I'm teaching two very DIFFERENT classes this term. In fact, in some ways, they are diametically the OPPOSITE. One of them is about the LINKS between talk and text (our class) and the other is about the DIFFERENCES between speaking and listening (on the one hand) and all the other "skills" on the other.
But sometimes the homework is quite similar. This is because I think there are a very few kind of 대표적 sets of problems which are central to elementary teaching in general and elementary English teaching in particular, so I want to address them no matter what class I'm teaching.
It's not because we make lots of mistakes with these sets of problems. I think some teachers make mistakes with them and others do not. For example, the word "the" has a central INDICATIVE role in making things concrete, as well as in referring back to old information. But of course many teachers do without it.
Some of these teachers make mistakes:
T1: *Iguana's name is Iggy (sic).
And some do not:
T2: This iguana's name is Iggy.
T3: His name is Iggy.
You can see that T1 has made an error and T2 and T3 have not, but you cannot really say that the difference is one of proficiency; it is really a matter of strategy. T1 has a strategy we can call "omission" while T2 and T3 have a strategy we can call "avoidance". But it may well be that T1 will find it much easier to learn articles than T2 or T3 (because T1 is more likely to notice something is missing). So in that sense we can say that it is T1 who is developmentally ahead!
And it seems to me that "development" is the right word to use here--not "learning". Because whether you make mistakes with "the" or not, "the" is an absolutely ESSENTIAL item in elementary English teaching, not only because the whole problem set of indefinite/definite articles and plurals is a central part of every lesson involving nouns, but because it is an essential MOMENT in the MOVEMENT of the child's thinking from INIDIVIDUALS to EXAMPLES to CONCEPTS.
That movement is not simply learning, but development, because it has the power to restructure and redescribe everything the child has already learned as well as lay the foundations for an entirely new kind of learning, namely thinking in science/foreign language concepts. In other words, it's not a matter of learning one additional piece of information; it's a matter of entirely reanalyzing and resynthesizing all of the information the child already has.
One very common avoidance strategy is using names. We saw that my former colleague Stanton Proctor developed a whole set of very successful preschool readers using this strategy to destroy the child's ability to grasp English language concepts:
I am Seal.
I can swim!
But the avoidance strategy is not altogether successful, because we encounter the SAME problem of specificity, exemplification, and abstraction when we use NAMES. Like this:
I am Papa Brownbear. (specificity, individuality)
Call me Mr. Brownbear. (exemplification)
I am the MASTER of the Brownbears in my house! (generality)
So for my homework I'm going to use this.
Now, I'm going to choose FOURTH grade, Lesson TWO, "Don't Do That". It's the beginning of the lesson, and the last lesson had, as vocabulary "It's rainy/snowy/cloudy/sunny". I'm going to USE this to make a very simple kind of 조사/설문지 출석부.
a) T: Look! I'm Bert Brownbear. Is it a BOY'S name or a GIRL'S name? What about Bertha Brownbear! Right! She's my wife, Mama Bear. And I'm Papa Bear.
b) Does she call me Mr. Brownbear or Bert? What about my cubs? What do THEY call me? What about my cubs' TEACHER?
b) Now, this is my AVATAR. See! He looks like a Teddy Bear. His name is BB. Now, BB likes SNOWY days. That's because he likes to SLEEP. (Draws zzzzzz next to avatar, and writes avatar under a SNOWY symbol). What about YOUR avatar? Show me!
c) (taking the completed survey) Now, look at this SURVEY. Tell me about it. Tell me about BB. Tell me about Mama Bear. Tell me about Zeebra, and Zeeto, and Thomasina and Thomas. And how about Lisa?
Now, remember we had THREE problems to solve:
a) The distinction between boys names and girls names.
b) The distinction between given names and family names.
c) The distinction between Mr. and 미스터.
You can see that I haven't really solved ANY of these problems explicitly, by explaining. But you can also see that they are ALL solved implicitly. Do you think that is enough...for development?
dk