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Everybody:
I was very tired last night (I taught seven hours yesterday) and I was even worse than I usually am. I was actually feeling quite depressed about it this morning until I took a good look at this.
Yura makes almost ALL of the points that I was trying to make in my long pointless lecture about sociocultural theory. But she makes them much better than I did, because she makes them with DATA, with CLEAR EXAMPLES, and with CONCRETE INSTANCES.
KT: Look at this map here. This is a world map.
S1: 세계지도다. Notice the use of 혼잣말. The 반말 suggests that it's not EXPLICITLY addressed to the teacher (although of course S1 may very well intend that the teacher should over hear it. Instead, S1 is indicating a particular LEARNING strategy: mapping Korean meanings onto English words. This is a learning strategy the teacher IMMEDIATELY takes up, as we shall see.
KT: Yes. And here, we can see large lands in different parts. Do you know what they are called?
S1: con..(inaudible)
S2, S3: Continents.
KT: Yes, Continents! Does everyone know what continent is in Korean?
Ss: 대륙! The teacher picks up S1's strategy. By the way, notice how the teacher has MASTERED the use of the plural to indicate concepts. Very rare. Lucky students!
KT: Right. Continents means 대륙. So how many continents do we have on the Earth?
S4: Six?
Ss: Seven.
KT: We have seven continents on the Earth.
FT: Can you say the names of the seven continents?
S2: Asia.
KT: Asia!
S5: Europe.
KT: Yeah, Europe.
S4: North America.
KT: Yes, and?
S6: South America.
S7: 쌌다메리카? Another learning strategy. What shall we call THIS strategy?
(Ss burst into laughter)
KT: Very good. When there's North America, there should be South America! What else do we have?
S5: Africa.
KT: Yes! Africa. What else?
(long pause)
S2: 오세아니아?
KT: Oceania! excellent. We pronounce it '오세아니아‘ in Korean, but it's pronounced 'oceania' in English.
S8: 옷이 아니야? 옷이 아니래. (Giggling) Another learning strategy. What shall we call THIS strategy?
KT: Well, there is one more continent.
S5: We said six?
FT: Yes, there's one more continent you haven't said.
Ss: .....
S6: Russia?
KT: Russia is not a continent, it's a country.
S9: Greenland?
KT: Greenland is also a country.
(Students try to figure out the continent nobody has mentioned yet, but keep saying names of countries of cities.)
FT: Antarctica.
S5: 아..그거.
FT: Repeat after me. ANTARCTICA.
Ss: Antarctica.
(FT corrects students' pronunciation)
KT: So, including Antarctica, we have 7 continents in the world. But it is easy to forget about Antarctica because it's unfamiliar to us. Antarctica는 남극대륙인데, 이곳은 지구의 남쪽 끝에 있고...(Explain in detail)
FT: Okay, so looking at the map, let's check the location of each continents. Repeat after me. (KT puts on the name cards on the map and do some check ups if the students know the location of each continents.) There's a song which is very useful to memorize the name of seven continents. Let's learn the song together.
( Learning the song-
North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia
Don't forget Antarctica, don't forget Oceania.)
Is Australia part of Oceania or part of Asia?
KT: Let's play a memorizing game in groups. This will be like ‘가족오락관’, so each of the members in your group have to say the names of the continents in order. If you can remember all the 7 continents, you win. And the winners will get this...꿈틀이!(showing the students a bag of gummy worms.)
Ss: Wow! 꿈틀이! I want..
(Trying to memorize the 7 continents together in groups)
FT: Okay, group1! Dong-wu start!
Group1: Asia-Africa-Europe.........-South America (Barely remembered South America quoting somebody said ‘쌌다메리카’)
Group2: North America-Asia-Europe-South America-Africa
KT: And..? What else? You said 4. Try to use the song! The song goes like, 'Don't forget..?'
S10: Antarctica
KT: Don't forget,
Ss: Oceania.
KT: Okay. So group 3 goes next.
Group3: Asia-South America-North America-Africa-Europe-Oceania
(Group3 also failed to remember the 7 continents, still missing Antarctica.)
KT: Oh! What a shame~there's one missing. Group4!
Group4: Antarctica-Oceania-Africa-Asia-Europe-South America-North America
(Group 4 started by mentioning Antarctica first. The rest of the group4 members named the other 6 continents one by one quite easily. Group 5 failed because they were confused who said what and kept saying which somebody already mentioned.) (중략)
Group6: Antarctica-South America-Asia-Oceania-North America-Africa-Europe
(Group6, even though this group consists of kids who are poor at English, beautifully succeed using ‘쌌다메리카’ and ‘옷이 아니야’. And the thing is, even though the students of group 1,2,3 couldn't mention Antarctica because it's a unfamiliar vocabulary. However, beginning with the first student is group4, group5 and 6 didn't forget Antarctica and named it quite confidently. )
Is it fair? Don' t the kids who go later on get a practice effect?
One could use a counting rhyme to randomize the groups. But then it's really a game of CHANCE and not MEMORY.
Suppose you go "round the world", or rather round the classroom, with each group naming ONE continent until you have all seven.
Alternatively, you could have ONE group name a country and the NEXT group say the continent?
1. What evidence is there of learning?
<1> Learning the names and locations of 7 continents
I can't say that the students learned a whole new thing through this lesson, but I believe they are in the process of learning(long term learning).
Wait a minute! The data shows evidence of learning in quite a few places. We may not be able to PROVE it, but that'ts not what our Midterm Question asks for. It says "what EVIDENCE is there of learning"? Right?
What evidence is there of learning? What evidence of teaching? How is the learning DIFFERENT from the teaching? Is there any evidence of development? Quote from data to support what you say (put quotations in parentheses and quotation marks).
What about "con..." And "Oceania"? And all of the mnemonic devices that the kids are developing? What about the use of three different learning strategies? If the kids are using specific STRATEGIES to learn, doesn't that suggest that they are learning? Why would they use specific learning strategies for non-learning purposes?
They already knew the fact that there are 7 continents on the earth, and they've even been taught the each names before, which they can't remember all.
I'm not sure about this either. When I learned the names of the continents, we learned that Australia was continent. I remember this, because I asked the teacher why Europe was a continent when it was really part of Asia, and the teacher told me something about being on a separate geotechtonic plate like Australia. But of course that means that India is a continent too.
But by the chance of this lesson, they could recall what they've ever heard of. And they are about to learn the 7 names and location of each by heart. I don't think they will be still remembering all the names when I see them next class, but if we keep reviewing and learn more in detail, their learning will be settled and stable.
One way to think about LEARNING and DEVELOPMENT is to consider the distinction that Vygotsky makes between LOWER and HIGHER psychological functions. The LOWER psychological functions are often very simple things, like this:
a) perception (seeing, as opposed to looking, and hearing as opposed to listening),
b) reflexes, like immediate attention (what you do when a BANG goes off and you involuntarily turn to look and see), and
c) immediate memory (the sort of memory that you have when you close your eyes and you can still see the room, or when you listen and repeat the last three words you heard without any real understanding of them)
There is a very important sense in which these LOWER psychological function are NATURAL. Animals have them, for example. They see, they look in the direction of sudden sounds, and they can mimic sounds too.
But the HIGHER psychological functions are complex, because they have been REFORMULATED, RECONSTRUCTED, and RECONSTRUED along cultural lines (the same way that hair is reformulated as clothing, caves are reconstructed as housing, and vocal signals are reconstrued as language):
a) VERBAL perception (like knowing that a clock is not simply a round object with two hands, but has a particular social function and a name)
b) VOLITIONAL attention (like being able to pay attention to the clock and pay attention to eating breakfast so that you won't be late for school).
c) VOLUNTARY memory (like being able to remember some details and forget others, e.g. remembering the TIME on the clock and forgetting what it was made of)
Now, of course, the lower psychological functions are not really "learned". They are largely given, as part of our natural, biological endowment. So they are not really part of the child's mental development at all...except when the child learns to REFORMULATE, RECONSTRUE and RECONSTRUCT them as cultural functions. The process by which this is done is learning. And the product of doing it is development.
In Yura's data, we actually see the children going from PERCEPTION to VERBAL PERCEPTION (perception of sounds to perception of MEANINGFUL sounds).
We can also see them (if we look hard enough) trying to concentrate on particular words (look at S1 and S7 for example). This means they are trying to go from IMMEDIATE attention to VOLITIONAL attention; attention that is under their control.
So perhap we can also see them going from IMMEDIATE memory to VOLUNTARY memory (that is, combining their biological memory for sounds with a CULTURAL memory which is under their deliberate control). They do this by using a particular EXTRAMENTAL tool, a mnemonic device. Can you find where?
<2> Learning of the vocabulary-'Antarctica'
Among the 7 continents, Oceania and Antarctica were unfamiliar to the students, and especially Antarctica was a new word to most of the students. The evidence of learning of this word lies in the increasing number of appearance of this word. During the game, group 1,2,3 couldn't remember 'Antarctica'. On the other hand, from group 4, being conscious of other groups' mistakes, initiated their turn with 'Antarctica'. I could see that the learning process were taking place by the peers, not only by the teachers.
Yura has already argued (and I think she's RIGHT) that the issue of "famliarity" is not the whole story. She did this by saying that there was something called "long term learning" which is distinct from both "learning" and "development".
I disagree with this for a simple reason: Occam's RAZOR. We don't want more kinds of "learning" than we really need.
I don't really see any reason to have "long term" and "short term" learning. I am perfectly happy to distinguish between perception and verbal perception, immediate attention and volitional attention, immediate memory and voluntary memory.
Of course, the former is rather short term, and the latter is longterm. But more importantly, Vygotsky's distinction, between higher and lower psychological functions, can explain WHY one is short term and one is long term.
Man's GREAT secret is that he can store information CULTURALLY. This is what allows us to communicate with our ANCESTORS as well as our PEERS.
Because we can hand down, through language, our verbal perceptions, the things we voluntarily pay attention to, and the things that we volitionally remember, when we die, our ideas do not disappear, but instead become part of the development of the next generation.
This means that unlike animals, there is a very important sense in which the human species can function as a SINGLE organism--a culture.
<3> Learning a mnemonic
Excellent! This is exactly what the data is about. This is the whole key to the data.
Regardless of the teachers' intention, students happened to use the strategy of remembering names by building some kind of bridge between the English sound and Korean meaning such as ‘쌌다메리카’(South America), ‘옷이 아니야’(Oceania). Even though they sound ridiculous, it seem to be actually working as we can see that group6 students succeeded in the game using these. It reminded me of when I was in highschool, my English teacher used to take advantage of mnemonics using similar sound between English and Korean. (For example, he told us to remember the word 'anniversary' using ‘아니, 벌써!’ which tacitly means it's already the yearly event again. At first it sounded silly, but I would never forget the word.) So I think , uptaking the other's mnemonics, students are learning a memorizing skill. And also they learned another mnemonic skill which is making and singing a song to memorize the names of seven continents. But the difference is that learning happened by the teachers this time.
This creation of native language homophones is called the "keyword method". It's a mnemonic device that Vygotsky was VERY interested in, and Luria later explored in his book "The Mind of a Mnemonist".
By the way, it's also one of the few really SUCCESSFUL methods of vocabulary learning that modern research has uncovered.
Unfortunately, it's not very popular because of the theory of "comprehensible input" and "learning English through English" and "exposure". So it's very under-researched. But it's a GREAT thesis topic, Yura!
Yura is absolutely right to point to this as an element of learning which is INDEPENDENT of teaching. That is exactly what the data shows, and it's a very clear example of what we are looking for in the midterm exam.
2. What evidence is there of teaching?
<1> Teaching the names and locations of the seven continents
Teachers try to teach the names of seven continents in accordance with their locations using a world map. So at the beginning of the class, the KT checks what the students already know, and introduces a new vocabulary to them. In this way KT tries to have the students construct their knowledge about the continents in the world.
Richard Feynmann (the great physicist) tells a story about his father, who was a bird lover. One day, his father took him out to watch birds.
After about an hour, they had seen about a hundred kinds of birds and Richard (who had an AMAZING memory) had learnt about seventy different names and could recite them. So he did.
His father looked at him and said, "Very good, Richard. You now know seventy different names. You know nothing about the birds."
Vygotsky points out that there are really THREE different kinds of language functions here:
a) the indicating function ("this", "that", "here", "there", "you", "me") Here an OBJECT is being POINTED TO.
b) the naming function ("Ms. Shin", "Yura", "that apple", "this apple", "the apple") Here an object is being NAMED, and we don't have to point. In fact, we don't really need the object to be here at all.
c) the signifying function ("an apple", "a bird", "a person", "persons", "people", etc.) Here the speaker is pointing BEYOND the object to a COLLECTION (which Vygotsky calls a complex) or even a CONCEPT (that is, an abstract idea).
Which function are the children focusing on when they look at the map?
Which function are they focusing on when they use mnemonic devices?
Which function was I focusing on when I asked why Oceania is a continent, whether it includes Australia or not, and why Europe is not part of Asia?
<2> Teaching a memorizing strategy
-example-
FT: There's a song which is very useful to memorize the name of seven continents. Let's learn the song together.
........
KT: And..? What else? You said 4. Try to use the song! The song goes like, 'Don't forget..?'
S10: Antarctica
KT: Don't forget,
Ss: Oceania.
KT: Okay. So group 3 goes next.
The teachers are trying to get the students to use a strategy which helps memorizing easier.
Yes! And if functions as an EXTRAMENTAL tool. In fact, the words of the song actually include what Piaget would call "egocentric speech" (self-directed commands).
3. How is the learning different from the teaching?
During the class, learning happened not only by the teachers but also by the peers. Which means, students don't only learn what the teacher is trying to teach. Good. They might learn other things but the teacher intended to teach, or they might not even learn what the teacher teaches. In this class, students learned about seven continents by their names and locations and the word 'Antarctica' which were all planned and intended by the teacher. But this was possible because they were also watching their peer's mistakes through the game. I could see that the students are learning the word 'Antarctica' rather by the peers than the teachers.
Vygotsky points out that for most of human history, children did not learn in classrooms. Instead, they learned in play. So we can say that there is a "natural" ZPD as well as a "cultural" ZPD, which developed in our own time.
The "natural ZPD" is really the PLAYGROUND. Here children watch each other play and they learn by watching older siblings, older friends, and better players win. But nobody is deliberately TEACHING them.
The "cultural ZPD" is really the CLASSROOM. Here children sit in groups of the SAME AGE (without any older siblings or older friends and only a few slightly better players). They also don't get many chances to play. However, there is ONE much older person who is DELIBERATELY trying to teach them.
The cultural ZPD is a rather recent invention, and in some ways it doesn't work very well. But here in Korea, teachers have been much more successful than a lot of other places, and one good reason is that they DO recognize that the cultural ZPD has to be both SIMILAR TO and DIFFERENT FROM the natural ZPD.
And also the students learned a mnemonic which connects the English sound and Korean meaning which can be a good strategy to remember. This was never expected or intended by the teacher, but seemed to be quite effective as I could see a lot of students remembered 'South America' and 'Oceania' using this mnemonic.
There's some good material on the "keyword method" of vocabulary learning in:
Hulstijn, J. (1997) Mnemonic methods in foreign language vocabulary learning. In Coady, J. and Huckin, T. Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition, CUP. 203-244.
Nation, I.S.P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. CUP. 311-314.
Teachers taught the students a song and the fact that it's helpful to memorize the seven continents, so the students learned the song. But the students didn't really seem to use the song while they're playing the game. They rather seemed to count seven continents and try to figure out what's missing. In this case, students are not really learning the strategy that the teachers suggests.
There's a good explanation for this. Are songs mostly perception...or verbal perception? Immediate memory or voluntary memory? Immediate attention or voluntary attention?
In conclusion, I would say that teaching isn't directly connected to learning. Learning can occur by imitating the peer group's utterances, even if has nothing to do with the teaching aim. Also teaching can fail to be linked with learning as my students didn't seem to use the strategy of using the song to memorize the continents. Here we can notice that teaching-learning relationship is never like selling-buying or lending-borrowing.
Very well argued, Yura. I'm convinced!
I worry a lot because I rattle on in class, and I don't hear very much from students unless I ask very tightly closed questions. Sometimes I actually wonder if I shouldn't just ASSIGN the articles and ask students to 발표, instead of tyring to explain everything myself (I'm really a TERRIBLE rickshaw driver!)
I don't do this mostly for SELFISH reasons--I am too interested in the data that you bring, and I want to talk about it as much as possible. I think that Yura shows we really don't have to go very far to find ALL the ideas that we want to talk about!
4. Is there any evidence of development?
It's quite hard recognize any development occurs during this lesson, because the most of students' utterance is vocabulary level, and it's hard to see if they are building any abstract constructions.
Yura is really correct. But abstract constructions are only ONE way to operationalize development. They are a GRAMMATICAL way of operationalizing development. But development is not just grammar.
In fact, grammar cannot develop unless the child has ALREADY developed other things. For example:
a) the child has to develop verbal perception, because the child has to know that sounds are meaningful in order to understand that they have structure and that this structure can be manipulated to produce new sounds.
b) the child has to develop voluntary attention, because the child has to be able to choose and select parts of an utterance that has to be changed in order to create new meanings (e.g. the "V" in "Let's + V")
c) the child has to develop volutional memory, because the child has to be able to remember the various parts of the whole that have to be repeated (e.g. the "Let's" in "Let's + V.")
Yura doesn't have any direct evidence of abstract constructions. But she certainly DOES have evidence of development.
However, I would say that 'development of way of learning' will occur if the students keep learning more mnemonics as strategies for their study. This is because when they learn the strategies, it means they become conscious of their learning, and the whole style of their study can be changed or enhanced.
And I would agree!
During the class, students learned a new strategy of learning and hopefully they'll very soon realize that using that kind of mnemonic is helpful to remember what they've learned. Also they're be willing to get more strategies to help their learning .
Notice how Yura uses the word "will". Another word for "will" of course is "volition" and "voluntariness".
Bravo, Yura!