Picture discussion and the functions of language

Teaching and learning about grammar dominate our curriculum, and often, we get so engrossed in teaching the word classes that we forget why we are teaching these forms. For example, our students spend a lot of time doing discrete exercises where they fill in the right preposition or join up little sentences into longer sentences all without being aware of the real goal of these exercises. The real outcome of all this teaching is evident when we read our pupils’ writing and when we listen or talk to them during their oral tasks.

I thought about this when I was going through the picture discussion task with my teachers some time ago. Picture discussion is one of the 3 tasks that make up the oral examination at the primary and secondary school levels. Typically, students get a composite picture and they will talk about what is in the picture. If the focus is description, then they can describe what they see there, but unfortunately that’s not it. Instead, students are expected to interpret what is in the picture and to make comments on what they think has taken place before the event in the picture, what will take place after the event, and also what possibly led to the event. Often, they need to make conjectures about the emotions and thoughts of the people in the picture too.

When we think about the language students need in order to do this task, it is hard to just list a lot of grammatical terms. What we need to think about are the functions that students have to put their language to. In other words, what do they need to make their language do? Well, for sure, their purpose is definitely not just to tell the examiner what he or she can already see. Describing what is seen can be regarded as an acceptable use of language because it is a way to test a child’s vocabulary and general proficiency. But, I would say that this is a low level goal and perhaps better suited to the requirements at the foundation level. The picture discussion task can be made more thoughtful, more challenging and more meaningful if we expect our students to interpret what they see.

Understanding the functions of language that are needed for such an oral task helps us to narrow down the language that we need to teach our students. It also helps us be more precise in the kind of input we can give them for the task. And it also helps us to think about teaching students to use the language to do something, instead of thinking about what grammar structures to teach.

In order to make interpretations, one has to use language to

· make suggestions,

· hypothesise,

· predict and

· make guesses.

In the course of doing all these, students may need to ask some questions, make comparisons, hazard guesses, and decide on confirmations. So, what language need we teach our students so that they can carry out these functions during their oral task?

For example, if one has to venture a guess, to suggest or to predict, one may use some of these sentence openings:

· I'd say this is a...

· It might be ...

· He could be out somewhere.

· It looks like a little dog.

· Perhaps it needs food.

· Maybe someone left it in the park.

· It's difficult to say, but I'd guess the owner got tired of it.

· I'm not really sure, but I think the dog may find its way home.

· I think...

· Could it be...?

· I believe that...

If one is bring imprecise or vague or unsure, as might be necessary in some instances, here are some words or phrases that can be helpful:

· about 2 kilos

· approximately six o’clock

· There are a large number of people in the park.

· It's a kind of scoop for picking up dog poo.

· It's the type of place that people visit with their families.

They're the sort of people who expect everyone to follow the law.

The ability to use the right language functions, not just the right grammatical structures, contributes to more sophisticated discussion of the contents in a picture. Let’s imagine a picture in which a man is in the act of pouring some water out of a glass. Compare these utterances made about the picture:

1. The man is pouring away some water from his glass.

This is a statement of certainty. Saying this does not allow any room for dispute or further conjecture because there is an element of finality in this pronouncement. After making this statement, the issue of what else should one say, will arise. In other words, such a statement does not easily lead on to further thought.

2. The man could be pouring away the water from his glass. Perhaps the man is pouring the water from his glass. I think he is pouring away the water from his glass.

These sentences suggest that the speaker is uncertain and is making a suggestion or a guess. By doing so, the speaker is also paving the way to say more about why he or she has made such a conjecture. The speaker is then talking about possibilities and reasons for the man’s action and in doing so, he or she will come much closer to the whole notion of discussing.

Discussion is not a matter of stating the facts or describing what is obvious. Discussion involves exploring a topic, weighing its different aspects, examining the available alternatives, and all these are done through arguments, comments, questions, suggestions and reasons.

So in the picture discussion task, teachers would do well to teach pupils not just words and correct grammar, but also the suitable functions that students need to put their language to use in.

Our neglect in teaching these aspects of language use is perhaps also fuelled by the less than clear criteria set out for assessing oral tasks. Often, a main criterion is grammaticality, but we all know that in speaking, we should be more tolerant of grammatical slips, and that communication is more than just the right tenses or the correct subject-verb agreement. Knowing what is important in such tasks help us be more precise in setting out the criteria (and rubrics, since this is the flavour of the month) for assessment. Otherwise we risk prioritising the wrong criteria.

Our goal in teaching grammar must go beyond merely filling in blanks with the right words. If we do not focus on the use that the language structures can be put to in real life, there is a real danger that for all our marvellous examination results, we will end up with a population who are unable to communicate effectively. But they will all be very grammatical. Or will they?

Writing Blues and Facebook

Since moving my newsletter to this blog, I must admit that I miss writing about my other lives. I know many readers have enjoyed that section of my newsletter and have told me that they often read that first, instead of the featured article that probably took me twice as long to write. Since starting this blog, I have had fewer things to say about my other lives; I am not sure why though. I did write about my holidays but beyond that, it seems that my everyday life is whizzing past too fast for me to record any deep thoughts. Where’s the mindfulness you’ll ask. But whatever it is, the truth is that I am suffering from some writing blues too.

I have been writing a piece on teaching the functions of language and it is still sitting there on my desktop mocking me. It’s saying things like, “Is this the best you can do?”, “Do you know what you’re talking about here or not?” and other similar confidence sapping comments. So in a desperate attempt to kill these voices, I concluded the piece with a quick summary but it just felt like I have committed murder and now have a corpse to deal with. Ah well, I’ll just have to stick it in deep freeze and let it hibernate a while. So in the meantime, I have nothing useful to offer you.

I must confess though that part of my time in the last 2 weeks have been taken up by excursions into Facebook. I have always been on FB but under a pseudonym and purely for family exchanges. But having my own name up there also means a lot more interactions with friends and people, and what’s the point of a presence on FB without any postings? In a way, I like FB too because it allows me to post short bits of stuff as and when I like. So does a blog, you will say, but FB gives one the instant gratification that a blog doesn’t. And like it or not, more people are on FB and they log on to it more frequently.

So I’ve taken to posting several things on FB. One is my School’s Cool posts in which I post photographs of cool teachers and cool things I see in schools. If you are not a teacher, you don’t get access to many places within a school. I am lucky enough to be able to do this and I get to read stuff posted on walls and in toilet cubicles and I also get to see little nooks and corners of each school. Our schools are beautiful and contain many delightful surprises. This picture -the girls’ toilet in one school – is so completely unexpected in its design.

The view and the plants all make the toilet a real treat to visit. True, there are ugly and bad things in our schools, but generally these are few and far between. There are scenes of ugly behaviour, yes, but the physical infrastructure is always quite admirable. Sometimes we don’t think much of what we have here, but I have seen (and smelt) toilets in my nieces’ schools in Malaysia. These dank and disgusting places didn’t exist when I was going to school there as a child, and mind you, as a primary school child, we had to be given a lesson was how to use a flush toilet because most of us didn’t have one at home. What happened to the standards of hygiene there over the years will remain a mystery to me.

Another post that I intend to do every now and then will be short video clips or podcasts related to education. I posted one in my last blog entry here because I didn’t want blog readers to miss that. Some of these are short enough for busy people, and they are a good way to keep up with what’s happening around us.

And yes, there will be the usual sound bites about this and that and particularly about activities, people, places and things I am involved with. I don’t intend to inundate you or my page with all sorts of blow by blow accounts of what’s happening in my life, so don’t worry.

Other than Facebook, I am still busy working on the P4 textbook and teaching classes. Working on the textbook is a learning experience, and has given me so much insight into our education system. But, hey, I love my job so I have no complaints. In my free time, I am still practising yoga, gardening and reading. Yes, the reading has been taking up many hours of my days especially since I am now hooked on Susan Hill. I began with her Simon Serrailler detective series and then went on to her other books. I enjoy the characters in the book and the fact that the excitement in the books do not come from various imaginative ways of dismembering bodies, a feature of some of the more popular thrillers. I’ve also read her Lady in Black which is a really chilly ghost story. In between, I am trying to catch up with the many good movies and concerts in town.

Right, enough of the ho hum details of my life. I hope to get my act together and get the article done this weekend. No, let me rephrase that - I will get my act together and get the article done this weekend.

Texting can help kids learn to spell!

Teachers and parents, you don't have to despair. Texting is not that harmful to literacy after all.

Read this article about how texting can help kids learn to spell.

Discipline without Stress article

I have referred to the work of Dr Marvin Marshall before. Here is a link to an excellent article about his approach to discipline. It's an oldie but goodie. You will get to understand the philosophy behind his thinking and learn what the approach is all about. Dr Marshall has generously allowed the sharing of this pdf article in his website, and when you get there, this is the subheading you should look for:

USING A DISCIPLINE SYSTEM TO PROMOTE LEARNING
Read how the approach incorporates concepts of Stephen Covey, Abraham Maslow, Douglas McGregor,William Glasser, and W. Edwards Deming. In this featured Phi Delta Kappan article, learn how to promote both responsible behavior and academic achievement. The article can be downloaded, viewed, and printed in its ORIGINAL FORMAT by clicking on this PDF.

Discipline is an urgent issue now at home and in class, and Dr Marshall's approach may provide parents and teachers with another way to think about and implement disciplinary approaches.

I am on FACEBOOK!

Yes, after years of lurking around in the fringes of Facebook, I've finally decided to come clean and added my true self to Facebook. I set up my Yin Mee account last Friday, a few days after sending an explanation to a friend about why I don't have an account under my real name. But life is a fickle female so no lengthy explanations are needed for the change of heart.

I will be a bit more frequent on Facebook and a lot less wordy. Check the page out for quick thoughts, oddities in Singapore English, links to useful articles and peeks into my everyday life.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Hello all! Wishing you a very happy and prosperous year of the rabbit! May it be full of good cheer and good health.

Ah yes, it’s the evening of the first day of the year of the rabbit and already the year has begun on an energetic note. I don’t remember feeling this tired before although I don’t think I’ve done a lot. As usual, we had the family reunion dinner on Sunday and then again last night. The second time was a smaller dinner with my mother-in law rather than one in KL with my siblings because I won’t be seeing them till tomorrow morning. We had this year’s hot dish-the pen cai- a deep dish of thirteen types of meat and seafood. For me, it’s okay, and doesn’t deserve the accolades that it has been receiving. I didn’t have my usual white cut chicken because of it, and somehow a festive dinner without the chicken dish isn’t quite a festive dinner.

The first day of Chinese New Year is often spent visiting relatives and close friends and this year is no different. We began at 9.15 am and got home at 3 pm after visiting 5 families. After that, it was a quiet dinner of Indian food (mutton briyani, naan, dhall and butter chicken) before packing up for tomorrow’s trip to KL. CNY in KL is often more rowdy. Perhaps it’s my 7 siblings and the presence of little ones; my youngest nephews are 4 and 5 years old and can be a whole lot of fun. We will have lunch first of course, and a lot of photo taking, and this year we will all be posing with rabbit ears and rabbit figurines. Visiting relatives is also on the schedule, and I will be visiting some old aunties and some younger cousins.

Every CNY we will sit down and recall the festivities of our youth, and regale the young ones with stories of our activities. This year will not be any different. Thank goodness there are younger innocent kids to impress since the jaded older ones would have heard these tales ad nauseam. But it’s a sure sign of old age when we delight in recalling the old days, and truthfully, we do miss them. But with another year, the past gets left further and further behind, and often, the memories of the good old days are not enough to restore those ties and affections which have been strained through petty arguments and assorted misunderstandings. But such is life. I try to be positive and optimistic. I see each year as another opportunity to start anew and another chance for everyone to make an effort to work at restoring and renewing family ties.

So on this first day of the lunar New Year, I wish you all whatever your heart desires and most of all, I wish you all happy times with your family. If you are one of those who feel estranged from your family for various reasons, give yourself and your family members a chance to start anew. Elbert Hubbard ( I don’t know who he is) said it well:

No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?