Sunday, January 30, 2011
Classroom Talk
In my placement, mostly I see initiate-respond-evaluate (I-R-E) interactions going on. My CT usually introduces a topic and start asking to students. For example, if today they learned about different nationality then my CT would ask a student “where are you from?” in Chinese then a student would answer in Chinese. My CT uses I-R-E a lot in the classroom to see if students have understood the questions and be able to answer correctly or not in Chinese. I do not see much of classroom talk in the classroom. Mostly students are repeating sentences and vocabularies over and over to remember how to say things in Chinese. Especially in Chinese immersion kindergarten classroom, it would be hard to do discussion or recitation since focus is on learning Chinese. Students do not have enough words or knowledge to share their idea in Chinese. In Almasi’s article, she mentioned that encouraging students to provide a rationale for their response is a good way to scaffold students. And I think it is important to students that in discussion, there is no right or wrong answer. It is time for students to express their thoughts and share their ideas in the class. For those students who do not participate actively in classroom talk, I think give them more time to think about the discussion topic before actually discussing it. That way student would feel more confident about their answer and feel more comfortable talking in the class.
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In my classroom I don't think I have ever seen the students work in small groups. They always are instructed to work alone, and to not talk most of the time also. The closest thing to group work I have seen is everyone in the class contributing their ideas by raising their hands and being called on. They worked together as tables when I did my science lesson last semester. Other than that they work very independently doing spelling words, reading, worksheets, everything really.
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ReplyDeleteSuJeong, I can understand why your teacher might use IRE most of the time. It must be very difficult for students to first process what they want to say in a new language and also actively contribute to a discussion. I like how you brought up one very good tip from our reading that suggests allowing students to have more time thinking about a topic before actually discussing it. For a student learning another language, this is a great idea as it helps them to not only have time to make sure their Chinese grammar is correct but also gives them time to come up with a quality contribution to the topic. I also like the suggestion that Weinstein and Migano suggests using as another technique. It talks about allowing children to write responses down on paper individually. This technique seems like it could help your class as well. If participation in a Chinese discussion seems overwhelming to students, they could take their time writing what they want to say and perhaps read it off their paper more easily compared to speaking on the spot. Has your class ever done something like that before?
ReplyDeleteJust like you and Jennifer, I also haven't seen much group discussion; mostly IRE. Although, its definitely possible that it may be something that I haven't really noticed either. After reading all of the literature this week, my eyes will definitely be more open to noticing the types of discussions and any techniques taking place.