Students : 5th students
Lesson : Lesson 13. What did you do yesterday?
FT : Last Friday we didn't have school. We had holiday.
What kind of holiday?
S1 : National day.
KT : National day. Wow! ?
FT : What kind of National day?
Why is the teacher dissatisfied with S1's answer?
a) The teacher doesn't realize that "National Day" is the name of the holiday.
b) The teacher is simply trying to slow down the interaction so that other children can catch up (a kind of "rebroadcasting" move, or rather a link between uptaking and rebroadcasting).
c) The teacher has no real reason for asking this but is simply asking a set follow-up question automatically, rather the way that children will simply go on asking "why?" when they are no longer very interested in the answer (Piaget).
S2 : 개천절이요.
FT : Good. What kind of holiday of National..? (Which explanation does this suggest? Is a], b], or c] the most plausible explanation?)
S3 : National Foundation day.
KT : OH! National Foundation day.
What did you do National Foundation day?
What did you do? Think about it.
S4 : I play. I play the Basketball.
Some interesting grammar problems. Why do "National Foundation Day" and "play basketball" have NO article? On the other hand, "a holiday" and "shoot the basketball" DO do have articles.
Of course, native speakers don't know this and can't explain it. But there are three reasons why Korean elementary English teachers might want to know it and explain it. We can think of the reasons as EEE, or E1, E2, E3, where EEE stands for ELEMENTARY ENGLISH EDUCATION
E1) An ELEMENTARY reason. We know that the use of the article is the borderline between a concept, an example, and a unique, specific individual, and we know this lies at the heart of the elementary school curriculum in science, social studies, music, math, and even English. This distinction is why we say "a holiday" (example of a concept) but we also say "National Foundation Day" (unique individual).
E2) An ENGLISH reason. We also know that the use or nonuse of the article marks the frontier of lexis and grammar (we saw this in Minkyeong's data for Q3 too). It's the point at which a noun becomes grammaticized. That is But in SOME cases (e.g. "play basketball") the noun is grammaticized as part of a VERB phrase (just as a preposition can be grammaticized as part of a verb phrase in expressions like "come back" and "run up" and so on).
E3) An EDUCATION reason. According to Vygotsky's (unfinished) theory of child development, the school child still lives partly in the old noun-filled world, a world of perception and memories of perceptions, and partly in the new concept-filled world, a world of meaning where objects are not simply perceptions but concrete examples of abstract concepts. For learning to become development, learning has to contribute to reformulating perceptions as concrete examples of abstract concepts; perception must become VERBAL, MEANINGFUL perception. The article is one clear way to demonstrate this.
You can see there is no TIME for this! We need some way of hitting a PAUSE button and stopping the action so we can reflect. Fortunately, as graduate students, we have the way to do this. It's Eunyeong's transcript!
KT : You played basketball.
S4 : I played basketball.
S5 : I study.
FT : You studied. Wow, you are a good student. What did you study?
S5 : I studied English.
KT : Anybody else?
S6 : I went...
KT : You went...
S6 : I went to dance-school.
Why does "dance school" have no article? Is it like "play basketball" or is it like "National Foundation Day"?
KT : Good.
S7 : 방콕.
KT : Ha-ha. You enjoyed 방콕.
FT : 방콕? What does it mean?
KT : He stayed at home all day. Some students use this word humorously.
OK, good. Everybody, look at the screen. This is a magic tunnel.
FT : When this word go through magic tunnel, what will happen?
Who can guess?
The concept we want here is not a "magic tunnel" but a TIME tunnel, like the "time tunnel" created by black holes that we see in science fiction movies (or in the children's science comic books "Why?"). Perhaps our FT is not familiar with this?
KT : Who can guess? Cry?
S8 :That verb change past tense.
Wow indeed! Notice that the child gives a METALINGUISTIC answer ("The verb changes into past tense") rather than an actual answer ("Cried"). Vygotsky says:
학교에서의 외국어 학습에 관련한 과정이 모국어 학습에 연관된 것을 즉, 유아기에, 완전히 다른 조건 하에서 일어난 과정을 반복한다면 이상할 것이다. 그럼에도, 이 과정들의 중대한 차이점들로 인해 이들 둘 다 말의 발달의 측면이라는 사실을 지나쳐서는 안될 것이다. 문어(文語)의 발달에 관련된 과정들은 언어 발달의 이 통합된 과정의 세 번째 변수이다 그것은 지금까지 언급한 두 가지 언어 발달의 측면 중 어느 하나도 반복하지 않는다. 세 가지의 이 모든 과정들 즉, 모국어 학습, 외국어 학습 그리고 문어의 발달은 서로 복잡한 방식으로 상호작용을 한다. 위에서 밝혔듯이 외국어 학습은 모국어의 의미적인 측면에 의존한다는 데 그 고유성이 있다. 따라서 초등학교 학생들(school children)에게 외국어를 가르치는 토대는 어린이들의 모국어에 대한 지식이다. 괴테는 이를 대단히 명료하게 이해하였다. 그에 따르면 최소한 하나의 외국어를 모르는 사람은 모국어를 모르는 사람이라고 한다. 이 생각은 연구에 의해 지지를 받는다. 외국어를 학습함으로써 어린이들은 모국어 발달의 수준을 향상시킨다. 언어적 형태에 대한 의식적 인식과 언어적 현상을 추상화하는 수준이 증대하게 된다. 어린이는 사고의 도구로써 또, 생각을 표현하는 수단으로써 더욱 의식적이고 의도적으로 말을 사용하는 능력을 발달시킨다. 외국어 학습은 대수 학습이 산술적 사고의 수준을 향상시키는 것과 같은 방식으로 모국어의 수준을 향상시킨다. 대수를 배움으로써 어린이가 산술을 대수적 조작의 특정한 예시로 이해할 수 있게 된다. 이를 통해 어린이는 구체적 양을 조작함에 있어 더 자유롭고 추상적이며 일반적인 관점을 가지게 된다. 대수가 어린이를 구체적인 수량 관계의 파악으로부터 해방시켜 더 추상적인 사고의 수준으로 향상시켰듯이 외국어 학습은 어린이의 언어적 사고를 구체적인 언어적 형태와 현상으로부터의 해방시킨다. 따라서 연구는 다음의 세 가지를 지적한다. (1) 외국어 학습은 어린이의 모국어에 의존하는 동시에 그것에 영향을 미친다. (2) 그 발달의 경로는 모국어 발달의 경로를 반복하지 않는다. (3) 모국어와 외국어의 강점과 약점은 다르다.
Vygotsky, L.S. (2009). 생각과 말. A new, unabridged translation into Korean by Yongho Kim, Seonmi Song and Hicheol Bae with notes by David Kellogg.
KT : Past tense? Wow.
OK. Let's see the screen. See... will change....
Ss : Saw.
KT : And have?
Ss : Had.
KT : Had, good!
KT : Live?
Ss : Lived.
KT : Eat?
Ss : Ate.
KT : Meet?
Ss : Met.
KT : OK, good.
Now I think you are ready to start today's lesson.
FT : We will continue Lesson 13 'What did you do yesterday?
.....................................................................................
(1) Evidence of learning
S1, S3 knew National and National Foundation day and answered correctly.
Yes, but let's not assume that when the child knows a word and its translation that the concept has completely formed. For example, the FT clearly does NOT know that "National Day" is in fact the TITLE of a particular holiday and it is not simply a name like "holiday". He has the word, but he does not have the concept, because he doesn't know if the word is an example or a name. He has, therefore, only an example of EMPTY VERBALISM.
Vygotsky says:
이런 연유로 어떤 한 아이의 발달을 이루는 어떤 한 단계에서 우리는 과학적 개념과 일상적 개념의 상이한 장점과 단점을 발견합니다.
우리의 데이터는 일상적 개념의 약점은 추상화를 행하지 못한다는 것, 즉 아동이 자발적 방식으로 개념을 조작하지 못한다는 것을 보여줍니다. 의지가 요구되는 곳에서 일상적 개념은 일반적으로 부적절하게 사용되어집니다. 이와 달리 과학적 개념의 약점은 그것의 언어주의(verbalism)에, 즉 구체성에 그것이 제대로 침투하지 못했다는 것에 있습니다. 이것은 과학적 개념 발달에서 피할 수 없는 위험입니다. 과학적 개념의 장점은 자발적인 방식으로, 즉 행위를 위한 준비가 된 상황에서, 그것을 사용할 수 있는 아동의 능력에 있습니다. 이런 양상은 4학년에서 변화하기 시작합니다. 과학적 개념의 언어주의(verbalism)는 그것이 점차 더 구체적으로 되어가면서 사라지기 시작합니다. 이렇게 되면 자발적 개념의 발달에도 영향을 미치게 됩니다. 궁극적으로 이 두 발달 곡선은 병합되기 시작합니다(Shif, 1935). [ 1934년 러시아판에는 이 표현이 없겠네요. 단순한 말놀음(verbalism)도 고민거리. ]
Maybe they would listen or study this word at the private school.
It's interesting that my students tend to attribute all kinds of miraculous learning to private school. From what I've seen, private school teaching is not very effective. Perhaps I am wrong. I wonder if the child who said this went to private school on National Foundation Day. That might explain it!
Is this is learning? I'm not sure but I think this is learning. They knew this new word and used for the class.
Good! And of course we can see from this that learning and development are DIFFERENT, and that development is, nevertheless, dependent on learning. Learning a word is not likely to restructure the way the child thinks. On the other hand, it is impossible to restructure the way the child thinks without the use of words; that is why we say that sounding, wording, and meaning are paradigmatically arranged, in that one emerges from the other!
S4 : I play. I play the Basketball.
KT : You played basketball.
S4 : I played basketball.
S5 : I study.
FT : You studied. Wow, you are a good student. What did you study?
S5 : I studied English.
S4, S5 made same mistakes, they did not use correct past tense. But KT and FT their utterances, and they said correct sentences again.
What about the article, Teacher?
I think the important thing is not their re-utterances but they realized their mistakes.
This was the second period of the lesson and all students reviewed verbs' past tense. This is just repetition or learning? I think learning is not accomplished at one time but continuous thing, so the review of the lesson is learning.
Eunyeong is making a very important point, and EVERYBODY should pay attention, but perhaps most of all Minkyeong should pay attention. In some of Minkyeong's writings we read truly brilliant insights, and in almost all of them we can see masterly, fluent, accomplished teaching. But we can also see that Minkyeong tends to assume that teaching is learning, that is, that microgenesis is an instantaneous process.
When we say MICROGENESIS we do NOT mean an instantaneous process. We can "present" a word and get the children to repeat it, but it is probably nothing more than empty verbalism. Often, the child who repeats and even the child who translates and even the child who can repeat, translate and actually USE the word does not have a clear idea of how the word fits into the system of concepts and examples which is at the very heart of elementary education. For that to happen the child needs TIME, the child needs the time to reflect on it as we are doing right here.
This means that we CANNOT identify learning with verbal presentation any more than we can identify learning with development. Microgenesis does NOT mean instantaneous learning, but rather a process of paying attention, getting information and INTEGRATING that information into some pre-existing knowledge structure. And that suggests that microgenesis is a process that is longer than an instant, although shorter than, say, a month or a year.
(2) Evidence of teaching
S4 : I play. I play the Basketball.
KT : You played basketball.
S4 : I played basketball.
S5 : I study.
FT : You studied. Wow, you are a good student. What did you study?
S5 : I studied English.
I quoted this script at the evidence of learning, too. Teaching is not one-sided. I think if the students listen(get) something from the teachers and they change their mistakes, this is teaching, too. At this script, KT and FT corrected past tense, S4, S5 immediately changed their sentences.
And KT taught various verb forms of past tense and the students reviewed. Even though the students did not remember all things, this is teaching.
Yesterday Jisu was commenting on how DIFFICULT it is to transcribe data, how EMBARRASSING. The reason she gave was that teachers tend to be self-critical and judgemental. Teachers are self conscious, and part of this self-consciousness is that they are more conscious of TEACHING than of LEARNING.
But when you think about it from the KIDS' point of view, you will see that even very good teachers are only a small part of the action. As Vygotsky says, the teacher's ONLY role is as part of the educational environment, not as the source of all light. (See Guk and Kellogg, pp. 3-4.)
Now, in the last section we saw that Eunyeong managed to differentiate between learning and teaching by showing how learning was NOT an instantaneous process which is identifiable with the presentation of new information. It also involves the focus of attention and the use of reflection to INTEGRATE new information into a pre-existing information structure in the mind.
But Eunyeong is a teacher just like Minkyeong and teachers tend to focus on TEACHING to the exclusion of learning. Eunyeong's analysis is very good, but it focuses very narrowly on the children's use of tense. There are other things going on in this data that are actually more interesting from the point of view of differentiating between learning and teaching.
Let's say that the teachers are teaching tense. There is a lot of evidence to support this: they came to class with a fancy "time tunnel" PPT which is obviously designed to present the concept of tense through a number of decontextualized examples. They used a chat about National Foundation Day to contextualize these examples. So it looks like they were prepared to teach tense.
But when you depend on a chat to contextualize examples, you cannot fully predict what will happen. In fact, what happened was that the child who played basketball made an article error, an overgeneralization, probably caused by the child's deliberate LEARNING of the article. The teacher uptook this error and corrected it. And the child IMMEDIATELY uptook the correction, producing a perfectly correct sentence. I think this is learning, but it is certainly NOT teaching. The teacher did not expect this, and not even Eunyeong noticed it.
(3) How is the learning different from the teaching?
This was 2nd period of the lesson so the students already studied past tense. And usually many teachers ask questions like that 'What did you do last weekend?', 'What did you do yesterday?'(Even though they didn't teach past tense). So I thought students has listened many sentences with past tense.
Of course, we know that the grammar of questions is quite different from the grammar of answers. Actually, a lot of the problems we can see in our data are attributable to this difference. For example, Minkyeong has the problem of SHORT ANSWERS. She attributes this (I think WRONGLY) to the children's inability to grammaticize.
In fact, it could also be the result of the children's ABILITY to ECONOMIZE--that is, their knowledge that the answer to a yes/no question is usually one word, and not something like "No, I can't" or "Yes, I do". Similarly, the kids know that the answer to a wh-question is often one word (e.g. "How many cows?" "Seven" and not "I have seven cows"). This would certainly explain why the utterances are getting shorter from third to fifth grade (see our book, p. 19).
But Eunyeong is pointing here to another difference that is just as difficult. In a wh-question, we often find TWO verbs, not one.
T: What did you go this weekend?
The first verb (which Halliday calls the "finite") carries the tense. Only the second verb carries the semantic topic. The first verb does not carry the topic. And the second verb has no tense! Once again, the children are economical. They concetrate on the topic, which is, of course, not tensed.
But they made some mistakes with past tense again. Teaching doesn't happen with learning simultaneously. If there is no any making students' change, teaching remains just not learning but teaching. Good. If the teaching is given to the students continuously and the students make any changes, that is learning.
Eunyeong seems to ASSUME that if teaching is given continuously, learning will occur. But there are TWO pieces of evidence in her own data that suggest the opposite.
The first is POSITIVE data. We have an instance of correction which really DOES involve instantaneous uptake ("play basketball"). So it seems that it is possible for teaching to turn into learning almost instantaneously in some cases.
The second is NEGATIVE data. According to Eunyeong, teachers use this "weekend chat" format for many many many weeks without any actual tense uptake from the students. We've also seen similar lack of uptake in article use (e.g. Seongeun's and Minkyeong's data).
(4) evidence of development
I am not sure the differences between learning and development. If the students learn something from the teachers but they misunderstand the teachers' saying, is this learning? This is learning but not development....
No, that's not it. Take a look in our book, pp. 2-6!
The students learned past tense, and when they made mistakes, they immediately corrected them. Through this course, if the students use past tense naturally, this is development.
"Naturally"? Language is not natural. It is sociocultural. But in any case, what you are suggesting is that when children make mistakes then it is only learning, while if they don't make mistakes then it is development.
If anything, it's just the other way around. Here's what our book says on p. 4. Remember?
We are inclined to think of learning as being a sudden but perhaps forgettable revelation, while development on the other hand is gradual and permanent, like growth. But when we turn to Vygotsky, we are presented with almost exactly the opposite picture. Learning is gradual, permanent, and testable, like typing and riding a bicycle, or clear pronunciation, or good handwriting. Vocabulary learning presents another example, because even though we might forget half the words we learn in a particular day, in the long term there is a gradual and incremental increase, and no one word represents a qualitative breakthrough.
Development is not simply a gradual and incremental increase of learning. For one thing, what develops is an entirely new way to learn, and this often means a decrease rather than an increase in the child's capacity to learn. For another, when the child attempts to seize control of the language used by adults to control his or her behavior, or when the child first starts to read and write, there is nothing gradual or incremental about it. Children often attempt this power seizure audaciously, precociously, long before they are ready. That is why we find that development is attended by crises, and the mental formations that attend these crises, such as baby babble, or childish tantrums, or the "wild grammars" of "interlanguage", often melt into thin air (1998, pp. 192-195).
Even when development is more gradual and not attended by crises, it involves completely transforming what the child thought was already perfectly well accounted for. For example, when simple pointing becomes naming, the gestures have to be translated into words. When naming ("apple") becomes abstract signifying ("an apple", "apples"), vocabulary becomes grammaticized, and a whole new set of problems arises. When a child gives up crawling and starts to walk, and when a child gives us gesturing and starts to speak, much may be gained, but a lot is lost too: fluency, accuracy, and self-confidence. It is easy to see why Vygotsky says that education, creativity, and development "are always tragic processes, inasmuch as they always arise out of discontent, out of troubles, from discord." (1997a, p. 349).
As time goes by they will use past tense frequently, their mistakes will be reduced. Of course, there is a possibility for them to make same mistakes again, but if there are some positive changes, it is a development.
Q2. I quoted this script from the video, too.
Students : 6th students
Lesson : Lesson 11. What do you want to do?
KT : You look so happy. Do you have some special?
FT :Yes, actually I did. Today is my mother's birthday.
KT, Ss : Congratulations!
FT : Thank you.
KT : But your mother isn't here.
FT : Yes, so I'm so sad. I want to go to Canada to say Happy birthday to my mother.
KT : So, what will you do?
FT : I will send to my mother e-card. (sic?) Do you know?
KT, Ss : Yes.
KT : Can we see it?
FT : Yes, you can. Do you want to see?
Ss : Yes.
FT : Look at the screen.(reading e-card)
Happy Birthday Mom. I miss you. I want to go home. I want to cook for you. But I can't . I send you e-card. Happy birthday, I love you.
Do you like this?
Ss : Yes.
KT : So, what does she want?
She wants ....
Ss : Go home.
KT : And she wants ....
Ss : Cook for mom.
KT : You learned many things from this letter. Look at the black board.
I will give you some sentences. Let's read.
Ss : What do you want to do? I want to sing.
KT : (changing the word card) Next?
Ss : I want to dance.
KT : (changing the word card) Next?
Ss : I want to play the piano.
FT : (changing the word card) What about?
Ss : I want to play the sing.
FT : (smile)...
(1) Can you find an example of integrated skills?
There are a few integrated skills. Most of all, the students are integrating listening and speaking skills. The teacher asks some questions ' What do you want to do?', 'Next?', the students answers. Also, the students are reading the FT's e-card with listening FT's saying. This is integration reading and listening skills. And the students read the word cards, speak and listen the teacher. So there are many examples of integrated skills.
At the beginning Eunyeong says there are a FEW instances of skill integration. At the end she says there are MANY. Which is right?
If a lesson begins with "Listen and Repeat" and then continues with "Let's Read" and "Let's Write", do we call this full integration of skills? Even if the children are using whole sentences in "Listen and Repeat" but only LETTERS in "Read and Write"?
Can we really say that the skills are INTEGRATED is they are simply JUXTAPOSED? Is there any uptake, any INTERACTION, between listening and speaking and reading and writing? There is some...but not much!
(2) What about the integration of knowledge?
I think integration of skills happens unconsciously and through giving and taking(주거니 받거니).
I am not sure what "unconscious" means here. Does it mean that the children are asleep? Perhaps some of them are.
Or does Eunyeong mean "unintended"? What evidence do we have that the children's uptake of "go home" and "cook for Mom" is unintended? Isn't the fact that KT is asking the children to uptake it evidence that she intends for them to uptake it?
But the students are integrating sounding, wording and meaning in this data. They understand 'e-card', and that is the integration of wording and meaning.
Ss : What do you want to do? I want to sing.
KT : (changing the word card) Next?
Ss : I want to dance.
They exchange the word sing, dance and swim... and they are using grammatical knowledge, this is also the integration of knowledge.
Wait a minute. How do we know they are not simply reading the cards? Didn't you say they were reading the cards one by one?
(3) What is the difference and why does it matter?
Integration of skills is inter-mental but integration of knowledge is intra-mental. Integration of skills occurs through interaction and integration of knowledge is a personal thing. For the class, integration of skills usually happens easily and is accomplished by remembering and practicing, so integration of skills doesn't always contribute to the students' development. Remembering doesn't contribute to development? Then how does learning contribute to development? But it is not possible to have meaning without wording, or meaning and wording without sounding. Integration of knowledge, three levels of knowledge is necessary thing for the students' learning and development.
Notice that Eunyeong's forgotten about examples from data here. This often happens in the third part of the question.
Q3. I quoted this script from the video, too.
Students : 6th students
Lesson : Lesson 10. I'm stronger than you.
KT : What did you learn last time?
Look at the screen. (There are a few comedians of TV program '무한도전‘)
FT : Whose eyes are bigger?
KT : Who are they?
Ss : 유재석, 장동건
KT : Can you make a sentence?
S1 : 장동건‘s eye....
KT : 장동건‘s eyes are...
S1 : 장동건‘s eyes are bigger than 유재석.
FT : Good job.
KT : Everybody, read this. 장동건‘s eyes are bigger than 유재석’s eyes.
Ss : 장동건‘s eyes are bigger than 유재석’s eyes.
FT : Who is taller?
KT : Who are they?
Ss : 정형돈, 정준하.
KT : You know their names already. Who is taller?
재연, Try.
재연 : 정형돈 is ~~, 아아, 정준하 is taller than 정형돈.
FT : Right? OK, good job.
KT : 정준하 is taller than 정형돈. OK, next.
FT : Who is stronger?
KT : Who?
Ss : 유재석 and 강호동.
KT : Maybe you can compare who is taller.
FT : Can you make a sentence?
KT : 인영.
인영 : 강호동 is stronger than 유재석.
KT : Are you sure? Maybe.
OK, everybody.
Ss : 강호동 is stronger than 유재석.
(1) Compare the language the children are listening to with the language that they are speaking.
In this data, the students are speaking and listening to the different language. The teachers ask and the students just answer. The teachers' language is grammatical (but sometimes their language is not grammatical, like that 'Maybe you can compare who is taller.'), but the students say the sentences mechanically and automatically.
I don't see this at all! Look:
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