Creating Classroom Communities of Learning: International Case Studies and Perspectives (New Perspectives on Language and Education): 10 - Hardcover

Roger Barnard; María E. Torres-Guzmán

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847691137 ISBN 13: 9781847691132

Publisher: Multilingual Matters, 2008

Synopsis

This is a collection of nine case studies of teachers and young learners in countries as widely separated as USA, Japan and Australia. In each chapter, classroom interaction is interpreted by different authors to illustrate how teachers and their students verbally co-construct culturally appropriate learning attitudes and behaviours. The collection reveals not only similarities and differences across cultural divides, but also how different perspectives can provide alternative and rich interpretations of teaching and learning.

About this title

About the Author

Roger Barnard is a senior lecturer in applied linguistics at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. He has spent many years working with language teachers of young learners in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Professor María E. Torres-Guzmán is a professor in bilingual/multicultural education at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY. She has primarily focused on teacher development and cultural aspects of the education of language minority populations in the United States, Spain and elsewhere.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Creating Classroom Communities of Learning

International Case Studies and Perspectives

By Roger Barnard, María E.Torres-Guzmán

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2009 Roger Barnard and María E. Torres-Guzmán and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84769-113-2

Contents

Contributors, vii, 
Transcript Conventions, xi, 
Foreword Viv Edwards, xiii, 
Introduction Roger Barnard, María E. Torres-Guzmán and John F. Fanselow, 1, 
1 Under the Interactional Umbrella: Presentation and Collaboration in Japanese Classroom Discourse Take 1: Fred E. Anderson; Take 2: Sylvia Wolfe, 15, 
2 Teaching Content, Learning Language: Socialising ESL Students into Classroom Practices in Australia Take 1: Rhonda Oliver; Take 2: James McLellan, 36, 
3 Socialisation and 'Safetalk' in an Upper Primary English Language Classroom in Brunei Darussalam Take 1: James McLellan and Pearl Chua-Wong Swee Hui; Take 2: María E. Torres-Guzmán, 53, 
4 Negotiating Appropriateness in the Second Language Within a Dual Language Education Classroom Setting Take 1: María E. Torres-Guzmán; Take 2: Vijay Kumar and Wong Bee Eng, 70, 
5 Interaction in a Taiwanese Primary School English Classroom Take 1: Ching-Yi Tien and Roger Barnard; Take 2: Fred E. Anderson, 88, 
6 Learning Through Dialogue in a Primary School Classroom in England Take 1: Sylvia Wolfe; Take 2: Ching-Yi Tien and María E. Torres-Guzmán, 108, 
7 Constructing Meaning in a Bilingual Learning Environment: Two Primary Classrooms in Malaysia Take 1: Wong Bee Eng and Vijay Kumar; Take 2: Roger Barnard, 127, 
8 Creating a Community of Learning in New Zealand: A Case Study of Students in a New School Take 1: Roger Barnard; Take 2: James McLellan, 146, 
9 Language Socialization in a Canadian Secondary School Course: Talking About Current Events Take 1: Patricia A. Duff; Take 2: Rhonda Oliver, 165, 
Afterword John F. Fanselow, 186, 
Index, 199, 

CHAPTER 1

Under the Interactional Umbrella: Presentation and Collaboration in Japanese Classroom Discourse

TAKE 1: FRED E.ANDERSON TAKE 2: SYLVIA WOLFE

TAKE 1

Introduction

While formal education plays an important role in the socialization of children in any culture, the role of Japanese schooling in socialization cannot be overemphasized. There are a number of reasons why it may be even more important than school socialization in other societies, particularly Western societies. Japanese children spend a great deal of time at school, with the number of designated school days ranging between 220 and 225, compared with 175–180 days for American children (Wray, 1999). In addition, there are school attendance days, where pupils are expected simply to show up for formal ceremonies, even during vacation periods. Moreover, as has been pointed out by a number of authors (e.g. Peak, 1991; Tobin et al., 1989), modern Japanese children tend to be indulged at home. Hence, much of the socialization necessary for teaching them to be productive members of a community takes place only after they enter preschool. To borrow Peak's words, 'learning to go to school' appears to be a more significant result of preschools than content learning. This emphasis on socialization continues well into the primary school years. As noted by White (1987: 123): 'For the Japanese child, social lessons are everywhere to be found, meaning all activities during the school day are valued, not just those with explicit academic content.'

Children's communities of learning as found in school classrooms both reflect the adult society and serve as systematic preparation for it. Values necessary to succeed in the adult world are developed in the classroom explicitly, through formal instruction, and implicitly, through participation in culturally significant verbal and nonverbal activities. The present chapter examines language socialization in a Japanese lower primary school classroom as reflected in the classroom discourse. The focus is on three recurring routines that are seen to be representative of Japanese socialization more generally. The first is an aisatsu or 'greeting' routine used to open and close lessons; the second a happyoo or 'presentation' routine, through which students present ideas in response to a teacher's questions; and the third a hannoo or 'reaction' routine through which classmates formally respond to each others' presentations.

Setting

The principal data for the study were collected ethnographically in a first-/second-grade classroom in Fukuoka Prefecture, southern Japan. As is customary in Japanese primary schools, the students and teacher remained together as a unit for two academic years. The examples used in this chapter were extracted from 65 hours of participant observation: 23 of these hours were audio or videotaped, and 16 were fully transcribed with the help of native Japanese-speaking research assistants. After an initial period of general observation, social studies lessons were singled out as the main focus of the study for two reasons. First, they were rich with the routines that were seen as integral to Japanese language socialization. Second, the explicit emphasis in the social studies curriculum was on learning about society, especially the local community, and not on language per se; hence the lessons could provide a window on the process of language development as related to more general sociocultural learning.

Theoretical Framework

The study was conducted within the general framework of language socialization, defined as 'socialization to use language' and 'socialization through the use of language' (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986: 2). The language socialization perspective sees the development of language and world view as occurring in tandem and being mutually influential. The analysis that follows is a condensation of themes discussed in more detail in Anderson (1995). Although this research was, to my knowledge, the first extensive study of Japanese classroom discourse presented in English, related analyses have since been carried out in Japanese first-language environments (Cook, 1999; Dotera, 1998; Walsh, 1998); in the context of teaching and learning Japanese as a second language (Kanagy, 1999; Ohta, 1999); and in relation to the teaching of English as a foreign language in Japanese schools (LoCastro, 1996). The body of research developing in this area allows me to theorize with a greater degree of confidence than was previously possible.

The basic unit of analysis used in the present study is the 'interactional routine' (Gleason, 1976; Kanagy, 1999; Ohta, 1999; Peters & Boggs, 1986), defined as 'a sequence of exchanges in which one speaker's utterance, accompanied by appropriate nonverbal behavior, calls forth one of a limited set of responses by one or more other participants' (Peters & Boggs, 1986: 81). In classroom discourse, it is normally the teacher who initiates the sequence, and students who provide responses, individually or as a group. Although Peters and Boggs's definition specifies that the possible responses are limited, the form of a response may vary in a continuum from formulaic to flexible depending on the initiation. Formulaic responses – such as aisatsu, and to some extent hannoo, in the present study – require presentation of language in memorized chunks. Flexible responses – such as happyoo in this study – do not require specific phrases, but are still culturally constrained by what Peters and Boggs refer to as 'modes of speaking', such as the use of a particular style or register. Nevertheless, whether the response is formulaic or flexible, it is possible to predict at least some aspect of it. Furthermore, 'its predictable structure affords an arena for practice and reinforcement' (Peters & Boggs, 1986: 84), and in this way interactional routines 'can provide "building blocks" for social and linguistic interactions at a time when a child has few linguistic resources at her disposal' (Peters & Boggs, 1986: 86).

Classroom Interaction: Three Classroom Routines and their Cultural Foundations

The aisatsu 'greeting': Transitions and teamwork

The routine commonly referred to as aisatsu by Japanese teachers and students is a highly formulaic one. It is used to demarcate the beginnings and endings of lessons and other classroom events. The most common English dictionary translation of aisatsu is the word 'greeting', but the Japanese concept of aisatsu is more inclusive. In the present data aisatsu is a short, collectively constructed proclamation that a new lesson is about to begin (or about to end); it can be thought of as a performative speech act (Austin, 1962) where the proclamation itself serves as the beginning (or ending) of the lesson. Similar types of aisatsu occur outside of the classroom as well, including – very commonly – in adult interaction. In one study of Japanese business practices, for example, an aisatsu is described as the 'formal greeting ceremony' preceding negotiations (Hall & Hall, 1987: 118; emphasis added).

In its purest form the classroom aisatsu proceeds as in Extract 1 below. Students had been practicing the routine throughout the year and were well versed in its enactment by the time this example was recorded. The data, both here and in ensuing extracts, are presented in the original Japanese followed by English translations. The first extract below is the opening of a social studies lesson:

Extract #1:

01 T Hai / Hajimemasu! Okay, let's begin!

02 Ss Shisei! // Ima kara shakai no obenkyoo o hajimemasu / rei! Sit up straight! We now begin the social studies lesson. Bow.

03 Ss {All students bow}

04 T Hai // minna no kooen to iu obenkyoo de ... Okay. The lesson is called Everybody's Park ...

In the above example, the teacher's first utterance calls for two designated monitors (Ss) to recite the speech formula that will open the lesson (02). This formulaic utterance, which can be thought of as the core of the routine, is called out in a loud, clear voice, using a formal register of Japanese. The Japanese word shisei ('posture' in a direct translation, but translated here as 'sit up straight') carries the dual function of calling the lesson to order while simultaneously emphasizing the importance of proper non-verbal behavior. Finally (03), the monitors' classmates acknowledge non-verbally, through bowing, that the lesson has been opened, which in turn serves as a cue for the teacher to begin the instructional phase of the lesson (from 04).

Aparallel performance of aisatsu was later used to close the same lesson:

Extract #2:

01 T Nooto o atsumegakarisan te o agete kudasai // ja kyoo wa mae no hoo no / migigawa no joshi atsumegakarisan // aisatsu ga sundara motte kite kudasai // owarimasu. Workbook-collection monitors, raise your hands. Let's see, today's collection monitors are the girls at the front right. After we've finished the aisatsu, bring them up here. Let's finish now.

02 Su Hai. Okay.

03 Ss Shisei! // kore de shakai no obenkyoo o owarimasu.// Rei! Sit up straight! We now end the social studies lesson. Bow.

04 Sa Nijikanme taiiku desu. The second period is P.E.

05 T Saa / moo kigaete kyooshitsu de / hora. Okay, hurry up and get changed, in the classroom.

06 Ss {Chat informally}

Other than the brief aside (02), the closing aisatsu mirrors the aisatsu used to open the lesson. The teacher completes the instructional phase of the 18 Creating Classroom Communities of Learning lesson (01), and provides the cue – 'Let's finish now' – which elicits a performance of the aisatsu formula (03). This serves as the formal ending of the lesson, after which pupils have a short break during which they are free to chat using a more informal register of Japanese (as in 04 and 06). The teacher herself (05) uses informal Japanese to address the students, as they are now operating outside of the formal lesson mode.

Extracts 1 and 2 together show that aisatsu tend to occur in opening and closing sets, and for this reason the routine is not simply a 'greeting' in the Western sense, but rather a device for framing classroom events. Similar framing devices have been discussed in studies of Japanese school interaction at other levels as well. Walsh (1998) has revealed how 'ceremonial boundaries' similar to the aisatsu of my study are used to frame junior-high-school class meetings. Tobin et al. (1989) have related the verbal framing of preschool activities to the Japanese concept of kejime, a uniquely Japanese term that implies the clarifying of boundaries between social situations requiring different behaviors. In the classroom, the opening and closing aisatsu function as explicit kejime to distinguish situations in which formal verbal and nonverbal behavior are required – such as the lessons themselves – from those in which less formal behavior is acceptable – such as recesses and the lunch break. Moreover, the switching between formal and informal registers according to situation is a pattern found not only in school classrooms but in society more generally. Lebra (1976), for example, has described 'situational interaction' as a primary characteristic of Japanese behavior.

So far the aisatsu routine has been discussed as a fixed conversational entity. In the remainder of this section, we will consider it from a developmental perspective. The extracts that follow illustrate how, through teacher feedback, students are socialized into proper use of the routine in cases where they do not carry it out according to protocol. In Extracts 3 and 4 – again, both openings of social studies lessons – the teacher emphasizes the importance of nonverbal parameters of the routine.

Extract #3:

01 T Hajimemasu. Let's begin.

02 Ss Shisei! // ima kara shakai no obenkyoo o hajimemasu./ Rei! Sit up straight! We now begin the social studies lesson. / Bow.

03 T Shisei ga warui kara / moo ichido shimasu. Your posture is bad, so let's do it once more.

04 Ss Shisei! // Ima kara shakai no obenkyoo o hajimemasu. / Rei!

Sit up straight! We now begin the social studies lesson. Bow! _

Extract #4:

01 T Hajimemasu Let's begin

02 Ss Shisei! // Ima kara shakai no obenkyoo o hajimemasu / Rei. Sit up straight! We now begin the social studies lesson. Bow.

03 T Hai. Okay.

04 T Ii ne // moo ichido onegai shimasu. That's better. Once more please.

05 Sa Shisei! // Ima kara shakai no obenkyoo o hajimemasu. / Rei. Sit up straight! We now begin the social studies lesson. Bow.

06 T Minna ni iroiro kaite moraimashite / kyoo wa kore no happyookai o shitai to omoimasu. I've had everyone write something, and today I'd like you to present what you've written.

In Extract 3, the teacher (03) requests a reenactment of the routine due to deficiencies in the pupils' posture. In Extract 4, it is the way of bowing that does not meet the standards, so this is corrected nonverbally in 03. This is followed up (04) by a call for a reenactment, which takes place in 05. With the lesson now officially opened, the actual instruction begins in 06.

One final example, Extract 5, illustrates a more complex version of the routine. In this example, which is the opening of a Japanese language arts lesson, the teacher explicitly socializes the students through the use of language on several levels.

Extract #5:

01 T

02 Su Hai // Shisei // Ima kara kokugo no ... Okay. Sit up straight! From now language arts ... {uttered in a quiet voice}.

03 T Dame! Stop! Shisei / Ichi ni! Sit up straight!, one, two!

04 Su Shisei / Ichi ni. Sit up straight! One, two.

05 Ss Wa ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.

06 Sa Ichi made iu n ja nee. You don't have to go so far as to say one.

07 T Imura-kun (Mr.) Imura.

08 Im Hattori-kun wa ... (Mr.) Hattori is ...

09 Su Shisei // Ima kara ... Sit up straight! From now ...

10 St Piisu. Peace

11 Su kokugo no obenkyoo o hajimemasu. / Rei. We begin the language arts lesson. Bow.

12 Ss {Bow}

13 T Shisei to iu no wa / Sensei no hoo o muite / Ima kara benkyoo desu // Onegai shimasu // Sensei mo obenkyoo sasete moraoo onegai shimasu. Sit up straight! Means that you face toward the teacher, and think, 'It's time to study now.' You also ask the teacher to help you study.

14 T Daisuke-kun / ohayoo. Daisuke, good morning.

15 T Hai / Onegai shimasu. Okay, please go ahead.

16 Su Shisei // Ima kara kokugo no obenkyoo o hajimemasu / rei. Sit up straight. We now begin the language arts lesson. Bow.

17 T Onegai shimasu to iitai keredomo / saito-kun ... I'd like to move on, but (Mr.) Saito is ...

18 Si Saito-kun. (Mr.) Saito.

19 T Hai / rasto wan // Hai / moo ichido // onegai shimasu. Okay, last one. Okay, once more. Let's go.

20 Su Shisei // Ima kara kokugo no obenkyoo o hajimemasu. / Rei. Sit up straight. We now begin the language arts lesson. Bow.

21 T Hai / Mazu hinichi to namae o kaite kudasai // sakki to onaji desu. Okay, first write the date and your names please. The same as before.

In Extract 5 above, a student monitor begins to produce the aisatsu formula in 02, but – apparently because of poor voice quality – the teacher aborts the aisatsu and calls for a reenactment (03). She may also be responding to an overall lax attitude by other class members. In the fourth and ensuing turns, one can see that by the end of the second grade, when this extract was recorded, students had become comfortable enough with the routine that they could take liberties in manipulating it. The monitor (04) playfully mocks the teacher by repeating her request verbatim rather than producing the expected response, which gives rise to extraneous laughter and discussion (05–08). Following this light-hearted interlude, the monitor is able (09) to recommence delivery of the formula, and the routine is completed with the classmates' bows (12). However, it is apparent (13) that this enactment is still insufficient. Here the teacher lapses into a metalinguistic explanation of what the routine means and why they are practicing it. This is a type of discourse that is relatively rare in the data, but significant in that it addresses students on a more intellectual level than when they are simply repeating pat phrases. After two more renditions (16 and 20) interspersed with additional distractions and requests, the teacher begins the content phase of the lesson (21), which also serves as implicit acknowledgment that the aisatsu has been accepted. In considering this extract as a whole, one thing that stands out is that there is a formal metastructure that defines the routine, but within this structure a degree of informality and extraneous chatter is permitted.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Creating Classroom Communities of Learning by Roger Barnard, María E.Torres-Guzmán. Copyright © 2009 Roger Barnard and María E. Torres-Guzmán and the authors of individual chapters. Excerpted by permission of Multilingual Matters.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847691137
• ISBN 13: 9781847691132
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192
• Editor: Roger Barnard, Maria E Torres-Guzman