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| Brian Cambourne |
The following was original printed in the Australian Literacy Education Association's (ALEA) secondary school journal Language and Learning (in the) Middle Years some 20 years ago. I first read this piece at a Learning Network week-long workshop on content literacy. Previously, I have shared portions of it on my other blog, the Learning Museum. Dr. Cambourne has graciously agreed to let me share the entire document here.
The Teaching-Learning-Language Connection:
How Learning In the Real World and Learning in the Content Areas are Related
Brian Cambourne
I'm a very good
ironer. Although men's dress shirts are my forte, I'm also very good at men's
and women's slacks, jeans, shorts, cotton and polyester pullovers and
sweatshirts and women's blouses. Women's skirts which are heavily pleated slow
me down a little, but the final product is still of very high quality. Two
years ago I would have been hard pressed (pun intended) to iron a handkerchief.
Knowledge and skill in ironing is something I acquired at fifty four years of
age some twenty one years after I had acquired the information skills and
knowledge that one needs to complete a Ph.D.
As someone who
makes his living observing and thinking about how teaching and learning 'work,' I find it interesting to reflect on the purposes, events and experiences that
turned me from a non-ironer to one approaching the status of 'expert.' There
are a number of features of the journey from novice to expert that I find both
informative and theoretically important.
Firstly there
surfaced a need (reason, purpose, motive, desire, intent, commitment) for me to
learn how to iron at that particular time in my life. I realised that I had to
become a member of the ironers' club.
Secondly when I
became conscious of this need I decided to seek help. Usually in situations
like this I look for a book or some printed materials that I know will inform
me of what I need to know. However this time I found this strategy to be
inappropriate. I decided that I needed the opportunity to observe someone who
had more expertise than myself. I sought a demonstration. I arranged for a
friend to give me a lesson next time she was ironing. We started with a shirt.
I stood nearby and observed what she did. She talked as she demonstrated. She
explained how she did the sleeves first, then flipped the shirt over, did the
front, then flipped it over and did the back, and then the collar. She then
told me how she liked to put the area near the shoulder and neck over the
rounded end of the ironing board and iron the section where the sleeve joined
the the neck and shoulder, She showed me how she did this and flipped it over
and did the other sleeve-shoulder area. Then she hung it on a hanger. She
explained how to fold shirts in a certain way for travelling purposes. As I
reflect on the experience I also realise that she used language in such a way
that I could get the general meaning of what she was intending. This meaning
was further enhanced by the fact that the demonstrations and the explanations
were given simultaneously. She didn't just tell me what to do. She used phrases
like, 'I find it easiest to start with the sleeves' and so on. I realise now
that we began to share a set of meanings and ways of using words and phrases to
represent them. She then demonstrated and explained how to do a pair of slacks.
Again I observed, and mentally rehearsed myself doing it.
Then I tried to
apply what I'd been observing. I began with a shirt. I tried to flip it onto
the ironing board the way my teacher had. It didn't seem to fall into place the
way it did for her. Then I tried to position the sleeve so that I could begin
to iron it. When I moved my left hand to flatten out the sleeve and align the
seams symmetrically it fell off the ironing board and on to the floor. When
this happened my teacher said something like, 'That happens to me sometimes
too. Here let me show you again and this time I'll try to explain why I'm doing
what I'm doing as I do it, and you ask questions when you don't understand.
O.K.?'
My learning
from that point was rapid. I had about four more joint sessions like this one.
My teacher demonstrated and talked out loud, explaining what needed to be done
and why. I found myself attending to and engaging with things I hadn't been
aware of before, such as the way one can use the seams in garments to achieve
symmetry, or the different functions that the sharp and blunt ends of the iron
serve. I asked many questions about why she did what she did. After these
initial joint sessions during which I received authentic feedback and praise, I
began to practise by myself.
Whilst visiting
another friend's house I asked her to show me how she goes about ironing. I
found myself observing how she did it and engaged her in a conversation about
what she was doing. It was then that I discovered something that I'd never been
aware of before, namely that the function of the left hand, the way it held and
moved the garment for the iron was absolutely crucial for the whole enterprise.
I concluded that the key to effective ironing was the left hand, not the hand which
held the iron.
Feeling quite
the expert now I decided one morning to impress my daughter. I nonchalantly
ironed her school shirt for her. She was obviously impressed. I felt I'd become
a member of the ironing club. I was an expert.
My transition
from non-ironer to expert is an example of successful learning. As such we need
to examine it in more detail. What combination of processes made it such a
successful teaching/learning experience? I think there were several.
Firstly there
was a need for me to learn. This need led me to actively seek demonstrations
and actively engage in that which I
wanted to learn. I chose to engage in
the demonstrations which my teacher gave. This is another way of saying that I
actively participated in the learning experience.
Secondly a
process of transformation began to
take place. I began to reflect upon and think about what had been demonstrated
and said. As a consequence I added new information to my old information, (the
function of the left hand) and gradually developed a new understanding of the
function and purposes of different aspects of the ironing process.
Thirdly, discussion was an integral part of the
transition from novice to expert. Although it is feasible that I could have
attained the status of expert without discussion, it would have been a much
harder task. Language permeated the whole enterprise. My teacher used language
which I found accessible. I used similar language to talk my way to meaning,
not only with my original teacher, but with others and often with myself.
Fourthly there
were multiple opportunities for application.
I had plenty of chances to try out my developing skills of ironing both in
front of my teachers as well as by myself.
Finally I was
engaged in a process of evaluation,
reflecting on and subsequently modifying my ways of operating as I made new
connections and added new knowledge to my ironing repertoire. My teachers also
were engaged in the process of evaluating me, providing me with feedback which
further enhanced my learning.
These processes
did not occur in a linear sequence, nor did one 'cause' the other. Rather they
often co-occurred. For example the discussion I had with the friend I visited
seemed to occur simultaneously with the transformation of my understanding of
the role of the left hand. Again when I evaluated my performance as being of
sufficiently high standard I was able to apply my new found knowledge and skill
in front of my daughter.
Academic, School-Type Learning
So what? What has this to do with
effective teaching and learning in the different content areas that form the
middle and high school curriculum? One way to illuminate this question is to
explore an unsuccessful example of a teaching/learning situation.
Recently I had
cause to call a colleague who teaches Maths Education at the University where I
work. I needed some help with the binomial theorem so that I could help with my
daughter's homework. Here is a verbatim account of the telephone conversation I
had.
B.C. Hello
Grahame. I need to help my daughter understand the binomial theorem, (a+b)2=a2
+2ab +b2. I vaguely remember it from my high school days, but I
can't remember much about it. Can you explain it in language?
G.W. That's easy. It means: If you want to raise the sum of any two
numbers to the power of two then....
B.C. Hang on! You've lost me. What do you mean, 'If I want to'? Do I
have a choice. Why any two numbers? What does raise to the power of two mean?
G.W. Uh oh. I'll have to go back a level with you won't I? Try this:
If you want to square any two numbers...No wait
a minute, That type of 'If' language bugs you doesn't it. Try this: When you want to square the sum of any two
numbers then you....(long pause)
B.C. What's wrong?
G.W. I don't like saying it that way. It changes the meaning slightly and
will only lead to confusion later.
B.C. What do you mean?
G.W. Well let's say you want to go beyond 'squared' and 'cubed' and you
want to raise the sum of any two numbers to the power of 'n' we have no words
beyond 'squared' and 'cubed'.
B.C. I'm
getting more confused and lost. What do you mean 'When I want to?' When would I
want to raise the sum of any two numbers to any power? What's a power? Why the
sum of any two numbers? Mightn't I want to do it with any three or four
numbers?
Although I'm not sure why or when I'd ever want
to do that. And I'm not too sure about 'squared' and 'cubed' or 'n'. And all
that conditional language. Why do mathematicians talk like that?
G.W. I'll go back another layer. Let me see: Let's suppose that you needed to add two numbers
together and then multiply the result by itself... Uh oh that's even more
confusing isn't it? And what's more it doesn't mean what I intended... it's
imprecise.. You'll have to call me back later. I need to think about the
language I use. I've never reflected like this before.
Despite the
need I had, despite my intent to engage
and participate with his demonstration,
despite the efforts of a sympathetic expert who wanted to teach me what I
needed to know about the binomial theorem, despite the discussion we had, no transformation
occurred, no application was
possible and little relevant evaluation
occurred. It was an unsuccessful learning experience. Why? How was it different
from the ironing experience I'd had?
Although one
could argue that there are many differences between the two situations, I
believe the most significant difference is to be found in the nature of the
language involved. Because I did not have access to the same patterns of
language and ways of using those patterns that my maths colleague had, we
shared no meanings that we could bring to the teaching/learning situation.
Although he tried to simplify it in order to make it more accessible to me, the
nature of the concepts and relationships that were inherent in the particular
part of mathematics that he was trying to help me understand could not be
adequately expressed or realised when other, different forms of language were
used. Because of this the processes that support effective teaching and
learning could not be set in motion.
I learned a
number of different things from this experience.
Firstly I
learned that there was a more than tenuous link between language and learning.
If I wanted to understand mathematics, if I wanted to think in the way that
mathematicians think, if I wanted to know and learn mathematics at more than a
superficial level, then I had to get control of the patterns of language that
my colleague obviously had internalised. Only then would I be able to
'problem-solve' like a mathematician. Among other things I needed to become
fluent with the conditional 'if-then' structures which seem second nature to
him, as well as the tentative, hypothetical abstract syntactic/semantic flavour
of the language he used to express the concepts and the relationships between
them. I also realised that it was the
patterns of language, not just the individual vocabulary items like
'squared' and 'cubed' that I had to get under control.
Secondly I
realised that mathematics is not unique in this sense. Each of the content
areas in the secondary school makes use of distinctive forms of discourse to frame
its concepts and relationships. 'Understanding', 'knowing', 'thinking' and
'learning' in any subject area is strongly influenced by the kinds of discourse
which are typically employed. The language of science is different from the
language of history,which is in turn different from economics, and each of
these is different from the others, and so it goes.
Thirdly I
realised that the effective teaching/learning processes which seemed to make my
learning to iron so successful could only occur when teachers and learners
began to share a common set of meanings which in turn meant that both had
access to the same patterns of language.
Finally I
realised that if the core of effective teaching and learning in different
content areas was the development of shared meaning between teachers and
learners, then if effective learning was to occur teachers had the
responsibility of helping their learners get control of those forms of language
that they themselves had learned to control.
How can
teachers in different content areas manage all this? How can they teach the
language and content of their subject areas simultaneously? Although it sounds
complex and difficult given the time constraints which most middle and high
teachers work under, I want to suggest that it's relatively easy to do if we
understand how language, learning, and teaching work with and support each
other. If we can gain some insights into this relationship, then it is possible
to create classroom conditions in which our students learn the language of the
subject we teach, learn through the language of that subject area, and learn
about the language of the subject area simultaneously as they use it. In order
to do this we need to look more closely at the nature of the processes which I
previously suggested underpin effective teaching/learning situations, namely:
Demonstration
Engagement
Transformation
Discussion
Application
Evaluation
Demonstration
All learning begins with a
demonstration of some kind. There are two basic kinds of demonstrations,
actions and artifacts. Someone ironing a shirt and talking about what they're
doing is an action. It is also a demonstration of how one irons a shirt. A shirt
folded neatly with no creases in it, or hanging on a hanger looking immaculate
and stiff is an artifact. It is also a demonstration of what a shirt which has
been ironed looks like. Someone explaining a concept like the binomial theorem
using different kinds of language, (metaphor, simile) probably accompanied by
diagrams and sketches on a chalkboard is also as demonstration, albeit a much
more complex one.
Everything we
do in our classrooms is a demonstration of some kind which our students can
learn from, although sometimes they may be learning things we don't intend,
like 'the language of maths is too complex for me'. The kinds of demonstrations
we provide are the raw material from which our students construct their
meanings. There are two questions we need to ask of demonstrations we provide
when we teach:
o
Am
I demonstrating what I intend to demonstrate?
o
Are
my learners engaging with what I intend to demonstrate?
The latter one
is by far the most important. It doesn't matter how compelling, dynamic,
scintillating, exciting, riveting, etc the demonstrations are, no potential
learner can learn anything from them unless he or she chooses to engage with
them. We need therefore to look a little more closely at the concept of
engagement.
Engagement
Engagement is
fundamental to learning. It's complex and difficult to define because it
incorporates a range of different behaviours on the part of the learner. It has
overtones of 'attention' and 'attending' associated with it. Learning is
unlikely to occur if the potential learner does not attend to what is being
demonstrated. And the potential learner is unlikely to attend if he or she does
not perceive a need or purpose for the learning. Engagement also has
connotations of 'active participation' in that which is being demonstrated.
This 'active participation' can be as simple as imagining yourself doing or
knowing whatever is being witnessed. This in turn is related to a degree of
risk taking. Potential learners can only actively participate if they are
prepared to 'have-a-go' at whatever is being demonstrated. Implicit within all
of the above is that the potential learner is the one who makes the decision to
engage in that which is to be learned. All of these things, having a need or
purpose, attending, active-self-chosen participation, having-a-go, can only
occur if the learner can make some sense of that which is being demonstrated.
This in turn can only occur if the language which accompanies and permeates the
demonstrations which are to be engaged with is meaningful and can connect with
what the learner already knows and what she or he needs to know.
What does all this mean for the classroom? How can teachers increase the degree to which their students are likely to engage with the demonstration of maths, science, history, economics, industrial arts, and so on., which they provide? Research can help here. Over the last few years some of my colleagues and I have addressed this question. As a consequence of this research we have formulated the following principles of engagement.
Principles of
Engagement
- Learners are more likely to engage deeply with demonstrations if they believe that they are capable of ultimately learning or doing whatever is being demonstrated.
- Learners are more likely to engage deeply with whatever is being demonstrated if they believe that learning whatever is being demonstrated has some potential value, purpose and use for them.
- Learners are more likely to engage with demonstrations if they're free from anxiety.
- Learners are more likely to engage with demonstrations given by someone they like, respect, admire, trust, and would like to emulate.
Our research
shows that when these principles are applied in classrooms the depth of
engagement increases. As a consequence learning is optimised.
Transformation, Discussion, Application
It's hard to separate these three
processes in time. They co-occur and the seams between them are difficult to
find. In what follows I will describe how each of them supports the others .
Let me begin with the concept of 'transformation'.
Transformation
One can be said to 'know' and
'understand' when one has made that which is to be known and understood one's
own. The process of making something 'one's own' involves potential learners
transforming the meanings and/or skills which someone else has demonstrated
into a set of meanings and/or skills which is uniquely theirs. In the domain of
language this is highly similar to creating personal paraphrases. Thus an
indicator of the degree to which I 'knew' and/or 'understood' the binomial
theorem (or the causes of World War 1, or the symbols in Huckleberry Finn, or
Newton's Third Law, and so on) is the degree to which I can describe and
explain any of these domains of concern 'in my own words' while still
maintaining its 'truth' value. Expressing some concept or sequence of events
'in one's own words' and at the same time closely approximating the core
meanings involved can only occur if one has taken control of, (assumed
ownership of) the concepts and relationships involved.
The skill
equivalent of paraphrase is the development of one's own 'personal style'. No
two highly skilled golfers have exactly the same swing as that which was
demonstrated by their original teachers and/or coaches. No two pianists will
play the same piece exactly the same way. Why else would we have eisteddfods?.
No two ironers ever iron the same way. As a consequence of talking to others
and ourselves (i.e. reflecting) we each transform what we originally witness
into a form that reflects how we interpret the world. We each develop our own
unique style.
It seems that
in the process of achieving control over language, or knowledge, or skills, (or
all three simultaneously) learners are involved in two kinds of transformation.
Firstly they 'transform' what is demonstrated to them by interpreting these
demonstrations in their own idiosyncratic ways. The way in which one interprets
(i.e. constructs meaning) is a function of all of the experiences that one has
ever had. While there is usually a great deal of overlap and similarity between
the ways in which humans interpret the world, no two interpretations can ever
be the same. While potential learners may all witness the same demonstrations
and hear the same accompanying words,the meanings that each will create are
going to be different in many subtle ways.
Secondly in the
process transforming the demonstrations they witness they also 'transform' the
schema that they carry around in their heads. This is another way of saying
that they change ('accommodate', 'reconstruct') their old knowledge to
incorporate the new understandings that they're taking on board.
Discussion
The process of transformation is
enormously enhanced through 'discussion', i.e. the exchange and interchange of
interpretations, constructed meanings and understandings. This is another way
of saying that most learning has a mandatory social dimension to it. Just as
toddlers can only learn to control the oral language of the culture into which
they're born by socially interacting with others, older learners also need a
myriad of opportunities to interact with others in order to clarify, extend,
re-focus, modify, their own learning. Learning, thinking, knowing and
understanding are significantly enhanced when one is provided with
opportunities for 'talking one's way to meaning'.
Application
What have 'transformation' and
'discussion' to do with 'application' ? There is a multi-layered relationship
between the three. When two or more persons collaborate in addressing and/or
trying to resolve a problem they are forced to interact with at least each
other. This collaboration always requires discussion. As a consequence of the
discussion that typically accompanies jointly constructing, and 'understanding'
new knowledge or mastering new skills, 'transformation' occurs. Thus, the more
authentic opportunities teachers can create for learners to which they can
apply their under-developed and/or naive knowledge and skills , the more
opportunities they will in turn create for discussion.
This in turn
will maximise the probability that what they hear and see others do, think, and
say as they address the same problem will cause varying degrees of intellectual
unrest which in turn leads to transformation.
It is important
to draw attention to one aspect of the application process which is sometimes
ignored in teaching/learning contexts. This is the concept of approximation. In
all learning in the real world no one expects learners to acquire instant
expertise. Novices in any domain of knowing, learning, or skill acquisition are
expected to 'work their ways to expertise'. In the course of doing this, their
performances will significantly (and continually) vary from that of the expert.
My initial attempts at ironing were amateurish compared to my teachers' level
of performance. Novice golfers, swimmers, athletes can never hope to, nor are
they expected to perform what their coaches demonstrate to them perfectly after
one or two demonstrations or attempts. Young children learning to talk and walk
make many 'mistakes' during the learning process. They use 'baby talk' or they
keep falling over. Potential learners of calculus, physics, history, economics,
and so on also need the freedom to approximate, to be wrong. The right to make
'mistakes' (I prefer 'approximate' ) is essential to all learning enterprises.
If teachers create conditions in which mistakes are forbidden or punished then
learning becomes a problematic enterprise for most potential learners. They
cease to attend and engage. (Remember the principles of engagement?) They
typically opt out of the learning context, or they become 'safe learners' who
are fearful to take risks. Safe learners never transform the demonstrations
they witness, they find it difficult to discuss with others in ways that create
intellectual unrest, and they rarely can apply their knowledge or skills to
contexts outside that of the classroom. The research literature is replete with
studies which show that university students who have taken 'majors' in physics,
maths., literary criticism, history, social science and often cannot apply what
they've supposed to have learned in these specialist areas once the wording or
the context is varied from that which was used in the textbooks they used or
lectures they attended.
It has been
said by many thinkers in the field of learning that if we removed the right to
approximate from learning to walk and talk we would raise a nation of mute
cripples. We run the same risk of intellectually crippling our students in the
subjects and skills we want them to learn in schools if we remove the right to
approximate from our classrooms.
This right to
approximate is inextricably linked to another part of the teaching-learning
process - evaluation.
Evaluation
A continuous thread which is running
through any teaching/learning process is evaluation. Potential learners are
constantly evaluating their own performance as they engage, discuss, transform
and apply it. It doesn't matter whether learners are engaged in learning to
iron, play tennis, write an economics essay, tie shoe laces or acquire the oral
language of the culture, they are continually asking of themselves 'how am I
going?'. Those who adopt the teacher's role in any teaching/learning situation
are also constantly engaged in evaluating. They are continually giving the
learners with whom the interact information which answers the 'how-am-I-going'
question
Let us examine
this evaluation process in a little more detail.
If learners are
going to evaluate their performance they need help (or feedback) in answering the
'how-am-I-going?' question. This help or feedback typically comes in the form
of some kind of response from whoever happens to be in the teacher role. In
order for this response to be useful and to be acted upon several conditions
need to be in place. Firstly there needs to be an authentic supportive
relationship between teacher and learner. Without this kind of relationship
learners are unlikely to engage with the feedback which the teachers give.
Teacher response to approximation is an important aspect of this relationship.
If learners get their fingers rapped with a pointer every time they hit a wrong
note when learning the piano, the probability of them continuing to learn or
attend is considerably reduced. If the teacher continually demeans or punishes
the learner for not being correct, that learner ceases to engage deeply with
the teacher's demonstrations. In short, if learners are continually given
negative evaluations, then engagement typically becomes superficial. So does
their subsequent learning.
Secondly if
there are other learners involved in similar kinds of learning there needs to
be a strong sense of collaboration and collegiality within the group. Without
this sense of community, discussion which can give learners the feedback that
facilitates transformation is unlikely to occur.
Putting the Theory into Practice.
So how does one put all this into
practice? Given the forty minute period, given the large numbers of learners
that most content teachers must deal with each week, given an examination
system which emphasises and tests knowledge of content, how do busy teachers
set up conditions which will enable learners to maximise the degree to which
they get control of both the language and content of the subject area?
While there is
no sure-fire, never-fail recipe or set of tricks that can be offered there are
some general strategies that some research that some of my colleagues and I
have been doing that should be of help.
For sometime
now Jan Turbill and I have been observing and documenting how a group of
teachers with whom we have established co-researching relationships went about
creating teaching/learning contexts which reflected the principles described
above As these teachers learned more, experimented more, reflected upon what
they did and why they were doing it and then shared their reflections with us,
we began to identify clusters of characteristics which each of their classrooms
seemed to have in common. These included such things as:
Physical
environments:
- that were rich in print displays and displays of students' work;
- which had desks arranged in ways that encouraged interaction;
- which had lots of readily accessible reference materials, fiction and non-fiction books as well as readily accessible art and craft supplies;
- which encouraged students to move around and interact with each other.
Conceptual/social
environments which:
- organised learning experiences and demonstrations from whole to part;
- encouraged high degrees of verbal interaction between students, and between individual students and the teacher, low degrees of 'sit-up-shut-up-and listen' teaching;
- encouraged individual interactions between teacher and student which were characterised by high proportions of open-ended questions and responses (Why do you think that? What else might you do?);
- provided high degrees of scaffolding and support for individual students' learning;· encouraged lots of student sharing and discussion of their written products and the processes and strategies they used to construct them;
- communicated high expectations that students would take risks and feel safe about 'having a go' (approximating);
- provided multiple opportunities for student reflection through learning journals and small group discussion.
Although each of our co-researcher
teachers set about creating their classroom settings in individual ways there
were a number of common strategies that each employed. So far we have
identified the following strategies which were employed:
Consciously creating a pro-learning, pro-reading, pro-writing ethos or
climate
The teachers we
worked with did this very subtly through the language they used and the
messages they continually gave. They used the language of invitation,
explanation, justification and support, more than the language of management
and procedure. Learners were invited to participate in activities and events
that would enhance their learning. Connections and patterns were continually
explained and pointed out. Teacher and learners were expected to justify why
things were done the way they did them. The messages which teachers continually
conveyed were messages about the way that learning leads to empowerment, how
getting control of language makes learning possible, how sustained reading and
writing are very powerful ways of getting control of language.
Making
explicit reasons, purposes, processes
Making learners
consciously aware of why certain things are to be done, and what processes are
involved in doing them was a common feature of these classrooms, e.g.
We are going to spend 10 minutes at
the end of our period in writing about what think we learned in this period because writing helps you understand and
think in ways that will make you a better learner.
I am going to read to you from this
text book while you follow with your eyes and minds because hearing the patterns of language that this writer uses will
help you get them inside your head and this will also help you understand the
content better.
Letting
learners in on the secrets of how reading and writing should be used in
different subject areas
Our teachers
spent time explaining and demonstrating how they read, wrote, learned to spell
Here's how I learn to spell words
that are important in this subject area.
When I get stuck with writing an
essay I sometimes go and read a book. Often I get a lead or a phrase from that
book which helps me over my blockage. Here's an example…
Here's how I would go about
answering this question in an exam. Watch me while I think out loud and write
on the chalkboard.
These teachers also explained and
discussed such things as how learning works and some of the academic debate
about different theories of learning, why accurate spelling and punctuation is
socially important and a host of other similar topics. These discussions were
linked to students' own reading, writing, learning, spelling beliefs and
experiences.
Modelling, demonstrating, thinking aloud
The strategies
of modelling and demonstrating accompanied by 'think-alouds' were frequently
used by teachers in these classrooms. As one of them commented:
Through reflecting on my own
reading, writing, and learning behaviours when I was getting control of this
content area or this topic I was able to identify invisible things about
reading, writing, and learning that potential learners can never hope to
witness in a normal demonstration. I realised I needed to make such things
explicit. e.g.
I want you to watch as I show you
how I go about writing an essay in which the key words are 'compare and
contrast'. You watch and listen because I'm going to think out loud as I do it
so you can understand what I'm thinking and the decisions I make.
Setting up conditions which allowed learners to 'talk their way to
meaning'
These teachers
encouraged learners to discuss, share, compare, explain, justify, regularly with each other in small and
large groups. This is because they believed that the language which their
students brought to school with them was the only medium available for them to
get control of the other forms of school language they needed to control in
order to be successful learners. In one of our discussions an analogy emerged
which I think helps explain why these teachers believe that opportunities for
students to 'talk their way to meaning' are important.
The language which a learner brings
to any learning situation is not unlike the thin rope that dockworkers use to
throw up to crewmen on a big ship which is about to dock. The thin rope is used
to pull up the thicker, heavier rope which is used to tie the vessel up. The
language a learner brings to school with him/her is all that is available to
'pull on board' those other forms of discourse that need to be controlled.
This is why some of our teachers
felt a strong need to devise ways of helping their students use the language
which they already had some control over (e.g. Aboriginal English,
working-class English) to get control over those forms which would make it
possible for them to know, think, learn and understand in ways that would
empower them in the culture. This would include knowing how to use one's own
language to ask appropriate questions, understanding how paraphrase using one's
own language was a useful scaffold in getting control of other forms of
language and so on.
Providing multiple opportunities for reading and writing
Just as
learners can be helped get control of meaning through 'talking one's way to
meaning' in discussion with others, so they can also be helped to get control
of the written forms of text that characterise different subjects through
sustained reading and writing. Thus these teachers made reading and writing
regular features of their sessions. Students were encouraged to keep personal
learning logs which were used for purposes of reflecting upon the content and
processes of learning. Some teachers provided time in some sessions for silent
reading of a range of resources relevant to the topic they were teaching. Some
maths and science teachers set exercises in which formulae and or the working
out of problems were to be written in narrative and or procedural text as well
as in mathematical symbols, (a kind of transformation). At the end of some
units of content these teachers would help the class jointly construct 'summary
charts' of the main points or concepts which the unit had covered. These were
displayed and re-read at regular intervals. A variation of this was to turn
written texts which contained important concepts and information into labelled
'flow-charts' which captured all the relational concepts in the text. All these
teachers took time to work out what kinds of discourse needed to be controlled
in their content areas and gave their students opportunity to work out ,
collaboratively, the criteria that made them 'good' examples of writing in that
content area.
Authentically
valuing learners
These teachers
valued their students' beliefs, knowledge, and language. They did this by
encouraging personal responses to literature or texts which were different to
theirs or to other students' and drawing attention to the difference in ways
that supported and valued each interpretation. They used these unconventional
interpretations (i.e.'approximations') as scaffolds to help their students
clarify inappropriate or faulty connections that they might have made, and thus
gradually helped their students converge toward the conventional understandings
they were seeking to achieve.
End Piece
These
classrooms work. The students in them begin to display the characteristics of a
thoughtful yet critical literacy and continue to develop it. These classrooms
are characterised by a disposition to use language, particularly written
language in ways that empower both individuals and groups. In these classrooms
learners question, define, analyse, criticise, evaluate, elaborate, paraphrase,
influence, persuade, inform, negotiate, probe, clarify. They are immersed in
and internalise many different literate forms. They are continually nudged from
being interdependent learners toward
becoming independent, self governing
learners.
If we a going
to survive as a nation (perhaps as a planet?) in the 21st century, we need as
many of them as possible graduating from our schools.
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