Hand writing and note-taking

October 24, 2006 9:36 PM

I am an ESL teacher, and I have several types of classes; however, I have one problem, my handwriting looks as if I were a five year old scribbling with a crayon. So I am curious if anyone might have any suggestions on getting better at handwriting and printing for someone who doesn't have time to go to a course. Also, a second related question, are there any ideas for making conversation corrections? When my students are speaking, I write down various things that they are saying, and make various corrections, or simply offer alternatives, or local dialect. What are some of the most effective and useful ways to do this? If there are any people who have spent any time learning other languages, what ahs helped you most? Thank you all in advance.
posted by Knigel to Education (12 answers total)

The more I handwrite, the better my handwriting looks. You could try writing a story or just copying out something for X minutes a day.
posted by stavrogin at 9:49 PM on October 24, 2006

An exercise I have seen used in a classroom was writing out a set phrase of about two or three sentences. Then the kids were asked to take a piece of paper on which the infinity symbol was printed. They then traced on top of this 7 inch wide infinity symbol at a brisk pace over and over for about a minute to two minutes. They were then asked to rewrite the phrase. Repeat the infinity symbol, repeat the phrase. It helps with control and flow. It helped their handwriting a lot.
posted by Foam Pants at 10:30 PM on October 24, 2006

I have had pretty bad handwriting most of my life, I find that being more deliberate in my lettering and not just letting it happen works, also visualizing what a good letter should look like helps.
posted by Iron Rat at 10:38 PM on October 24, 2006

Practice, practice, practice. Write very slowly and neatly. Focus on the neatness, and the speed will pick up with time.
posted by chrisamiller at 10:50 PM on October 24, 2006

This handwriting is for boardwork? Just write BIG, and take your time. I'm an ESL teacher, and I find error correction to be one of the biggest challenges. Don't do it enough, and students don't know what they're doing wrong. Do it too much, and it hampers conversation and discourages the students. You have to find a balance between the two.

My main method of error correction is to write down every wrong sentence I hear--there's a lot of incorrect grammar in an ESL class. At the end of the conversation, write the bad sentences on the board (with your new and improved handwriting), and ask the students to correct them.
posted by zardoz at 2:47 AM on October 25, 2006

Handwriting: I am really glad to hear you recognising that this is an issue - a teacher has to have legible printing. I second all the "practice" advice. Another thing might be, until you can really improve, consider that you actually aren't writing, you are drawing pretty pictures. Find a clear typed font that you want to emulate, and DRAW it. Try not to think about writing the word, but rather draw each letter. Take your time. Make it pretty. Don't give up until you've got it to a point where it is legible and pretty at the back of the classroom.

Correction: what you are doing now is great. By no means should you interrupt a speaker unless communication has broken down. Always make the Ss work for it: don't just tell them about your noted errors, write them on the board and have pairs try to work out what's wrong. Add in a few examples of good stuff that was said, to keep them on their toes. Collect common pronunciation errors, and have Ss predict the stress, or identify the "difficult sounds" for their own L1 background.

Good luck.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:09 AM on October 25, 2006

I found this guide to learning Italic handwriting somewhere here recently.
posted by mendel at 7:17 AM on October 25, 2006

Here's a similar question on handwriting improvement posted on AskMeFi a while back.
posted by La Gata at 7:44 AM on October 25, 2006

Are you making corrections/comments on student essays? That's really the only situation I can think of where writing things out by hand is a must. Otherwise, I find that preparing handouts or simple presentations bypasses the issue completely. This is a particularly viable option if your classroom is equipped with a PC and projector. Writing on the board is notoriously difficult anyway, even for someone with good handwriting.

I agree with zardoz that correcting is a tricky issue. I think the aim of the (particular) class goes a long way in determining how it should be handled. Is phonology a major component of the class? If so, correcting intonation should be a part of your considerations. Is it a "survival English" type of class? Then corrections should be reserved for only the most egregious errors, IMO. Also, are you teaching in-country or out? This also makes a difference, as students have different reasons for learning English depending on whether they're learning in their home countries or are exchange students/immigrants.

(Sorry I can't offer you any tips on actually improving your handwriting, but I think others have given you some good advice.)
posted by war wrath of wraith at 8:51 AM on October 25, 2006

A small contribution about correction: I would scribble down errors, then look for those most often repeated and focus on that for the next lesson(s). This worked well for one-on-one teaching; I don't know how well it would work for a class.
posted by moira at 5:29 PM on October 25, 2006

I am also an EFL teacher, also with bad handwriting of old. The thing that most helped me was to learn to write from the shoulder, not from the fingers, so that the hand holding the pen is not resting too much on the paper (I'm a leftie too so I have issues there with smudging). This method paid dividends most when transferred to the board.

One of the things you can practice is pages of swirls, loops and circles aiming to make them smooth and similarly sized and spaced.

As for correction, I read somewhere, can't remember where, that immediate correction is really good for fixing the correct vocab in the mind of the student. I know it's tough, and I wouldn't advise correcting everything, it'd just bring things crashing to a halt, but often the students pause or say things tentatively and a quick confirmation or correction doesn't interrupt their flow.

It depends though, as others say, on what type of class it is. If it's a conversation class, that's what I do unless I identify a specific area the student has trouble with and then I'll wait until there's a pause. In other types of classes I get the students to fix their own mistakes wherever possible.

My Spanish teacher uses the same method with me and I find it really helpful.
posted by itsjustanalias at 8:16 PM on October 26, 2006

Second the link that Mendel gave. I taught myself italic from it, and within months found it becoming my hand of choice. A year later, I found myself teaching EFL in Taiwan. Italic has been absolutely indispensable. And writing it in chalk is an incredible sensation.

Once in a few weeks I will need to write something fast (for private use, not for display), and will revert to the hand I learned in grade school. It still looks terrible. And if I tried to write it with chalk, it'd be miserable. Too much pushing; italic is essentially all pulling.

So yeah. The morals from my life are that a person with infamously poor handwriting can acquire infamously good handwriting by learning a new hand, and that italic is a great one to go with. You will have to go through a slow phase until the new letterforms become automatic, but I'm telling you it's totally worth it.
posted by eritain at 12:37 AM on March 7, 2007