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SNUE 교육대학원 초등영어교육과 M20081417 Jeong, Yun-Seo (정윤서)
Take a GOOD look at Yunseo's data. It's a LOT like chat. Why should that be the case?
Here are three possible reasons:
a) It comes right after the greeting. This is where we said "chat" usually takes place, because "chat" involves bringing experiences from outside the classroom inside the classroom.
b) It comes on Monday, so everybody is thinking about the weekend they just had.
c) It's a homeroom class, so there is no obvious imaginary situation "What's this?" to develop.
Now, this immediately creates some VERY serious difficulties.
a) There are no clear roles at all. The teacher is the teacher and the children are the children. We saw that this made life difficult EVEN for Minkyeong's kids. They are FIFTH graders (and Captain Minkyeong runs a very tight ship!)
b) There is no obvious text to uptake. In fact, the teacher starts at the very TOP of the "hierarchy of difficulty" with an unpredictable "why" question instead of building up to it through more predictable dialogue.
c) The chat has to take place in the PAST tense. This is almost impossible for the children, as we will see.
Yunseo is VERY brave. Let's see how she does.
■ Problem : Does the teacher manage to go beyond frozen pairs? If so, how? If not, why not?
■ When : April 30th, 2008
■ Place : my classroom
■ Who : I'm a homeroom teacher. I teach 3rd graders. (17boys and 15 girls)
■ My data : Lesson 2. What's this? (2/4 period)
T: Good morning, everyone.
Ss: Good morning, teacher. (preferred response)
T: I'm tired today.
Ss: .........(silent)
When we see "empty" turns like this in the data, it's good to stop and ask WHY.
You can see that THIS doesn't work. Why not? Here are THREE possible reasons:
a) The children are expecting a DIRECT initiate: "how are you?" or "how's the weather?" But this initiate is highly indirect. Perhaps the teacher is too tired to initiate directly?
b) The indirect initiate actually puts the burden of directly initiating on the CHILDREN. They are probably not used to initiating in teacher-student talk, particularly not at the BEGINNING of a lesson!
c) They are not really sure about the TRUTH of this statement. As it turns out, it's probably NOT true: there is no clear reason why the teacher should be tired after a relaxing visit to the Han River.
d) Perhaps they think that if the teacher is tired it's best to leave her alone...she's probably in a BAD mood.
T: I'm TIRED(with gestures-tapping my shoulders and legs)today.
광민: Why? (rejoinder)
T: wHY? . (recasting)
Actually recasts are ways of treating ERRORS. But there's no error here that I can see!
Because we went to the Han-river yesterday.
Ss: Han-river???? 아~ 한강!
T: Yes. Han-river. We went to the Han-river. (Uptake)
Did you have fun yesterday?
Notice the use of a yes/no question. This is NOT what the children asked. Why not?
Ss: Yes / No (preferred response)
Which is preferred, Yunseo? Is it YES that is preferred or NO?
창민: so so .(dispreferred response)
It's not clear why this is a dispreferred response but "NO" is a preferrred response. Let's use the "accountability" test. Which response requires an EXPLANATION?
T: How are you?
S: Fine.
That's a preferred response. It does NOT require any explanation. In fact, it would be VERY strange if we saw this:
T: How are you?
S: Fine.
T: Why? What's the matter?
That's because preferred responses require no explanation. They do not need to be accounted for. But dispreferred responses do. Look:
T: How are you?
S: Terrible.
T: Why? What's the matter?
This is WHY, in the classroom, we prefer to have dispreferred responses: they give us complexity, and continuity, and higher level conceptual understandings.
But you can see that they don't do this by THEMSELVES. There is no complexity in an aggressive boy who keeps saying "No!" "No!" "No!" to everything. They will only give us complexity if we can follow them up correctly.
T: 창민, Was it so so? Why? (Uptake, rejoinder)
창민: umm, not fun.
So you can see that actually the answer is "No", not "so-so".
T: not fun? It was not fun??? (recasting, Uptake)
창민: Yes. It was not fun.
T: Why? (rejoinder)
창민: We can't out. (sic)
T: We can't out? (recasting) This is uptake. It's actually VERY LITERAL uptake. Is it really recasting?
In order for recasting to take place, we need TWO things:
a) We need an error. "We can't out" has an error, but "Why?" does not.
b) We need a "recasting", that is a "melting down" of the error and a remoulding in a different form (hence "recasting".
Previously, we had no a). But here we have no b). In fact, the teacher simply repeats what the child says (including "we")! Can we call this recasting?
창민: Yes. Boat.....We can't out. very boring.
T: We can't go out? It was very boring? (Uptake)
I don't understand, Yunseo. Why is it "uptake" here but it's "recasting" the first time?
창민: Yes. We can't go out. It was very boring.
T: Very good. 창민.
Yes, VERY good--a use of the past tense! Quite remarkable. Must be private education.
Notice that the teacher does NOT mean that she is glad that Changmin could not go out. How does Changmin KNOW this? How do we?
But what about the BOAT? Yunseo is probably worried about Changmin using up too much classtime. She changes teh speaker.
T: How about 여정? 여정, Did you have FUN yesterday?
여정: (nodding)Yes. (preferred response)
T: Why? (rejoinder)
Is this a rejoinder? Isn't it a request for an explanation? But if the child's response is a PREFERRED response, then what is there to explain?
Perhaps the teacher does NOT mean "Why?" The teacher means something like "Tell me more!"
여정: 월드컵경기장가서요.
T: Worldcup stadium?
Notice that the teacher is DOWNGRADING, from grammar to vocabulary. Why? Perhaps she understands that the "chat" task she's set the children (to discuss the weekend in the past tense) is beyond the reach of most of the children?
여정:(nodding).....
T: 여정, Do you like soccer? And here the teacher escapes from the past tense. How?
여정: ..........(silent)
제덕: me~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I like soccer. I like Ji-Sung, PARK.
T: Oh, 제덕. Do you like Ji-sung, park?
제덕: YES. YES..맨체스터 유나이티드 멋있어. 히히히히히 (dispreferred response)
T: 제덕, Did you have fun yesterday?
제덕: Yes. (preferred response)
T: Oh, You were happy yesterday. Why? (rejoinder)
제덕: 어...2002 soccer video. Worldcup stadium..
T: 2002 soccer video. Worldcup stadium? (recasting)
제덕: Yes.
T: Was it a fun video?
제덕: Yes. fun video
T: Was it a very fun video? (uptake)
제덕: Yes. It is a very fun video.
You can see that as long as we are using CHAT, the teacher is stuck in the past tense, and the children CANNOT follow.
A few weeks ago, Minkyeong argued that imaginary situations were unnecessary and an encumbrance, because our real goal is the use of "authentic" English in "authentic" situations. But the authentic situation we have is that of a classroom. This means that if we want to bring in extra-classroom experiences, we MUST use the past tense.
Of course, the imaginary situation frees us from the past tense. But it does something else, too. Yunseo's teaching goal is "What's this?" and there is really NO realistic situation in a classroom where children would want to go around picking up pencils or rulers or books and asking "what is this?" Since they are perfectly normal children they KNOW what pencils and rulers and books are, and so they will not normally ask. There is no pragmatic reason to do so.
This means that our conversations, if we limit them to social realism, are going to be limited to talking about SEMANTIC meaning, and not PRAGMATIC meaning, except for limited areas like expressing likes and dislikes in an abstract way.
With an IMAGINARY SITUATION, it becomes possible to create IMAGINARY pragmatic meanings. By creating Zeeto, we create a REASON for children to go around the room asking what a ruler is and why pencils are made of wood, and whether or not books taste good. This means that in the classroom, an UNREAL situation will be more REALISTIC!
■ Problem : Does the teacher manage to go beyond frozen pairs? If so, how? If not, why not?
-Yes, she manages to go beyond frozen pairs. "Did you have fun yesterday?" and 여정 said, "Yes." only. But she tries to manage to go beyond frozen pairs because she uses "why".
Actually, "why" is not really appropriate here, for the reasons we discussed above. But "how" might work!
T: Did you have fun yesterday?
Yeojeong: Yes.
T: How?
The problem remains: the past tense! Remember--we said that "chat" soon creates a grammatical burden that children that children cannot bear. So that's why we looked at "Listen and Do".
“T : Did you have fun yesterday?" "S: Yes" "T: GOOD" In this case, students can learn only fixed expression!s like a travel conversation book.
Which is the fixed expression? "Yes" or "Did you have fun yesterday?"
In these kind of books, we can anticipate the answer easily.
Actually, the problem I have with phrase books is that I cannot understand the answer!
But in our real life(discourse), we can't anticipate well what the speaker will say. Using a rejoinder, she expands the limit of vocabularies and students can think more deeply and they try to make sentences much longer.
This is TRUE (and it would be even truer if you provided an example here, Yunseo!) But I thought that "Listen and Answer" is not really about "real life discourse"! Remember that it was about trying to get the children to go BEYOND the limitations of "Listen and Repeat". Is "Listen and Repeat" about "real life discourse"?
What is so good about real life discourse, anyway?