ESL COMPOSITION TEST
FALL 2013
They asked for “At least one well-developed and
organized paragraph.”
Writing Prompt: Teachers often tell students to turn off
their cell phones in class. What is the
reason for this? Do you think there should be a cell phone
rule in the classroom?
Explain why or why not and give several
reasons for your opinion.
I'm a little late in posting this. After all, we gave the comp final on Thursday, December 12, and I haven't been prompt in sharing the prompt and the responses it prompted.
The exam was given three days after the posting on Insights (the KQED one overseen by Maxine Einhorn) of "Everybody, Please Take Out Your Cell Phones."
Eventually, I'll add Brent Warner's thoughts in the article with the link above as well as those of Dayamudra Ann Dennehy, who uses cell phones in her ESL 79 classes in public speaking. But I'm going to begin with the students' thoughts in their own words.
As far as content, this is what's missing: the idea that students
could pay attention to the ongoing “unlocking” of the text together with the teacher during the reading
and class discussion. The
clear picture is that students spend class time looking up words in their smart
phone and then, before leaving, use their cell phone to take pictures of the
teacher’s notes on the board.But there are exceptions (which I started to write as acceptions): “As
possible as turn off the cellphone." a student advises. "If we have a question ask to teacher is
more correctly and can remember well more than search the Internet.” Now, he says, he can’t remember his mother’s
birthday without his cell phone, and his father advises, “To use cell phone is
easy, but analog is always good for you.” (I wish I knew what he meant by analog.
Before I let them sound off, I'll note the difference in sound a cell phone makes going off in different parts of the world. A Brazilian student writes "Ring, " and a Chinese student writes“Lin, Lin, Lin.”
In both cases I was impressed by their actually dramatizing, illustrating instead of just explaining. (I spend the whole semester trying to show them the difference between the two.)
A student from Tajikistan (I looked only after scoring his paper) points out that we are “edicted” to phones but “We refer edicted here in positive way.” True, he says, the phone can be the source of
“distruction,” so “we are agree” to
follow two rules: “Do not use your phone
during quiz or test, that’s I love it.” (We really did work on relative clauses, but to no avail.)
But “When we have more rules than these two
I am disagree.” There are too many
advantages to the light cell phone making information easy to find. “It is all your school on one small device.” The student contrasts it to “carrying a
heavy, big with thousands page of dictionary like Longman.” Published in 2000, “it is been 13 years, so
a lot of information is missing,” but the phone has Application being update
every day." He talks about taking a
history class “which book doesn’t give enough description,” so “if I didn’t had a phone on that
time, might be dropped from the
class.” “Lickly” the small device helped
him record all the lectures. Yes, he
grants, a lot of people are trying to check their Facebook or emails “but we
are not one of them.”
Another student says that “developed technology is the
unvisable trend” and it makes life more “convinent.” Some informations is “wildly download.” It’s important to get information right away
instead of waiting until class is over.
“By then it may already been forgotten what to do so.”
But another student finds them annoying because students can’t stay “fucas”
on what they’re doing when the cell phone rings (or "lins"), and students start to
“despond” on their cellphones instead of "theirs brains.” A students writes that when the cell phone went off in a student’s
bag during a test, “I frozed my eyebrowns and felt resembel.” She wasn’t the only one. “Everybody watched at him….When I picked up a
pen, but I forgot what I was thinking about."
They’ve been taught to state the counter argument, and she says “I
acknowledge them are convenient.” The ringing keeps teachers from teaching “smoothly” in class. Furthermore, when students are playing games
and watching movies, checking their Facebook “they are not pay attention to the
teacher.”
The cell phone is “one of the best invention for
humankind” but “student will submit
disadvantages” if they use the cellphone during class. They “aren’t interesting in what the teacher is
talking.” Of course there are classes
“which teacher didn’t care about we were using cell phone, so most student
focused on their phone and only “pretending listening.” A student’s cell phone went off when his
friend was presenting and he felt very “resentful” about that. (Didn't we see some other form of resentful up above?)
Another supporter of rules says rules would “help teachers and
students have not been interrupted.”
“When everyone are focus on the class.
Suddenly a phone is ring….teachers are not get the good respoce” from
students. One student writes about being tested in piano when his friend’s cell phone went off. “His texting made me can’t play the
piano.” He also recounts a math
midterm when his professosr saw a student using his cell phone and “took over
him and gave him F grade. It is the
worst situation ever in my life.” The
student concludes that there has to be a rule “for preventing to cheat.” Students “don’t live on the Earth by
themselves, they live with a lot of people.
So we have to teach them when they can’t use their cell phone.” I guess they’ll just have to find other ways
to communicate with the lot of people who live on earth. “Cell phone has a lot of advantages but it is not that
mean we can’t live wthout it. At least,
without cell phone in the classroom is helpful for all students. “The student will proof the care an education”
by respecting other students' space and learning.
I’d been wondering what students did on their smart
phones, and they provided answers: “Log in their Facebook or instogram and play games.”
“Whether make a
cell phone rule in the classroom or not? has be in limelight,” another student
begins, hook in hand “with the development of
technology, there is barely every student has smart phone.”
A student who knows the word “confiscate,” cited what
actually happened during class. “Some cell
phones rang and disturbed my attention.
I was distracted for a couple of seconds that that precious time could
have make me choose the wrong answer.”
Students in their twenties speak of “when I was young
cell phone used only adult like a businessman.”
Now, he points out, ten year olds have cell phones, so there have to
be rules because “we don’t have much ability to control us. If we have to use cell phone, we forgot we
have phone booth.” (Does he mean that
there was a time when people survived with only phone booth, which were
generally not in the classroom, not in our pockets?)
Cell phones have become “fashional” A writer uses the word teather until the final
page, when it’s transformed to teacher, the one who has to pay attention “on
founding the sound” when a cell phone goes off.
“If we can’t make god use of it, we can studeny beter.” (Instead it's ungodly use. I admire her fusing student and study. Maybe we merge our nouns and verbs that way officially.) In some cases cell phones “is a bad
effection on their studing.” She makes
several references to smart phones used while students are taking “text in
class.” Having cell phone rules can
be a “win in win situation, both as
teacher and student.”
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