Repeat: "After Me!"

To be honest, the midterm questions were always in my head for past two week. It still is. But It is really difficutl to begin the writing. I would love to get good feedback from you but it isn't easy. Thinking of 2 delayed papers... ah... I wish I could just get started and answer the questions(which is NOT easy at all for me)!! The problem with me is that I'm lost at actually answering the question, not writing itself or because I'm a slacker. Please do understand my..,. and maybe other's.... worries.   Yes, I think we should have a break to catch up this week. People who have not written the first exam can go back and write that. And people who have written it, can go back and rewrite it.   I think the idea of a compromise might work too--we might have THREE out of FOUR answers. So you could skip one week and still get your work done on time.   But I also think that the idea of putting all your (three or four) answers TOGETHER for the FINAL exam is a good one, and I'm not going to be pushed away from it by an examination boycott. If you are REALLY unhappy with this idea it will take ALL of you trying to persuade me (and not just poor Yeongmi).   So I did record my lesson on Friday, got script down and start writing since then.   Good. Remember that you can save a lot of time by not recording or transcribing your lesson and simply using the data that I give you. For some of you, it might be useful, because you want to spend the time WRITING and not TRANSCRIBING. But for some of you it's probably NOT useful, particularly if you are going to use this on your thesis (which I strongly urge you to do).   To be honest, the midterm questions were always in my head for past two week. It still is. But It is really difficutl to begin the writing. I would love to get good feedback from you but it isn't easy. Thinking of 2 delayed papers... ah... I wish I could just get started and answer the questions(which is NOT easy at all for me)!! The problem with me is that I'm lost at actually answering the question, not writing itself or because I'm a slacker. Please do understand my..,. and maybe other's.... worries.   So I did record my lesson on Friday, got script down and start writing since then. Hmm... I've been sitting on computer since then also. But this is how much I got. I feel like I'm all blocked by the wall.   (I'm not starting with the metaparagraph because I could answer only 1st and 2nd question.)   If you start with the metaparagraph, you will find it much easier to knock a hole in that wall, Munjeong. You just:   a) UPTAKE the QUESTION: "How does the teacher cast the roles? Here is how the teacher casts the roles. She casts the roles by ..... How does the teacher teach the lines? Here is how the teacher teaches the lines. She teaches the lines by ...." How does the teacher go beyond repetition? Here is how she does it. She does it by ....!"   b) ADD a SENTENCE about the data. And that is how you DO begin anyway. Look!   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This data is about Lesson 12. Will you help me? with 14 grade six students.   Good. Why are there only fourteen students? That is a VERY small class, isn't it?   Also it appears to be an OLD class, because of course the sixth graders are not learning this lesson right now (they are learning lesson three or lesson four and not lesson twelve).   It would be very useful to have the page number, Munjeong. We're presumably on p. 98 of the textbook, and page 261 of the teacher's guide, which means that the data is actually "Look and Speak" and not "Listen and Repeat".   What is the difference? Well, in practice there is not much difference at all, and so it's really quite alright to use this data here. But in THEORY, the DREAM was to have the kids in pairs, looking at the pictures and simply REMEMBERING the teaching points and being able to have the kids look and speak without prompting from the CD ROM.   Can you see why this dream never came true?   1. How does the teacher cast the roles?   T: Who is this? S: Nami. Jinho. Joon. Namsu. T: Nami and Namsu, right? Namsu is Nami's...? S: Brother. T: Right, they are brother and sister.   Why "Joon" and "Jinho"? They are not in the picture. Of course, it's a photograph.    T: Let's check the video.    What's this? Here on his hands. (sic)     What are they doing?     What did Namsu say? Notice the tense change. Does this take us OUTSIDE or INSIDE the story?     What did Nami say?    No answers?   Can you explain the TENSE changes?   Of course, in fifth grade the kids DO learn about the past tense, so it makes sense ot use the past tense here. And in fact the kids just studied "did you have a nice vacation?" But the real teaching point of this lesson is the multifunctionality of "will". So if the teacher is going to change tenses, the FUTURE tense would be the more useful tense here.   Suppose you are teaching THIRD grade or FOURTH grade and you simply want to use ONE tense. Or suppose you are focussing on the communicative FUNCTION of "will" and you don't want to distract the kids with the future tense.   In fact, tense is NOT very useful for talking about time. Because we tend to stick to ONE tense when we talk, it doesn't tell us that much. And teachers DO talk about time a lot.   T: What is Julie saying NOW? T: What is Julie saying NEXT? T: What does Minsu say NOW? T: What does Minsu say NEXT?   You can see that in English the relationship between the future and the present is quite CLOSE--the future is simply a kind of potential present, "will be" is really a kind of "maybe".   The relationship with the PAST is somewhat more distant. Suppose we want to talk about the weather in various ways (say we want to take Jiyeong's suggestion and have the children ASK as well as ANSWER. We don't want tense, because they are fourth graders. We simply do without the verb altogether like this:   T: How's the weather? ASK me! Ss: How's the weather? T: Mmm...cloudy. Lots of YELLOW clouds today! What about yesterday? ANSWER? Ss: Windy. T: And the day before? etc.   T: Over here is Namsu. Namsu. Who are you? S: Namsu. T: Yes. You are Namsu. Then this group is...? Who are you? S: Nami. T: Good. You are Nami.   Why "good"? What is good?        Before casting the roles, I talked about the characters to make students more familiar with them and easier to be inside the story.   But of course the language they use really DOESN'T fit the relationship very well, does it? One of the problems with this dialogue is the OVER-politeness between Namsu and Nami. Look:   Namsu: Please pass me the paper. Nami: Sure. What do you want to do? Namsu:I want to make an airplane. Will you help me? Nami: No problem. Namsu: Thank you. Nami: You're welcome.   You can see that this is not a realistic expression‎ of relations between a sister and a brother (and also not a realistic portrayal of the ability of little boys to make paper airplanes!) It's another imaginary situation, like the empty box a teacher brings to class to try to get children to "help" her.    Notice that questions began with 'to be' (Who is this? What's on (sic) his hand?). Then moved to 'material' action verbs(What are they doing?). Finally verbal statement was used (What did Namsu say?) Once the students are related with the characters, it is helpful while improvising the words to make more meaningful repeating sentences. The students were already divided into two groups-boys and girls- so it was easy to set teams.   Yes, but aren't the two groups mixed up...with boys sitting next to girls? So it is difficult to DIVIDE the teams spatially and PROMPT them, isn't it?     To cast the roles and getting students involved in a story, I asked students the questions. With first group I asked a retroleptical question("Over here is Namsu. Who are you?") I used the name then 'you' to draw students more inside the story. Though there were 8 students, not only 1 student but they all responded at 'you'. Then I moved on to use proleptical question. Since there are only two characters, it was easy to predict the answer. (Then this group is....? Who are you?")    But the children do NOT respond to the "Then this group is..." question.   2. How do the learners learn the lines?   T: Over here is Namsu. Repeat. I want to make an airplane. S: (repeated)   WHAT do they repeat?   Compare:   a) T: Over here is Namsu. Repeat. I want to make an airplane. S: I want to make an airplane. T: Good.   b)   T: Over here is Namsu. Repeat. I want to make an airplane. S: Over here is Namsu. T: !!!!   How do the children know that "repeat" refers to what FOLLOWS and not what PRECEDED? How do they know it is proleptic and not retroleptic?   Of course, they UNDERSTAND what the sentence says. They REALIZE what the teacher intends. But what DOES the teacher intend?   Is she just checking their pronunciation? If so, why have them all do it together? Is she somehow teaching understanding? If so, why get them to repeat rather than answer?   T: Will you help me? S: (repeated) T: I want to make an airplane. Will you help me? S: (repeated)   T & S: Same method with Nami's group.   T: Now, say when I point(Start pointing) S: Repeating T: This time, you are Namsu and you are Nami. Repeat after me.     Ready go!   a)   Ss: After me! Ss: Ready go! Ss: You are Nami!   How do the children know not to do this? And since they know not to do this, are they learning anything new?   Here, I simply make students repeat each lines from the video. Each team succeeded to repeat the sentence clearly after practicing 2~3 times. So changed the roles and practice a few. It seemed easy for the students, therefore, I challenged students to change the nouns.     T: Now, Namsu will make a new word. (sic) Um.. "I want to make a cake. Will you help me?" S: Ah~~   Is it "listen and answer" or "listen and repeat"?   T: I will point to one person from your group. Say the sentence. (Point at 원엽) S(원엽): Ah..... I want to make juice. Will you help me? T: (Gestures to Nami's group) S: No problem. S: Thank you. S: You're welcome. T: (Points at 재훈) S(재훈): I want to make toy (sic). Can you help me? S: No problem. S: Thank you. S: You're welcome.   Good. Notice that with nouns, there is ALWAYS going to be a problem with the 관사.  One possiblity would be to develop ONE noun.     Students were helping each other to think of new words.  Then each group changed the roles. Girls answered pretty easily also. So moved on to the next level: Changing the responses.   Yes. You can see that "toy" is not really a new word, because "paper airplane" is a kind of toy.   Let's imagine that Namsu is very ambitious.  BIG, BLUE, KOREAN T-5 FIGHTER JET. How would the dialogue continue?   He wants to make a whole AIRPORT. What does he say?   T: This time, I will say "Will you help me?" Boy's team and girl's team make different answers. I will count. T: Will you help me? Boys? S: Sure. T: Good. That's one point. Will you help me? Girls? S: Sorry, I'm busy. T: That's one point.   Suppose we want the children to compete by creating COMPLEX responses. We can do this very simply like this:   T: This time, I will say "Will you help me?" Boy's team and girl's team make different answers. I will count. T: Will you help me? Boys? S: Sure. T: Good. That's one word. One word is one point. Will you help me? Girls? S: Sorry, I'm busy. T: That's three words or four words? How many points?.   Now, suppose Munjeong wants to END her reply to the exam question by developing OTHER WAYS of doing these things. She wants to talk about:   a) imaginary situations as ways of extending the language   b) abstract rules as ways of extending the language     I gradually moved on to creating a response rather than repeating. This way sure enough challenging, however, there were very good reponses too(Of course, that's a piece of cake. Sure What's can I do for you? Yes, I have nothing to do.) It may have been difficult for beginners but kids with high level got encourged.     Notice that developing the language can mean two (developmentally different) things:   a) developing the SITUATION (imaginary roles, imaginary toys, imaginary tasks, but reality of function)   b) developing the RULES (points, winners, and abstract criteria like correctness and complexity)