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What evidence is there that intra-mental knowledge emerges from the use of inter-mental skills in this data?
T : (Showing a picture of the outside of E-mart)
Look at the screen.
What's this picture?
Notice that Juhi divides the teacher turns into THREE moves (or "utterances", but of course here the first move is not an utterance at all but only an action). It's tempting to say that there is no real structure here (except "beginning", "middle" and "end"). But that's not true.
At the very least there is a progression of demands on the learner's inter-mental skills. The first move (or action) requires no response at all. The second requires a nonverbal response. What about the third?
Ss : E-mart.
T : Ye~! This is E-mart.
Now, let's come in to E-mart. (Deictically, the word "come" means you are already inside E-mart. The teacher is really thinking ahead!)
Shoo~shoo~shook~!
(Clicking to the next picture, the inside of E-mart)
T : Now we are in E-mart.
From now on, I'll be a customer and he'll be a clerk.
All of you will be ~~~ (I paused with waiting for the subject complement)
S1 : customer?
T : The products!
I'm going to buy you.
Ss : (smiling)
Brilliant! A very witty, inventive, creative teacher!
But there's more to it than that. Juhi understands that nonverbal responses are an extremely important part of the data, and a great deal of what teachers actually do in real time is controlled by learner nonverbal responses.
Ts : Three, two, one~ action~!
T : Umm... (Pointing to one group)
Wow~ There are many watermelons.
How much is this big watermelon?
Ss : (smiling) 수박이래...
(You can see that the kids are actually anxious to take part. Is there some way to provide for that?)
NT : It's 3 thousand \.
This is plausible. Now, as it happens, plausiblity means uptakeability. Implausible responses are hard to develop, as we will see below.
Today we want to work on the distinction between SENSE and MEANING. Now, of course the everyday use of "sense" (e.g. "nonsense", and "it makes sense") is not exactly what we are going to use. But it is related.
In order to continue a dialogue, it really has to make "sense". In general, there are two ways we make sense in the classroom:
a) We use imaginary situations. But imaginary situations have to be coherent; if "anything goes" then they no longer make sense, and they lose their pedagogical value.
b) We use abstract rules. But abstract rules have to be consistent. Again, if "anything goes" then they will no longer make sense and they will lose their pedagogical value. The children become dependent on teacher judgement for every rule.
Right now you CAN buy watermelons for about five thousand won, but they tend to be rather small. This makes sense of the teacher's next remark.
T : Wow, it's so cheap and big!
Good. I will take it.
(Attaching a piece of post-it paper to the student's forehead)
Ss : (smiling)
(Is there any way to turn this smile into a verbal response? Watermelons don't talk, of course, and neither do pencils. Suppose the teacher goes shopping for a RADIO?)
T : (Walking around the classroom and choosing another student)
How much is this pencil?
NT : Umm... This is a little bit expensive.
Because (Pointing the yellow part of the pencil Pencil or student?) this is gold.
Ss : (smiling)
T : So how much is it?
NT : It's one million \.
T : Oh~ that's too expensive.
You can see that this doesn't make sense. The imaginary situation has been destroyed, and replaced with "anything goes".
I think I should buy something else.
O.K. Now I need a volunteer.
Who would like to be the customer?
And you can see that these three moves don't make sense. It's not obvious why the price of the pencil inspires T to buy something else, and if T wants to buy something else, she should do it herself and not call for a volunteer to be a new customer.
Fortunately, the children are very forgiving; they see that it's an interesting activity and they want to take part.
Ss : 저요~ 저요~
T : O.K. Min-kyu! stand up.
From now, you are the customer.
O.K?
Min-kyu : Yes.
T : Three, two, one~ action~!
May I help you?
Min-kyu : How much are these bananas?
T : They are 5000 \.
Min-kyu : Oh~ That's too expensive.
Where are the glasses?
"Glasses", "pants" and "scissors" present special problems in English because they are single objects but we treat them as plurals. How to teach this?
Remember we said that plurality was a very important concept. In fact, it's really TWO important concepts, because we use the plural to indicate two very different things. First of all, we use it to indicate more than one (as in "these bananas") and secondly we use it to indicate INDETERMINACY (as in "Where are the glasses?").
Which concept is related to ABSTRACTION? (e.g. "Do you like dragons?")
T : Oh~ Follow me. (Pointing to a student's glasses)
touch point to
see look at
hear listen to
Like articles, we treat prepositions as if they are semantically vacuous, as if they have no meaning. But we can see that in fact they ARE meaningful, and in fact integrating meaning and wording is key to using them successfully.
It's also key to USING them successfully. The reason I was so struck by Sujin's grammar mistakes in the midterm was that it's a MIDTERM and it's a WRITTEN piece of work.
Now, you would think that Sujin would be very CONSCIOUS of things like articles and plurals in a midterm and in a written piece of work. But the habit of ignoring these things has become extremely common, to the point where we are GENUINELY unconscious of them, and that means we are really NOT capable of teaching them at all.
Yet these basic concepts: pointing, naming, exemplifying from abstract concepts to concrete objects and generalizing from concrete objects to abstract concepts, form the heart and soul of elementary school education. When we lose that, we lose everything.
You can see what the result will be! So called "native speaker" teachers will use our mistakes with basic points of grammar (e.g. articles, prepositions, and plurals) to "prove" that we cannot have Korean teachers of English; only "native speakers" (that is, foreign teachers) will do.
That means we will LOSE all of the teaching expertise that the Korean teacher in this data is showing, and we will get a lot of foreign teachers for whom "anything goes", because as soon as the native speaker says it, it is correct.
This one is cheap.
This is made in China.
Min-kyu : Oh~ made in China?
I will not buy it.
Ss : (smiling)
T : This one is Gucci. (Pointing another student's glasses)
Min-kyu : Oh~ How much is it?
Here's another reason to pay attention to TRIFLES: student uptake of teacher errors. The learner has uptaken the teacher's incorrect use of the singular with "glasses" (which was probably caused by a poorly judged choice of a particularly difficult example).
If singular and plural, example and generalization, object and concept form the actual CONTENT of language development, then the FORM of language development, the MODE of language development, the actual MEANS of language development cannot be direct teaching.
We know that the underlying RULES, stated as rules, are very complex. But we also know that there are certain concrete patterns that are not complex. For example:
Do you like dragons?
This is a dragon.
The dragon's name is G-Dragon!
Once upon a time there was a mountain
On the mountain was a temple
In the temple was a monk.
원숭이엉덩이빨게...
If we make teaching fun, as Juhi is doing in this extract, we can certainly expect children to recognize patterns and remember them. We can also expect children to uptake them and use them. We can EVEN expect that children will some day (perhaps someday soon) be able to abstract rules from these patterns and generalize them to completely new patterns.
But recognition, remembering, uptake, and even use will be useless if we give them poor quality examples to work with. We HAVE to get things right--not just some of the time, but ALL of the time. This is an important difference between skills-knowledge based teaching and the old theory of "comprehensible input".
T : It's 100.000 \.
Min-kyu : Oh~ That's too expensive.
I don't want to buy it.
T : Nice~!
Now, if you want to be the customer or the clerk, raise your hand.
Ss : 저요~ 저요~
T : O.K. Dong-hwan and Joon-hyung~!
Stand up, please~
Who will be the clerk?
Dong-hwan : Me~
T : Alright~! (Pointing each student)
Now~ you're the clerk and you're the customer.
Ready? Three, two, one~ action~!
Dong-hwan : May I help you?
Joon-hyung : How much is this goldfish? (touching one student)
Ss : (smiling)
Dong-hwan : Umm... It's 500 ₩.
Ss : (smiling) 너 500원이야.
Joon-hyung : Oh~ it's cheap. I'll buy it.
T : Good job~ Let's do this one more.
This time, I hope that you buy something expensive.
(Two boys stoped talking for a while with not knowing what product to choose)
We can see that "anything goes" creates REAL problems. Just as the names of characters in the textbook actually turn out to be important (in teaching "he" and "she", for example) we find that the nature of objects in a store can be important in teaching plurals and singulars (and also prices, and therefore numbers).
It might be a good idea to spend LESS time planning complex classroom language and MORE time planning actual content: e.g. a specific PURPOSE for the shopping trip (e.g. a camping expedition, a party, a trip to Thailand), a specialized store (isn't E-mart mostly electronics?) and maybe even a shared shopping list!
Ss : Nintendo~
Joon-hyung : How much is the Nintendo?
Dong-hwan : Umm... It's 200,000 ₩.
Joon-hyung : Oh, that's too expensive.
Dong-hwan : I'll discount it for you. 150,000 ₩.
Ss : (smiling)
Joon-hyung : Wow~ I'll take it.
T : You did very good.
Give them big hands.
And a big hand for the teacher, too! A very lively, interesting, and fun model!
In this data, I will search for evidence of inter-mental knowledge by examining the utterances
Unfortunately, Seong-eun made a mistake in the way she stated the midterm problem. When that happens, people very often UPTAKE the mistake.
The task is NOT to find "inter-mental knowledge" at all. We need to look for evidence of INTRA-mental knowledge (e.g. grammar, vocabulary meaning, appropriateness) emerging.
The hypothesis is that this knowledge is not communicated directly ("Listen and repeat!") but rather RECONSTRUCTED by the learner from examples (which is why it's very important to provide accurate and simple examples).
It's a good hypothesis! We know, for example, that children can "Listen and repeat" for many years without learning even pronunciation much less vocabulary meaning and grammar. We also know that children who don't USE language will LOSE it. So it seems very likely that children can acquire intra-mental knowledge by using inter-mental skills.
This is just one more instance of Vygotsky's genetic laws (on p. 134 of our book).
Now, WHICH utterances do you think represent the emergence of knowledge? Let's have a look:
Ts : Three, two, one~ action~!
T : Umm... (Pointing one group)
Wow~ There are many watermelons.
How much is this big watermelon?
Ss : (smiling) 수박이래...
What kind of knowledge? How did it emerge? Will the children understand the distinction between PLURAL ("There are many watermelons", before the choice) and SINGULAR ("How much is this big watermelon?" after the choice)? Let's find out.
Min-kyu : Oh~ That's too expensive.
Where are the glasses?
It's not clear if he understands. He DOES use the plural more correctly than the teacher does, but it's not clear if he knows the principle of selecting ONE object from a GENERAL plurality of objects. A poor example!
How about this?
Ss : Nintendo~
Joon-hyung : How much is the Nintendo?
Dong-hwan : Umm... It's 200,000 ₩.
Joon-hyung : Oh, that's too expensive.
Dong-hwan : I'll discount it for you. 150,000 ₩.
Ss : (smiling)
Joon-hyung : Wow~ I'll take it.
Here the situation is exactly the opposite that we had with "glasses". With "glasses", it is plural both before and after, but here it is singular before and after. Another poor example!
This data is from the regular English class. I am their subject teacher. There is a native teacher, too. We separate our roles according to the activities. The activity in this data was in my charge. Therefore the native teacher's role is little. The level of students is high. There are some students who are even better than me. For example, there is a student who lived in US for 7 years. However there are some students who have a difficulty to write alphabet letters. This is the second class of Lesson 5. May I Help You? and we already practiced the expression!s in the first class. So the students are familiar with these expression!s. I will examine the utterances in this data as interactions.
You can see that this is really part of the "METHOD" section of the paper (perhaps paragraph three). What we need here is a very SHORT description of the data as it relates to the research question (that is, as it relates to inter-mental skill and intra-mental knowledge, so for example the native speaker teacher is not particularly relevant but the students' level is). It might be a good idea to make it short enough to fit into the very first sentence, e.g.
"In this data, which is from a regular English class of very high level students, I will search for evidence...."
Now, that will make the head of the sentence a little big. We can compensate for this by making the TAIL longer, including a "by" clause like this:
"...by examining utterances for some understanding of whether children know that in shopping we often begin by looking for PLURALS (e.g. "watermelons") but then we select and buy SINGULARS (e.g. "I'll take it.")
During the final exam, I am going to show that there are three different interactions : 'T-T interaction', 'T-S interaction' and 'S-S interaction'. The first interaction happens in the class with both a Korean teacher and a native teacher. I will consider this as a kind of modeling. The second interaction is the usual form of interaction in the class. I think that with this interaction, the utterances can extend to the students'. The last one is only between the students. I will consider this as a completed form of interaction that we pursue ultimately. I will argue that the ability of the teacher to move from T-T interaction to S-S interaction is a shift from inter-mental skills to the emergence of intra-mental knowledge.
Good. But can you show that this is NEW knowledge?
dk