Re:Midterm Exam 2

Midterm Exam  2.  [Look and Listen] - M20081416 BORA JUNG a) Does the teacher ask 'analytic (referential) questions' where more than one answer is possible, or does the teacher only ask "known information"(display) questions? What kind of questions? Why these questions and not some other questions? I used the data you provided to answer the first question of the [Look and Listen] part.  It's the first lesson of the sixth grade book. There are almost 11 "known information"(display) questions in this script.    There are also at least TWO analytical questions though.   Question 3 is to test personal background knowledge about Singapore.   That's true, of course. But there's at least ONE wild answer, with the teacher doesn't correct; in fact, the dialogue does NOT take place in Singapore at all. It takes place in Seoul.   So we can see that EVEN THOUGH the teacher uses closed questions, the teacher FAILS to establish the situation clearly. Why?   Question 4~5 are to measure knowledge of the vocabulary about streets, roads and so on.   True--I think the focus on vocabulary is very interesting because it means much LESS focus on grammar. In fact, the teacher's grammar is quite poor; there are very few grammatical sentences of teacher talk. This is remarkable, because the teacher is a native speaker of English!   No 6 is the teacher's habitual question to confirm‎ students' understanding.   Of course, grammatically, "Right" is not a question at all. Is "자!" a question?   How do we know that a question has been asked? Let's assume that a question is not SIMPLY a particular grammatical or even intonational form. Let's assume instead that it is a kind of interpersonal FUNCTION.   Here's what Halliday thinks: A question is part of an EXCHANGE, whose purpose is to obtain information (as opposed to goods or services). It's the initiating part of the information-getting exchange. The canonical (usual) grammatical form of a question is an "indicative interrogative".   But "Right" is not an indicative--it's not a clause. It's just a word. Besides--look! Is there an answer? No!   And the rest of the questions are used to let students answer what they are looking for in the picture.   "known information"(display) questions limits to just one answer and confirm‎s existing knowledge and information. On the other hand, 'analytic (referential) questions'  are not just testing questions instead leads to many possible answers. 'Analytic (referential) questions' used to help children guess the main content by a repeating and following process-uptake, prolepsis. So, considering the whole point of 'Look & Listen' is to let the children take in non-linguistic information about content, it needs to be changed to a more tentative, more subjective like analytic (referential) questions' 1,2.         I think the problem is a little more complex than that, Bora. I don't think ANY questions by themselves will "let children take in non-linguistic information about content", and I think that in many ways DIRECT questions ("What's this?") and even STATEMENTS ("Look! It's a street.") are more effective ways of doing this than asking indirect questions.   So why do we want these horrible analytic questions, if direct questions and statements are better for giving non-linguistic information about context? Well, the answer is a little complex. I tried to go through this in class, but I guess I didn't make it very clear.   Halliday says that the usual way of GIVING information is to use a STATEMENT (an indicative-declarative). Yet in the classroom we find that the usual way of FOREGROUNDING information is NOT using a statement. It's usually asking a question.   T: What's this? S: A street.   The problem is that questions like this don't really GIVE information--they can't give us NEW information. They can only tell us what the children already know.   Now, of course, for high school kids, that's not a big problem. We just tell the kids to do their learning outside the classroom and when they come to class we give them endless closed questions as tests. But our children are NOT high school children. They need to LEARN how to learn. And we want to do that with them.   So we need different KINDS of questions, more open questions, questions which will generate HYPOTHESES, so we can show the children how to distinguish between plausible hypotheses and implausible ones and how to test hypotheses against listening data. That's the whole point of using analytic questions.   Therefore, I tried to change the "known information"(display) questions in this script to 'analytic (referential) questions' in the (        ). Lesson 1. Where Are You From? T:   Let's open your book, page six. That's the . Oh. Page eight. I'm sorry. Page eight. Ss: (noise) T: Ok. Everybody needs to open to page eight. The title is "Where are you from?" Look and listen. (Pause) Ok. How many people are there?  How many boys, I should say? →"known information"(display) questions 1. ( Who do you see? Do you think they are girls? )   What we want to do is to establish the NAMES, right? Remember Minkyeong's data--"a boy and another boy" presents a grammatical distraction that we don't really want here.   Ss: Two. T: Two. Very good. Where are they? →"known information"(display) questions 2. (Where do you think they are?)   But why does the teacher want to continue to use open questions? Should ALL the questions be open questions? What happened to the Ally Bally strategy ("Open and Closed" rather than "Open and Open")?   Ss: (mumble) School . Singapore…. T: They're in Singapore? OK. Where's in Singapore? →"known information"(display) questions 3. (I will uptake the word 'Singapore' and will ask "Who do you think from  Singapore?") S: In the street. T: In the street? OK. Street is like what?→"known information"(display) questions 4. Street. The street? It will be like the cars and … S: 사람 T: bicycles. What would,.. What would you call this? →"known information"(display) questions 5. S: Road. T: Road? OK. S; Neighbourhood. T: Neighbourhood. In front of your house. Right?→"known information"(display) questions 6. (Do you think so?) It would be like hard . The road.  the sidewalk. Have ever heard the sidewalk? Ss: Yes. T: In Korea. Yes. It's sidewalk in Korea. What do you think they're talking about? → 'analytic (referential) questions' 1 S: Where are you from. T: Where are you from. Who is the boy on the right?→"known information"(display) questions 7. (Who do you think the boy on the right is? or who's the boy on the right. Guess!) Ss;giggle. T: Ehh. Sixth graders. This is not a comedy show. Ss: 탄 탄 T: What's his name? What was his name? One on the right? →"known information"(display) questions 8.(Who do you think he is on the right?) Ss; 탄 탄 T,Ss: No. T: 진호. Right.진호. How about the boy  in  the left? →"known information"(display) questions 9. (Who do you think the boy on the left is? or who's the boy on the left. Guess!) Ss: 탠 T: Tan. OK. Like the colour tan. Not ten but tan. How about the building? What's the building that's in the back. Far...→"known information"(display) questions 10. (What do you think the building in the back is?) Ss: School. T: School? Ok. Look at their hands' jesture. Pause like this, right? With his hands like this. What is Tan, What are they talking about?→"known information"(display) questions 11.(What are they talking about? Imagine! Guess!) S: 가위바위보 Ss; Laugh S1: 가위바위보 T: 기위바위보. Rock paper scissors. What do you think of their hand gesture? Can you say something? → 'analytic (referential) questions' 2   You can see that "Can you say something?" is a useless question--is it too open, or too closed?   s: **** T: Sorry? (pause) T: Let's ah… let’s look at the dialogue …maybe put (pause) Ok. Turn… T: Oh, you have speakers? T: Oh, that's good. T: Uh, we have a … Video Script: A: My name is Jinho. Where are you from? B: I'm from Singapore.