The Study of the Picture Observation Instruction and Enriching Sentences in Lower Grade Students

• Main Authors: Su-ching Chiang, 江素卿
• Other Authors: 張春榮
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/81276456985465142829

碩士 === 國立臺北教育大學 === 語文教育學系碩士班 === 94 === Abstract The mind of lower grade students is the germination field of literary seeds. How to guide students to use their vocabulary and thinking style to write readable and fluent articles is the main issue in writing instruction at elementary school. As an elementary teacher for years, the researcher finds that lower grade students have the characteristics of being active, being unable to concentrate for a long time, and having limited vocabulary for expressions. Therefore, making sentences by observing pictures is a suitable teaching method for these students. In addition, in the teaching of making sentences by observing pictures, pictures can easily interest students and attract their attention. As long as teachers have proper guidance, this teaching style can help students to observe, think, imagine, organize, and express. The purposes of this study were (1) to explore the suitable types of pictures for lower grade students in making sentences by observing pictures, (2) to understand the linking situation of visual intelligence and linguistic intelligence in students’ writing activities of making sentences by observing pictures, (3) to evaluate the practicability of incorporating sentence pattern instruction into making sentences by observing pictures, (4) to examine the effect of making sentences rich and meaningful by incorporating rhetoric instruction into making sentences by observing pictures, (5) to explore the training and teaching results of making sentences by observing pictures through authentic assessments, and (6) to examine the influence of the instruction of making sentences by observing pictures on students’ writing through formative assessments. For the above purposes, the method of case study was applied. The researcher designed 12 worksheet units of making sentences by observing pictures. The subjects were 25 second graders from one class at one elementary school in Taipei City. The instruction of making sentences by observing pictures lasted for 12 weeks based on the lesson plans designed by the researcher. The students’ works were collected, analyzed, and discussed based on “Assessment Indicators of Making Sentences by Observing Pictures.” The results and conclusions were as follows: 1. The picture types suitable for lower grade students in their making sentences by observing pictures included concrete pictures, abstract pictures, pictures related to children’s life experience, and pictures related to their textbooks. This implied that teachers have to design and develop pictures relevant to the instruction objectives. In addition, when choosing pictures, teachers have to take into consideration the number of the components in the pictures, the size of the pictures, the clearness of the colors in the pictures, and the presenting method of pictures. 2. In students’ sentence pattern writing, the correct ratio in compound sentence patterns was higher than that in basic sentence patterns. This resulted from the unbalanced distribution of sentence patterns in different textbooks and students did not have enough practice. In fact, pattern instruction should begin from lower grade level and be implemented based on the principle of from easiness to difficulty. Teachers should teach sentence writing by patterns instead of by rules, and by practice instead of explanation. 3. In the situation of freely applying rhetorical types to make sentences, the frequently used rhetoric types by students were repetition, personification, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and pun. The use was affected by pictures. Teachers and editors of teaching materials should understand that rhetorical instruction can facilitate students’ creativity, and rhetorical instruction should begin from lower grades. 4. The analyses of students’ worksheets revealed that when students made sentences based on both the meaning of pictures and the basic grammatical patterns, and then expanded them, these sentences corresponded to accuracy and logic in the assessment indicators. These works belonged to “intermediate level”. When students applied rhetorical skills to make sentences by observing pictures, the works corresponded to creativity in the assessment indicators and showed flexibility, fluency, and excellence. These works belonged to “excellence level”. Through the instruction of making sentences by observing pictures, students’ writing improved qualitatively and quantitatively from writing correctly to writing well, writing skillfully, and writing wonderfully. In other words, the instruction of making sentences by observing pictures had positive effect on the promotion of students’ literary and linguistic quality and quantity and on the development of students’ literary and linguistic creativity. 5. The effects of making sentences by observing pictures on students’ writing included the following aspects. First, the contents of pictures lead to the contents of sentence making. They benefited students’ sentences making. In addition, the contents of pictures had different effects on students who had different sentence making abilities. Besides, the number of components in pictures had different effects on students with different sentence making abilities. Moreover, pictures could facilitate students’ writing interests. Last, making sentences by observing pictures could foster students’ abilities in observation, imagination, and creativity. Through the instruction of making sentences by observing pictures, most of the students mastered the principles of observing pictures, had good connection of visual intelligence and linguistic intelligence, and made progress in the application of basic grammatical patterns and rhetorical skills. For the proficient students, they need to develop the abilities of flexibility, fluency, and excellence and to foster the ability of application of rhetoric and facilitate plentiful imagination. In so doing, their paragraph writing will contain the characteristics of impressions and variation. For the intermediate proficient students, it is necessary to improve their visual and linguistic intelligences, and to foster their application abilities in the use of basic grammatical patterns and rhetorical skills. As to those low-level proficient students, the priority is to teach them how to have a logical thinking for concrete pictures. Then, they have to master basic grammatical patterns and make the use of rhetorical points. Besides, it is another good way to improve their linguistic ability by encouraging them to read qualitatively and quantitatively.