|
Uptake |
Total | |
TSU |
STU |
23 |
11 |
12 |
In the table above, it seems that the amount of each uptake is quite balanced. (11/12) However, upon a closer examination, since all the uptakes are repetition and checking the answers, most of them are generated from the teacher just except one. (S1: In that order? T: Yes, in this order.)
This is EXACTLY why we need to combine quantitative and qualitative analysis. We need quantitative analysis in order to tell us what we have and how typical our data extracts are. We need qualitative analysis to explain our quantitative results.
Consider TESTING. Testing tends, almost relentlessly, towards quantitative analysis; in the end, what we ALL walk away with is a number. It's usually IMPOSSIBLE to go back to the actual testing situation and explain WHY the number is what it is, so, rather foolishly, we tend to assume that the number is a valid measure of whatever the test is supposed to be measuring.
As a result, LOTS of kids (and even graduate school student) learn to get high scores on tests without really understanding a lot of the materials; through empty verbalism, through memorizing answers, and even through very creative and interactive websites like HACKERS.
Quantitative analysis is sometimes like this too. If we just look at the numbers, it looks like Mr. Price is doing pretty well. He's got a nice, balanced class with lots of uptake, evenly divided between the teacher and the students.
But Jisu knows better. She knows that TESTING may be like this but TEACHING is not like this. With TEACHING we can go back and we can explain WHY this was understood and not that. So she goes back and looks at the teaching, and discovers...not only fixed expressions, but actually INDIVIDUAL LEXICAL ITEMS which are mostly completely meaningless and arbitrary (Why does Shrek come from Japan?)
Utterance Reversibility
During this 8-miute-long activity, the teacher says three times as much as the students.(90/31) This is a considerably large amount of talk because I didn't even count the teacher's super-long listening text part. Moreover, almost half of the teacher's reversible utterances come from the word "OK"(11), nominating(6) (T: "Bob." ,"Ms.Shin.") and checking the answers.(11) (T:First floor.) Also, the students' utterances are mostly the repeated ones from the teacher (Ss:"Bob." "Roof.") or predictable answers.(Ss: Fifth floor.)
|
Reversible Utterance |
Non-reversible Utterance |
Total |
Teacher |
62 |
29 |
90 |
Students |
30 |
1 |
31 |
Total |
92 |
30 |
122 |
We can see from this that Jisu is NOT using "reversible roles" but INSTEAD using "reversible utterances" or "shareable words". This is a good move; it creates what is called a "low inference category" (that is, a category where not much judgement is required in coding the data, so high inter-rater reliability is possible).
But to make this move we STILL need a definition and an example...at the beginning.
Variation
This excerpt is mostly about repeating after the teacher(and teacher after the students) and answering the closed questions.(T: "Where is Shrek from?" "He lives on the....") That means, the teacher's questions are not earnest so there are not many syntagmatic variations where "utterances fit into slots rather than follow on."(Kwon and Kellogg, 2005) Right. Since most of the utterances of each party are completely predictable, we can expect that the number of paradigmatic variations would be more than that of syntagmatic variations. However, the result in the table below goes against our expectation. That seems to be resulted from the teacher's frequently use of words for "Evaluation" in IRE (T: "Good." "Good job.") or for checking comprehension.(T:OK?)
Syntagmatic Variations |
Paradigmatic Variations |
Total |
62 |
60 |
112 |
We can now see exactly WHY the teacher took two out of three utterances: Jisu's data fits pretty neatly into the IRE paradigm.
But that's the point, Jisu: on the EXCHANGE level, IRE is a paradigm. How much syntagmatic variation is there on the level of the EXCHANGE?
The reason why Jisu's data looks a little like an ORANGE, which falls neatly into IRE segments, is that the teacher keeps REPEATING the same roles. And those ROLES, that is, the role of initiator and evaluator, are NOT shared with the children...not at all!
You can see that we've got a bit of a dilemma: when we use low-inference categories (like turns or utterances or words) we can't really talk about the significant and meaningful things in the data (like exchanges, roles, and pedagogical functions) and when we use high inference categories (like initiator, evaluator, responder) it's a little hard to get inter-rater reliability.
What 's the solution? Well, SOMETIMES the solution is to go ahead and use a high inference category, if that is what you want to study. But when you use the high inference category, you need to DEFINE and EXEMPLIFY it so that other people can follow.
Conclusion
This activity belongs to so-called "PRESENTATION" stage in PPP model in a class. That means students should be exposed to the environment where they are allowed for the most active production. Watching his class (and doing not much about it), I felt that something important is missing there. Where there is no reversibility, there is no intermental interaction, and where there is no intermental interaction, in the end, there is no development.
Of course, PPP is ANOTHER paradigm, only now it is a paradigm on the scale of the lesson rather than simply on the scale of the exchange.
Remember last week we saw that Eunshil used a WHOLE EXCHANGE to get the children to find the lesson and to name it. Other teachers simply said a single utterance, such as "It's time for a game".
Bak Hayeong discovered that activities WITHIN PPP also tend to have a kind of PPP structure: there is often a kind of presentation exchange, a practice exchange and then some production exchanges.
We can even find this kind of structure within utterances. Remember:
Hi! I'm Mr. K. And you?
But the RESPONSE to this is not simply paradigmatic variation. It's also syntagmatic.