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Yes, it's very difficult. But we'll be doing a lot of this, and your thesis may even depend on it. So let's get it right.
Here are two quick RULES to help you:
a) The TOO GENERAL rule: If your answer does not QUOTE the data (preferably as an example, in quotation marks, in parentheses) it is probably too general. And if your answer IGNORES the data it is certainly too general.
b) The CAN, SHOULD, MUST rule: If your answer includes a lot of "can", "should" or "must" then you are probably not analyzing the data. You are just criticizing the teacher and expressing a general opinion about teaching. That's not our goal; our goal is to find out what teachers really DO do, and then ask why.
When we ask why, we almost always find that there really is a good reason.
In the given data, there is a lot of discourse between teacher and students. I will just think about which ones are closed questions that teach.
Good. Many of our classmates assumed that ONLY open questions are questions that are proleptic, forward looking, formative, and predictive.
But of course problem solving discourse is not like this: it is CONVERGENT and not DIVERGENT, it is “OpenàClosed” and not “ClosedàOpen”.
First my question is what's the difference between questions that teach and questions that test.
A good question! It’s discussed on pp. 116-118 of our book! Have a look:
In my opinion the difference lies in what questions makes students do communications in the discourse.
But all questions make students communicate by answering. This seems very very very general.
As I said to Eunhye and Mr. Park, we can be MUCH more specific than this. We have a VERY specific task: we have to set the scene, create the characters, and then lead the children through material, mental, and verbal process questions to the target language of the lesson.
That is not just “communicating”. It’s something quite precise and specific. Take a look at Jeonghyeon’s answer and you will see what I mean.
In this point I approach the question.
Data analysis( Question that teach)
A. KT: What do you see? Ss: ... KT: Who do you see? S: Him... 아, He. S: 진호 KT: They are ... ? S: Going to swimming pool. KT: Do you think they are going to the swimming pool? Now? Ss: No. S: Go to 노래방. KT: Why do you think it's afternoon? S: Because .. here is ... sun is in ... sky.
B. KT: Only one thing you can say. S: It's very hot. KT: It's very very hot. S: So they will go to swimming pool. KT: So they will go to the swimming pool. S: This afternoon.
In this dialog A 'What do you see? Who do you see?' I think Both of them are questions that teach. I agree. But they don’t seem to teach very much here. But student's response is different because of range in questions. Setting the range in questions is very important. That's why students get involved in the dialog that they easily understand and answer.
The “range” is really just “hmm…he…Jinho”. But the NEXT question is more successful. Why?
'Do you think they are going to the swimming pool? Now?, Why do you think it's afternoon?' This questions make students communicate with teacher (sic) and create new sentences. I think these questions are not testing questions but teaching ones.
I agree. But I don’t agree that it is simply because they make students communicate with the teacher. All questions do that.
I also think we need to ask what EXACTLY these questions are teaching. It seems to me that they are simply teaching LOOKING and not LISTENING. That’s a beginning. But as Mr. Park and Ms. Bang said, it’s really only the beginning. To get the children to analyze ANY story, we have to get them to go beyond the information given.
In this dialog B questions and answers are repeating one not generative one. I don’t see any questions at all. I think that the situation is in the testing question. But of course the children do talk and say a lot more than they do in the first part. At this point I raise questions to myself. Teaching question is always better than testing question. In my opinion it's not ….
I don’t really understand. If we do not know the difference, or if the difference is not clear, then obviously we cannot say that one is better than the other or that one is not better than the other. We can’t really say anything at all.
But in any case the question does not say anything at all about which is better. The question is how can the teacher do both, and how does the teacher do it in actual data?
It depends on the situations that teacher (sic) govern in the process. Balance is more important point between the questions.
Too general, Mr. Yun. We need to look at the data again.
2. How does the teacher go from just looking to really listening?
A KT: They are too hot like ... Chris. Are you too hot? FT: Yes, I'm so hot right now. KT: (replaying the video clip and pause with sound off) Oh, what are they ... ? KT: (pointing to the characters on the TV) Oh, oh, they are smiling.
B KT: Do you want to listen? Ss: Yes! Ss; (watching the video clip with sound) KT: Who can tell me about the story? What did you hear? Ss: (raising hands) KT: 재인? Thank you. You go first. Tell us about the story. What happened?
In the dialog A, We can see teacher (sic)'s strategy. The teacher plays video clip without sound. I think in this situation student depends on only situations that teacher (sic) governs and then they get to listen to teacher (sic)'s talk more and more carefully.
Doesn’t the teacher ask any questions?
In the dialog B, students listen to dialog with the sound. And students get to understand the story with sound. In this process the teacher use the technique which goes from just looking to really listening spontaneously.
Why is the listening “spontaneous”? How do we know that they are really listening? Is there any evidence in the data you can quote?
3. What does the teacher do about wild answers?
S: 아하, he has a academy. KT: Ah, I have to go to academy. S: I don't have money. KT: I have no money. I don't have any money. Wow, good guess. KT: 시온, I like your guess. Good. S: ㅋ~, do you like money? S: 시온 is 개그맨. KT: (replaying the video and pause) 어, (pointing to Ann) what is she saying? KT: 어, Jinho, look at Jinho's face now.
In the dialog above, '개그맨 , I don't have money' is thought to be wild answers.
No, I think “I don’t have any money” is considered a good guess. Butone of the other students says that Sion is just joking.
The wild answers from student sometimes get in the way of the class. Very general.
Actually, I think the question is more interesting than simply one of classroom management, or I wouldn’t have asked it.
I’m trying very hard to keep my class to 듣기말하기 교육, and although I realize that issues of motivation and management are relevant to teaching the spoken language, they are not really my field of expertise, or interest.
But here’s the problem. In order to teach the PROCESS of listening (and not simply test the PRODUCTS of listening) we want to ask open questions and then select some answers as being more promising and others as less promising.
We saw in Ms. An’s work that many of the more promising answers have to do with mental processes and that these are often followed up with “why” questions.
Now, mental processes almost by definition go “beyond the information given” in a picture. That means that they can only really be discussed if we ask “questions that teach” and not “questions that test”.
And questions that have “because” in them, questions that address the question “why”, are ALWAYS questions that go beyond the information given in a picture. So we must go beyond testing questions and ask questions that are proleptic, formative, and future oriented.
However, it turns out that precisely THESE questions attract wild answers. We can’t just PUNISH wild answers, because we did ask the children to guess, and a wild guess is still a guess. But we have to deal with them in some way: through uptake, or through development.
Take a look at our book, pp. 134-137 and you will see what I mean!
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To cope with these wild answers, I think that teacher (sic)'s aptitude to wild answers is very important. The teache r sometimes has the strict authority over the students. The above dialog used ignoring the trivial student's talk. The teacher did mention nothing about student's talk. This strategy is useful in the real situation. In the limited time teacher (sic) should not control all the things in talking. Of course as a teacher we should observe the basic etiquette.