Pre conference contribution: How can writing support student´s learning processes?
Christina Lindh
Abstract: The thesis is about to investigate how a group of teachers, teaching different subjects in primary school, grade 7-9, construct, implement and evaluate, various writing activities with their students in order to understand how these activities can support the learning processes or the meaning making processes. The writing activities also involve the changing conditions for reading and writing in school education, and the use of texts that are multimodal, as a result of the development in media technology. The thesis is also focusing on how the writing is affected depending on the discourse of school subject.
According to the purpose of the thesis the following research questions are asked:
• How can teaching support student´s learning processes / meaning making processes by
designing various writing activities in different school subjects?
• In what way does activities involving collaborative writing affect the learning process / the
meaning making process?
• What do students think about how writing activities in different school subjects can support
the learning processes / the meaning making processes?
• What do teachers discuss concerning how the use of writing activities in their teaching can
support student´s learning processes / meaning making processes in different school
subjects?
The empirical material will involve observations of lessons, both audio recorded and film recorded, field notes from the observations and recordings of the teacher´s discussions during their weekly meetings while constructing the lessons. The empirical material also includes teacher´s field notes student´s text and interviews with teachers.
Theoretical perspectives of the thesis is a socio cultural view of learning by reading and writing. Methods that can be used for analyse needs to be discussed but can involve a design based research method (Selander & Kress) or the use of discourse analysis.
Keywords: language based learning activities, meaning making processes, writing to learn, collaborative writing /learning, intervention studies, design theory based research.
Encyclopaedia of language for children of junior school age
Ludmila Liptakova
Abstract: In this paper, I am going to present the project of Encyclopaedia of Language for Children, which was implemented by the team of linguists, educators and teachers from the Faculty of Education, University of Prešov, Slovakia. I am focusing on the characteristics of the publication titled Encyclopaedia of Language for Children (Liptakova & Klimovic, eds. 2014). It is a textbook of encyclopaedic nature, which is a complementary instructional resource for teaching Slovak Language in primary education.
Encyclopaedia of Language for Children was conceived on the basis of the results of the qualitative lingua-didactic research which was implemented in the following stages: Research on the relationship of language and cognitive processes in developing reading comprehension in primary school pupils. Analysis of the Slovak Language curriculum according to the categories of knowledge dimension of the cognitive taxonomy. Research on children's preconceptions of linguistic and metalinguistic concepts.
The theoretical framework for the conception of the encyclopaedia is a psychologically oriented approach to mother tongue pedagogy. This concept is based on a constructivist approach to language education, which is based both on cognitive constructivism of J. Piaget, as well as on social constructivism of L.S. Vygotsky. For this reason the entries in the encyclopaedia are organized thematically. The structure of individual entries with the method of their presentation support child's proactive approach to thinking about the topic and facilities own constructing of knowledge. Interactive approach to the entries’ design supports the child’s metacognitive processes and triggers the formation of self-regulatory mechanisms when learning from text.
The content of the encyclopaedia and treatment of linguistic and metalinguistic notions is based on the integration of knowledge from system-structural, communicative-pragmatic and cognitive linguistics. The knowledge from developmental linguistics is also applied in individual entries.
The presentation has the following structure:
National education context and intentions for designing encyclopaedia of language for children. Linguistic and educational background.
Concept of encyclopaedia: thematic areas, structure of entries, processes of developing child’s explicit linguistic knowledge and his/her metalinguistic awareness.
Utilization of encyclopaedia in school and out-of school reading as a tool for the developing reading literacy of the child.
Key words: encyclopaedia, linguistic knowledge, metalinguistic awareness, reading literacy, junior school age children
Reference list:
Anderson, L. & Krathwohl, D.A. (Eds.) (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assessing. A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Longman.
Cibakova, D. (2012). Jazyk a kognícia v rozvíjaní porozumenia textu u žiaka primárnej školy [Language and Cognition in Text Comprehension Development of Pupil at the Primary School]. Prešov: Prešovská univerzita.
Clarke, S., Dickinson, P. & Westbrook, J. (Eds.) (2010). The Complete Guide to Becoming an English Teacher. 2nd edition. London: SAGE Publications.
Gavora, P. (1992). Žiak a text [The Pupil and the Text]. Bratislava: SPN.
Klimovic, M. (2013). Teoretické a empirické východiská encyklopedického spracovania pojmov komunikačno-slohovej výchovy [Theoretical and Empirical Background for the Articles on Composition and Communicative Education in Encyclopaedia of Language for Children]. O dieťati, jazyku, literatúre [On Child, Language and Literature], 2 (2), 61-75. ISSN 1339-3200.
Larkin, S. (2010). Metacognition in Young Children. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis group.
Liptakova, L. et al. (2011). Integrovaná didaktika slovenského jazyka a literatúry pre primárne vzdelávanie [Integrative Didactics of Slovak Language and Literature for Primary Education]. Prešov: Prešovská univerzita, Pedagogická fakulta.
Liptakova, L. (2012). Kognitívne aspekty vyučovania materinského jazyka v primárnej edukácii [Cognitive Aspects of Mother Tongue Education in Primary School]. Prešov: Prešovská univerzita, Pedagogická fakulta.
Liptakova, L. (2013). O vzťahu a štruktúre implicitných a explicitných jazykových znalostí dieťaťa mladšieho školského veku [On the Relationship between and the Structure of Implicit and Explicit Linguistic Knowledge in Junior School Age Child]. O dieťati, jazyku, literatúre [On Child, Language and Literature], 2 (2), 15-30. ISSN 1339-3200.
Liptakova, L. & Klimovic, M. (Eds.) (2014). Encyklopédia jazyka pre deti [Encyclopaedia of Language for Children]. Prešov: Prešovská univerzita, Pedagogická fakulta.
Piaget, J. & Inhelder, B. (1997). Psychologie dítěte [Psychology of the Child]. Praha: Portál.
Sampson, M.B., Rasinski, T.V. & Sampson, M. (2003). Total Literacy. Third edition. Canada: Thomson – Wadsworth.
Vygotskij, L.S. (1970). Myšlení a řeč [Thought and Language]. Praha: SPN.children
Poetry: an implicit way to language beginners
DAN LIU
Abstract: The marginalization of poetry in French didactics has gone through nearly forty years since its last prosperity during the seventies. It was once considered as the only cited genre of literature when youth literature hasn’t massively entered the primary school (Favriaud, M 2007a). In recent years, poetry, as "the bridge to others, to the world and to oneself" (, 2004), tends to be brought back to the stage. As a perfect combination of two domains: language learning and artistic education, poetry is meant to be an original way to teach, especially for language beginners (5-8 years old).
Modern poetry has all the magic, what Gombert (2003) calls "epilinguistic care" and the “metalinguistic care”, to initiate pupils’ imagination, to train their memory ability, to encode the syntax...even to repair the self-image (Favriaud, M 2009) for less advanced learners. This magic lies mostly in its nature: rich vocabulary, hierarchical syntax, various punctuations… all these enrich pupils’ language skills and finally make these skills their own language knowledge.
A pre-experiment (for the serial experiments 12/2014 -06/2015) has been conducted with four pupils of CP (first year of primary school) in Toulouse, France. A questionnaire of four axes has been made including the family/social background, self image, literature/poetry knowledge and the basic language skills to probe into the relationship between poetry and pupils’ overall learning environment. Qualitative method has been adopted to analyze these questionnaires.
Although obviously as the appendices learners, the pupils have very limited knowledge about the literature, about the poetry, there’re still some interesting observations in this experiment, such as the impact of family educational backgrounds, their psychological preparations, auto-evaluations (self image), attitudes towards poetry etc. Their instant creative interpretations of poetry and spontaneous memory of poetry verses have added the charm of poetry learning and teaching.
In this paper, we will figure out how the modern poetry facilitates the mother language learning, both psychologically and pedagogically, for pupils in CP. More importantly, in what way it can be taught effectively according to results of the pre-experiment.
Key words: poetry; méta, self image, didactic
Key reference :
Gombert, J-E (2003) in L’apprentissage de la lecture, édit. Romdhane, M-N., Gombert, J-E. et Belajouza, M., Rennes-Tunis: PUR
Marilyn Jager Adams(1994), Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print (Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change), MIT press.
Favriaud, M. (2006) in Argos, CRDP Académie de Créteil. N 39.
Gérard Chauveau(2011), Comment l’enfant devient lecteur, Paris : RETS.
Reality and simulation: cognitive neuroscience of empathy from human relationships to readers’ response in literary reading
Giuseppe Longo
Abstract: As far as literary studies are concerned, teachers must promote both cognitive and psychosocial competencies. Literary competencies allow students to comprehend, to analyze, to contextualize, and to interpret literary texts. Psychosocial competencies are based on “the teaching of life skills in a supportive learning environment” (World Health Organization, 1994). Life skills particularly connected to the teaching of literature are the capacity to feel empathy, and the ability to handle emotions and cope with them. This theoretical paper highlights how and why these skills concern the teaching of literature, by taking into consideration the connections between education and cognitive neuroscience research (Ansari et al., 2011), and the neural correlates of empathy (Baron-Cohen, 2011, Rameson et al., 2011) involved in reader’s response to literature (Keen, 2006; Oatley, 2011). Empathy may be initiated by a variety of situations and also by reading fiction (Decety, 2005), when empathy requires one to adopt more or less consciously the subjective point of view of the characters. Can this perspective-taking help the reader to learn, by reading fiction, how to better empathize, and is this assumption based on the cognitive neuroscience? Is this experience-taking a sort of “mechanism by which narratives can function to expand readers’ scope of experience and, thereby, change beliefs and behaviors?” (Kaufman and Libby, 2012). The current data demonstrate that increased exposure to storybooks predict better ToM ability (Dodell-Feder et al., 2013), even because it was found that the more fiction people read, the better are their empathy and understanding of others (Oatley and Johnson-Laird, 2014), as the experiments conducted by Corner Kidd and Castano confirmed (2013). Mar (2011) highlighted also that the neural areas activated by the reader when he/she empathizes with literary characters are in a remarkable measure the same implied in real human empathetic relationships. From this viewpoint this sort of emotional training by reading fiction could be considered a basic educational methodology.
Keywords: empathy, neuroscience, literature, education.
Selected references:
Ansari, D., Coch, D. & De Smedt, B. (2011). Connecting education and cognitive neuroscience: Where will the journey take us? Educational Philosophy and Theory, 43: 37-42.
Baron-Cohen, 2011, Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty. Penguin/Allen Lane. 2011.
Kidd DC, Castano E. Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind. Science. 2013 Oct 18; 342(6156): 377-80.
Decety, J., Jackson, P. L. (2004). The functional architecture of human empathy. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 3, 71-100.
Decety, 2005 Decety, J. (2005). Perspective taking as the royal avenue to empathy. In B.F. Malle and S. D. Hodges (Eds.), Other Minds: How Humans Bridge the Divide between Self and Others, (pp. 135-149). New York: Guilford Publishers.
Dodell-Feder, D., Lincoln, S. H., Coulson, J. P., & Hooker, C. I. (2013). Using fiction to assess mental state understanding: A new task for assessing theory of mind in adults. PLoS ONE, 8(11), e81279.
Gallese, V. (2003). The roots of empathy: The shared manifold hypothesis and the neural basis of intersubjectivity. Psychopatology, 36, 4: 171-180.
Iacoboni, M. (2005). Understanding others: imitation, language and empathy. In S.Hurley, N. Chater (Eds.), Perspectives on imitation: from neuroscience to social science(vol. 1): Mechanisms of imitation and imitation in animals. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.
Kaufman, G. & Libby, L. (2012) “Changing beliefs and behavior through experience-taking.” The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 103.1 (Jul): 1-19.
Keen, S. (2006). A Theory of Narrative Empathy. Narrative (Fall, 2006): 207-36.
Mar, R. A. (2011). The neural bases of social cognition and story comprehension. Annual Review of Psychology, 62: 103-134.
Oatley, K. (2011). Such stuff as dreams: The psychology of fiction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Oatley, K. & Johnson-Laird P. N. (2014). Cognitive Approaches to Emotions. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 18 (3): 134-140.
Pfeifer, J.H., Dapretto, M. (2009). “Mirror, mirror in my Mind”: Empathy, Inter- 411 personal Competence, and the Mirror Neuron System. In J. Decety, W. Ickes (Eds.). The Social Neuroscience of Empathy. Cambridge (MA): MIT U.P.
Rameson, L.T., Morelli, S.A., & Lieberman, M.D. (2012). The neural correlates of empathy: Experience, automaticity, and prosocial behavior. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24(1): 235-245.
Rizzolatti, G. (2005). The mirror neuron system and imitation. In S. Hurley, N.Chater (Eds.), Perspectives on imitation: from neuroscience to social science (vol. 1): Mechanisms of imitation and imitation in animals. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.
WHO (World Health Organisation) (Ed.). (1994). Life Skills Education in schools. Genf, Switzerland: WHO.
Gamifying Shakespeare? The teaching of literature in new media ecology
Stefan Lundström
Abstract: This presentation departs from a study concerning the demands and values of leisure time fiction use among youths and ends in a discussion of a theoretical framework for including game play (e.g. Juul 2005) in the teaching of literature. The data consists of texts, and observations of the use of them, from so-called multimodal text universes (novels, comics, games, art etc.) (e.g. Lundström & Olin-Scheller 2010). In the presentation I intend to answer some of the questions included in the research project; How do youths use multimodal text universes and what are the competencies needed to participate in the communities of practice that they form (Wenger 1998, Olin-Scheller & Wikström 2010)? What implications does leisure time use of fictions have for institutionalized mother tongue education? The presentation thus adds important perspectives to the research field of media ecology as well as the educational field.
The theoretical and methodological approach is partly narratological, particularly as narratology has developed in relation to the study of new media forms (e.g. Murray 1997; Aarseth 1997; Ryan 2006), where, for example, interactivity is significant for understanding the plot in games and knowledge how to remediate and transform textual structures in multimodal text universe emerges (e.g. Lundström 2013). This text analytical approach is complemented by a model of didactic design as developed by Selander and Kress (2010). According to their model, a learning sequence comprises two transformation cycles, where students transform knowledge into a representation that can be discussed, assessed and graded.
The presentation thus shows the similarities between old and new texts and readings of them, but also focuses new aspects of literacy required for using fictional texts in new media. This requires a broadening of the traditional literacy field, where both sociological (e.g. Goffman 1974) and socio-rhetorical (e.g. Burke 1967 and Brummett 1991) perspectives contributes with valuable aspects. An overall ambition with the project, and the presentation, is to try to take a step forward from the dichotomy that still seems to exist between school and leisure time texts and readings.
Keywords: teaching of literature, fiction, gamification, multimodality, didactic design
References:
Aarseth, E (1997). Cybertext. Perspectives on ergodic literature. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press
Brummett, B (1991). Rhetorical dimensions of popular culture. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press
Burke, K (1967). The philosophy of literary form. Studies in symbolic action. Baton Rouge
Goffman, E (1974). Frame analysis. An essay on the organization of experience. New York: Harper & Row
Juul, J (2005). Half-real. Video games between real rules and fictional worlds. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press
Lundström, S (2013). ”Turist i fantasin. Om virtuella resor i rollspelsuniversum”. Resor i tid och rum. Festskrift till Margareta Petersson. Göteborg: Makadam förlag
Lundström, S & Olin-Scheller, C (2010). ”Narrativ kompetens: En förutsättning i multimodala textuniversum?”. Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap, nr 3-4/2010.
Murray, J (1997). Hamlet on the holodeck . The future of narrative in cyberspace. New York: Free Press
Olin-Scheller, C & Wikström, P (2010). Författande fans. Om fanfiction och elevers literacyutveckling. Lund: Studentlitteratur
Ryan, M-L (2005). Avatars of story. Minneapolis, Minn: University of Minnesota Press
Selander, S and Kress, G (2010). Design för lärande - ett multimodalt perspektiv. Stockholm: Norstedt
Wenger, E (1998). Communities of practice. Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
A tool to evaluate French grammatical spelling skills for native adults
Trang Luong
Abstract: Written French is known for causing much trouble, even to native speakers. As students start university to gain professional and academic knowledge, more and more have to attend Written French classes to improve their spelling skills.
Most of the written French inflectional morphology is silent (Dubois, 1965 ; Catach, 1986), making mistakes difficult to get rid of. In order to correct those young adults’ grammatical spelling skills, teachers won’t teach everything again, but rather need to know what went wrong.
Various types of knowledge lead to a successful agreement. One can access their declarative knowledge (Anderson, 1983) to apply the rule, implying one understands it and its metalinguistic words. One can also trigger procedural knowledge which is more automatic but which sometimes lead to mistakes. Researchs in psychology show that such mistake can be explained by the attraction of another word to make an agreement (proximity agreement : Largy, 2001; Negro, Chanquoy, 2000) or by the frequency of a word with of without the ending flexion, or even by the existence of a homophonic word belonging to a different grammatical category. Those mistakes are considered as « experts’ mistakes » as they are triggered to avoid a working memory overload, not because they reflect a lack of linguistic knowledge (Fayol, Pacton, 2005; Baddeley 1986).
This paper aims at presenting an evaluating tool able to spot the reasons why French students make agreement mistakes. Those reasons range from serious lack of acquisition to punctual mistakes caused by specific linguistic features of the word or specific attentional features of the writing situation. Our study case focuses on two classes of 20 students each. One class is taught Agronomic Engineering while the other French Modern Literature, 1st year of Bachelor degree. Their evaluation shows that it would be more relevant to establish a scale of expertise according to the type of errors they make, rather than according to their level of education and even to the type of curriculum they experience. The results also confirm that it is possible for one to make a correct agreement without being able to verbalise the rule, and vice-versa (Gaux, Gombert, 1999), a fact that should be considered when teaching to this specific public.
Keywords: French spelling skills, evaluating tool, French agreement
References:
Anderson, J. R., 1983, The architecture of cognition, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Baddeley A. D. — (1986) Working memory, Londres, Oxford University Press.
Catach N., 1986, L'orthographe française, Paris, Nathan.
Dubois J., 1965, Grammaire structurale du Français : Nom et pronom, Paris : Larousse.
Fayol M., Pacton S., 2005, « L’accord du participe passé : entre compétition de procédures et récupération en mémoire », Langue française, vol. 151, pp. 59-73.
Gaux C., Gombert J.-E., 1999, « La conscience syntaxique chez les préadolescents : question de méthodes », L'année psychologique, vol. 99, n°1, p. 45-74.
Largy P., 2001, « La révision des accords nominal et verbal chez l’enfant », L’année psychologie, vol. 101, n°2, p.221-245.
Negro I., Chanquoy L., 2000, « Étude des erreurs d'accord sujet-verbe au présent et à l’imparfait. Analyse comparative entre des collégiens et des adultes », L’année psychologique, vol. 100, n°2, p. 209-240.
Producing and reading digital texts: patterns of communication in literacy classroom
Anna Lyngfelt
Abstract: The presentation addresses the issues of homogeneity and heterogeneity in L1 research and education in early years of schooling, by focusing on how digital communication media changes patterns of communication as well as notions of ‘language’ and linguistic diversity in classrooms. Present day literacies involve more than reading and writing skills engaging students in multimodal meaning-making practices. Images, sound and writing appear in the same format and require abilities to understand and manage this great diversity of expressions, which in turn raises questions about pedagogies and assessment in literacy education.
In the DILS project (Digital Arenas in Literacy Practices in Early Primary School) the literacies of reading, writing and textual competence are discussed by the presentation of situational choices and interpretation of semiotic resources by 7-9 year-old students in the context of three assignments: digital composing of a narrative story, a cross-border assignment on instructional texts and the reading of a webpage. Analysing these practices from a sociosemiotic standpoint (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996; Cope and Kalantzis, 2000), the result of the study shows that verbal (written) language is experienced as a strong resource, and that the students are not educated to use or interpret different resources complementary. Often the same information is mediated by different resources. However, the study reveals also examples of students with a not very developed verbal language, making use of other semiotic resources than written language to communicate. The consequences of digital communication in the classroom will therefore be discussed from a language developing perspective. We present also a model for multimodal text analysis, based on the students´ semiotic choices and text-internal patterns, stressing communicative aspects between teachers and students working with multimodal texts in the classroom.
Keywords: digital media, literacy practices, multimodality
References:
Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. London: Routledge.
Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. London: Routledge.
“Where does blood come from?” – An analysis of linguistic characteristics of the input in biology lessons based on a concept-oriented approach
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