Re:homework-m20081420HongSung-eun

[kellogg]

Hi, Sung-eun!

First of all, I want to say a few words in response to what Jiyeong said. On the face of it, Jiyeong is being very SILLY. You are Korean teachers. Of course Korean teachers have to think about what they say in class.

What is the alternative? You just go into a class and say any SILLY thing that pops into your head (we can actually see this quite clearly in some of the data we get from so-called "native" teachers). Then, when you say silly things, you simply forget that you said them. The next class you do exactly the same thing.

Korean teachers do not do this. First of all, they teach for a lifetime, not for a few years. So they think about their mistakes a lot. Secondly, because they think about their mistakes, they learn that it is actually easier to think about mistakes BEFORE they happen and prevent them than to think about them AFTERWARDS and regret them.

The problem is that, as Jiyeong says, there is TOO MUCH detail. There is simply TOO MUCH data in a single class to focus on preventable mistakes. So even thinking teachers like Jiyeong tend to think about lessons in too holistic a fashion. If you ask them how their class went, they are liable to say something like "Okay" or "Fine" or "Not very well".

They don't actually say things like "The children are very good at repeating sentences, but they don't actually use them. When they talk they only use single words" or "Once we get into the book, we're okay because the kids know what to expect, but they simply can't free talk at all" or "The children like to play games, but I have trouble explaining them so I never do them".

They don't have to. A lot of teachers are EXPERTS, and they don't actually have these problems. But they DON'T KNOW they are experts, because a lot of this expertise, built up in thousands and thousands of turns of talk over many years of teaching, is not CONSCIOUS. They have a great deal of UNCONSCIOUS expertise, in the same way the so-called "Native" does. But the UNCONSCIOUS expertise of the Korean teacher (who is, after all, a native here in Korea and especially a native in the Korean classroom) is TEACHING expertise and not LANGUAGE expertise.

Now, Jiyeong wonders why, if we have this unconscious expertise, we have to think about it and make it conscious. It's not necessary to know what you are doing. Nobody pays you to know what you are doing, people just pay you to do it. In fact, it sometimes happens that knowing what you are doing PREVENTS you from doing it well; in particular, thinking about what you are saying prevents you from speaking fluently.

You can see that Jiyeong is confusing teaching expertise with language expertise. Teaching is all about consciousness raising; it's all about KNOWING. There is no reason, that I know of, to think that teachers who are conscious of what they are doing are not as good as teachers who act unconsciously. There is a lot of evidence that the opposite is true: teachers who plan lessons or who repeat them tend to do better.

And there are three VERY important reasons why teaching expertise SHOULD be conscious. First of all, unconscious knowledge is NOT systematic. We can see that many teachers are good at "meeting and greeting" but TERRIBLE at other parts of the lesson. But if we are consciously aware that the P1 problem in meeting and greeting is similar to the P1 problem in Let's Play then we can do something about it; we can make sure that our expertise is systematic and consistent across the lesson, and the same techniques that we use for "meeting and greeting" (e.g. T-S, S-T, and S-S, or proleptic uptake) will work in other parts of the lesson just as well.

Secondly, unconscious knowledge does NOT tell us what the cause of classroom problems are. Teachers get tired and they make mistakes. They blame the children and yell at them. Or they blame themselves and spend lots of money taking very expensive training programs that don't do any good. Or they blame the materials and they spend time preparing their own or money buying them. But the teacher still gets tired and makes mistakes. In fact, the teacher is MORE likely to get tired if the teacher doesn't know what is causing the mistake, that there is an INHERENT contradiction between presenting material and getting children to practice it that NEVER goes away no matter HOW much money you spend.

Thirdly, unconscious knowledge is NOT teachable. Teachers get old and they retire. When they retire, they take all their expertise with them, and new teachers have to start all over again. This means that while the level of English LEARNING in Korean steadily rises, the level of English TEACHING tends to stay the same, or even get worse because we are always losing our most experienced and most expert teachers through retirement. We need some way of making that unconscious knowledge CONSCIOUS so that we can teach new teachers what the old teachers know. That is really what Jiyeong's thesis is SUPPOSED to be about, but I can see she's not thinking very hard about it at all!

Now, the reason why you ALL found the homework quite burdensome is that you really didn't read the agenda carefully. Here's what it said:

HOMEWORK: Read ALL of Chapter One. Look at Jiyeong’s data or provide data of your own.

Choose one:

a)    Find examples of P1, P2, and P3.

b)    Find ways in which the textual, the ideational, and the interpersonal metafunction is realized.

c)    Find ways in which mediation, internalization, and development take place.

Now, all it means is that you have to find examples. Actually, only THREE sentences will do. In fact, if you remember, I used only TWO,and I did all three assignments for you in class.

Minsu: Hi, I'm Minsu.

Zeeto: Hi, Minsu. I'm Zeeto.

That was enough. I showed how it functioned as P1, and when the children do it T-S or S-T it is P2, and when we put them in pairs, it's P3. I showed how "Hi!" realizes the interpersonal function by constituting an exchange of greetings, how "Hi, Minsu" in the second line "uptakes" the information in the first line and realizes the textual function by constituting a text, and I showed how "to be" and a name realizes the ideational function by constituting a message. Finally, I showed you how teachers use "Listen and Repeat", "Listen and Answer" and "Let's Role Play to mediate internalization.

That wasn't enough for most of you. For example, here's what Sung-eun did:

※ I'm teaching 5th grade only English. This is what I carried out the first class of the lesson 1, How Are You? Last time I've taught about greeting and introduction, that is, I've covered the target expression‎! of the first period; Nice to meet you. I'd like to squeeze the long time of one hour-class(actually 40 minutes) to make it short for my data. We are going to deal with how to express feelings with the question 'How are you?'

It's GOOD that Sung-eun contextualizes her data like this. Notice, though, that she doesn't give us much information about the STUDENTS. I'm going to suggest that this is quite common in data from "only English" teachers.

T: Hi, everyone. ( Students seem to reluctant to give me their attention, so I say hello again.) Hello.

Ss: Hello, Julia.

And this is a problem we want to study today. Why "Julia"?

T: Nice to see you.

Ss: Nice to meet you, too.

T: (Showing a little embarrassment) This is second time to see you. So let's say, ' Nice to SEE you' ,'good to SEE you'....

Ss:???

A very good point! VERY important. And the most interesting thing about it is that the children do not understand the explanation.

We saw that "metalanguage" is almost always more complex than the language itself (think about reported speech and you will see what I mean). So how can we make explanations SIMPLE?

a) T: Hello, everybody!

Ss: Hello, everybody!

T: No, that's not right. I say "hello everybody" because I am the teacher, but because I am the teacher you have to say "hello teacher".

b) T: Hello, everybody!

Ss: Hello, everybody!

T: Yes, GOOD! Hello EVERYBODY! (looking around the whole class) EVERYBODY! Say it!

Ss: Hello, EVERYBODY! (looking around the whole class).

T: Good! Now, what about HER? Hello, Sang-eun! Everybody!

Ss: Hello, Sang-eun!

T: Now what about ME?

Notice that what teacher does here is to UPTAKE (that is, "take up") what the children say and show what it really MEANS. We can do the same thing with Sang-eun's data. Look:

T: Nice to see you again!

Ss: Nice to meet you too.

T: Nice to MEET me? We met LAST TIME, didn't we?

T: You KNOW me. You're SEEING me. Nice to see you again!

...

T: Anyway, I'm.....very happy today. Today is Friday. I love Friday. So I'm very happy today. How about you, everybody? How are you?

Ss: Yes~!

T: ???

Ss: I have a friend here. (Showing a lion puppet, T is saying hello and having a small talk) Hello, Simba. How are you?

Simba: I'm fine. Thank you. How are you, Julia?

Of course, lions don't really talk, much less talk in English. But puppets serve ONE function very well: they allow the teacher to present TWO voices (We can call this move T-T, as opposed to S-T or S-S). But they only enable T-T presentation if we use SPACE correctly. In fact, I find it easier to use SPACE correctly WITHOUT a puppet!

T: I'm happy. Thank you. How about you, everybody? How are you?

Ss: I'm fine, I'm happy, etc.

T: (Drawing How are you-meter with 5 emoticons and write down each emoticon's feeling in English, such as very happy/well/great/...for ^♡^, happy/fine/good/...for^.^, so so/not bad/...for-.-,

 sad/sleepy/angry/hungry/tired/...forㅜ.ㅜ, very sad/sleepy/angry/hungry/ tired/...forㅠ.ㅠ,etc.) Your teacher, Julia is very happy now, and my friend, Simba is feeling fine. (Writing down my name, Julia and Simba next the emoticon) And how about you, Jin-hee? How are you Jin-hee?(Each student has his/her own standing name tag on the desk.)

S(Jin-hee): Umm....happy.

T: Jin-hee is happy. How about you, Ki-hoon?

S(Ki-hoon): Umm....so so.

T: Ki-hoon is so so.

(I also wrote down each student's name on the board as I did above, and repeated the process several times.)

Like the puppet, the main function of the how-are-you-meter is to alter the interactional format. Instead of T-S or S-T we can have T-T and also S-S. But it looks like the teacher is simply using the how-are-you meter for T-S interaction. How can we adapt it to S-S interaction?

T: How are you, JInhi?

Jinhi: Happy.

T: Jinhi is happy. How about Kihun? (LOOKING at Jinhi but POINTING at Kihun) How is HE? ASK him!

Notice how the STRESS changes with the PRONOUNS. In Halliday, we know that stress and intonation is a key part of the interpersonal metafunction. What about pronouns? Are they ideational, textual, or interpersonal?

T: Now, let's play with a ball. This is a Howareyou-ball. I'll throw the ball and you catch it. Let's ask him/her "How are you, (   )?" , listening to 'How are you?' song.(I did the process for about 5 minutes.)

Ss: How are you, Yoo-ri?

S: I'm great. Thank you.(Ss keep throwing and catching the ball until I stop the music.)

Notice the REDUNDANCY.

a) The ball and the music are, of course, redundant. Like repeating, they do not add any new information to the activity. This doesn't mean they are useless, of course. Like repeating, they can MEDIATE understanding and they can ORGANIZE turn taking.

b) The whole activity is redundant, because the children are simply repeating the information that they exchanged using the "how are you meter".  This doesn't mean it is useless of course.

c) BECAUSE the ball and the music require the interaction to keep going, it puts SOME pressure on the children to do this:

S: I'm great.

S: I'm fine.

S: I'm happy.

And not this;

S: I'm sick.

S: I'm sad.

S: I'm angry.

In other words, PREFERRED responses and not DISPREFERRED responses. But this means redundancy not complexity, repetition and not variation.

c)

T: Now, let's do 'Feeling Survey'. Look! Let me show you how to do it. At first, write down your name and tick off your answer in the survey. Then, ask and answer each other and find out your friends' feeling.

S1: Hello,       How are you?

S2: Very well. Thanks. How about you?

S1: I'm fine. Thank you.

How could we COMBINE this activity with the "How are you meter"? Could we use the time SAVED to explore complexity, using "why"?

 ▶Homework: Provide data of your own and analyze it. Choose one of the following analyses  → I chose a).

a) Find examples of P1(presentation), P2(practice), and P3(production)

b) Find ways in which the textual(old-New), the ideational(Be-Do), and the interpersonal(Me-You) metafunction is realized.

c) Find ways in which mediation, internalization, and development take place.

P1(presentation)

T: Hi, everyone. ( Students seem to reluctant to give me their attention, so I say hello again.) Hello.

Ss: Hello, Julia.

T: Nice to see you.

Ss: Nice to meet you, too.

T: (Showing a little embarrassment) This is second time to see you. So let's say, ' Nice to SEE you' ,'good to SEE you'....

Ss:???

T: Anyway, I'm.....very happy today. Today is Friday. I love Friday. So I'm very happy today. How about you, everybody? How are you?

Ss: Yes~!

T: ???

Ss: I have a friend here. (Showing a lion puppet, T is saying hello and having a small talk) Hello, Simba. How are you?

Simba: I'm fine. Thank you. How are you, Julia?

T: I'm happy. Thank you. How about you, everybody? How are you?

Ss: I'm fine, I'm happy, etc.

T: (Drawing How are you-meter with 5 emoticons and write down each emoticon's feeling in English, such as very happy/well/great/...for ^♡^, happy/fine/good/...for^.^, so so/not bad/...for-.-,

 sad/sleepy/angry/hungry/tired/...forㅜ.ㅜ, very sad/sleepy/angry/hungry/ tired/...forㅠ.ㅠ,etc.) Your teacher, Julia is very happy now, and my friend, Simba is feeling fine. (Writing down my name, Julia and Simba next the emoticon) And how about you, Jin-hee? How are you Jin-hee?(Each student has his/her own standing name tag on the desk.)

S(Jin-hee): Umm....happy.

T: Jin-hee is happy. How about you, Ki-hoon?

S(Ki-hoon): Umm....so so.

T: Ki-hoon is so so.

(I also wrote down each student's name on the board as I did above, and repeated the process several times.)

☞  I wanted to present what we should learn by using tools(a puppet and a hi-meter) and children were likely to guess about the objectives of the lesson. I don't think it was very good to introduce so much language about each emoticon with the 'Hi-meter'.

Is there any evidence in the data that this is true?

 My students might have been overwhelmed by the number of target expression‎!s about feelings.

Can we see this in the data?

 In addition, I shouldn't have given too much time and energy for Presentation. It's not like presentation.

When we present, WHAT gets presented? Of course, when you "Look and Listen" you are presenting SOUND. But in order to present MEANING don't we need to present some kind of CONTEXT, some kind of answer to the question of who is saying what to whom and when and why? Doesn't that ALWAYS take time?

Students seem to have learned what I planed to teach or to internalize target language for one period only during the PRESENTATION process. I feel like I don't need to have Controlled- Practice and Production-time, so they did everything only at the biginning of the class. 

Isn't it the case that there is controlled practice and even production here too? Remember--classroom discourse is often FRACTAL in structure--there is P2 in P1!

P2(practice)

T: Now, let's play with a ball. This is a Howareyou-ball. I'll throw the ball and you catch it. Let's ask him/her "How are you, (   )?" , listening to 'How are you?' song.(I did the process for about 5 minutes.)

Ss: How are you, Yoo-ri?

S: I'm great. Thank you.(Ss keep throwing and catching the ball until I stop the music.)

Good example of S-S interaction. Why is it "controlled practice" and not "production"? If it were THIRD GRADE, wouldn't it be "Let's Play"? Isn't "Let's Play" a form of production?

☞  I wanted every student to practice what they are supposed to learn, but the ball was just for some children who are very good at catching a ball, so only several students monopolize the practicing time.

How many children in the class? How many balls? How many children per ball?

Suppose we provide MANY balls. Does this solve the problem? Does it create NEW problems? Is there a way to solve the new problems? What happens if we do it WITHOUT balls?

 What makes matters worse is that the class size is too big; How can I address whether all students are talking correctly with the language presented above. Therefore, it needs variation to give all learners even chances to talk.

I think here Sangeun is putting her finger on the KEY problem. Of course, Jiyeong would like to IGNORE this; it's burdensome to think about problems.

But it's not a problem we can ignore. As long as we try to teach one on one, T-S, T-S, T-S, the PRIVATE schools will be better than PUBLIC schools. Vygotsky was VERY critical of Thorndike, whose model of teaching was basically one on one instruction pupil by pupil by pupil. Here's what he wrote in his introduction to Thorndike's book:

"...(T)he traditional view of the teacher as the most important and almost sole mover of the educational process cannot be upheld. The child is no longer an empty vessel into which the teacher pours the wine or water of his sermons. The teacher is no longer a pump who pumps his pupils with knowledge. The teacher is even completely bereft of any direct influence, any direct educational influence upon the pupil as long as he himself forms no part of their environment (1997a: 159)."

Vygotsky compares the teacher to a "rickshaw puller' when he provides all the teaching content himself and compares her to a "tram driver" when she instead organizes the social environment of learning.

"The teacher's labor, although it is not subject to the technical perfection which moves and pushes it from the rickshaw to the tram-driver, has nevertheless the same two aspects (...) (W)ith some exaggeration it may be said that the whole reform of contemporary pedagogics revolves around this theme: how to reduce the role of teacher when he, just like the rickshaw-puller, plays the role of the engine and part of his own pedagogical machine as closely to possible to zero, and how to base everything on his other role--the role of organizer of the social environment? (1997a: 160)"

Now, how can we do that? Well, Sung-eun has a good idea. Look:

P3(production)

T: Now, let's do 'Feeling Survey'. Look! Let me show you how to do it. At first, write down your name and tick off your answer in the survey. Then, ask and answer each other and find out your friends' feeling.

S1: Hello,       How are you?

S2: Very well. Thanks. How about you?

S1: I'm fine. Thank you.

☞  Students finally used the language they did in 'Practice' with a lot of freedom. I believe that they internalized the language what I wanted them to learn at the beginning through talking each other. They are expected to expand their existing knowledge and produce some new language. However, many of the students just used the expression‎!s they practiced. That is, students never(?) created new language, new knowledge! Furthermore, this virtual situation is seen very unrealistic. It seems that production(creating new language) is impossible to be done in the language classroom. I'm not sure if they will use the language we learned during the lesson outside the classroom creating new ones.

Why is "realism" a good thing? For most children, the classroom IS a real place; it's where they spend almost a THIRD of their lives.

By the way, a theatre is ALSO a real place! It's a real place where we use imaginary situations to make meaning according to certain rules.

Suppose we see the classroom in the SAME way. The children have to form "Kibun Clubs", the Happy Club, the Angry Club, the Sad Club, etc. If a member of another club says this:

Happy Club: How are you?

Angry Club: I'm angry.

Happy Club: Why?

Angry Club: ...!

If they cannot answer, they have to join another club!

Will it work? I don't know. But I do know this. The power to create sentences which have never been created before is NOT in the utterance "How are you?" but it IS in the utterance "why?"

[11기신지영]

I understand your point and my original idea for thesis, if you remember, was a co-teaching with N-N teacher. It was to learn the good espect of the old teacher but how? was my another question. I expect you're the one I can ask to!!!

[kellogg]

Jiyeong--if we knew the answer, it wouldn't be a good topic for a thesis, would it?