happy oh I

 

 (Michelle)




  (Danson)


Background:

       Both Michelle and Danson are my tutees and in our tutoring session, I
have to teach them the skills of GEPT reading, writing and general English
text of junior high level. Besides these texts, sometimes I gave my tutees
chances to practice their reading and writing abilities, I used the way of 
magazine reading, picture-writing, or diary-exchange. 

        In this interview, I want my tutees to do a comparision between 
two kinds of writing learning which we used in our general class, which
are picture-wring and GEPT writing. 

       Both Michelle and Danson are high grade in the elementary school, but
their English levels are going beyond with the same grade elementary ss. 


Q1: In our writing instructions, which way do you like most? Why?
M: I like the way of picture-writing most, because I can feel free 
     to write down everything with wich coming up in my mind.
D: I like the way of GEPT writing, because I think the grammar
    and vocabulary are the basis for a piece of writing.

Q2: Which one do you think that is really beneficial for your writing ability?
M: Both of them are beneficial for my writing ability, 
     but I still like the picture-writing more than the GEPT writing.
D: Both of them are beneficial for my writing ability, picture-writing is a good way
     in which I can apply the knowledge of grammar or sentence patterns 
     which I have learned into it.


Q3: How do you think the way of GEPT writing that teacher taught in the class? 
      (What did you learn from this kind of writing practice?)
M: I can learn the grammar, sentence patterns and vocabularies in it.
D: I can learn the grammar, sentence patterns and vocabularies in it.

Q4  How do you think the role of grammar and vocabulary playing in the writing-learning?
M: They are very important fo me to learn how to construct a piece of writing work.
D: They are the basis for English writing, 
     I need to learn those skills then I can understand
     what an reading article interprete and also apply which to my writing work.

Q5: How about the way of picture-writing?
      (What did you learn from this kind of writing practice?)
M: I can apply my imaginations and creativities into it 
     and also know how to apply the grammar, srntence structures, and vocabularies 
     which I learned in GEPT text into it freely. 
D: (like the answer 2)

Q6: Do you think the way of picture-writing is beneficial for you creative writing ability or not?
M: Yes, I think the way of picture-writing is very beneficial and helpful for my creative writing ability.
D: Yes, I think the way of picture-writing is very beneficial and helpful for my creative writing ability.

Q7: Do you prefer that the teacher assigns you the title of each writing exercise 
       or you decide by yourself?
M: I like to decide the title or topic on my own, 
     and because I have infinite imaginations, I don't worry about that 
     I won't have any ideas someday.
D: Absolutely I want to decide the title or topic by myself, and then I
     can have more rooms to create my thoughts.

Q8: There are four skills in English, listening, speaking, reading and writing. 
       Besides the way that we used mostly in class which focus on vocabulary,
       grammar and sentence structure, do you think that English used in spoken language 
       (oral conversion, video-tape)is also helpful for yiur writing skills?
M : Yes, I think spoken language also do helps on the writing skills.
D:  Yes, I think through the spoken language, 
      we can learn some practical knowledge or experiences 
      that we can apply to our writing work.

Q9: Is there any suggestion that you want to add to our writing class? 
      (Is there any other ways you like for writing-learning?)
M: I suggest the way of playing games, 
     such like the vocabulary-guessing with gestures,
     moreover, we can see a movie once a month, 
     in which we can learn more new vocabularies and the useages of these words 
     through the teacher's explanations.  
D: No any suggestions, just use what we learn in our general writing text, 
     I think that's enough for me. 

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Conclusion:

   I combined both of my tutees' answers and then made a conclusion
about their answers. I want my tutee to do a comparision between
two kinds of writing learning which we used in our general class, which
are picture-wring and GEPT writing. 

   In the way of GEPT writing, in each lesson, 
they spent time learning the grammar, srntence patterns and then
they need to read an article. Through the reading article, they will find 
new vocabularies and the grammar and sentence patterns which they learned
before.

   In the way of picture-writing, which is a kind of exercise that I assign
for my tutee to practice their writing abilities at home. I always give
them four to six pictures and ask them to create a story about these
pictures. They can feel free to omit or add any pictures on their own.

   According to the interview, I found some conclusions: 
(1) They have their own interests, not both of them prefer the same way. 

(2) They both believe that grammar and vocabulary that they learned are benefical
      for their writing abilities. 

(3) They all agree that the way of picture-writing
      is helpful for their creative writing abilities that they also can apply those
      grammar and vocabulary knowledge into it.  

(4) They both want to decide the title or topic on their own writing.

(5) They both think that besides grammar and vocabulary, spoken
      language is also useful for their writing abilities.

(6) I also found an interesting thing that when I linked this interview
     to my observations on my tutees in class, I can understand why Danson
     who like GEPT writing always do good performance on general
     quizzes, but he cannot create his imaginations in writing as abundant as Michelle.

    On the other hand, Michelle who like the way of picture-writing, she 
    cannot performance well on the general quizzes but in her writing work,
    I foud she can create a piece of fluent and abundant story.  Futrther Michelle
    also has more ideas about the way of writing learning than Danson do.