EXERCISES:

A. Write a paragraph which depends heavily
on slang. Re—write the same paragraph for
a more formal occasion.

8. Prepare a series of five slides or magazine
pictures which illustrate a functional
variety of language that may be used in a
given situation. Prepare the corresponding
audio tape to accompany the slides. Be

sure the speech fits the occasion.

CHAPTER IV

OBJECTIVES:

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

151

C. List ten colorful words from your speech

that have multiple meanings.

"Social DIALECT"
At the end of this unit, you will differentiate
between standard and nonstandard dialects
through oral discussion and logically show how
traditions have influenced standards in the
twentieth century.
Social prestige as the hallmark of standard
English
Standard and nonstandard English
Eighteenth Century attitude.
A. Reason
B. Civilization of Classical Greece and Rome
C. Reflection in writings

1. Samuel Johnson

2. Bishop Robert Lowth

e. Goold Brown
The tradition of Right and Wrong
Doctrine of Usage

A. Webster's Third New International Dictionary

 

B. Usage and Joseph Priestly

Why the authoritarian tradition persists

IA varying standards of language

A. Correctness
B. Aesthetic

C. Effectiveness

152

EXERCISES: Comment on:

A. When you look up a word, the dictionary
often enumerate several meanings. Do the
compilers of the dictionary necessarily
feel that these shades of meanings are
quite correct or do they include them
because of much usage? Surely a meaning
would not be mentioned, however, commonly
used, if it had no true value.

B. The picture under discussion just previewed

for this special audience, was The Happen-

 

lgg, due for Columbia release in early
spring. "It's not us" was the Stanford
group consensus. "We don't know anybody
like that," someone said.

C. Write two passages which exemplify your
definition of standard and non-standard
speech.

D. Write a short script (3 minutes) for a 8mm
movie which represents standard or non-
standard language as you see it. (The
format for writing the script will be

passed out in class.)

CHAPTER V "Place and Time in language"
OBJECTIVES: At the completion of this unit, you will

classify a list of twenty items according to

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

153

geographical and historical dialects found

in the English language.

Regional differences in the United States

British vs. American English

Other English Dialects

Prestige dialects and regional variations in

other countries

A. Relation of regional dialect to social
dialect, functional variety, and history

B. Regional dialects becoming nonstandard

EXERCISES:

A. Conduct a dialect survey of your own.
Interview if possible a co-operative older
person--like a grandparent or select an
"informant" who has lived in one place
most of his or her life. Record the
informant's age and place of birth, the
year he or she lived in specific localities,
years of education, and major occupation.
Use some of the questions found on pages
98-100 as your guide.

Variation with time

A. Old English

B. Middle English

C. Modern English

A Germanic Dialect

VII.

CHAPTER VI

OBJECTIVE:

II.

154

Television lecture on variation in time will
be presented by Professor Robert J. Geist.
This tape will be available for additional

viewing.

"Grammar"
At the end of this section, you will prepare
three transparencies for class presentation
illustrating each of the three descriptions
of grammar.
Definition of grammar
Description of English Grammar
A. by definition

1. Determiners

2. Questions

3. Sentences
4. Verbs
a. Latin-based description
b. Structural description
c. Transformational description
EXERCISES:
A. Prepare exercises A:2 on pages 130-131 in
your text. Explain your answers using the

transformational description found on
pages 126-130.

B. Verb and sentence patterns will be presented
in class by overhead projections. You will

be asked to discuss the patterns.

CHAPTER VII

OBJECTIVES:

II.

III.

155

"The Sounds of English"

Upon the completion of this unit, you will
correctly write in phonemics eighteen of the
twenty-five words spoken by the teacher.
From a chart you will identify the places
of articulation for 85% of the English
speech sounds.

Contrast sounds and letters

The phonemic alphabet

Speech organs

A. Articulation of consonants

B. Articulation of vowels

Classification of phonemes and allophones
Intonation

A. Stress

B. Pitch
C. Juncture
EXERCISES:

A. Bring to class at least two tongue
twisters. If you have any difficulty in
rapid articulation of the twisters,
identify your difficulty by using the
sound system to explain your difficulty.
Be sure to use the tape recorder.

B. Write a short TV script on some interest-
ing facet of the language using the

materials that you have gained in your

156

studies. Design your script to use only
one camera. The format of the script
will be presented later.

Read the programmed material found in
Room 241 in Bessey Hall. When you have
completed the program, come to the office

to see me.

APPENDIX B

MATERIALS USED

157

P11; .' "u’| w 1|!

 

MATERIALS USED

I. Transparencies
A. On language

1. cartoons

2. comics

3. newspaper clippings
B. Color slides for theme subjects
C. On Speech Production

1. model of head showing intricacies of organs

2. organs used in speech production with overlay

3. vowel chart showing places of articulation

4. consonant chart showing technical and non-
technical names for places of articulation
with overlay.

5. diagraphm of tongue positions

6. diagraphms showing places of tongue position
for consonant sounds

7. word lists showing front, back, and mid-vowels

8. student-written papers

9. word lists showing diphthongs

158

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

159

10. grammar and syntax

a. run together sentences
b. sentence fragments

c. misplaced modifiers

d. irregular verbs

Materials given to students

A.

words that occur as prepositions

words used as subordinators and coordinators
words of transition

words to show parallelism

examples of writings from Uptaught

reprint from Oxford English Dictionary

 

reprint from the Saturday Review

 

comparison of phonetic symbols with Webster's

 

Seventh Collegiate Dictionary

 

examples of outlines

did you know fact sheets

Cassette tapes for feedback

Flat pictures

Sentence-combining problems

Records

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