Special Offer: Alternative Homework!

[kellogg]

Everybody!

As we all know, Minkyeong is a pioneer. In class she is always FIRST with a question, and FIRST with an answer --though it is not always the right answer!

This time, though, our pioneer is first with something that is ABSOLUTELY right. We'll call it "alternative" homework.

Here's the deal. The homework you are working on so hard is (I hope) interesting. It is (I hope) useful. But it's not really YOUR homework.

You are working on other people's data, and you are solving other people's problems. Sometimes this can be useful. But sometimes not.

Now, what Minkyeong is doing is to take her OWN data, and to approach it more or less the way we approached the data in class, first from Teacher Yun Huijeong's "verbal volleybal" game and then from Teacher Shin Ji-eun's comparison between N and TS.

That is, she has transcribed some data. Then she has CODED it, using a scheme that she and I have agreed on.Then she has given us PERCENTAGES, so that she can indicate the quantitatively PREDOMINANT tendency of the discourse.

Of course, this isnt exactly what the homework ASKED her to do. In fact...it's better! The homework is about other people's problems. Minkyeong's work is about her OWN (future) thesis problems. The homework is about the PAST. Minkyeong's "alternative" homework is about the FUTURE.

Let me tell you a secret. As you know, I have to grade you. Now, you are graduate students, and so everybody in the class usually gets pretty close to the same grade (As and Bs, usually the former). And I don't care very much about attendance or any of that other stuff as long as you are doing the work.

But not all the work is equal. Homework is mostly about LEARNING, not about TESTING. So I'm not going to be grading the homework.

And there's something else. Jisu, Minkyeong, Seong-eun, Eunshil, and even Hayeong (who doesn't actually DO very much homework you notice) will tell you that the midterm and the final, which ARE graded, usually don't have much to do with the stuff in the book.

The midterm and the final are almost always the same story. Take a piece of data. Think about it the way we've been thinking about data in the book. Then write your analysis.

Now, here's the good part. If you do ALTERNATIVE homework, you are really in a MUCH better position to write your midterm and your final.

In fact, if you do the ALTERNATIVE homework, you are in a much better position to write your thesis!

This offer is good EVERY week.

EVERY week: instead of looking at the book and looking at the article, get some data from your OWN class or from a class taught by a colleague.

Transcribe the data. Code it, if possible using methods similar to what we've done in class or similar to what you will use on your thesis work. Then draw some conclusions from your coding. Like this:

Like I wrote in the thesis cafe, Jisu doesn't have any data of that particular lesson yet. I tried to find something related to abstract concepts from my old data. I am going to use the following criteria which is modified from your 5-step criteria.

Good idea, Minkyeong!

a) The INDICATING function : Object related meaning. Words are useful in directing attention but not in conveying meaning. One can establish what object without knowing the English. Perception plus inference.

Excellent. Now, if this were JUST Minkyeong, it wouldn't matter to other people very much. Who is Minkyeong? In fact, if it were just Mr. Kellogg's five step criteria, nobody in California or Australia or Brazil or South Africa would be terribly impressed.

But in fact, it's NOT. It's based on Chapter Five of Vygotsky's great book "Thinking and Speech" (See below.) This means that we can write a VERY interesting, and VERY publisher 이론배경 section around these definitions.

b) The NAMING function : Complex related meaning. Words are necessary to establish what object in the room is meant. Perception plus knowledge of the English name.

Good. But you can see that it's going to be a little hard to distinguish this reliably. If I point to something and say "this", then it's only a) but if I point and say "this apple" it's going to be b).Now, suppose I point to it and say "the apple". Is it a) or b)?

c) The SIGNIFYING function : Concept related meaning. Words are necessary to actually create the object of reference, because it does not concretely exist. Perception plus inference plus knowledge of the English name plus non-classroom referent plus logical generalization.

Nice! Now, here we've got a BIG problem. But don't worry--it's a very INTERESTING one. If I point to something and say "this", it's a), and if I point to something and say "the apple" it's going to be b). Now, suppose I point to something and say "an apple". The child will see that it is a reference to an OBJECT, that I am NAMING a thing. But actually what I'm doing is saying that this is an EXAMPLE of a CONCEPT that does not materially exist (the set of all idealized apples, including golden apples, imaginary apples, etc.)

Fortunately, a lot of Minkyeong's problems are easier than this. When the teacher introduces concept related meaning, she's often using a PICTURE. Let's have a look at how she does it.

I will code each utterance (I guess the word "utterance" here has to be defined more pedantically later) as below:

① The Indicating Function → I

② The Naming Function → N

③ The Signifying Function → S

  To be honest, I pondered upon these criteria for a long time but am not sure about the few "N"s I marked. I will need your idea on these.

My friend who I briefed on the criteria disagreed on those N's with me but did not push his ideas because of his lack of understanding. To increase inter-rater reliability, the criteria should be presented with a lot of examples. I would appreciate your opinions on this, Professor.

★ My data: 6th Grade English Class Transcript            

 ① Date: Monday, April 7th, 2008

 ② Situation: Lesson 3: I Like Spring 1차시

T: (showing the words "four seasons") Now, look at the screen. I

I agree.

   Who can tell me the four seasons? S]

I agree.

S: Spring, summer, fall, winter. S

I agree.

T: Right.  N

I think "Right" does not stand ALONE. It's BOUND to something else, and it has the function that that something else has.

Look:

Tony's Uncle: I have cows, too.

Minsu: How many cows? (bound to "I have cows")

Tony's Uncle. Seven. (bound to "how many cows" and therefore also to "I have cows")

We cannot understand the bound utterance "Seven" unless we look back at the unbound utterances. "Seven" is a response to "How many cows" and "How many cows" is a response to "I have cows".

This WHOLE exchange is about naming and then numbering animals.

I think "Right" can be coded the same way. What exactly is "right" here? Well, the naming of the seasons is right. But the children are naming concepts. So "Right" is actually S.

    Now look at some questions. I

I agree, if these are written on the blackboard. The teacher is asking the kids to look at something graphic and visual.

    How's the weather in spring? S

I agree. The teacher is now asking the question, not talking about the words on the board. Nice!

S: It's sunny. S

I agree.

T: Yeah, it's sunny. S

I agree.

    Is it cold? S

I agree.

S: No, it's warm. S

I agree.

T: Yeah, it's nice and warm. S

I agree.

 What can you see in spring? S

I agree.

S: Flowers. S

I agree. The kids are NOT talking about these flowers, or any flowers, bu t the general idea of flowers.

T: Anything else? N

Again, I think this is a BOUND question, Minkyeong. It DEPENDS on another question for its grammar and also for its function and its reference. Which question?

S: Butterfly? S

I agree. Notice that the kids are using a KOREAN form of signifying function, that is, a bare noun without any marking for plural or for object relatednes (that is, no article). This suggests that they are NOT thinking about grammatical forms.

T: Yeah, we can see butterflies. S

I agree. Notice that the teacher KNOWS that the signifying function in English uses a PLURAL form and not a naked noun. This is one smart teacher!

    What can you do in spring? S

I agree. Now, we just saw how the article system functions to distinguish a concept from an example and an example from a unique individual set member. But that's really only for nouns.

How does this relationship (between ideal concepts, actual sets, and unique members) work with VERBS and whole SENTENCES?

Here we've got a BEAUTIFUL answer:

a) Look! It's Minkyeong's flower party! She's having the flower party today because it's spring.

b) Let's have a flower party because it's spring.

c) Flower parties are held in spring.

S: Flower.... um...party. S

I agree.Smart kids too! Lucky Minkyeong!

T: Flower party? N

This appears to be a bound structure to me.

S: 벚꽃 축제요. S

I agree.

T: Ah... Flower festival. S

I agree. Lucky kids too. Their teacher really knows how to build English wordings onto Korean meanings. So-called "native" teachers can't do this at all. But REAL natives (Koreans) do it very well.

We can go to see cherry blossoms. S

I agree.

S: Ah.... festival, festival. N

This appears bound, Minkyeong.

S: 선생님, cherry blosso..이 뭐에요? N

Also bound.

T: Cherry blossoms. N

Also bound.

벚꽃이 핀 걸 말하는 거야. S

I agree. Great.

Okay. Now, how's the weather in summer? S

I agree. Good.

S: It's hot. S

I agree. Good.

T: Yes, it's very hot. S

I agree. Good.

 What can you see in summer? S

I agree.

S: Ice cream. S

I agree, because of course this is bound.

T: Yeah, we eat a lot of ice cream in summer. S

I agree.

Anything else? N

This looks bound, Minkyeong. It's really the SAME question. Why do you think the function has changed?

S: Beach... S

I agree. But look at the previous remark on the bare noun on butterflies. This is a very interesting finding, and it's worth studying. Let' s see if our teacher picks up on it like she did last time.

T: Ah, you mean... beaches? N

I think this is bound. Notice that our teacher picks up on it PERFECTLY. This is a very consistent, systematic, methodical and meticulous teacher. A very clear example of Korean tacher expertise, of the kind we saw in Shin and Kellogg 2007.

 We can see a lot of people on beaches. S

I agree, of course, for the same reasons we saw in the "flower party" example. Notice the use of "can". By using "can" our teacher is able to:

a) DISTINGUISH an example from a general rule.

b) AVOID using conditionals ("If you go to the beach you willl see a lot of people") and hypotheticals ("If you went to the beach you would see a lot of people").

Now, can you make a similar analysis of the teacher's use of "we" (instead of "Jisu" or Teacher Lee)?

   What can you do? S

I agree. "You" has pretty much the same function as "we"! You will see a good reference to this in Kwon and Kellogg (and also Sacks)

S: Swim. S

I agree.

T: Yeah, we can go swimming. S

I agree. Why did the teacher CHANGE from "you" as the subject to "we"? Sometimes this teacher is not PERFECTLY consistent. But of course English isn't always consistent!

Not being sure about my coding reliability, here is a simple stat analysis of it. I couldn't use the SPSS. I need to work on it.

Functions	Teacher	Students	N	Percentage
Indicating	2	0	2	5.1
Naming	6	2	8	20.5
Signifying	18	11	29	74.4
Total	26	13	39	100

Good. Actually, I think the data is even MORE biased towards the S function than this indicates. That's GOOD news for two reasons:

a) It means we can PROBABLY code by EPISODE instead of coding line by line. Whole episodes are build around functions and not just utterances or even exchanges. Saves work!

b) It confirm‎s COMPLETELY what Vygotsky indicates as the MAIN difference between first and second language learning. In the former, the naming function "emerges" from the indicating function, and the signifying function doesn't really emerge until the kids get to school. But in foreign language learning, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. This is because foreign language learning is really an EXTENSION of native language learning by other (foreign) means.

 The piece of data shows a lot of signifying function on both teacher's and students' sides (74.4%). The appears to be due to the topic of the lesson which is concepts related to four seasons.

The teacher's utterances are more in number (26 vs. 13) and also longer (sentences vs. words) than students'.

Yes, but this is because the kids' utterances are usually "bound". See above!

 This is probably because the teacher initiates with a question and then uptakes or eval‎!uates students' replies. Very little indicating function is shown in the data (only 5.1%), and this might be because the exchange is mostly Ask & Answer and, therefore, there is little repetitive practice.

Of course, this is not a coincidence! Our teacher uses a lot of ask and answer and in general doesn't do much listen and repeat.

I'm too tired to think straight, so there should be a lot of weaknesses in my analysis. Please don't be too harsh. T_T

OK, I won't. It's brilliant. I love it.

I wonder if I'm on the right track in terms of type of analysis. If I am, what kind of research question would describe it best and in what aspects should I discuss it? Looking forward to your advice (hopefully straight to the point:).

Some half-asleep ideas....

The concreteness and abstraction analysis in different types of classroom discourse

Good.

Teacher's expertise of making concrete images to abstract concepts

Not much evidence of that in THIS data. But we might find more.

How teacher's teaching styles affect learner talk in terms of concreteness and abstraction?

Well, we'll need help from other teachers for this one. Did you look at Jisu's data in the thesis cafe?

From Thinking and Speech, Chapter Five (Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky, Volume One, pp. 154-155, London and New York: Plenum Press.)

낱말이 의미론적 기능을 혹은 의미 속성과 관련된 기능을 수행하지 않는다는 사실은 이런 종류의 명명 전이에 본질적이다. 이런 맥락에서 낱말의 기능은 명명하는 혹은 지시하는 것이다. 낱말은 어떤 것을 가리키거나 명명한다. 다른 게 이야기한다면, 여기서 낱말은 생각 작용에 연결된 어떤 의미를 나타내는 기호가 아니다. 그것은 어떤 다른 감각적으로 지각된 사물과 연합하여 연결된 어떤 감각적으로 제시된 사물을 나타내는 기호이다. 명명이 연합을 통하여 지칭된 사물과 연결되기 때문에, 명명 전이는 다양한 연합, 즉 명명이 전이되는 역사적 상황에 대한 정확한 지식에 근거할 경우에만 다시 구성될 수 있는 연합을 통하여 발생한다.

구체적 경험적 연결이 아동의 생각에서 형성된 복합체에 적용되는 것처럼, 이런 종류의 전이에 기저에 놓이는 바로 그것이다. 이것을 아동의 말에 적용할 경우에, 우리는 아동이  성인의 말을 이해할 때 발생하는 것이 위에서 논의한 예들에서 발생한 것과 유사하다고 말할 수 있다. 제시된 낱말을 발음하면서 아동과 성인은 그것을 똑같은 개인이나 혹은 대상을, 예로 들었던 나폴레옹에 연결시키지만 어떤 이는 그를 예나의 패배자로, 다른 이는 워터루의 승리자로 생각한다.

Potebniia에 의하면, 언어는 자신을 이해하는 수단이다. 그러므로 우리는 언어와 말이 아동의 생각에서 수행하는 기능을 분석해야만 한다. 이런 이유로 우리는 아동이 성인이 똑같은 말을 통해 행한 것과 다르게 그 말을 통해 자신을 이해한다는 사실을 확립할 필요성에 도달하게 된다. 말을 통하여 아동에 의해 수행된 생각 작용은 같은 낱말을 발음함으로써 어른이 생각에서 수행한 조작들과 일치하지 않는다.

우리는 첫 낱말은 개념의 기호로서 취할 수 없다고, 즉 그것은 개념에 대한 상(이미지), 그림, 정신적 도해, 혹은 짧은 이야기에 가깝다고 말 한 저자에 대해 논의했다. 그것은 하나의 예술 작품이랄 수 있다. 그것이 구체적 복합체 양식의 특징이다. 그것은 동시에 하나의 복합체와 연결될 수 있는 여러 개의 대상을 가리킨다.

좀 더 정확하게 이야기한다면, 개념을 이런 식의 도해함으로서 대상을 명명할 때, 인간은 그것을 어떤 복합체와 연결하고 그것을 일련의 대상 전체를 포함하는 그룹에 연결한다. Pogodin이 “vesti"[운반하기]라는 낱말로부터 “veslo"[노]라는 낱말이 출현하게 되었다고 언급하면서, “veslo"라는 낱말은 운송수단인 보트, 말안장 혹은 탈 것을 지칭하는 데 적절하게 사용되어졌을 것이라고 말한 것은 타당하다. 이 모든 대상들은 하나의 복합체, 즉 우리가 아동의 생각에서 관찰한 그런 종류의 복합체와 연결되어 있다.