The STORY and the LANGUAGE

[kellogg]

Dr. Li likes to say that texts and husbands are both infinitely perfectible. Notice this does NOT mean that they are perfect. In fact, it means they are NEVER perfect. 휴.....Sigh....ㅠ.ㅠ.....

Listen and Repeat

I chose the data which was offered by the professor for the lesson 8 of 5^th graders, ‘Let’s go swimming.’ This is for the first period. The teacher required the students to listen and repeat the CD-Rom. In the middle of the process, she sometimes stops it and gets them to connect it (Connect the CD? Connect the text? Connect the talk? Which is it?) with their lives. It (What?) is helpful to move them from outside the story to inside it (Story? Text? Talk?) . In the lesson analysis, I’ll explain how the teacher casts the roles, builds the lines, and develops the situation by using CD-Rom and asking questions.

Good. This is the introduction of the whole section, the whole essay, the whole episode. Seonhye’s next task is to introduce the data extract.

The rule to follow here is the same rule that teachers follow when they introduce an activity or an episode. They SHOW and THEN they tell.

Now, let’s take a look at what Seonhye does:

The teacher gets started with the lesson by getting attention using command. And she doesn’t cast the role, but builds the line by giving information using the CD-Rom asking the students to listen and repeat them.

If we move this AFTER the data, we notice it’s redundant.

KT: Now listen and repeat.

KT: Let's listen and repeat the important language, target language.

TV: It's too hot.

Ss: It's too hot.

KT: Yes, it's too hot.

TV: Yes, it is.

Ss: Yes, it is.

KT: It's too hot.

S: Yes, it is.

KT: Wow, 혁준, (showing her thumb up to praise him)

The teacher gets started with the lesson by getting attention using command. And she doesn’t cast the role, but builds the line by giving information using the CD-Rom asking the students to listen and repeat them. The teacher gets attention by command (“Now listen and repeat.”) from the students.

(We said that already! But when you say something twice, you usually say it better the SECOND time, and this is no exception. Seonhye uses a quote from the data to back up what she says, and it works much better, because AFTER the data we can easily make the link between what she is saying and what the data said. That doesn’t work so well if she puts this BEFORE the data.

This class was the very first period of the lesson.

Now THIS might go before the data. Very useful. But very general. So let’s put it BEFORE the data. In fact, you might let it be the ONLY thing you put before the data. You SHOW the data and then you TELL us what it means.

She gets the students to listen and repeat every single line of the dialog after the CD-Rom. In the middle of this process, She tries to replace the CD saying (“It’s too hot.”) to elicit the student’s proper response (“Yes, it is.”) mechanically. And she gives an emotional feedback showing her thumb up when a student gets it right.

Yes, she does! And Seonhye wisely refrains from judging, at least for the moment. There are a number of things that might explain this.

a)     Perhaps Ms. Hong wants to encourage one student who normally has listless pronunciation but who has become emotionally involved in the exercise by watching Ms. Hong. This seems very likely to me, because I know Ms. Hong quite well, and that is exactly the kind of teacher she is.

b)    Perhaps Ms. Hong wants to focus on PRONUNCIATION. In particular, Ms. Hong understands that the real SOUL of pronunciation is intonation and meaning, not vowels and consonants. She knows that even things like vowels and consonants can only really be understood by intonation and meaning.

Vowels, after all, are long sounds, and therefore the main vehicles for pitch and stress. And consonants are simply the borders we put between vowels to keep them apart. Compare:

a)     Child asking a question: 왜?

b)    Child complaining about being hit by a sibling: 왜~~~애?????!!!!!!!!!!

You can see it is the VOWEL which carries the intonation, the stress, and the emotion. And you can ALSO see that it is precisely through intonation and stress…and emotion…that Ms. Hong can check understanding without falling into the ridiculous “belly-button” trap of:

T: What did Jinho say when Ann said that it was too hot?

S: ?????

Instead, Ms. Hong just relies on listening to intonation, stress…and emotion…to check the children’s understanding. THAT’S integration!

The teacher keeps asking the students to listen and repeat after the CD-Rom. In the middle of the practice, she tries to put them inside the story. Then she asks some questions the same as they’ve learned right before to require them to answer on their own.

A very important…and useful point. Questions CAN be reused. But when we reuse them, they do not have the same function.

PRELISTENING                                                        POSTLISTENING

Guessing                                                                  Remembering

Hypothesis formation                                                Hypothesis confirmation

Inter-mental interaction (questions and answers)         Intra-mental interaction (memory and speech)

Now, because the functions are different, we often find the forms are different too:

Wh-questions                                                           Tell me about-questions

TV: Let's go swimming.

Ss: Let's go swimming.

TV: Sounds good.

Ss: Sounds good.

TV: How about Joon? Can you swim? Sure, I can swim very well.

Ss: How about Joon? ^%$%^&&& Sure, I can swim very well.

KT: Really? Can you swim very well, Joon?

Ss: No!

TV: Good. Let's go this afternoon.

Ss: Good. Let's go this afternoon.

KT: Can you go swimming this afternoon?

Ss: No!

KT: No?

When the teacher asked the question(“Can you swim very well, Joon?”, ), the students answered (“No!”). That means she puts the students inside the story by calling Joon, the name of the character. The students automatically pretended to be Joon, and answered it by putting themselves into Joon’s shoes. Also, she asked the question(“Can you go swimming this afternoon?”) which is not to get them to repeat. Maybe she emphasized ‘YOU’ to elicit their own responses(“No!”).

Bravo, Seonhye! Seonhye has pinpointed a key moment in the data.

This is, of course, “Listen and Repeat”…as an episode. We will use CAPITAL letters to represent it, and to say that this characterizes the EPISODE but not the EXCHANGE.

But it is not the case that all the exchanges in an episode are the same. WITHIN the general episode of “Listen and Repeat”, we find some exchanges are the simply “look and listen”. We will use SMALL letters to represent them, and say that this characterizes the EXCHANGE but not the EPISODE.

For example:

KT: Now listen and repeat.              (LISTEN AND REPEAT: look and listen)

KT: Let's listen and repeat the important language, target language.      (LISTEN AND REPEAT: look and listen)

The children are not supposed to repeat this! (Right, Munjeong?)

So it makes sense that we will ALSO find within the general episode of “Listen and Repeat” other exchanges which are “listen and answer”

Now, how do the kids KNOW that the rules of the game have changed from “listen and repeat” to “listen and answer”? Is there anything that Ms. Hong says that TELLS them this?

Sure! Have a look!

KT: Really? Can you swim very well, Joon?

Ss: No!

The teacher calls some students’ names and makes suggestions using the target language to help them to develop the situation. It goes to the meaningful use of the language not usage of it (Widdowson, 1978: 102).

The distinction between “use” and “usage” is really a reference to:

Widdowson, H.G. (1978) Teaching Language as Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

A lot Professor Widdowson’s books are available free now (he’s retired!). Unfortunatley, not this one. But take a look at:

http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/guidance_articles/freebooks?cc=global

KT: 혁준, let's go swimming this afternoon.

Ss: Hahaha~~

S: ...

KT: 주현, let's go swimming this afternoon.

Ss: Hahaha~~

S: ...

KT: 주이, let's go swimming this afternoon.

S: Sorry, I can't.

Ss: Hahaha~~

KT: 유라, let's go swimming this afternoon.

S: Sounds good.

S: Teacher, teacher, what time?

KT: What time? This afternoon? 어...One o'clock. How about one o'clock?

…………………………

KT: Chris, how about you?

FT: Sorry, I can't.

KT: Why not?

FT: I have to work.

KT: You have to work? Ok, let's go later.

TV: I have a piano lesson.

Ss: I have a piano lesson.

At the very first time when she suggested (“Let's go swimming this afternoon.”), two students couldn’t answer it. After that, the students noticed her intention, and finally 주이 and 유라 answered it and they continued the conversation.

Good. But perhaps the word “couldn’t” is too strong. After all, when they understand the teacher’s intention, they can answer it. What could the teacher say to make them understand it more easily? (Look at the previous data! What did the teacher say to get the kids to answer that Joon could not really swim?)

 That shows the meaningful use of the language to reflect their own situations. And KT and FT talked each other. FT made an excuse about KT’s suggestion saying (“I have to work.”) which is connected to the nest part of the CD-Rom (“I have a piano lesson.)”. In this way, she keeps trying to help the students to connect the story with their lives.

Good. But of course the story actually CONTRADICTS their lives in many ways. For example, in the story, Joon can swim very well.

The teacher develops the situation by various situations such as shopping and hiking.

KT: Chris, how about you? Can you go swimming today? After work?

FT: Swimming?

KT: 아, No, no, no. Shopping. Sorry. Shopping.

FT: Sorry, I can't.

KT: Why not?

FT: Because I don't have any money.

Ss: Hahaha~~

S: Not money?

FT: No money.

KT: Don't worry. I have money. I have money.

KT: Don't worry. I'll buy you your clothes ... hahaha~~

FT: ...

KT: No?

FT: Oh, yeah. Sounds good.

KT: Ok. Thank you. Wow, I can go shopping with Chris. Can you join us?

S: Oh, thank you.

Ss: Hahaha~~

And there is a problem! TOO MANY CONTEXTS! When we proliferate item-based contexts like this (in order to create lots and lots and lots of item-based combinations) we begin to REPLACE pragmatic meaning with purely semantic meaning.

Previously, Seonhye used the phrase “connect the language with their lives” and “connect the story with their lives” to mean the same thing. Of course, in both cases we are talking about integrating texts with talk. But concretely, they are not the same thing: “Joon cannot swim” is the language but not the story.

WHERE in the data does this problem of not taking context seriously first appear, and why?

When she asked FT to go shopping with her, he made excuse. She urged him to join by suggesting (“I'll buy you your clothes.”) and finally he answered (“Sounds good.”). The sense of humor this conversation has is very important part of a class. It’s not only because it shows the real use of the language but also because it helps the students absorbed unconsciously.

What about the swimming?

The teacher gets the students to make excuses about the reason why they can’t join by uptake and recast.

KT: 주현, let's go fishing this Saturday.

S: Sorry, I can't.

KT: Why not?

S: I am 아픈애 (a sick boy).

KT: Huh?

S: I am 아픈애. Haha~

S: Sick, sick.

KT: Aha, are you sick?

S: Yes.

KT: Aha.

KT: 채령, how about you? Let's go fishing this Saturday.

S: 아..I can't.

KT: (with disappointed face) Why not?

S: *&^%

KT: 아, you don't know how to fish?

KT: Don't worry I'll teach you. I'll show you how to fish.

S: ...

KT: 채령, let's go fishing this Saturday.

S: Yes.

KT: Sounds ...?

S: Good.

This data shows her intention for the uptakes and recast. About her suggestion (“let's go fishing this Saturday”), 주현 said (“I am 아픈애.”). She recast it saying (“are you sick?”). Also, when a student didn’t know how to say, she read his/her mind (maybe by his/her facial expression‎) and recast it saying (“아, you don't know how to fish?”). Moreover, she used (“Sounds ...?”) to elicit the proper answer.

Good. But now comes the hard part. We need to somehow GENERALIZE and be able to answer the old 이완기 교수님 question. How can we make some kind of statement about OTHER ways of doing things?

It seems to me is that one place to look is the contradiction between developing the LANGUAGE and developing the STORY. They aren’t the same thing!

Now, doing the WHOLE EXAM this way will commit Seonhye to a DATA based approach rather than a PROBLEM based approach. She will have to go through the data and introduce it and then tell us what it means and then somehow generalize to some basic problems of integrating text and talk.

She will not be able to use everything that we talked about in our class (e.g. “What are they doing/thinking/saying” or fixed expressions/item-based combinations/creative abstract constructions). Some of the things we talked about will come up in the data. But some will not.

I think this is actually a source of STRENGTH and not a WEAKNESS. I’m afraid that very often, in the course of study, we find that the strategies which work very well during one period of our lives really hold us back in the very next period. For example, my poor undergraduates often find that the rote memorization strategies that honed in high school don’t work very well for writing reports and doing presentations. And my graduates sometimes discover that the method of writing reports and presentations won’t work very well for thesis work.

Why not? Well, I think you have a choice. You can look at the data IN THE LIGHT OF the textbook categories (read the textbook and then poke around in the data for something that seems to match it). Or you can do exactly the opposite: you can look at our textbook in the light of the data—study the data first and then poke around in the textbook for something that seems to match it).

What happens if nothing matches? Well, then Dr. Li and I have written a bad book. But if you find that is the case, and you must choose between data and theory, I think the teacherly thing to do…and the right thing to do…is to choose the data.