2) Look and listen
☆ My data: 6th Grade English Class Transcript
① Date: Thursday April 11th, 2008
② Unit: 3. I like spring. (1/4) <Look and listen>
(Right before watching the CD-ROM title, I motivate them to engage in the story asking questions)
③ Characters: There are 37 students – 21 boys and 16 girls in my classroom.
④ The problem: 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?
Good! Notice that it works better when you just give contextual information that's relevant to the QUESTION: who and what. Then get STRAIGHT into the question.
Of course, I don't mind listening to the kind of comments you used to begin your last answer. But only AFTER you've answered my question.
It's a test! But even in a conversation when you've been asked a question, you answer the question FIRST, and you make your comments RELEVANT to the question. Right?
=========================<Transcript>===========================
T: Look at this TV monitor. What do you see from this picture?
S1: Computer!
T: Yes, There is a computer.
S2: Nami!~
T: There is a Nami. (sic) And who’s her friends? (sic)
Ss: Paul.
T: Good. Paul is Nami’s friend. Anything else?
S3: Headphone!~
T: Yes, there is a headset also.
S4: 의자!
S3: Desk!
S5: 전등!
T: Yes, there is a lamp and chair.
S7: Flower!
T: That’s good. There are some flowers. Alright?
How many flowers are there?
Ss: Three.
T: That’s right. There are three flowers. Repeat.
Ss: There are three flowers.
T: Okay. Take a guess. How’s the weather here?
Ss: Sunny. Warm. It’s sunny.
T: Good. What season is it? Take a guess.
Ss: Fall. Summer?
T: Answer in a complete sentence, please.
S2: It’s spring.
T: And what are they doing?
Ss: 화상채팅!!~
T: They’re talking through the internet on the computer. Okay?
Do you talk with your friends on the internet often?
Ss: Yes.!/ 버디버디로 채팅해요.
T: Wow, you’re talking through it. (???) Very good.
Now, let’s watch the story and talk about it later. Okay?
Ss: Okay.
T: Fine.
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1. Does the teacher ask analytic (referential) questions where more than one answer is possible, or does the teacher only ask “known information” (display) questions?
-I tried to ask analytic questions as much as possible so that I drew their attention from many students.
For example? Is "How many flowers are there?" an analytical question?
As I learned in your class, first I asked “What do you see?” to them. As I expected, they answered me too many answers which are almost pack of vocabulary set. Since this part of the unit is about seasons, I divert their attention to the flowers so that we could start to talk about the seasons, particularly spring. (like “There are some flowers.” Etc.)
And I also wanted to talk about the online chatting experiences expecting their various answers from them but I’m not sure if it worked well.
So what exactly does "as much as possible" mean?
2. What kind of questions? Why these questions and not some other questions?
I think both “What do you see from this picture?” and “Do you talk with your friends on the internet often?” are analytic questions.
Hmmm....we said that "analytic questions" were questions that had more than one answer.
Is a yes/no question EVER an analytic question?
But other than that, the rest are display questions I suppose.
Really? What about this?
T: Okay. Take a guess. How’s the weather here?
Ss: Sunny. Warm. It’s sunny.
T: Good. What season is it? Take a guess.
Ss: Fall. Summer?
In both of these cases, the teacher says "Take a guess". And in both cases the children give more than one answer. Are they display questions?
I tried to use display questions to lead them to the main story of this class. And those display questions are inevitable and important to run the class properly from my point of view, because I have a plan to proceed to the main purpose, subject of this class)
Yes, of course! But the key problem we need to solve is WHEN and WHY the teacher switches from analytic to display questions.
Remember the "Ally bally rule":
Open and closed
Open and Closed!
Stand up, sit down, hee hee hee!
So when does the teacher move from OPEN to CLOSED, and why does the teacher do it THERE and not somewhere else? That's what we need to know if we are going to understand teaching expertise.
Now, we can't really answer this question if we just leave the data in a big heap and talk about it using vague (and ultimately empty) phrases. What you say at the beginning is that you try to use analytical questions "as much as possible". And then at the end you say you use display questions because they are inevitable and important.
What are we to make of this?
a) Dayeong is contradicting herself: she begins by saying that analytical questions are important and need to be maximized and she ends by saying that it is display questions that are necessary and important.
b) Dayeong is NOT contradicting herself, but she's not really saying anything either. She thinks that BOTH analytical questions AND display questions should be used "as much as possible". But she doesn't know what "as much as possible" means, and neither do we.
Data ACTUALLY tells us what is possible by showing us what is REAL. So if Dayeong talks about her DATA, she can avoid contradicting herself and she can say something that is real and substantial too. Unfortunately, Dayeong is really NOT looking at her data. There's too much of it, and she can't keep it in her memory when she's trying to answer the question. So she just answers the question without looking at the data or thinking too much about it.