Let's have a look, Jisu! There's no point in doing extra work if it's not necessary. Besides, there are often better places to put your extra work than the ending.
The purpose of this study is to discuss evidence of intra-mental knowledge emerging from the use of inter-mental skills in the data presented above, which is an excerpt of the lesson for 6th graders in E elementary school in Seoul, led by a Korean English subject teacher.
When you write, you use grammar to distinguish between:
a) the ESSENTIAL
b) the merely IMPORTANT
Where you got your data is important. But it's not ESSENTIAL. What is essential is what you are going to DO with the data. What you are going to do with the data, after all, really determined where you are going to get it. Right?
Now, by using a RELATIVE CLAUSE ("which is...") you are showing that where you got the data is important. But it's not essential, so it doesn't go in the MAIN clause. The MAIN clause has to be about what you are going to DO with it.
The data will be analyzed to explore how the students create artificial concepts, by examining the words and the turns of both the teacher and the students. I am going to discuss artificial concepts by introducing Vygotsky's "academic concepts" and contrast them with everyday concepts. I intend to argue that the teacher's employment of artificial concepts and encouragement of the students' use of them bring about the students' establishment of everyday concepts as well as the internalization of artificial concepts.
Notice:
a) establishment
b) internalization
c) emergence
Which is best? Well, look at the exam question. Use the terms of the exam question when you can.
In this data, we can see that the teacher and the students are approaching two different kinds of concepts: everyday concepts and artificial concepts. Everyday concepts refer to concepts that are naturally formed in everyday life. In this data, for example, the words such as spring, summer, fall and winter belong to everyday concepts. On the other hand, artificial concepts are formed through fabricated conceptual process. Portmanteau words such as brunch, which is the combination word of breakfast and lunch, are good examples of artificial concepts.
Notice that your distinction is a GENETIC distinction, it's an INDIVIDUAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL distinction: you are saying that what distinguishes everyday concepts and artificial concepts is the way in which they are formed in an individual mind.
It's good enough as far as it goes. But if you think about it for a minute you may see that there are some problems.
a) School is also part of everyday life. In fact, it's a very important part of everyday life for the child.
b) Everyday concepts are also "fabricated", they are just fabricated at home rather than in school.
c) "Brunch" is a good example of an artificial concept. But it's ALSO a good example of an everyday concept (today, for example, is Wednesday and I don't have class on Wednesdays so I sleep late. So I didn't really have any breakfast! But I did eat brunch just a while ago)
Vygotsky uses three different kinds of analyses in his work on concepts:
a) GENETIC. This doesn't mean DNA or genes. In fact, it means something rather closer to "genesis", it means the story of the way things are created. If you do a genetic analysis of concepts, it means that you look at how they have their origins in percepts and word meanings, and how the word meanings in the mind of the child develop from being object oriented (indicative), to being complex oriented (naming groups of objects) to being conceptual (signifying ideas). Where do artificial concepts COME from?
b) FUNCTIONAL. If you do a "functional" analysis of cars, that means you look at how cars operate in the whole transportation system. If you do a functional analysis of concepts, that means you look at what people actually DO with them. What do people DO with artificial concepts?
c) STRUCTURAL. If you do a "structural" analysis of cars, that means you look at the pieces that make up the car: the engine, the wheels, the chassis, etc. If you do a structural analysis of concepts, that means you look at how they fit together into systems. How do artificial concepts fit into systems of everyday concepts? What about scientific concepts?
Here the teacher and the students are blending the sounds from two season words to imply "in-between" seasons. (T: "I like wintring!' / S1: 'Sprummer.') According to Vygotsky, everyday concepts are contrasted with academic concepts which refer to concepts that are created from formal and abstract verbal definitions through curricular planning in school instruction (Vygotsky, 1978; 1987; 1994; 2009). Artificial concepts resemble academic concepts in that both of them stand in contrast to everyday concepts; while artificial and academic concepts are volitionally created from abstract verbal definitions, everyday concepts are acquired from natural and concrete use of them spontaneously during practical play-like activities.
Good. Notice that artificial concepts are also useful in play, though--in fact, a lot of play activities (e.g. fantasy role plays, or elaborate games like chess) consist almost entirely of artificial concepts.
Having discussed everyday concepts and artificial concepts, we will now proceed to examine more closely the data, in particular, the words used by both the teacher and the students. The teacher demonstrated how to create some artificial meaning based on everyday concepts and coin new words accordingly. For example, the teacher emphasized the necessity for a new season that lies between winter and spring. (T: 'I don't like winter because it is TOO cold. And I also don't like spring because yellow dust is in the air.') She then proceeded to coin a new word combining the two words -winter and spring- phonetically. [T: 'So,, I like, I like,,,, over here (underlying 'wint' in the winter and 'ring' in the spring) I like WINTRING!' ] The students promptly grasped the idea and generated their own portmanteau words spontaneously. (Ss: 'Sumer.' 'Sprimm.' 'Sprimming.' 'Sprmm.' 'Sprumm.' 'Sprummer.' / Ss: 'Supery.' 'Summal.' 'Summery.' 'Autterfall.' 'Supering.' 'Auffal.' 'Summal.' / Ss: 'Wintal!' 'Faunter!' 'Founter.' 'Faunter!' 'Falter.' 'Father!' ) The teacher moved on to induce the students to relate these artificial concepts with their birthday months. (T: 'So, Jinho's birthday is in,,,between Spring and,,Sprummer. What about your birthday, when is your birthday? ' S3: 'My birthday is in Wintring.' S4: 'My birthday is in Falter which is December.' )
Upon even closer examination, it seems worthwhile observing the data more quantitatively to see how the teacher encouraged the students to generate artificial concept words. The table below is the comparison of the use of everyday concepts and artificial concepts in each turn between before and after the teacher's initial demonstration and encouragement of the use of artificial concepts, which is the 13th turn. (T: 'But listen! I don't like winter because it is TOO cold. And I also don't like spring because yellow dust is in the air. So,, I like, I like,,,, over here, I like WINTRING! Umm! I don't like spring because of yellow dust, I don't like summer because there are TOO many mosquitoes. SO! I like,,,?')
TURN C |
1~12 |
13~36 |
T |
Ss |
T |
Ss |
EC |
6 (100%) |
6 (100%) |
5 (41.67%) |
3 (25%) |
AC |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
7 (58.33%) |
9 (75%) |
total |
6 (100%) |
6 (100%) |
12 (100%) |
12 (100%) |
We can find that after the 13th turn, in which the teacher gave a model example of artificial concept formation and coinage of new words, the students actively created and produced artificial concept words, even more actively than the teacher (58.33% vs. 75%). Also, their answers varied considerably although some were well-formed while others were not. For example, among the answers to the teacher's question of the season between spring and summer (e.g. sumer, sprimm, sprimming, sprmm, sprumm and sprummer), 'sprummer' fits best to both the phonological and the time sequential rules. Such well-formed answers such as sprummer, summal and falter suggest that the students didn't just blend solely the sounds, but did establish the new artificial concepts.
Good. It might be useful to go back to the data and look at exactly HOW the kids manage these two principles. How do they choose which portmanteaux words are "well-formed" and which are not?
Lastly, although the data ends with everyday concepts (S5: '어,,My birthday is in winter, uh, January.'), it seems that the student has even improved his everyday concepts because the word 'winter' here seems to mean 'pure' and 'core' winter, which the teacher rephrased as 'totally winter.'
Good.
In this study, we found that the students not only successfully created artificial concepts in terms of both quantity and quality but even established everyday concepts firmly. These findings seem to be caused from mainly two reasons respectively: first, the teacher gave an example effectively and provided the students with good opportunity to generate new concepts on their own: second, the process of creating artificial concepts seems to have helped reconceptualize everyday concepts. According to the study carried out by Vygotsky's supervisee J.I.Schif (1935), the development of academic concepts facilitates the development of everyday concepts. Consequently, this study proves that the students' intra-mental knowledge, which here is the internalization of artificial concepts and the re-establishment of everyday concepts, actively emerged from inter-mental skills, that is, the teacher's employment and encouragement of the use of artificial concepts.
It's always a little dangerous to use the word "prove". Can you PROVE that the everyday concepts were not redefined independently of the portmanteaux words? Can you even prove that the children understand the new meaning of "absolutely winter"?
It's not just YOUR problem, Jisu. Look at p. 6 of Guk and Kellogg, the discussion on van der Veer and Valsiner.
Let me finish by discussing the validity of this study. The fact that most of the students in the data are highly advanced ones of English and are already fully aware of phonetic rules gives high internal validity to this data. On the contrary, the external validity doesn't seem to be high since the process of concept formation, combining both sounds and meanings of foreign words, is not only uncommon but very challenging for the students whose English level is lower than the students in this data. Therefore, the results of this data cannot be widely generalized to other diversified class situations.
Unlike the thesis, the final exam is mostly concerned with how representative the data is of YOUR teaching. This is actually a much easier concept of external validity to use.
Notice that "on the contrary" does NOT mean the same thing as "in contrast" or "on the other hand". Look:
a) I'm ugly. On the other hand, I'm gentle.
b) I'm gentle. In contrast, I'm ugly.
c) I'm not ugly. On the contrary, I'm quite handsome.
d) I'm not dangerous. On the contrary, I'm gentle.
You can see that a) and b) mean that BOTH propositions are true; they are complementary sides of a single truth. But c) and d) are used to contradict one proposition and affirm another in its place.