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Expanded
Testimonials Regarding the Hunter Writing System: Sentence Sense
from College Instructors and Students
Salvatore Amico Buttaci, Bergen
Community College, Paramus, N.J.
1.
"The students . . . had a problem with language
and
. . . just
missed being ESL students--what one sees in cities and
metropolitan areas."
2.
There were 21 class hours in this summer session
so only 5 chapters were covered.
3. "The system can't be beat. It works.
The students loved it."
4. "It lays the foundation so they can get to
Base 1."
5.
"It overcomes the reason students
can't communicate in writing or orally."
6.
He congratulated the author.
7.
He followed the author's suggestions: he
taught strictly by the book--page by page.
8.
The post-course test results: 67%
passed the requirements for entering Freshman Composition. This
was better than 50% more than either of the previous years.
9. He singled out these features of the text that he
especially liked:
»
"I like your emphasis on the
verb as the first base, due to which all else follows in English."
»
"[I like the inclusion of] reviews
at the end of each chapter."
» "The text reads in a
natural way, as if speaking to the students individually."
» "The exercises are good
and very reinforcing."
10.
"It makes a lot of sense. Students
report back to me, 'If I hadn't been in that course, I would have been
lost.' "
Sandy Cornish, Southeastern
Community College, West Burlington, Ia.
"My student population is composed of all
these students: ESL, athletes, non-traditional, first generation
college, and learning disabled. They all seem to thrive,
know the material, write better original sentences, and are currently enrolling in
EN:002 [Basic English] where we
will continue to finish the book [the chapters after Ch. 8]; they wouldn't
enroll in 'Part Two' if they weren't enjoying the experience."
She had the same success last summer when
the course was an individualized Learning Center course. She
had students work independently on chapters with very little input from
her unless they got stuck. If they hadn't mastered the material at 80
percent, she spent about 45 minutes with them to go over those items she
thought they needed to review. They then took Test B and usually mastered
the material by that time. These are students with low ASSET
scores, poor English skills, and usually low self-esteem; they enter her
classes feeling they can't learn English. She had switched textbooks
four times trying to find a book with which they could not only be
successful but feel good about their ability to learn English. Until
she started using Sentence Sense, she had been unable to find a text they
could read comfortably at their level and still learn English.
Unlike many textbooks, the Sentence Sense text has a reading level for the
practice work that is comparable to the reading level where the concepts
are taught.
She tells of one student, from Venezuela, for
whom she thought the text might be inappropriate; the student has found
the book extremely helpful (and earned an A).
She tells of another student who was
thought to be incapable of college-level work; in the beginning this
student would not even make eye contact with others. Now he is
highly communicative with others and has earned an A.
Excerpts from a Proposal Submitted
by Sandy Cornish for Presentation at the Iowa Developmental Education
Association Conference,
October 1718, 1996
THE HUNTER WRITING SYSTEM
CAUGHT ME!
SUMMARY
After having unsuccessfully used over half a dozen
different developmental English texts, I finally found one that teaches
students a new method that works. I'd like to expand Tony Hunter's
presentation at NADE [National Association for Developmental Education] .
. . .
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
To share with other
developmental English instructors why this program using Tony Hunter's
textbooks works with students who have failed other grammar, writing, and
English classes. Since I have no vested interest in selling
textbooks, I will demonstrate student improvement in self-esteem, change
in belief in ability, and overall improvement for the first time in the
school environment.
CONTENT OF PRESENTATION: Overheads
of portions of the text . . . ; actual papers from students at the
beginning and the end of the class; personal stories of students who begin
the class silently with heads cast toward the floor, doing almost nothing
correctly, and ending the class teasing the instructor in a friendly
manner about how well they write.
RATIONALE FOR THE PROGRAM AND METHODS:
Failure of other methods and texts . . . led me to keep trying to find
anything that worked. . . . Once I found the Hunter textbook and workbook,
I was just taking another stab at finding something that would meet my
goals. This system exceeded my goals.
. . . . When I had as a 27-year-old college student
a former fifth grader who I know had been taught all the English grammar
rules thoroughly [in the `traditional' manner], and she couldn't begin to
write a complete sentence . . . , it finally dawned on me
that the old ways just hadn't worked. . . . When I found the Hunter
Writing system method of teaching English, I realized that his was a 'new'
way of helping students really understand the English sentence, working
extensively with the basic component: the verb phrase. After that, all
else was easy.
From students who had taken, or
were taking, my Freshman Composition course: Richard
Day, a student who was about 26 years old and who had taken my Freshman
Composition course the previous spring, told me that he had just spent the
summer supervising several construction sites and that he would not have
been able to succeed at it (doing the hiring, firing, phoning, writing)
without having had my course. The heart of this course was the grammar
component. A year later he became an instructor at our
college. At least two students at our
college told me, while they were taking my Freshman Composition course,
that this was the first time anyone had explained for them why
English works the way it does.
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