T: (showing a picture of a door and pointing to the picture)
Look!(C) What's this?(Q)
-iconic(because I showed the picture of a door)
GOOD! EVERYBODY--NOTICE HOW CHAEHEUN USES THE WORD "BECAUSE" IN HER ANSWER. THIS IS IMPORTANT.
WE SAW THAT WHEN WE TEACH THE GAME "ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS" THE WORD "BECAUSE" HAS A VERY IMPORTANT ROLE TO PLAY.
T: WHAT'S THIS?
S: ROCK.
T: WHEN THE PAPER COVERS UP THE ROCK, WHO WINS?
S: PAPER.
T: WHY?
S: BECAUSE PAPER COVERS UP THE ROCK.
BECAUSE ABSTRACT RULES ARE ABSTRACT, WE CANNOT POINT DIRECTLY TO THEM. THEY ARE NOT PHYSICAL OBJECTS, AND THEY CANNOT BE.
IN FACT, WE CANNOT TEACH ABSTRACT RULES (OR SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS) DIRECTLY AT ALL. WE CAN ONLY GUIDE THE CHILDREN IN RECREATING THEIR OWN MENTAL MODELS OF THEM. "BECAUSE" IS A KEY INDICATOR OF THAT!
THE SAME THING IS TRUE ON OUR MIDTERM. I WAS GETTING VERY BORED WITH GRAD STUDENTS WHO SIMPLY SHOOT THROUGH THE DATA LABELLING THIS "ICONIC" AND THAT "INDEXICAL".
SO I ASKED YOU ALL TO SLOW DOWN. I ALSO ASKED YOU TO DO LESS DATA (BECAUSE I KNOW YOU ARE VERY BUSY AND I KNOW THAT THERE IS ALWAYS A TRADE-OFF; MORE DEPTH MEANS LESS DATA).
EUNJEONG DID THIS--SHE FOUND ONE EXAMPLE OF ICONIC MEANING INSTEAD OF LABELLING EVERYTHING ICONIC (WHICH SHE COULD HAVE DONE). UNFORTUNATELY IT WASN'T A VERY GOOD EXAMPLE (IT WAS THE WRITTEN KOREAN WORDS ON HER QUIZ TV SCREEN, WHICH ARE, OF COURSE, COMPUTER ICONS). SO SHE LOST SOME POINTS THERE!
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO MAKE SURE THAT YOUR EXAMPLE IS A GOOD EXAMPLE? LEARN FROM CHAEHEUN! USE THE WORD "BECAUSE" IN YOUR ANSWER.
-indexical(for the intonation I use when I say "Look!" and pointing to the picture)
BRAVO! CHAEHEUN HAS A VERY CLEAR PICTURE OF HOW EVERYTHING CAN BE EVERYTHING.
BUT SHE ALSO HAS SOMETHING ELSE! SHE UNDERSTANDS WHY IT MIGHT BE IMPORTANT THAT A PARTICULAR COMMUNICATIVE ACT HAS AN ICONIC ASPECT AS WELL AS AN INDEXICAL AND A SYMBOLIC ONE.
IF YOU THINK BACK CAREFULLY TO THE PROBLEM WITH WHICH WE BEGAN YOU WILL SEE HER REASONING. WE STARTED OUT ASKING HOW CHILDREN DISCOVER THAT LANGUAGE IS LANGUAGE--HOW DID THE FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER FIND OUT THAT WORDS HAVE MEANINGS AND HOW DID HELEN REALIZE THAT FINGER MOVEMENTS MEANT "WATER".
THEY EXPERIENCE THE SOUND OF THE WORD AND THE SIGHT OF THE DOOR SEPARATELY, JUST AS FRANKENSTEIN HEARD THE SOUNDS OF VOICES AND SAW THE EXPRESSIONS OF PEOPLE'S FACES SEPARATELY AND HELEN FELT THE MOVEMENTS IN ONE HAND AND THE COLD WATER IN THE OTHER.
BUT ONE OF THEM REALLY DOES POINT TO THE OTHER! WHEN THIS OUTWARD CONNECTION BECOMES AN INWARD CONNECTION (WHEN THE INTER-MENTAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN "DOOR" AND THE PICTURE BECOMES AN INTRA-MENTAL ONE) THE CHILD UNDERSTANDS THE MEANING!
VAN LIER SAYS THAT INDEXICALITY IS THE "WORKTABLE" ON WHICH ALL SYMBOLIC MEANING IS BUILT. DO YOU SEE WHAT HE MEANS?
-symbolic(becuase it's language)
YES, BUT IT'S A PARTICULAR KIND OF LANGUAGE: THE WORD "THIS" IS WHAT WE CALL AN INDEX--A POINTING WORD. IT IS A SYMBOL, BUT IN SOME WAYS IT IS A SYMBOL FOR POINTING.
NOW, WHAT ABOUT THE WORD 'WHAT"? THAT IS EVEN MORE OF A SYMBOL, SIMPLY BECAUSE IT'S A SYMBOL FOR SYMBOL.
REMEMBER I POINTED OUT TO YOU THAT ONE OF THE REASONS WHY WRITTEN LANGUAGE IS MORE DIFFICULT THAN SPOKEN LANGUAGE IS THAT WORDS LIKE "HE" AND "SHE" AND "IT" AND "THIS" AND "THAT" OFTEN APPEAR AS SECOND ORDER SYMBOLS. THAT IS, THEY STAND FOR NAMES THAT APPEAR ELSEWHERE IN THE WRITTEN TEXT, AND YOU HAVE TO GO RUMMAGE AROUND IN THE TEXT UNTIL YOU FIGURE OUT WHAT THEY MEAN.
WHEN YOU ARE SPEAKING, YOU JUST LOOK AND YOU CAN SEE WHAT "THIS" OR "THAT" IS, AND THE SAME THING IS OFTEN TRUE (BUT NOT ALWAYS) OF "HE" AND "SHE" (WHEN IT IS NOT TRUE, SPOKEN LANGUAGE CAN BE AS DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND AS WRITTEN LANGUAGE, OR EVEN MORE SO).
NOW, THE WORD "WHAT' IS A SYMBOL FOR SYMBOL! NOT ONLY IS IT A SYMBOL FOR A SYMBOL, IT'S A SYMBOL FOR A MISSING SYMBOL!
THAT IS WHY WH-QUESTIONS ARE DIFFICULT. TEACHERS KNOW THIS, OF COURSE. THAT'S WHY WE OFTEN FIND THAT WH-QUESTIONS ONLY COME AFTER COMMANDS AND STATEMENTS. BUT THEY DON'T ALWAYS KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT, HOW TO AVOID ONLY USING WH-QUESTIONS WITH EASY AND OLD INFORMATION (WHICH, AS WE SAW WITH HAYEONG'S MIDTERM, IS A TRAP THAT WILL KILL TEACHING, BECAUSE IF WE ONLY ASK WH-QUESTIONS WITH DEAD INFORMATION, WE WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO BRING NEW KNOWLEDGE TO LIFE!)
LET'S SEE IF CHAEHEUN KNOWS WHAT TO DO:
S: 문이요. Door?? 맞나?
T: Right!
This is a door.(S)
Chae-heun uses K-E (that is, Korean-English) and builds the meanings of the new language onto the meanings of the old language. But it's not JUST K-E. It's also S-S, and then S-T.
Skilled teachers and skilled students work together. The way they do this is NOT individual scaffolding--not at all! Instead, they create a classroom wide zone of proximal development, where different meanings are made and then teacher and students TOGETHER select the ones which are most suitable. This is a kind of evolution by ARTIFICIAL selection that drives a lot of classroom discourse. It's slow, of course. But it has the great advantage of producing a process that is NOT simply trial and error and NOT simply giving children the right answer; it has the great advantage showing the children a PROCESS of how to derive a right answer for themselves--a process of hypothesis testing based on the native language as well as the foreign language.
-iconic(because I showed the picture of a door) BRAVO!
-indexical(for the intonation I used when I say "Right!" and pointing to the picture)
WELL PUT! NOTICE THAT AN UPWARD INTONATION WOULD MEAN SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT!
-symbolic(because it's a language)
NOT ENOUGH! AS WE JUST SAW, IT'S NOT JUST A SYMBOL. IT'S ACTUALLY A SECOND ORDER SYMBOL.
(acting like opening the door)A door to .... ??(Q)
-indexical(By pretending to open the door I tried to show what the preposition 'to' means)
WE SAW ABOVE THAT ABSTRACT PRINCIPLES (E.G. "BECAUSE" CLAUSES) CANNOT REALLY BE SHOWN DIRECTLY--THE CAUSE OF THINGS THAT ARE PRESENT IN THE HERE AND NOW ARE NOT SO EASY TO SHOW IN THE HERE AND NOW).
NOW, THINK A MINUTE. CAN WE SHOW "TO" DIRECTLY? HOW WILL THE CHILDREN KNOW THAT YOUR ACTION DOES NOT MEAN "DOOR"?
.
-symbolic(because students knew the meaning of 'a door')
CHAEHEUN SEEMS TO BE SAYING THAT ONLY WHEN THE CHILDREN ALREADY KNOW THE MEANING CAN WE TALK ABOUT SYMBOLIC MEANING. A VERY IMPORTANT INSIGHT!
FOR ONE THING, IT STRONGLY SUGGESTS THAT WE CAN ONLY TEACH SYMBOLIC MEANING IN ONE OF TWO WAYS:
A) THROUGH INDEXICALITY
B) THROUGH SECOND ORDER SYMBOLISM (THAT IS, THROUGH KOREAN).
NOW, I'M NOT GOING TO SUGGEST THAT ONE OF THESE WAYS IS "GOOD" AN THE OTHER IS "BAD". IN FACT, I THINK THAT IN MANY CASES WE HAVE NO CHOICE AT ALL: WE CAN ONLY TEACH SOME WORDS E.G. "THE" THROUGH EXAMPLES AND WE CAN ONLY TEACH OTHER WORDS THROUGH TRANSLATIONS. AND IN SOME CASES, WE MUST USE BOTH. FOR EXAMPLE:
-2nd order symbolic(for some students who couldn't understand the acting)
어디로 연결된 문일까?(Q)
-symbolic(because it's a language)
S: 칠판? 집으로요~ 운동장이요. Playground! Heaven! 천국??
T: (pointing to the ceiling) Maybe a door to heaven.(S)
(pointing to the floor) Maybe a door to ... ??(Q)
-indexical(because I pointed to the ceiling which can indicates the sky -> heaven
and I pointed to the floor which can indicates the gound -> hell)
-symbolic(because it's a language)
NOT ENOUGH. HOW DO THE CHILDREN UNDERSTAND THE WORD "MAYBE"? IS IT ONE OF THE WORDS WE TEACH BY INDEXICALITY OR ONE OF THE WORDS WE TEACH BY TRANSLATION? OR BOTH?
THINK! THERE IS A LOT OF EMPTY CHATTER IN ENGLISH TEACHING ABOUT 'COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT" AND "COMMUNICATION" AND SO ON. BUT VERY FEW OF THE ACADEMIC CHATTERERS (E.G. KRASHEN, LONG, ETC.) SERIOUSLY TALK ABOUT HOW INPUT BECOMES COMPREHENSIBLE WHEN IT IS NOT COMPREHENSIBLE. VERY FEW OF THE THEORISTS TALK ABOUT HOW COMMUNICATION MIGHT ACTUALLY HAPPEN, OR RATHER, HOW IT MIGHT DEVELOP FROM NON-COMMUNICATION.
BUT THAT'S WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW AS TEACHERS. THIS IS EXACTLY WHY SO MUCH OF THE APPLIED LINGUISTIC THEORY AND THE TESOL THEORY AND THE LINGUISTIC THEORY WE GET IN GRADUATE SCHOOL SEEMS IRRELEVANT.
S1: Heaven이 뭐야?
S2: 천국~~
T: (pointing to upside direction and downside direction) Heaven or ... ??(Q)
-indexical(because I pointed to the ceiling and the floor )
(for the intonation I used asking for some answers)
VERY IMPORTANT POINT, CHAEHEUN. THIS IS WHAT I CALL A "SPOKEN CLOZE EXERCISE"--A SENTENCE WHICH THE TEACHER BEGINS AND THE CHILDREN FINISH. IF YOU THINK A MOMENT, YOU WILL SEE IT IS VERY MUCH RELATED TO THE ISSUE OF "SENTENCE FRAGMENTS" THAT CAME UP IN EUNJEONG'S DATA.
AND YOU'LL SEE THAT THAT ISSUE OF "SENTENCE FRAGMENTS" IS RELATED TO THE PROBLEM OF INTER-MENTAL RELATIONSHIPS BECOMING INTRA-MENTAL ONES (WHICH IS WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT ABOVE WHEN I TALKED ABOUT A CLASSROOM WIDE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT). HOW DOES DISCOURSE BECOME GRAMMAR? PERHAPS ONE WAY IS THROUGH THE "SPOKEN LANGUAGE CLOZE EXERCISE", WHERE AN INTER-MENTAL SENTENCE BECOMES AN INTRA-MENTAL ONE!
-symbolic(because it's a language)
I DON'T LIKE THIS ANSWER. OR RATHER, I ONLY LIKE ONE WORD OF THIS ANSWER. "BECAUSE".
S3: 그럼 지옥??
S4: 지옥이 영어로 뭐지?
T: Hell. 지옥은 영어로 Hell입니다.(S)
Heaven or hell !(S)
(pointing to the door picture) This is a door.(S)
(pointing to the ceiling) Maybe a door to heaven.(S)
(pointing to the floor) Maybe a door to hell.(S)
Do you like heaven or hell?(Q)
-iconic(because I showed the picture of the door)
-indexical(because I pointed to the picture of the door, the ceiling and the floor)
(for my intonation when I say the alternative question "Do you like heaven or hell)
-symbolic(because it's a language)
-2nd order symbolic(because 'hell' is a new word)
(for some students who couldn't understand the alternative question)
S: Heaven! I like heaven!! 천국이요~
T: OK! Look at me!(C) -iconic, indexical, symbolic
I'm not the teacher.(S) -symbolic
I'm a doorman!(S) -symbolic, 2nd order symbolic
(acting like singing) What am I doing?(Q) -indexical, symbolic
S1: 노래부르는 건가?
S2: Singing!
T: Yes! (acting as a singer)I am singing.(S) (Slowly and clearly)What am I doing?(Q)
-indexical(by acting like singing, by repeating the same question more slowly)
-symbolic
S: Singing!
S3(지현): You are singing!!
T: Congratulations! 지현! (S)
(pointing to the ceiling) You can go to heaven! (S)
Now you are a new doorman! (S)
-indexical, symbolic, 2nd order symbolic
S3(지현): (acting like running) What am I doing?
(continued)
Q1-2. ACTION AND MEANING/ MEANING AND ACTION
a) Can you find examples of iconic, indexical, and symbolic(second order symbolic?) meaning making?
Yes, I can.
YES, WELL DONE! NOW, CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HOW THE DIFFERENT EXAMPLES ARE CONNECTED? REMEMBER, THIS IS WHOLE LANGUAGE CLASS.
b) What goes wrong? How does the T solve the problem?
Children knew the Korean word '지옥‘ which has a opposite meaning to heaven. But they didn't know how to say IT in English. So T taught the word 'hell' by explaining "Hell. 지옥은 영어로 Hell입니다.".
And when the children answered with a single word 'Singing!' for the question of what I am doing, T let the children modify their reply to the question by repeating the question more slowly.
GOOD. NOTICE THAT THIS TREATS "SENTENCE FRAGMENTS" AS A PROBLEM (AND OF COURSE THEY CAN BE A PROBLEM, BECAUSE ANY DEVELOPMENTAL STAGE CAN BECOME A PROBLEM IF IT STOPS DEVELOPMENT). AND THE TEACHER DOES INDEED SOLVE THE PROBLEM.
c from Q1) Can you think of a way of doing this activity that adds more meaning?
By adding rules like this.