Re:Midterm part 4 by 박성경

[kellogg]

Midterm Answers Part 4 박성경 

Here is an activity from 6th grade's teacher guide. 

Lesson 5. May I help you ? 

Let's play (1) 물건값 추측하기 놀이를 해 봅시다. 

(page 41 in the student book, page 133 in the teacher guide)  

T: Shall we play a game? 

This is 'Guessing game'. (sic)  Let's play the game.  

I'll tell you how to play the game. Here we go! 

① 교사가 그림 카드 뒷면에 물건의 가격을 적는다. 

T: I write the price on the back of the card. 

② 교사가 상점 주인이 하는 말을 한다. 

T: I'm a clerk. May I help you? 

③ 학생들이 손님이 하는 말을 한다. 

T: You are a customer. Ask the question ' How much is it?'  

Ss : How much is it? 

④ 학생들이 가격을 추측하도록 한다.  

T: Take a guess and say a price. 

⑤ 교사가 힌트를 주어 학생들이 추측하도록 한다.  

T: If the price is too much, I say 'Down'. If the price is too small, I say 'Up'. 

S1: It's $ 21.  

T: Up. 

S2: It's $32. 

T: Down. 

S3: It's $31. 

⑥ 학생이 물건의 가격을 정확히 맞히면 교사가 응답을 하고, 그림 카드를 그 학생에게 

준다.  

T: Yes, it's $31. (그림 카드를 주며) Here you are.  

⑦ 물건의 가격을 맞힌 학생이 교사가 되어 진행한다. 

T: Very good! Please, come up to the blackboard. You are a teacher. (sic!)

⑧ 학생이 다른 물건 카드를 들고 놀이를 계속한다.  

  

A) Imagine you want to teach this game. How do you answer these two questions?  

S1: How do I win? 

S2: What do I get? 

Guessing games are very common and popular among teachers as well as children because the rules of guessing games are very simple and easy to follow. You just take a wild guess and try your luck.

Of course, you CAN play guessing games this way. This strategy is called "trial and error". But it's very hard to WIN a guessing game if every guess is completely random.

What REALLY happens in a guessing game is not random. The children are not simply SPEAKING. They are also LISTENING. They are listening to the other children's questions and listening to the answers and using those answers to create new questions. If 21 dollars is too low, then the next child does NOT guess 18 dollars. If thirty-two dollars is too high, the next child does not guess forty dollars. 

This seems like an obvious point. But like many obvious points, we ignore it. And I want to argue that this is not ignorable; it's absolutely key. Barbara Rogoff has studied how children learn in non-schooling societies (e.g. Mayan Indians) and she reports that children in these societies use a lot of "intense participation" where they contribute to a particular activity (often, but not always, a game) to the best of their ability and then they watch VERY carefully while other people who have more skills take up the slack. This "intense vicarious participation" often happens when the children KNOW that it will be their turn next.

And that MAY be the problem. In a large class, the chances that it WILL be your turn next are pretty low! 

However, the teacher's account for applying a guessing rule to fit a specific game properly and explaining to children about what they have to take a guess exactly are not as easy as the guessing rule itself.

Seongkyeong's right. But this suggests that the rule is not as simple as she thinks it is.  

 And also, the most of my 6 graders would not understand the meaning of the words ' guess ' or ' price ' and moreover the sentence ' Take a guess'. These words are more difficult than the act of guessing the price for some students.

 

Minkyeong points out that children are EASILY able to figure these things out in context. So if the teacher RECONSTRUES a word like "guess" or "price" with a Korean translation, or with an example, the children can understand the word pretty well. 

I think the real problem is not immediate "uptake" but rather "take away". When children "understand" the word "price" or "guess" because of a translation, we know they often remember the translation and forget the English word. At the very least, they will tend to USE the Korean translation when they speak themselves and NOT use the English word. They will do this even if they can understand the English word in an utterance without a proximal translation. 

Is the same thing true if we gloss words like "guess" and "price" with a gesture, or a picture, or an example? That is, will the children be unable to use the word "guess" and "price" even if they DO manage to recognize and understand the words without the iconic or indexical supports? I don't know. I don't even know how we might find out. But I do know this is an important question, and we ought to be researching it (instead of researching whether or not underlining words or copying them out makes them more memorable!). 

Instead of saying the command " Take a guess and say the price. ", I would write the range of the price on the board such as 28 < 가격 < 32.

This sounds like a Merrill Swain idea. You will notice, Seongkyeong, that Merrill Swain is VERY big on the written word; the written word is what allows REFLECTION, and CONSCIOUS MASTERY. It slows down discourse and makes it susceptible to internalization. A very Vygotskyan idea! 

 As the word 'price' is a new word for the students, I put it in Korean for a clear understanding. And just asking the students to take a wild guess with no clues about the price range is too difficult and time-consuming and can make the game dull and repetitive as the children would keep saying prices over and over again until they say the right price.

 

Wait a minute! Don't they have to listen? Why not? 

With the price range on the board, I would ask two students to say a number between 28 and 32 as follows: 

T: How much is the robot? Say any number between 28 and 32 (pointing to the clue written on the board.)

 

S1: 30? 

T: How much is it? 

S1: 30? 

T: Ah, it's 30 dollars? 

S1: Yes, 30 dollars. 

T: No, it's not 30 dollars. More(moving hands up).  

How much is it, S2? 

S2: 31 dollars? 

T: Yeah, it's 31 dollars. (showing the price on the back of the card to the students) 

30 dollars or 31 dollars? 

Ss: 31 dollars!  

T: Who said 31 dollars? S1 or S2? 

Ss: S2.  

T: Yeah, S2 said 31 dollars.  

This is for S2. (giving the robot card to S2) 

S2: Yeah. Thank you.  

T: S2, now come to the blackboard. This time S2 is a teacher. You write the number on the back of the card. And ask " How much is it? " 

Notice that Seonkyeong (and also the teacher's guide!) is missing a VERY important shift. The game BEGINS with a clerk and a shopper. But it ENDS with a teacher and blackboard. Why? 

More importantly, WHY did Seongkyeong miss this rather striking (and somewhat ABSURD) change in roles? A previous question was all about how roles are used to mediate rules (that is, how rules can be DECONSTRUED as roles and how roles can be RECONSTRUED as rules). That seems to be exactly what is going on here. But of course that was a PREVIOUS question!

Or was it? This question IS about how grammar can be deconstrued as discourse and then reconstrued as grammar. And the two things are related: we saw that roles are very often associated with sentences:

T: This is a shopper. I'm a shopper. We're shoppers. This is a clerk. I'm a clerk. We're clerks.

Rules, on the other hand, form very complex sentences when we construe them as statements:

T: If you guess too low, I will answer "higher". But if you guess too high, I will answer "lower".

So we often deconstrue them as grammar and reconstrue them as discourse:

S: Twenty dollars?

T: Higher!

S: Thirty-two dollars? 

T: Lower!

So you can see from this that the questions really ARE linked. Distinct, but also linked! There is a REASON why complex grammar has to be reconstrued as complex discourse, and it's LINKED to the reason why rule based games can be reconstrued as role based ones.

The given picture card can be used as a token of points for the right guesses and taking a teacher's role of asking the other students to take a guess on the price can be a token of winning the game. Good! This answers the second question. Being a teacher, which means that the child can take over the game process and have an authority to set the price and ask the question ' How much is it? ' to the other peers is a big prize itself.  

Very true.

I don't have to explain how the children can win or what they will get by winning the game. I can just have the students say a number within the range of the numbers on the board and then they will understand what they are taking a guess about as I add the word "Dollars" responding to the child's first guess.  

B) Now you want to present the PARTS, MOVES, OUTCOMES and RULES of the game. In each case, you want to get the children's attention, give information, and then check understanding. What does the teacher say?

 

With Commands to get attention, Statements for giving information, and Questions for checking understanding.  

1) Parts: Look! This is my toy shop. Welcome to my shop. I have the toys. You have money. I am a seller. You are a buyer.  

2) Moves: What do you want to buy? The robot? Ok. Look at the numbers here on the board. It's between $ 28 and $ 32. How much is it?  

$ 29? More! $ 31? Yes, it's $ 31. Who said $31? This robot is yours.  

This is for you.  

3) Outcomes : S1 has one card, S2 has two cards. Who has more cards?  

4) Rules : S2 has more cards. S2 is the winner. The winner is a teacher. Write the 

number on the back of the card and ask "How much is it? " 

Minkyeong! Notice how Seonkyeong goes from mostly commands and statements to mostly statements and questions. Can you explain this shift? What is happening? How and WHY does this change in PEDAGOGICAL FUNCTION occur?

C) Which words are too long for Fifth Graders? Which Sentences are too long for Fifth Graders? Can you change the words into sentences? Can you change the Sentences into exchange? 

The sentence " I write the price on the back of the card." is too long for my 6th graders. As I mentioned how I would present the game in the first answer, I would rather write the price range such as 28 < 가격 < 32 on the board. And as the word 'price' will not be understood by the 6th graders, I would write the Korean word '가격‘ on the board. And the words 'clerk' and 'customer' are also difficult for the most of my 6th graders, I would change the two abstract words into the concrete sentences explaining the whole situation and the roles of being a clerk and a customer like this :  

T: This is my toy shop. Welcome to my toy shop.  

What do I have here? 

Ss: Robot, Soccer ball, Doll, ... 

T: Yeah, I have toys here. I am a seller. And what do you want to do here? 

Ss: I want to buy toys. 

T: Good. You want to buy the toys. So, you are a buyer. And you have money. 

Jinho, welcome! May I help you? 

S1: Yes, I want to buy a robot.  

T: Ask me " How much is it?" 

S1: How much is it? 

T: It's between $ 28 and $ 32. (pointing to the price range on the board.)  

S1: It's $ 31?  

T: Yes, that's right. It's $ 31. Jinho, this is for you. This robot is yours. 

And now, Jinho is a teacher. And Jinho is a seller. Jinho, come up here.  

We said there was a certain COGNITIVE DISSONANCE in the data: it begins with the role of a shopper and clerk, and it ends with rules, and the asking and answering roles are reconstrued as "student" and "teacher". 

Suppose we RECONSTRUE the asking student and the answering teacher as the clerk and the shopper. Bu this time, it's not a department store. It's a rather shady alleyway off of 남대문. The shopper is a Japanese tourist and the clerk is a clever Korean haggler.

S: Twenty dollars?

T: Twenty dollars???? Too low! 

S: OK. I'll give you...twenty two dollars.

T: Twenty-two dollars? No, I paid twenty four dollars. And I have six hungry children! 

You can see that ROLE play also offers the possiblity of considerable complexity, and the context helps make the meaning clear.