3. Medici´on interferom´etrica de dispersiones
3.3. An´alisis de la propuesta con corrimiento de fase
The introduction of an Australian national curriculum was first announced in January 2008 (Gillard & Rudd, 2008). By December of that year, the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (2008) was published by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, in which it was stated that the national curriculum would engender “deep knowledge, understanding, skills and values that will enable advanced learning and an ability to create new ideas and translate them into practical applications” (p. 13).
In the same section, the Melbourne Declaration outlined that young people would gain the ability “to think flexibly, to communicate well” and that they would “develop the capacity to think creatively” (p. 13). These ideas all conform to the writings of Haim, Strauss and Ravid (2004); Johnston (2010); and Myhill (2011), who have very strong ideas about the possibilities of solid grammar instruction being able to produce the results mentioned in the Melbourne Declaration.
In May 2009, two further papers were released: one was the Framing Paper Consultation Report: English (ACARA, 2009a) and the other was The Shape of the Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2009b). The Framing Paper comprised a report on a series of questions that had been answered as the result of a
consultation process among the teaching profession and the public. One question particularly concentrated on the teaching of grammar within the English strand of the national curriculum. It was reported that 96% of respondents “strongly and enthusiastically endorsed the inclusion of the teaching of grammar” (ACARA, 2009a, p. 22). The Shape paper presented a section entitled “Knowing about the English Language”, in which it was stated that:
Students will learn how language enables people to interact effectively, to build and maintain their relationships, and to express and exchange their knowledge, skills, attitudes, feelings and opinions. A consistent way of understanding and talking about language enables students to reflect consciously and precisely on their own speaking and writing, its efficacy, fluency and creativity, and to discuss these matters productively with others. (ACARA, 2009b, p. 6)
By January 2012, the General Capabilities in the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2012a) had been published, in which was given the reason for including grammar knowledge in the curriculum. The reason was shown to be for students to
understand “the role of grammatical features in the construction of meaning in the texts they compose and comprehend” and to understand “the grammatical features through which opinion, evaluation, point of view and bias are constructed in texts” (p. 16). Some of the above-mentioned documents preceded the actual curriculum,
while the last-mentioned one was developed at the same time as the curriculum. All these documents point to a very positive idea of grammar teaching; however, as will be pointed out later in this section, the review of the curriculum (Australian Government, Department of Education, 2014) paints a picture that is less glowing, because of the perceived lack of grammar knowledge on the part of current teachers.
The English component of the Australian Curriculum (ACARA 2012b) has three distinct strands: (i) language; (ii) literature; and (iii) literacy, which are interwoven to make one complete whole. An examination of the language to be taught at each year level yields the following grammar items:
Table 2.2 Year level grammar items from the Australian Curriculum (extrapolated from the Australian Curriculum, ACARA 2012b).
Year Level Grammar to be explicitly taught Foundation
Year
Difference between spoken and written language; Alphabet: upper and lower case; Punctuation: capital letters and full stops; Idea of sentences as key units for expressing ideas.
Year 1 Nouns; Pronouns; Verbs; Adjectives; Adverbs.
Year 2 Synonyms & Antonyms; Further punctuation work; Compound sentences & coordinating conjunctions; Nouns: common and proper; Noun groups; Prefixes & Suffixes.
Year 3 Formality & informality in language; Verb tenses anchored in time; Apostrophes of contraction; Clauses with subject – verb agreement; Modal verbs.
Year 4 Linking devices; Quotation marks; Direct & indirect speech; Noun phrases; verb phrases; prepositional phrases; adverbial phrases. Year 5 Possessive apostrophe; Complex sentences: main & subordinate
clauses; Uncommon plurals.
Year 6 Cohesive links; Commas to separate clauses; Use of complex sentences.
Year 7 Initial & concluding paragraphs; Topic sentences; Use of punctuation to support meaning in complex sentences with
prepositional phrases and embedded clauses; Use of punctuation to support meaning in complex sentences with prepositional phrases and embedded clauses; Achievement of modality through
discriminating choices in modal verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns; Abstract nouns; Word origins, for example Greek and Latin roots, base words, suffixes, prefixes, spelling patterns and
generalisations to learn new words and how to spell them.
Year 8 Use of rhetorical devices to persuade; use of metaphor, irony and parody to develop different layers of meaning; Text cohesion to strengthen internal structure of paragraphs through use of
examples, quotations, etc.; Creation of coherence in complex texts through devices such as lexical cohesion, ellipsis, grammatical theme and text connectives; Use of punctuation conventions, including colons, semicolons, dashes and brackets in formal and informal texts; Use of a variety of clause structures, including embedded clauses within the structure of a noun phrase; Nominalisation.
Year 9 Evaluation expressed directly and indirectly using devices, for example allusion, evocative vocabulary and metaphor; Use of cohesive devices in texts, focusing on how they serve to signpost ideas, to make connections and to build semantic associations between ideas; Use of certain abstract nouns to summarise preceding or subsequent stretches of text; Use of vocabulary choices contributing to specificity, abstraction and stylistic effectiveness.
Year 10 Citation conventions; Wide range of sentence and clause structures; Vocabulary choices to discriminate between shades of meaning; Spelling unusual and technical words accurately, for example those based on uncommon Greek and Latin roots;
Table 2.2 has been formulated for the purposes of this thesis and has been included here, because in Chapter 5 of this thesis a comparison will be made between
expected grammar knowledge and actual grammar proficiency of teachers who took part in this study. Although respondents in the current study are not bound by the Australian Curriculum, the areas to be covered in teaching international
students to become proficient users of English are similar. It is assumed that domestic school students (as fluent English speakers), especially in the early years,
would know how to use the listed items in the above table. However, they would also need to learn the metalanguage, in order to be able to discuss the items or to learn from correction (Alderson et al., 1996). Therefore, the teaching of grammar, perforce, includes teaching the ability to discuss grammar terms. With progress through the year levels, it can be seen that the emphasis moves towards more formal writing aspects.
Some researchers have already conducted studies into the implications of the
Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2012b) since version 3 was published in 2012. The Knowledge about Language strand will, in all likelihood, require much more expertise on the part of teachers than most currently possess. Jones and Chen (2012) have identified the need for professional development programs for
domestic teachers of English. This curriculum, for the first time in Australia, charges all teachers with the “responsibility for explicitly teaching their students about conventions of language and text patterns within their own learning area” (ACARA, 2009b, p. 14). This goes much further than expecting teachers of English language to impart English skills to students: all teachers will be responsible for use of English within their own discrete discipline areas. As grammar teaching was virtually
abandoned in the 1960s, this new edict will cause potentially serious ramifications for teachers who have not been taught grammar themselves. Australia is not the only country now requiring explicit grammar instruction. Other countries also require such instruction.
Myhill (2005) reports that Britain has also mandated the teaching of grammar in its English curriculum. In fact, grammar is now a central part of its literacy policy. In a later publication, Myhill (2011) continues with: “the potentiality of grammar lies not in crude applications of prescriptive rules to correct children’s writing but in
opening up possibilities, making tacit patterns and ways of meaning-making explicit” (p. 92). Myhill’s mere mentioning of terms such as “potentiality” and “possibilities” shows that she is thinking along the same lines as Johnston (2010); and Haim, Strauss and Ravid (2004) with their respective notions of deep literacy and deep grammar knowledge. This kind of depth is a laudable aim; however, it will take considerable time to implement, because teachers will need much support and
development to help them to arrive at a conceptual situation of such depth as envisioned by the above authors.
It is generally accepted that students’ knowledge about language is closely
influenced by their teachers’ knowledge and teaching effectiveness (Andrews, 2007; Myhill, 2005). It can therefore be safely assumed that students’ knowledge of grammar will only improve with an improvement in teachers’ knowledge of the same. If the Australian Curriculum (2012b) is to be effectively implemented, teachers will need much support and development. The idea of considerable support for teachers can be gleaned from Jones and Chen’s (2012) study, which indicated that there were considerable deficiencies in teachers’ knowledge and confidence regarding grammar terms: “Generally speaking teachers were most comfortable with commonly used terms such as nouns, verbs and adjectives” (p. 152). This idea will be further explored in the Discussion chapter of this thesis. Jones and Chen also reported that teachers in their study felt “anxious, overwhelmed and confused” (p.157) by the new grammar requirements of the Australian Curriculum.
However, despite such concerns, there is cause for optimism because the Australian Curriculum is at the beginning of its life. Derewianka (2012) discovered that
“teachers are finding that the Language strand offers a sound, theoretically
coherent foundation that they and their students can draw on as the basis for lively exploration of language and how it works” (p. 144). Derewianka (2012) also states that the Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority itself views the Curriculum as a document that is evolving and that will be constantly refined as teachers work with it in the classroom.
On the other hand, an opposing view can be found in the final report of the review into the national curriculum commissioned by the federal government and
published in 2014. Concerns were expressed in the area of
... teacher knowledge and expertise, the quality and effectiveness of teacher education courses and the extent to which the National Professional Standards for Teachers ... ensure that English teachers, and teachers in general, are best able to implement the curriculum in
classrooms across Australia. (Australian Government, Department of Education, 2014, p. 164)
The review continues with the concern that no matter how laudable the curriculum’s emphasis on the teaching of grammar might be, many classroom teachers simply lack the knowledge and skills to teach it. This concern is expressed very strongly as follows:
This admirable aspiration in the curriculum raises a fundamental issue: how are teachers who may be themselves untrained and unskilled in grammar (having come from a system in their own schooling where it was not taught) to be educated and supported in achieving the projected ‘sophisticated understanding of grammar’? (Australian Government, Department of Education, 2014, p. 165)
The reality that most current teachers are under-prepared to teach grammar is difficult to minimise in view of the fact that several generations of Australian teachers have engaged in little or no formal study of foreign languages, as this is an area of the curriculum that requires a focus on metalanguage and knowledge of grammar conventions. The same teachers are also likely to be the products of some decades of English teaching that showed little or no emphasis on grammar and punctuation. For these reasons, it is essential that the new curriculum should have support for teachers built into it (Australian Government, 2014, p. 165). Without this support, it is doubtful that the requirements of the national curriculum will be able to be effectively implemented.