Teacher Yi Eunkyeong's Question and My Homework

[kellogg]

Last night Teacher Yi Eunkyeong asked why there isn't any TPR or "Listen and Do" in the sixth grade book. I think there are THEORETICAL and PRACTICAL reasons:

THEORETICAL: There is a neo-Piagetian belief elementary school child development consists of a gradual replacement of sensorimotor intelligence that is characteristic of very young children by preconcrete operational intelligence and symbolic play.

PRACTICAL: Older children treat TPR activities as pointless because they do not actually understand the whole rationale of comprehensible input.

Neither do I, really! I also don't understand the rationale of using structures that children really can't ANALYZE and USE PRODUCTIVELY, even if they can understand them in context or through translation. It seems to me that if they understand them in context, they often understand them only implicitly and reactively, not actively and productively. And if they understand them through translation then they do not really understand anything more than the Korean translation.

Now, that is the problem with our homework. Imagine this:

T: Look! (gestures to eye) Listen! (gestures to ear) I stand. (gestures to himself and then stands) I sit. (gestures) I stand. I walk. I jump.

We can easily imagine children who do not understand that "I stand" is TWO words and not one, and who therefore are really not listening but only looking. Then the teacher does this:

T: Now, DON'T look (T puts her hands behind her back). Listen. Listen and DO! YOU stand. (children do so) You sit. Stand! Walk! Jump!

The problem is that the children may STILL be looking and not listening. Because this is a T-EVERYONE activity, the children can simply watch each other. So the teacher puts them in pairs, like this:

T: Now, Jeonghyeon? You say. Jeongmin? You do. Ilhyeok will SAY, and Eunkyeong will DO. Sangyeong! Say or do? Good. So, Yura will do.

And that is the way in which TPR is NOW taught. Now, my feeling is that this will not work with higher grades. The reason is simply that higher grades understand that when people talk they have a PRAGMATIC PURPOSE, that every utterance only makes sense in terms of the INTENTION that the speaker has.

That is the whole difference between "hear" and "listen to" and "see" and "look at" that we were discussing last night. It's a real distinction, and we should respect it. So...

T: Look! This is a girl. The girl's name is Shimcheong. Is she a good girl or a bad girl?

(Notice that this is a PROLEPTIC question--it goes BEYOND the information given and it calls on what the child already knows about Shimcheong).

T: Yes, she's a good girl. Now, here is a boat. In the boat there is a sailor. Is he a good sailor or a bad one?

(Is this a proleptic question or a retroleptic one?)

T: Right! He's a bad sailor. So the bad sailor says "Shimcheong! Stand!" Shimcheong is a good girl. So she stands. The bad sailor says "Shimcheong! Walk!" Shimcheong is a good girl, so...? (etc.)

Notice the use of "so". We could also use "because" but this would give us hypotaxis:

T: Right. He's a bad sailor. Because he is a bad sailor, he says "Shimcheong! Stand!" (etc.)

This kind of hypotactic construction is characteristic of READING and WRITING. And this is for SPEAKING/LISTENING. So we will stick with "so".

The point I was making last night is that this is also true of wh-questions. Instead of wh-CLAUSES, like this:

T: The student who has the most red cards will lose.

We want to use wh-questions, like this:

T: Who loses? Who has the most red cards? Who is the loser?

Which is characteristic of READING and WRITING? Which is characteristic of SPEAKING and LISTENING? Why?

But now the T-T role play is presented. We can do some casting and controlled practice. Naturally, that means T-S:

T: Now, I am the bad sailor. Who are you? Right! You are Shimcheong, the good girl. Stand, Shiimcheong! Walk! Stop! Jump! (splash, bubble, bubble, bubble) Down you go!

Unlike our first TPR, the question "Why?" can EASILY be asked and answered. Why does Shimcheong stand up? Because she is a good girl and because the bad sailor said so. Why did he say so? Because he is going to offer Shimcheong to the Dragons of the Sea. Why is he going to do that? Because he is sailing to China, etc.

But there is another advantage to role play. It makes it easy for us to put the children in CLOSED PAIRS (that is, simultaneously working pairs of children which operate without others looking and listening). Like this:

T: Jeonghyeon, you are the bad sailor. So, Jeongmin...who are you? Good! You are Shimcheong. Ilhyeok, are you the bad sailor or the good girl? OK, Ilhyeoki is the bad sailor, so that means that Eunkyeong is...? Right, she's the good girl Shimcheong. What about you, Sangyeong? Sailor or girl? One of you is the sailor and one of you is the girl.

Of course, kids don't always work very hard in closed pairs. So we might want to THREATEN them with OPEN PAIRS, like this:

T: Now, practice hard. Because in ONE MINUTE, two of you stand up and show us!

This might work with lower grades. It often happens, though, that higher grades realize that the chances of being called on are pretty LOW. So we might want to do this:

T: Now, practice hard. Because in ONE MINUTE, we are going to play 어름...땡!

The teacher chooses ONE bad sailor and ONE Shimcheong. With each command and response, the teacher says "Freeze!" and then changes either the sailor or Shimcheong. That way most of the children will eventually take part in the open pair role play. 

dk

[kellogg]

Everybody! I gave very SIMILAR homework to the 언어기능중심통합지도 class this week, because we are doing something fairly similar (although we are doing it in a very different way). I didn't actually offer them an example, but Teacher Kim Shinyong has a quite beautiful one based on Cinderella. If you are having trouble getting started, take a look at the 언어기능중심통합지도 cafe. By the way, your books are ready, but they are a little more expensive than I thought--10,000 won!