CHAPTER FOUR CASE STUDY ONE PILOT
4.7 Analysis of trainees’ exchanges using talk partners
Pair talk or small group discussion enabled the development of understanding of language tasks, facilitated by exploratory talk. These learning techniques provided opportunities for one member of the group to model strategy use to peers and for the other members to try out and test, as commented by one trainee:
To start with, I was totally lost when we had to listen to the conversation for the first time. I didn’t get anything at all. The second time I managed to get two or three words because they kinda sounded like English but by the third time I could identify the one
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[talking about a speaker on a recorded conversation] who was grumpy then I showed [names peers] how to do it and found myself teaching them. (TR)
By concentrating on the speaker’s tone of voice and intonation, which TR described as grumpy, the trainee managed to get the gist of the text. She then used her experience to model strategy use to scaffold the learning of a peer.
Exploration of a text by using think-aloud protocols collaboratively enabled trainees to develop a joint understanding of the target language as it helped trainees to learn key vocabulary and grammatical structures. This is further illustrated in the conversation in Table 11.
The trainees used their prior knowledge to make links and they supported one another by identifying different strategies, modelling strategy use and then using this knowledge to contextualise their learning. In the conversation transcript below, it is possible to notice that one trainee takes up the role of the MKO, which is then played by a different member of the group. Making links to prior knowledge was necessary for trainees to make sense of the new language and identifying similarities between L1 and L2 supported understanding.
The use of prior linguistic knowledge played a key role in developing new learning. This has been widely discussed by Ausubel (1968) and more recently by Rupley & Slough (2010) and Clapper (2012) from the perspective of classification learning, a concept used to explain how concepts are formed. The use of prior knowledge in L1 in developing awareness and skills in L2 in this study is consistent with the findings of research in the field of experimental psychology carried out by Wattenmaker, Dewey, Murphy & Medin (1986), Pazzani (1991), Heit, (1994), Murphy & Alloperma (1994), Murphy & Kaplan (2000) and Rehder & Ross (2001). The findings in these studies showed that categories that are consistent with prior knowledge are learned more quickly in supervised classification tasks than categories that are inconsistent with such knowledge, and specific features of categories that are consistent with prior knowledge are learned more quickly than features that are neutral or inconsistent with such knowledge, as reported by Clapper (2012).
The transcript of the conversation below showed four distinct phases of interaction, which I identified following Vaughan & Garrison (2005) categories, namely triggering, exploration,
integration, and resolution/application. This model of understanding focuses on the
interactions of three presences: social, cognitive and teaching. Social presence is described as the ability of the participants to project their personality into the community of learning whilst cognitive presence refers to the extent to which participants in the community are able to construct meaning through collaboration. Teaching presence brings together the other two elements through design, facilitation and instructional responsibilities (Vaughan & Garrison,
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2005). Although the framework has been employed to analyse interactions in online communities, it was also useful to identify and analyse socio-cognitive processes taking place during interactions. Table 10 summarises the framework.
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Table 10 Model of phases of interaction (Vaughan & Garrison, 2005)
Categories Indicators Sociocognitive processes
Triggering
Recognising the problem
Sense of puzzlement
Presenting background
information that culminates in a problem.
Asking questions.
Messages that take discussion in a new direction.
Exploration
Divergences within the community.
Divergences within single message.
Information exchange.
Suggestions for consideration.
Brainstorming.
Leaps to conclusions.
Unsubstantiated contradiction of previous ideas.
Many different ideas/themes presenting in one message. Personal
narratives/descriptions/facts (not used as evidence).
Author explicitly characterises message as exploration – e.g. ‘Does that seem right?’ Adds to established points but does not systematically defend/justify/develop. Offers unsupported opinions.
Integration
Convergence among group members.
Convergence within a single message.
Connecting ideas, synthesis.
Creating solutions.
Reference to previous message followed by substantiated agreement, e.g., ‘I agree because…’
Building on, adding to others’ ideas.
Justified, developed, defensive, yet tentative hypotheses. Integrating information from various sources: textbook, articles, personal experience.
Explicit characterisation of message as a solution.
Resolution/application
Vicarious application to real world.
Testing solutions. Defending solutions
117 Table 11 Conversation transcript and analysis
Exchanges Strategies Analysis
Trainee 1: Hmm… Any ideas about it? It looks like… Erm ...
T1 starts the exchange by
engaging the other members in the group. (Triggering)
Trainee 2: This is a poem, innit? Look at the… What’s it?
Trainee 3: The stanzas.
Trainee 2: Yes the stanzas. It’s got the shape of the poem.
Planning (metacognitive) Skimming Scanning Activating schemata Pointing Reasoning (Cognitive) Overcoming gaps in communication (Compensatory)
T2 uses prior knowledge to identify the source of a text pointing at features of the format. T3 supports the elaboration of the understanding of the text by providing information on the genre. T2 uses the word ‘shape’ to compensate for the technical terminology that she had forgotten.
Trainee 1: Has anyone got a clue about what language this is written in? It ain’t French or Spanish.
Trainee 3: No this is similar to German but it isn’t proper German.
Trainee 2: It must be one of them ...Northern European languages. D’you remember he was telling us about that tune Anna Frank used to sing?
Planning (metacognitive) Skimming
Scanning Making links
Recalling prior learning Reasoning
(Cognitive) Discussing findings Negotiating (Social)
T1 scans through the poem and uses a process of selection based on prior knowledge to attempt an explanation. T3 appears to have set up some links and uses a prior learning event to contextualise the target language. (Exploration)
Trainee 1: Oh yeah! It’s Dutch then. Look at the pictures guys.
Trainee 3: Can’t really see the pictures they look blurred to me ...
Trainee1: If we take for example the word rug (inaudible
pronunciation) that sounds
red to me.
Trainee 3: There’s an apple on the picture and look at this one (pointing at a word in the page). This looks like apple. What d’you say?
Planning (metacognitive) Pointing
Making links Using clues to aid understanding Analysing written and speech patterns Reasoning (Cognitive) Discussing findings Negotiating (Social)
T1 refocuses the discussion by reading out a word whilst providing an equivalent in L1. By following the same procedure that T1has employed, T3 studies the pictures and recognises that spelling of a word is familiar. T1 develops her understanding by associating the two words which have already been identified and provides an explanation, supporting this by exploring the text further in order to check whether she was right. (Integration)
Trainee 1: Me thinks it’s about colours and objects like… Like here’s white… you see?
Trainee 3: That’s a cloud. Well done me!
Using key pieces of information (metacognitive) Making links to prior learning
Using clues to aid understanding
Reasoning (Cognitive) Negotiating (Social) Activating supportive emotions (Affective)
T1 shares the process she has used with the other members of the group, which is immediately followed by T3 who also manages to identify a new word
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The analysis of the above sequence falls into two areas, the strategies used and four distinct phases of interaction. With regard to the strategies, a number of different ones were combined and identified as follows (the classification corresponds to Oxford & Crookall, 1989):
a. Cognitive strategies: reasoning a situation and analysing a context through text scanning and skimming, schemata reconstruction through visual prompts and cognate words, inference of meaning based on experiential knowledge and prediction of the meaning of a text by comparing and contrasting their L1 knowledge with L2.
b. Memory strategies: based on the creation of a meaningful context (a story in this case) to situate learning; the visual aids accompanying the poem provided an opportunity for the trainees to store information and retrieve it later.
c. Metacognitive strategies: shown in the way in which the trainees were scaffolding their learning based on questions and answers. Various behaviours, such as pointing and trying to say a word aloud, are examples of a cognitive strategy. Although not transcribed, the trainees went on to analyse the sentence structures in Dutch and came up with a grammar rule for the use of personal pronouns.
d. Affective strategies: although less frequent, these techniques can be seen in the way in which trainees react to the task in hand and how self-reinforcement acts as a process to encourage them to continue with the task. Trainee Three commenting ‘well done me’ is an example of keeping the motivation going, which may have had an effect on Trainee Two, the least motivated one in the group.
The extract also shows a logical sequence in the use of strategies which was previously noticed in informal observations and analysis of voice recordings. The sequence consisted of six steps: Stage one: Activating prior knowledge by exploring a source.
Stage two: Discussing findings by focusing on evidence to support claims.
Stage three: Negotiating meaning (co-constructing understanding) by engaging in exploratory talk.
Stage four: Selecting key pieces of information from the source.
Stage five: Using those key pieces of information to produce novel L2 structures including self-assessment.
Stage six: Rehearsing L2 production whilst providing peer-feedback.
The above conversation (Table 11) finishes with the trainees identifying nouns, verb to be, and adjectives. This enabled them to build simple sentences using the structure subject, object, verb, complement (S+O+V+C), which they used in the context of colour descriptions of an object.
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Dörnyei (2005, p.191) states that self-regulation of academic learning, such as learning languages, is a ‘multidimensional construct, including cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, behavioural, and environmental processes’, which also encompasses the ‘volitional aspect of self- and task-management that provide the individual with the capacity to adjust his or her actions and goals to achieve desired results’ (Snow, Corno & Jackson 2000, p.751). The sequence of strategy use as described above is a clear example of planning and organisation of learning linking to metacognitive awareness and self-regulation. The stages identified in the resolution of problem solving in the current study are in line with the findings reported by Tseng, Dörnyei & Schmitt (2006), which focus on self-regulation capacity, which they referred to as the strategic fuel that enables learners to achieve positive outcomes. These researchers claim that ‘innate self-regulatory capacity fuels their [learners’] efforts to search for and then apply personalised strategic mechanism’ (Tseng et al 2006, p.79).
Vaughan & Garrison’s (2005) framework was applied to five recorded interactions (R1-R5) and the frequency of occurrence from these, showing the number of occurrences by phase, can be seen in Figure 10 below. With the exception of R3, the phases occur in very similar proportion. Showing that in this conversation, there is a greater number in the exploration phase, leading to an increase in both integration and resolution.
Figure 10 Phases of interaction (Vaughan & Garrison, 2005) in recorded conversations
Additionally, the number of occurrences in the triggering phase is almost identical to the number in the final phase, which show that collaboration in the form of exploration and
integration led to a successful completion of a task. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 N u m b e r o f o cc u re n ce s Triggering Explorat Integrat Res/Appl Triggering Exploration Integration Resolution
Phases of interaction in recorded conversations
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Rajala, Hilppo & Lipponen (2012) claim that inclusive exploratory talk is characterized by a great number of occurrences of integration. In the interactions analysed the integration phase included convergence amongst the members of the group, convergence within a single message, connecting and synthetizing ideas and creating solutions. This was a fundamental stage in the development of collaboration which resulted in a successful completion of tasks, and incidentally, fostered learning. Research undertaken by Rajala et al (ibid) showed that there was a direct relationship between exploratory talk and integration, an interactional move that tends to characterize symmetrical interactions. Also findings by Linell, Gustavsson & Juvonen (1998) indicate that integration makes conversations locally coherent, mutually responsive, progressive and non-imposing as was the case with the conversations analysed in the present study.
Finally, the analysis of the five recordings (R1-R5) also showed that the trainees used metacognitive strategies, including planning, assessing one’s learning, comparing and contrasting features of L1 with L2, amongst others, more often than other strategies. Cognitive strategies, such as skimming, scanning and reconstructing schemas were followed in frequency of use whilst compensatory strategies, for example, using miming or similar words to overcome gaps in communication, and affective strategies, such as managing one’s emotions and activating positive beliefs and attitudes, were used to a very limited extent. This is summarised in the figure below:
Figure 11 Frequency of strategy use in recorded conversations
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5