Ubaidullah Baig - Exploratory research for class 8 students on Writing skills of English Language.

Ubaidullah Baig - Exploratory research for class 8 students on Writing skills of English Language.

My name is Ubaidullah Baig, SGT, in MPUP School Chagallu, Nekarikallu mandal of Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh. 

I am working in this school from 2015 and teaching the two language Hindi and English for 6-8 classes. In previous school I used to teach for lower classes like class1, class2, cass3 etc. There I used to teach all the subjects for any of the two classes. After joining in this school I am teaching only two languages Hindi and English and that too for classes 6-8. Here I got to know same strategies will not work out for these two languages. I learnt that every language teaching should have its own style and strategies. Neither Hindi nor English is the mother tongue of the students. 20-30% of the students belong to to Muslim minority community having Urdu as the mother tongue, it is somehow related to Hindi and the rest of the students who are hearing their friends speaking in Urdu got some words, phrases to talk etc. When I start teaching Hindi from class 6 ( Hindi is introduced in class 6), even though they don't know letters, vocabulary, sentence structures, conventions of writing, creative writing etc they are able to respond to questions posed to them while teaching some stories, pictures etc.  After getting familiar to letters, simple words, sometimes when ask them to write about something, they start writing immediately, and if they find any difficulty they would take help of their friends. There would be a lot of spelling mistakes in the words but they try to write. 

It is entirely different when I deal with English language teaching. English is the subject from class 1 itself, learning this language for the past 7 years but unable to express their feeling in the written form, unable to converse orally with their friends etc. It doesn't mean that all the students in the classes are like this, but this is the situation of majority of the students.

Sometimes our HM used to discuss this issue in our Teachers-meetings and suggested to come with some creative and innovative material to overcome this problem. Our staff are expecting something new from as I am Resource Person for some English training programs. After I get the chance of RIESI 30 Day face-to-face ELT program, I thought I must introspect myself, the strategies I am using, regarding Writing skill. I learnt here that there is some difference. It is different to what we generally think 'the Writing Skill' is, and creative writing also matters. According to my introspection, it is the most neglected skill by me while teaching. I came to know, I am focusing more on conventions of writing rather than creative writing. Proper use of punctuation marks, making use of dictionaries, hand writing techniques, notes making tips were given more priority rather than preparing and Developing the writing-content, paragraph writing, cooking a with the help of hints etc.

 I have referred the learning outcomes for class 8 English given by our SCERT-AP. (https://scert.ap.gov.in/SCERT/ourbooks.do learning outcomes file download window)

According to the guidelines and learning outcomes framed by the SCERT of AP, (Conventions of Writing) the learner must refer to a dictionary or a thesaurus for spelling while reading and writing and must be able to use proper punctuation while writing different discourses.

(Creative Writing): Expected outcomes are ;

i)interprets quotations, sayings and proverbs in writing as reference prepares a write up after seeking information in print / online, notice board, news paper etc.

ii) writes a coherent and meaningful paragraph through the process of drafting, revising, editing and finalising.

iii) writes short paragraphs coherently in English / Braille with a proper beginning, middle and end with appropriate punctuation marks.

iv) writes answers to textual / non textual questions after comprehension / inference;

v) draws character sketch, attempts extrapolative writing. writes e-mails, messages, notice, formal letters, descriptions / narratives, personal diary, report, short, personal / biographical experiences etc.

vi) develops a skit from a story and a story from a skit. writes a book review.

I took 8 students for my research belonging to different socio-economic backgrounds. They are at different levels in terms of their learning levels.

My Exploratory Research Areas:

The things I have planned are 

1) Asking students, their weaknesses in writing. 

2) Conducting pretest to check their writing skills with the help of my colleagues.

3) Taking suggestions from my teacher-friends, colleagues etc with the help of a Google form.

4) Interviewing parents on phone.

5) How other skills, like listening, speaking and  reading have their impact on writing. 

3) Taking suggestions from teacher friends,colleagues etc with the help of Google form: 

The entries I have made in the Google form are 

Email address *

Your email

Name of the teacher

Your answer

Your school address

Your answer

Your teaching experience

0-5 years

6-10 years

11-15 years

15-20 years

20-25 years

More than 25 years

Are you teaching English language for any class this academic year ?

Choose

What are the suggestions you would like to give me to develop creative

Your answer

Conventions of writing: What are the suggestions you would like to give me, to develop conventions of writing in my students.

Your answer

What are the methods you are following to develop writing skills in your students.

Your answer

How other skills like listening and speaking, reading, vocabulary, grammar are influencing writing skills? What is your opinion on this.

Your answer

Google form link : ( click me to go to the link)
https://forms.gle/pSumzuUkq1ZgAmfj6

Responses collected from 7 teacher friends:

In the form of a video. ( Click me for the video )

Ubaidullah Baig - My identity as a writing teacher.

My identity as a Writing Teacher:

I joined in the service a ten years ago in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh as Secondary Grade Teacher. After joining in the service, I tried our state's Public Service Commission's Tests but I could not make it to the final list. While I was preparing for those exams I used to write and sharr some important things in the blog , like current affairs, list of books, areas to be focused etc. This is the blog I created about 10 years ago, in 2012 as  I used to keep posting in subtopics, subject-wise etc. I used to gather important stuff online, compile them and edit them to make it short and then I used to post them in the blog. In my blog you can find a huge number of sub-topics in Menu i.e. tabs. This is the same blog I am using currently. But nowadays I am not writing and creating any material in the blog but planning to continue this from now-onwards. 

My writing works at our SCERT:

I worked as module writer at AP-SCERT for Teacher's Handbook. We had created resources, lessons plans etc to help the teachers while dealing with new English medium textbooks. I worked with Textbook writing team to find the writing errors related to language in Mathematics from class 1 to 5. 

Most satisfactory work I did there was spotting the writing errors in the National Anthem. Some punctuation errors were there. We had given proof for that i.e. Gazette published by Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Mr. Kishore, head of Mathematics team encourages me a lot at SCERT, and also other officials. 

Micro blogging and social media platforms to present my writing skills:

Apart from this blog I used to write on social media platforms and I am continuing it. In social media platform we have to convey the things in short paragraphs or in few phrases. Facebook groups that I act as an admin have given me a lot of scope to write and convey the larger message in less words. I am acting as admin for fb groups that have more than one Lakh members in total. Acting as Admin for whatsapp groups for around 100 whatsapp groups. Sometimes our member would be waiting for our responses on the social media, that gives us pleasure even-though somewhat it is creating pressure to write and create posts immediately after the incidents happening.

How do I teach writing : 

I focus on aspects of writing like spellings, punctuations and capitalisation techniques. While teaching English for classes like 7th and 8th I would like to give more information and techniques of punctuations to separate  or link the words, phrases and clauses.

I focus on children's writing and support them in the areas like Capital letters,techniques and rules to be followed while writing proper nouns, key words in Titles, at the beginning of the sentences etc. Content creation is very important aspect of Writing, and I learnt here at the RIESI that I need to focus on this. There is a lot more to know about Writing, and there is much more to learn about it, I learnt here.

My teaching experiences during corona pandemic

I am working as an SGT in MPUP school Chagallu, Nekarikallu mandal of Guntur District.

COVID-19 pandemic has added some challenges to teachers and to their jobs. In our state Andhra Pradesh the SCERT-AP has taken some daring decisions to deal with Corona pandemic as well as to ensure teaching learning continue further; and no loss of academic year.

To continue with the guidelines framed by the authorities, Government and the SCERT, we had started teaching online. Vidyavarathi program is very much useful for the children and under this program I used to bring the children to school for one or two hours, and if parents think that their child doesn't have immunity, we motivated the  parents to come to the school and get the doubts  clarified by the teachers and convey the same to the child. Actually very few parents used to come to us.

An expert group taught the lessons in Doordarshan Vidyavarathi program, for which we submitted weekly workdone statements for that particular week, lessons telecast on DD SAPTAGIRI,target class and some student experiences and other details. I am very fortunate to get the opportunity to teach the lessons on DD SAPTAGIRI under Vidyavarathi program.

This pandemic has taken us to new dimensions. We dealt with training to create Diksha e Content Creation at state, district as well as division level. I was resource person for this training. Here we learnt a lot how to create assessments on diksha platform, how to create videos, video editing techniques, audio techniques etc and we applied the same and prepared the videos also. 

I am very happy that I have created and edited some videos during this training. Now we are confident enough that we can create effective videos to make classroom environment vibrant. I feel these tools will be helpful for better understanding, concept learning etc for the students community.