'Advances

Classroom Teache

Volume 20, Number 1,June 2001

REACTReview of Educational Research and

Advances for Classroom Teachers

is a journal for teachers,teacher-trainees, principals, senior school personnel and educational administrators in Singapore and the region. REACT aimsto present accounts of recent research relevant to education across thecurriculum at all classroom levels. In the interests of communicating with a widereadership of practitioners, technical details of research and professional jargon arereduced to a minimum. Further details of original research reports and studies are provided at the end of each review.

REACT is produced by the National lnstitute of Education, Nanyang Technological views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the

Editorial Committee or the National lnstitute of Education.

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE

EditorJanet Holst

Editor

EditorsPhyllis Chew

Christine ChinJoan Fry

Robert Lumsden

National Institute of EducationNanyang University

REACT is published twice a year, in June and December. The Editorial Committeewelcomes contributions for issues. Deadlines for articles: February 28issue) and August (December issue). Please send articles to:

The Executive Editor, REACTNational lnstitute of Education

Technological University I NanyangSingapore 637616

Printed by Oxford Graphic Printers Pte Ltd.

FORWARD

It is no coincidence that all articles in this issue deal in some way with the theme ofin teaching and learning of helping students at all levels and in all areas of

study become more and active as learners. In recent years, the focus ofresearch and practice in education across the world has shifted away teacher-centred,

views of classroom instruction and learning to more learner-centredmodels. With this comes recognition of the major role learners themselves play in

interest in helpingstudents better understand their own purposes and processes in learning while developing strategies successful life-long learning.

the theme of this issue of REACT,underpins thewriters in the following articles clear, metacognition is the ability to reflect on one'sown thinking and learning processes. Metacognitive approaches to teaching all shareinterest in empowering learners by helping understand the nature of learning task, set appropriate goals, reflect on their progress and difficulties,and develop the learningstrategies best suit their own purposes cognitive styles.

and Crawford's article on stress was chosen to lead this issueof REACT because student stress bas a serious issue in at all levels. Effectivemanagement stress levels is vital, not only for learning and scholastic success,but for social interaction and achievement througliout life.

The articles by Eng Cheng, Lawrence Zhang and Zhang all focus directly on ways to enhance metacognitive awareness in student learning. Their papers, together)help present a clear picture of what metacognition involves and how it might be applied notjust in their own areas of music education and language learning,hut across other areas of thecurriculum as well. Wang Dukun's review of research into dictionaries in learning carriessuggestions for improving dictionary use to aid vocabulary learning and readingcomprehension.

As a new venture, is including a report of a research project carried out recently instudy described by Lachlan et linked NIE,Singapore schools and

trainee teachers in a joint innovative departure in teacher development and training: the useof desktop video conferencing to enhance teaching practice and practicum supervision.

played an important part in this project, students reflected and analyzedprogress problems in networked group conferencing.

Robyn Gail Cox's paper describes how listening to talk can help us access children's "knowledge funds" link school curriculum content meaningfully.The final paper byMichaelChia returns us to physical world and us again that learners are individualswith physical needs,and that something as basic as fluid deprivation in a tropical climateundermine their performance and interfere with learning .

JanetExecutive

CONTENTS

Foreword

I Stressed Out! Stress resolution for Singapore students

Lachlan

Music Meaningful: Using metacognition in music education

Wong Eng Cheng

My Inner Voice is Telling Me: Students' inner voice as metacognition

about language learning

Lawrence Jun Zhang

21 Learning for Listening: Developing metacognition for Listening

comprehension

Zhang

27 Should They Look it Dictionaries in language learning

Dakun

35 Research Feature:

Using Multi-point Desk Top Video Conferencingwith Trainees on

Teaching Practice

Lachlan Crawford,S. Swee Swee

Leslie Sharpe andAngela Wong

41 Listening to What teachers can learn

Gail Cox

49 What will You Have to drink? Implications for the physically active

Michael Chia

Subscriptions and Notes for Authors

A B O U T T H E C O N T R I B U T O R S

Michael Chia is a paediatric physiologist exercise and a health educationist in the Physical Education and Sports Science Group at NIE. Together with LaiKeun and Quek Jin Jong,he has recently published a Resource Book with CD-ROMcalled Well and Take Personal In Daily For aLife of

Chu Tee Teo is Assistant Professor in Specialised Edncation Academic Group atNIE, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She previously worked in theMinistry of Edncation a specialist in Gifted Edncation.Her research interests include teacher education and gifted education, in particular the areas of self-knowledge,volition, consultation and stress resolution for gifted She has published locally and internationally in her areas of research.

Robyn Cox lectures in the English Language and Literature Academic Group (ELL)at NIE,Singapore. Prior to this she taught in Universities inresearch interests are in primary language curriculum development, classroom interaction, and socio-cultural approaches in literacydevelopment for tertiary EFL

lectures in Policy and Management Studies

Wang is enrolled as a graduate student with English Language andNIE and teaches English in the Singapore Chinese High School. He has taught for over ten years in China and Singapore. His research interests lie in acquisition,particularly learning strategies, vocabulary acquisition, cross-culturalcommunication and teaching methodology. His articles have been published inSingapore,China and Japan.

Wong Eng Cheng, is Vice-Principal of Methodist School of Music,Singapore. She studied piano and violin (performance) at of

USA, and School of Music, New York,graduating with a inMusic Education (USA) in has givenand choral with church since her return to Singapore.

Donglan is an (MA) research student in the English Language and LiteratureGroup, NIE, Technological University.

Lawrence Zhang, is Assistant Professor in the EnglishLanguage and LiteratureAcademic Group, NIE, His interests are mainly inL2 learners' metacognition of language learning, particularly, reading. His articleshave appeared in Today, and

of

S T R E S S E D OUT! S T R E S S RESOLUTIONFOR SINGAPORE SCHOOL S T U D E N T S

IN 2001

Review by Chu Tee Teo and

Have you ever wondered why so fewindividuals possess such calmness andserenity that they are not shaken byadverse circumstances? 'Theseindividuals are often noted to be veryaccomplished and successful in life as well. human beings can becomecomposed and peaceful given similartoils and traumas in life,there is really noneed for so many others to feel constantly

While it may be toeducate youths in science and arts, it is

more essential to teach youngchildren how to cope with stress in theprocess of growing up,both at school and at home. Education, without teachingchildren about the intricacies of beinghuman, of knowing limits andcapacities, of how to be is reallynot complete.

It is a disturbing fact that Singaporestudents are "stressed" with cases ofteenage suicides reported in thenewspapers 2001; 2000;Goh, the concern of

and a surveyby the local press of 1,742 Singaporechildren aged ten to was found that almost four out of five studentsspend up to three hours studying afterschool; in receive tuition;andone in three attend classes like ballet,music, and out of school.

The main is that Singaporechildren are so stressed by school thatthey are fearful of failing inexaminations than of their parents dying

2001).

article examines the sources of stressin school students in Singapore andsuggests various strategies for resolving or at least cushioning, them.

REVIEW OF RESEARCH

What is Stress?

Rowshan 12) suggeststhat stressis a physiological response when aperson is by both real andimaginary dangers. Stress occurs whenthere is a discrepancy between thedemands made upon a person and orher ability to respond to these demands.It can have dire effects. School-relatedstress in is the most prevalent, untreated cause of academic failure inschools. It is believed to afflict analarmingsix to ten million children ayear(Barker, 1987). In any classroom oftwenty-five students, it has been

that between one and threestudents are at risk of developingrelated problems which would probablyinterfere learning (Hill Sarason,1966).

For those who are reluctant to face upto this challenge, stress becomes a source of pain and who willinglyface the challenge, enrichedby the experience. is stressful toone person may actually be a source ofstimulus to another. Understanding thenature of stress and how individualsadapt to it has important implicationsforpersonal as psychological

can be a or anto personal growth and fulfillment.Managing stress is thus an art,and life isa workshop in which people can master the art and in the process.

Sources of Studentsin

In recent months the concept of "stressin education" has been a topic in thelocal media. The Straits (Davies,

2001) reports that obsessionwith grades, the Primary Streamingexamination, the PSLE, homework,

books,extra tuition and thesecond language exams which students must pass to enter junior college oruniversity are major sources for stress forSingaporeanschool children. Indeed, thePrime Minister of Singapore, Mr GohChok Tong, has acknowledged that theeducation system is stressful. However, he pointed out that,since Singapore has no natural resources other than itspeople, it is important to maxilrlize thepotential of each and every individual.The education has thus been rather rigorouslystructured to bring outthe best in each child ("Parents can,"

Another source of stress is parents'unrealistic expectations of their children.

Very often, parents their children to out-of-school classes over and above what the school provides in the hope ofincreasing their children's academicperformance.These include computer

lessons.ballet lessons and tuition classes. Manyparents hnnt for popular assessmentbooks, tests,new techniques fordeveloping skills, andEnglish enrichment texts. It is estimatedthat parents spend up to $320 million ayear on private tuition eachfamily spending about $130 a month.

more than 28 million hoursare spent on extra tuition yearly("Tuition," As long as employersand scholarship sponsors value grades, Singh and Teng (2001) declare, thatparents continue to enroll theirchildren in tuition classes.

Stress on school children also comesfrom a variety of complex sociologicalfactors such as single parent families,child low socio-economic status,pressure from siblings and peers andother personal factors like emotional,social, developmental and learningdisorders ("They're not crazy," 2001).Psychiatrists have noted that children'sattendance at psychiatric risendramatically in the last few years. They believe that this disturbing trend isgenerated by a host of societal factorstaken together.

Recognizing stress

The first step towards successful intervention is to be aware of stress andto identify theof stress are warning signs for a personto become conscious of their mentalstate. They may be physical, mental.

.

2 REACT .JUNE 2001

emotional, social or spiritual (Rowshan, 1993, p.14-16). Examples of physicalsigns are a pounding heart, back pain,chest pain, or chronic fatigue. Mentalsigns include having racing thoughts,poor concentration. frequent lapses ofmemory, constant negative self-talk,phobias and suicidal thoughts. Emotionalsignsare rapid mood restlessness,feelings of despair, nervouslaughter and hypochondria. Social signs

withdrawal, lack ofcotnmunication, irritability towardspeople, resentment and intolerance.Spiritual signs include feelings of emptiness, lack of forgiveness, loss of meaning in life and hostility towardsothers.A person needs to be aware ofhow often and when these symptoms are experienced; for instance, whether theperson becomes depressed whenworking on a difficult project.

(1993) suggests that studentswho have a heightened sense of efficacy,that is, confidence in their ability tomanage stress, may be less vulnerable because they perceive themselves having the to cope with adversecircumstances. Some suggestions forhelping students develop stress-

strategies are given below.

should be noted that anyconducted beyond the bounds of

does more harm than good.Students must be encouraged to undertake work and play in moderation;excessive computeror syndromes of attending everytuition class,all need to be eliminated for healthy of children. Stresscomesabout when there is unnecessary

on a particular aspect ofgrowth, when there is no balancebetween study and towardsobtaining for the PSLE examinations,and neglecting all play is an example.

CONCLUSION

Children in Singxpore are under stress from a variety of sources including thedemands of a competitive education system; pressure. from parents; and avariety of social, developmental andemotional learning disorders. This canresult in alienation from school, absenteeism and ability tomanage stress successfully is critical ifstudents are to survive and thrive in theclassroom.

IMPLICATIONS

.Acquire consultation skills which will to sourceof stress discuss possible solutions.

Set aside a time once or twice a week to discuss your problems with another person a close friend or family you discusstry to find solutions to the stressful situation. By airing difficulties and attempting to negotiate a solution, you may be able to resolve your problems.

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REACT 1 a 200

Learn skills

effective organization skills.Break down large tasks into manageableto type and revise assignments on a word about

and your priorities and use the information to decisions. Learnto say "no" gracefully when someone offers you another (orunpleasant) task about which have a yourself that every stepyou take bring you closer to your goal. Mark the days that are left on the

and enjoy out each one as you near the finish.

Learn to time to usinguseless

This means planning your time; recognizing your tasks;placing them in somekind priority order;carrying them out;ticking them off as you doachieving a sense of at the completion each task.

Learn to meditate.

Meditationmeans quietening the you meditate,the mind focuses on a specific point and enters a state with the brain producingwaves,a of the mind.Meditation of twenty or more minutes a day is known to relax the and refresh or calm an overstimulated(Woodward, 2001, Rowshan,1993, p.

diet to reduce

Certain as drinks are loaded with caffeine, a stimulant known to increase cutting out caffeine. Foods whichcontain vitamin B complexes and vitamin Care known to be anti-stressors,soeat balanced meals of vegetables than diets tilled withfast foods and all, a sound mind works well in a healthy body

Take outfor enjoyable activities.

Everyone needs a support friends,teachers or relatives with whomyou have fun and be yourself,and set aside the pressures of or.difficult relationships. Reward your efforts, by giving yourself work breaks: listen to your music, shoot baskets or participate in some other

activity that is mentally or particularly inreducing stress. It not only provides time out, but also changes your body

you burn offmuscle tension built up from(Long,1988)

REACT JUNE 2001

SOURCES

Bandura. self-efficacyin cognitive developtnent andfunctioning. Psychologist,28, 117-148.

Barker,B.(1987). Helping students copewith stress.

Bradfield,R. Fones, D. (1984). Recipe for the special educationteacher's504.

,February24).Guesswho'sthe most stressed? The Straits p.H8.

(2000, February 6).Dead teen insuicide pact? 'Not a chance.' The Straits

p.2.

Hill. Sarason, S.B. (1966). "TheRelation of Test Anxiety andDefensiveness andSchool over the Elementary

Societyfor Research Child 31.

Long, B. (1988). Stress managetnent forschool personnel: stress-inoculationtraining and exercise. Psychology in theSchools.25,

rightkids,help them cope. The Straits Times,p. H34.

B.(2000, December 30). jumpsto over PSLE results. .Straits

3.

Parents can reduce kids' stress levels.(2001,April The Straits Times,

Rigorous education system 'benefits'S'pore. (2001, March 16). The

p.

Rowshan,A. (1993). Stress: An owner'sOxford:Oneworld.

not good enough for scholarship. Thep.12-13.

They're not crazy; just kids withproblems. (2001, March 20). The Straits

Tuition boon or bane may be here tostay. (2000, November 29). The StraitsTimes, p.H2.

Woodward, I;. L. (2001). Religion and brain: Faith is than a feeling.

May,pp.40-45.

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REACT JUNE 200 1

REACT Turns 21 ...

CELEBRATORY ISSUE, June 2002

Call for articlesREACT was first published in 1982. To mark years of areplanning special issue. We are particularly interested in publishing highly readable, state-of-the-art reviews of research and development in education, includingcurriculum studies, classroom practice,applications of new technology,based research, etc. Articles that provide appropriate historical ondevelopments in educational practice research in the region also be welcome.

should be submitted by March for theJune issue,and September 1 for theDecember issue. Please send articles to:

The Editor,NanyangTechnological University

Institute of Education1 Nanyang WalkSingapore 637616

REACT 2001

MAKINGMETACOGNITION MUSIC EDUCATION

Review by Wong Eng Cheng

INTRODUCTION

Metacognition is the conscious act of thinking about one's own thoughtprocess. we understand our own

can work better to achieveour learning goals. a metacognitiveapproach to are taught to remember and use strategies that they themselves have found to work best,enabling to learn more quickly and retain information longer.

psychologist,John H.Flavell of Stanford University, proposedthe notion of tnetacognition in 1970 asthe process of monitoring one's thinking.Since then, research studies have beenperformed in almost every area

the and applications of metacognition now reach far beyond

Yet although rnetacognitivestrategies are used in a of fields,the term is still unfamiliar to Thisarticle reviews some of the work onmetacognition in learning and explainshow it can be used in music educationto help students improve theirreading and performance. It suggestssome strategies that teachers can use tohelp students become more aware andmotivated in their learning.

One way to understand metacognitionis to contrast it with cognition. On thesurface it easy to distinguishbetween cognition and

Cognition refers to the ways in whichis processed; ways

it is attended to, recognized, encoded,stored in and then retrievedfrom storage to be used for one purposeo r another (Weinert, 1987).Metacognition, on the other hand, issecond-order cognition: it is "thoughtsabout thoughts, knowledge about

reflections about actions"8). A explanation

is offered by Metacognition refers t o one'sknowledge concerning one's own mental processes.... For example,am engaging in metacognition if Inotice that 1 am having more trouble

strikes me that I should double-check C beforeaccepting it as a fact; if it occurs tome that I had better scrutinize each and every alternative in anymultiple-choice type task situationbefore deciding which is bestone: if sense that I had better makea note of D because 1 may forget it;

think to ask someone about E tosee if1 have it right. 232).

Like other types of knowledge,meracognitive knowledge can be

deliberately by the individual, butit is more frequently used unintentionally

response to cues ina task situation.

REVIEW OF RESEARCH

three categories of metacognitive knowledge: person task knowledge strategy knowledge

OF METACOGNITIVE KNOWLEDGE

Person knowledge Self-knowledge which one acquires in human learning. It refers to the kind of acquired knowledge and beliefs

Task knowledge

(Adapted from 2000 and et

about what humans are like as human beings.

General about the subject matter and the wayto approach it; specific knowledge about the nature and demands of a particular music-specific skills.

Strategy knowledge

'The three types of knowledge areexemplified by the followingstatements:"I know she is sensitive to people'sfeelings" knowledge),"That lecture was so confusing that Icouldn't understand knowledge);

skim through the paper first to seewhether it's what after" (strategy

(Brown, 214).

General knowledge about the nature of strategies and their utility, and specific knowledge about when and how todeploy particular ones.

Of particular interest to educators is thequestion of whether metacognitivestrategies can be taught to youngchildren. was not known if young children were capable ofmetacognitive behaviour. Piagetiantheories, for example, state that pre-schoolers difficulty distinguishing their own thoughts from external reality,and when and (1986)investigated children's use ofmemorization techniques and theirawareness of what they were doing,both

authors concluded that younger children have not had enough learningexperiences to evaluate learning andproblem-solving methods. Youngerchildren, it seems,do not systematicallyanalyze learning tasks. They do not formulate plans for learning, or useappropriate techniques to enhancememon and monitortheir progress, because they donot (some cannot) understand thebenefits of doing these things.

However,Bongiovanni (1985) maintains that not only do young children use metacognitive strategies. but theyactually use them more than olderchildren;and (1987) study found that young could not onlydistinguish between mental images and actual physical could reflecton their own mental states and discuss apicture they held in their

8 REACT 2W1 JUNE 2001

These findings tally with Brown's (1980) earlier view that age is not a crucial factor

metacognition. He writes:deficiencies are the

of the novice, regardless ofage.. is not necessarily age related; rather it is more a ofinexperience a new (and difficult)

situation 475).

in Education

So how does metacognition fit into music teaching? Several writers have maderecommendations for music educators.Small (1987) outlines afour-stagestrategyfor dealing with most learning tasks inmusic:

defining the musical problem (whatwe want to know);identifying the point whatis and what is not);recognizing underlying assumptions;detecting inconsistencies.

Penick gives a list ofsuggestions for using metacognition formusic education see Implications forTeaching, below.

One of the best metacognition techniques music teachers can use isvideotaping performances and havingstudents evaluate them.Thiswill not onlyincrease group interaction, but probablyraise the standard of music-making as well. Much learning results from theinteraction when solving

analysis and evaluation ofexperiences are assigned to groups.because these higher level activities allfostermetacognitive thinking and requirecommitment, attention, and activeparticipation. When students are

comparing their own reactions,understandings and interpretations ofmaterials and concepts with others in thegroup, they are monitoring and controlling their own thinking(Pogonowski, 1989).

If we want to encourage metacognitivethinking during any musical activity,music teachers should notout" information. To developmetacognitive skills in our students weneed to lead them to active pursuit ofaccomplishment by helping them discover their own strategies for learning.A strategic learner needs to learn to askeffective questions. We can ask the sortsof questions that help students reflect onhow they learned. If students are able tocorrect their own mistakes and designtheir own efficient ways to learn, muchinstruction time and stress will be saved.

Of course,we to keep in mind thatdifferent students have different

different levels ofand some havefor awareness others.

But Penick (1988) two astruths:first. all students

can grow in as long as theyare involved in music, and that they will

more motivated effective as a result: and second, that growth inawareness needs to be initiated andmonitored the teacher

Correcting fingering, rhythm, and notesmay be a necessary and even productiveaspect of teaching, but we need toremember that correcting by itself is notreally teaching. On the other timecan be spent each lesson movingstudents up another step in awareness

by pointing out some previously

REACT JUNE 200

unheard, or unseen idea -students will be more involved andinterested,will want to play and will beable to play with more accuracy andunderstanding.

CONCLUSION

Though metacognition holds muchpromise for teaching, like othereducational strategy it stand onits own. Talented effective teachersand a strong are needed atevery stage. hlusic teachers must keepin mind that monitoring,evaluating, and revisitig are importantphases of metacognition, and each ofthese phases can be taught to helpstudents engage in metacognitive behaviours for productive results.Students are born not awareness butonly with the it,which theteacher must stretch and deepen so thatstudents may learn to perceive, hear and feel in an ever-increasing1988).

The role of a educator is primarily one of the ideallearning environment is one that willfoster independence and the

of self-regulation and necessary for lifelonglearning.

It is really important that asteachers we develop independentmusicians - individuals who cancontinue to learn music after they leave the formal instructional setting. Ahealthymusic students areguided to understand how they learnandto be aware of they are learning,will foster understanding and appreciation of the aesthetics and valuesof music.

For this we need to be able tostutlents so they want to music a part of their lives. The ofmotivation is something musicteachers have aware of It ismotivation that propels students to learnand to achieve. is stronglylinked with motivation, but likeeverything else, metacognition improvesand benefits from practice. Musicians

are aware of their thinking andlearning will become better performers,

and teachers of music.

SOURCES

Bongiovani,M. B. (1986). The effect ofgrade and type of taskon metacognitive awareness inelementary mathematics (Doctoraldissertation, University of MarylandCollege Park, 1985).Abstracts

Brown. A . L.and reading. In J. Spiro,

(Eds.),TheoreticalIssues in ReadingHillsdale, N J : LawrenceAssociates.

Brown, A.L. Newinsights into old problems? British

of Studies,

K. Metacognitive skills.In G.D.Phye Cognitive

Orlando, FL:Academic Press.

Estes, D. (1987). Preschool children's understanding of mental(doctoral University of

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10 REACT JUNE 2001

Michigan. 1986). Dissertation Abstracts

J. Metacognitiveaspectsof problem solving.In L. B. Resnick (ed.),The Nature of NJ:

H. (1979). Metacognition andcognitive monitoring.

1.

Kail, R. (1984). The ofMenzory Children SF:Freeman.

Paris, S.G., Wison, K. K.(1983). Becoming a strategic reader. Contemporary Psychology,

(1988). Growing awareness:Notes the piano Gates(Ed.), in theStates: Issues296). Tuscaloosa, AL:The University ofAlabama Press.

L. (1989). Metacognition: adimension of musical thinking. In E.

ofThinking (pp. VA: MusicEducators National Conference.

R. (1987). Music teaching andcritical thinking: What do we need toknow?Music4649.

E. Metacognition and motivation as determinants of effectivelearning and understanding. In E .

and R . H.Metacognition, andUnderstanding Hillsdale. NJ: Lawrence

Associates, Publishers.

L.J. (2000). Research onmetacognition and reading in a second language. REACT June 21-27.

REACT JUNE

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METACOGNITION INMUSIC EDUCATION

FOR TEACHING

I . Develop visual awareness aimed at building a visual of allpart of score:

What is the overall form?What sections are the sections are different? How?

is the metre?Key?What is the meaning of each term used? What is the basic dynamic plan?What is the basic harmonic plan? Does the title suggest a character or way of playing?Does the composer's name suggest a style of playing?

Develop physical awareness by

Learning to recall the physical sensations necessary for a specific passage:Guiding the student toward the correct "feel" for performing such technicalaspects as runs, leaps, rotation, trills,arpeggios. and the like;Diagnosing incorrect physical movements, often able to be seen;Imaginatively translating a correct movement into a transferable sensation,such as being aware of one's standing posture while playing the violin.

Develop aural awareness directed listening

(Adapted

MY INNER IS TELLING ME: STUDENTS' VOICE AS

ABOUT LANGUAGELEARNING

Review by Lawrence Jun Zhang

INTRODUCTION

Increasing numbers of educators andteaching practitioners in applied linguistics have realised the important

students themselves play in languagelearning. In fact, the role that students play as individuals mostcrucial than other factors, such as the learning Researchsuggests that learner awareness, or

necessary forlearning. Flavell (1987) definesmetacognition as "knowledge andcognition about cognitive Hebroadens this to include "anything

1).

A key component of metacognition iswith metacognition,

the notion of inner voice can help teachers better understand and identify students' learning processes and difficulties 1996; WilliamsBurden, 1999;Tomlinson, 2000). Such difficultiesstem other things,their expectations. the worries andanxieties caused by their strong ambition to succeed, brought into thelearning process their own anguish,and frustrations due to their perceptions

the language learning process and theimbalance between amount of timespent and success achieved

can all bereflected through students' inner voice(Tomlinson, 2000).

Understanding inner voice can also helpteachers learn how students mentallyinteract with their peers and with thephysicalworld around them as they growwith the languageconcept is particularly relevant to our understanding of English teaching in theSingapore context, given the closerelationship English language has withstudents'future career advancement.

This article reviews some of the researchinto the role of students' inner voice inlanguage learning and suggests some

tions for classroom practice.

REVIEW OF RESEARCH

do rue by inner voice?

In the literature, the terms "innerand speech" are used interchangeably.

1998) and Lantolf (2000) use"private speech" for what is elsewherereferred to as "inner voice"Tomlinson, 2000). Private speech,

REACT .JUNE 200

according to Lantolf is a form oflanguage play through which learnerssynthesisenew input and so putthings into key tothis internalisation, he claims, iscommunicative of the social as

as the private kind. Thus, he says,second languagelearning goes on not just

our heads, as input-processingapproaches maintain, but outside of ourheads as the knownas private speech.

(2000) describes how innervoice functions in language learning asfollows:1. We use our inner voice when we

produce speech sounds in the mind.We use it whenever we talk toourselves, whenever we want to develop our responses and thoughts,and whenever we need to makedecisions or plans.

2. The inner voice is also the voice that is used to achievethe articulatoryloop,a means of making speech sounds inthe head to aid the processing oflanguage seen or listened loopcan he said t o consist of twocomponents, a "passive inputphonological store" and "an activearticulatory process".

articulatoryloop is used to mentallyecho some of the words we hear whenlisteningand most of the words we seewhen reading.It does this so that we can

with other people's words, so thatwe can giveour own

on salient utterances,so that wecan trigger off sensory and affective associations. and so that we can retainthe words longer in temporarystore

2000,

Williams and Burden foundevidence for students'use of inner voicein learning. Through interviews, theyinvestigated the way in which students conceptualised the notion of "doing

together with their perceivedreasons for their successes and failures:all of which reflected the students' ownconceptions of themselves as learners.They found that most students tended tojudge their success by external factorssuch as teacher's approval, marks orgrades. However, their explanations alsorevealed the use of inner voice, whichsuggest that metacognitiveawareness of the positive negativefactors involved in their learning asecond language could help themarticulate worries and anxieties relatedto their thus themto set clearer learning goals.

Why is

The concept of inner voice, whencoupled with a recent three-stageof language advanced John

can throw light onthe prohlems of production and fluency in second language learning and use. InAnderson's theory, language processingand production entails three stagesperceptual processing, parsing andutilization. In perceptual processing,portions of new text are retained in ShortTerm Memory to be processed formeaning.The second stage, parsing, iswhere meaning-hased represenrations ofnew are constructed. In thefinal stage, utilization, the learner relatesa mental representation of text todeclarative alreadystored in

Memory

REACT 201 .JUNE 1

This model helps us appreciate that when students process language, theyhave to mentally, and sometimes vocally,"prepare" the language data prior toproduction for the listening "audience".The same is true before they read aloudor listen in the an audience ispresent.

Are the same?

Tomlinson (2000) claims thatvoices in and aredifferent. The inner voice in LI, hemaintains, is characteristically elliptical, vague, implicit, and incomplete although coherent.In its vocabulary range andsyntactic structures are restricted andnarrow and it relies heavily on nonverbalfeatures such as intonation and in inner voice,grammar and lexis aresimilar to speech heard in intimate,

colloquial, unplanned discourse (seeCarter these terms).Inner voice vocalizations can bemeaningless if heard out of context,butthey are meaningful for the learnersthemselves, expressing as they do thelearners' "relationship with their ownbeing".Expressions like "say "so

to do?",and"did are typical Singaporean examples of what it might mean to showone's inner voice when faced with adifficult situation in language learning.

Tomlinson (2000, pp. lists 12 main of inner voice in languagelearning, and for the sake of

and clarity,they are listedbelow, so that the basic tenets of theconcept can be captured 1).

Table 1

Inner Voice1. Repeating Repeating utterances that are being listened to or

of the experiences6. Recalling Talking to oneself to spark and supplement sensory

being read 2. Mental Setting up what is being

Representation processed and what is already known by the learnerthrough use of inner speech, and

which can bring back students'representationsof what they are trying to recall

3. Connecting

4. Responding

5. Remembering

REACT 1

affective responsesMaking connections through images theinner voice to establish some kind of relationshipsbetween speech orExpressing views on what are reading, listening, or experiencingStoring in personal mental representation

JUNE

7. Developing Cultivatinga of thought through the thought inner voice

Using visual imagery to project whatthrough the inner speech

through the inner voiceof the troubles,anxieties,

some potentially positive future event, makingmumbling expressions of

for presenting oneself beforeaudience

appropriateness, effectspeech production for accuracy,

research has shown that while inner voice in performs manyfunctions, use of inner voiceis comparatively could bebecause language learningactivitiesare organised around encouraging,urging, or even coercing students tospeak up what they have just learnt

and 1985; McCafferty,The pressure to perform in

classroom contexts can obviously affect students' confidence, and under these

errors in speech are morelikely to occur. In fact, the main reasonfor increase in speech errors mightbe the learners' high degree ofnervousness in expressing themselves,and that this prevents them fromtheir inner voice in the normal way.

Another of how andinner voices differ is reported byMcCafferty In an experimentwhich an adult native speaker and aintermediate participant were asked tonarrate a series of six pictures, thelearner and the learner demonstrated their reaction to the pictures in different ways.The learner used private speechto label the components of each frame

and signal knowledge of the task;whilethe native speaker presented a coherentand cohesive narrative

events rather than objects (seea b below, from

McCafferty, p. 426).

a)learner)

He tries theDuck his hats. learner)

These differences suggest thatlearners and learners might emphasisedifferent aspects in a speech eventbecause of their different mental representations of the eventidentification and description vs. cause/effect reasoning).

The differences are interesting,particularly in connection with what

and (1985) have reportedthat "errors" may reflect thespeaker's mental orientation rather than

failure to use the L2this finding also coincides with

results, whichindicate that ESL learners' use of privatespeech or inner voice might actually be

REACT 2011 JUNE

regulated by their level of proficiency.Higher proficiencylevels in the language, it seems, enable students to speak theirminds, thus facilitating progress. Incontrast: low language proficiency is aninhibiting factor. We should remember,though, that other affective factors likestudents' anxiety,reservations, and such,probably need also to be taken intoaccount.

DISCUSSION

the above review suggests, students'inner voice in and their inner voice in

are different, and that inner voicefunction is linked with higher languageproficiency, it would seem that students are advantaged, having morechances and alternatives to release theiranxiety in language production. Bycontrast, in students are constrained both linguisticallyand by the classroomcontext. Consequently, they are not asfree as their counterparts to expresstheir private voice in targetlanguage.

learners' inability to use the targetlanguage further restricts their ability toformulate and rehearse utterances

they really resort to thetarget language to realise theircommunication goals.lt seems clear thatL2 learners are doubly this reason we need,as makeconscious attempts to help students develop their own ways of expressingtheir thoughts More training

encouragement are crucial inrespect.

Paradoxically, common classroompractice seems directly to discourage this. The tendency is for teachers to check

use by monitoring, or even overcorrecting their speech errorswhile are performing a task inthe No doubt teachers see correction as an important part ofinstruction, but the point needs to beclarified When teachersstudents freedom to develop a nvoiceso that they can their own

voice classroomactivities? Given the principle that focussed instructional activitiesshould be centred around andmeaning in language teaching, wheredoes the idea of developing inner voicefit in?

Obviously "meaning" has to be theparamount concern in languageproduction, yet "form" should not beneglected. (See Zhang, for a review). Teachers will need to help their

develop thesolution is to both approaches and encourage students' inner voicedevelopment through a two-stageprocess in classroom procedures. The first stage can be focused primarily ondeveloping inner voice, and the secondstage on both meaning and form.

I that a process will alsoencourage learners to become more metacognitively aware of their potentialand limitations as language learners andusers. The point is this: teacherintervention aimed at helping studentsmonitor their own production can onlybe relevant and meaningful whenstudents are beginning to develop theirinner voice, or have developed one. Inother correction is bettert h a n correction i n

activities.

REACT JUNE 2001

Activities for developing students' SOURCESvoice could be made a priority, for

Anderson, J. R. (2000). Cognitiveits

presentations. Similar activities can beintroduced in relation to readingor listening tasks, so that students can

Grammar and spoken language.learning and using the language. Applied

CONCLUSION

As teachers, we need to pay closeattention to students' inner voice in the

we can become more awareof the role of the "inner voice" in our

learningwill be in a better position to discovertheir learning problems, and these can

as guides for designing remedial action 1996). is nowwell accepted that teaching is acollaborative activity If students can bemade metacognitively of their ownpriorities in language learning,and their

potentials and weaknesses aslanguage learners,language learning andteaching will more successful (Schmidt, 1993). Finally, if teachers are to apart in the Ministry of Education's new

education programme inSingapore schools, they will need tounderstand how their students perceive their own language learning experiences.

An understanding of students'innervoiceis essential if teachers are to help theirstudents achieve their potential aslearners and with the language theyare learning.

Gopinathan, S., & Ho,W. K.(1999). Growing u p in

Singapore:Prentice Hall.

J. H. (1987). Speculations aboutthe nature and development ofmetacognition. In E. R. H.

(Eds.),motiuation (pp.29). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

& J. (1985). Second language discourse: A Vygotskian

Linguistics,

J. (2000). Going out ofhead! speech Keynoteaddress presented at Language in theMind UniversityofSingapore, September, 2000.

G. The use of private speech by adult ESL learners atdifferent levels of proficiency. In J.

approaches to language(pp. 117-1 34). NJ:

Ablex.

Adult secondlanguage learners' use of private speech:A review of studies.

REACT JUNE 2001

G. (1998). Nonverbalexpression and L2 private speech.Applied Linguistics, 73-96.

D.(1996). Hidden voices: Insiders'perspectiveson classroomK. M. Bailey D. (Eds.), Voicesfrom the language classroom 4 1 56). Cambridge: CambridgePress.

Schmidt, R. (1993). Awareness andsecond language acquisition. AnnualReuiew Linguistics,226.

Tomlinson,B. to yourself: The role of the inner voice in language learning. Applied Language Learning,

Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought a n dlanguage.Cambridge, MIT Press.

Williams, M. , Burden, R. (1999).Students' developing conceptions ofthemselves as learners. Modern Language

Zhang. L. J. Shoot the whiteelephant with a cannon? Form-focussedinstruction in second languageacquisition. Reuiew of EducationalResearch and AduancesforTeachers,

Zhang, L. J. Metacognition inL2 reading literacy acquisition. In A.Brown in

96). Singapore: NanyangTechnologicalUniversity.

Zhang, L . J. UncoveringChinese ESL students' reading anxietyin a study-abroad PacificJournal of Language in Education,

31-56. .

INNER VOICE

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING

1. Expand students' metacognitiue awareness of the role of the innervotce in language learning by:

asking them to talk about the target in a language they prefer using; teaching special techniques to use the inner speech, murmuring what isgoing to be up about one's anxiety when faced with a languageproduction task;encouraging to use the inner speech before and afteractivities in the classroom.

2. Help students to anxiety and develop own inner voice by:

using simple and colloquial in the classroom;usmg plain but correct and proper language in giving instructions to studentswhen organising language activities in the classroom;building up through teacher-support and peer-evaluationso that they have more courage to face the in learning the language.

Help students develop their cornmunicattve languageproduction acttvities by:

using various texts, preferably texts which are thought-provoking so thatstudents can be exposed to varieties of language and realistically understand

language works in its real fortn;permitting certain degrees of use in the L2 classroom so that students canproject as intelligent, creative of restrictedby their low L2 proficiency in the expression of ideas,thoughts and opinions:trying to link students' inner voice to their L2 inner voice by acceptingsome1.1 use in their reflections on their L2 learning to reduce fear of using L2to their thoughts;designing classroom activities that are aimed at developingskills in the target language.

4. Stretch students a little further by their inner voice invarious through:

incorporating inner voice development in both and L2 Speech and Dramaactivities and other activities preceded by teacher-scaffolding;, training students on the spot during activities to develop their own inner voice through introspective reflection on what they are strong and weak in.

REACT

LEARNING F O R LISTENING:METACOGNITIVE AWARENESS AND

S T R A T E G Y U S E T O D E V E L O PLISTENING COMPREHENSION

Review by Zhang

INTRODUCTION

Increasing attention has been given tothe importance of listeningcomprehension for better academicsuccess (Flowerdew, 1994; Goh, 1997,1998, 1999, 2000; Vandergrift, 1997).Listening, it seems, internalises the rulesof languageand facilitates the emergenceof other language skills, and addressingstudents' needs second languagelistening can help clarify the process oflistening. However; listening skillsdevelopment in Singapore has generallybeen neglected. One of the possible

observed by Zhang apopularly held belief that Singaporeanstudents'listening ability will come alongnaturally given that they learn English asthe first language and live in a relativelyinput-rich environment for learning

painful fact is, however, thatnot all students listen equally well.

As early as 1986 , (1986)cautioned that more attention neededto be paid to the development ofSingaporean s tuden t s ' Englishlistening comprehension skills and hechose to do so by finding out ways ofdeveloping teache r s ' l i s ten ingcompetence. Rather recently, Dr Low Ee Ling of the National Institute ofEducation stated in a roundtable

discussion organised by the SundayTimes (25 July 1999, p. 37) that ofher teacher trainees said that they oftenhad to code-switch to SCE (SingaporeColloquial English) or Singlish, simply because they found theis and that they didn'tunderstand when were spoken toin sentences.

Listening comprehension is morecomplicated than normally assumed.Beside the transient nature of speech andthe general linguistic challenges imposedon the listener, many other factorscontribute to listeners' comprehensionproblems(Goh,1999,2000; 1994;

1987). Kecent research showsthat what distinguishes good and poorlisteners is the extent to which listenersare aware of their own efficiencies aslisteners and the effectiveness of theirparticular strategies for meaningconstruction 1997, 1998). Good listeners have a better understanding ofthemselves as listeners and of listeningitself, and use strategies actively andflexibly to assist their comprehension,

only in daily l i e interactions, but alsoin their verbal interactions in theacademic environment Goh, 1997, 1998; Murphy, 1985; Vandergrift, 1997).

REACT 201 JUNE 200

These new findings should offer us someoptions for helping our students enhancetheir listening and thus improve theiracademic performance.

This article reviews the research findings about the dynamic nature of secondlanguage listening comprehension processes and the effects of strategytraining on listening comprehension. Itconcludeswith recommendations for developing listeningskills in the

REVIEW OF RESEARCH

One relatively recent focus of researchhas been on identifying listeners'problems in second language listeningand their knowledgetheir problems (Goh,Other research has differencesbetween good and poor listeners in using

comprehension strategiesand investigated

the effects of training learners to uselistening strategies (Chamot. 1995;

Chamot, 1990). Because thisresearch focuses on the listeningprocesses of language learners, the

could offer insights for Englishteaching in Singapore.

Metacognitive Awareness aboutListening

Metacognitive awareness is thought tocontribute significantly to languagelearning 1998). According to

(1992,knowledge ofknowledge or beliefs about factorsor variablesact and interact in whatto affect the course and outcomes ofcognitive enterprises". This knowledgehas three components: person. task and

Adopting three-divisionalframework,Goh (1997) investigated themetacognitive knowledge aboutin English possessed by a group of PRCtertiary-level students who were on an intensive English programme inSingapore. Through detailed contentanalysesof the data gained from listening

she was asked to construct aprofile of these listeners' metacognitiveknowledgeabout learningto listen in ESL.Table 1 outlines the three types ofmetacognitive knowledge and their respective subcategories that emerged from the study.

Table 1Categories and Subcategories of Metacognitive Knowledge aboutESL Listenine Possessrd bv 40 Subiects in the Goh Studv

during listening comprehension comprehension Problems during that is useful for Strategies for listening developing listening developing listeningObstacles to Nature of second Stntegies that do notcomprehension language listening always workObstacles to listening

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22 REACT JUNE 2001

She found important differencesbetween high-ability listeners andability main difference was

high-abilitylisteners showed almosttwice as much metacognitive knowledge about listening as low-ability listeners.

recent study by Cromdal (1999) investigated Swedish-English bilinguals'

their awarenessabout language into twogroups, they were asked to completethree tasks: symbolic substitution,grammaticality judgement, andgrammatical correction. wantedto see if the language skillcomponents control of linguisticprocessing and analysis of linguisticknowledge enhanced bilinguals'linguistic awareness. His findings showthat indeed may enhancelinguistic knowledge, hut it probablydoes not improve production. Thissuggests that there is a link betweenbilingualismand aspects of metalinguisticawareness.

Use ofStrategies

Goh (1998) also examined PRCstudents' listening strategies. Fromdata col lec ted through listeningdiar ies , group interviews andindividual verbalisations, she identifieda number of comprehension tactics.Six strategies were used mostfrequently students: inferencing.f ixat ion, contextual isat ion, comprehension monitoring,

selective attention. Gohfound tha t high-ability l is tenersemployed more and more variedstrategies and tactics than low-abilitylisteners. She found that prior

knowledge played a crucial role inlearner comprehension, and that first and second language comprehensioninvolvedsimilar strategies.

Goh then listeners' strategy knowledge and strategy use. Fifteen ofthe used during listening werealso reported useful for comprehension. However,students identified specific tactics as

students used thosestrategies. Goh suggests this could hebecause students use strategiesand yet notconsciously",probably because they are drawingon cognitive resources they have developed in their first language. moresimple what were alreadyautomatised mental procedures in theirfirst perhaps now partiallyautomatised in L 2 , still requiringconscious and some degree ofcontrol.

concluded that students' use ofstrategies might not always he assystematic and predetermined asgenerally believed (Chamot, 1995).

might begin initiallyasdeliberate steps hut gradually becomemore spontaneous with practice and use, and eventually becomeIf this is the case, teachers clearly have arole to play.

Vandergrift (1997) found thatrnetacognitive strategy use increasedwith proficiency levels, thatintermediate listeners used twice asmany rnetacognitive strategies as novice listeners. Novice listeners, he found,tended to use lower level cognitive

as translation, andmetacognitive strategies

reportedly used frequently by theintermediate listeners appeared to beimportant in distinguishing successful from less listeners.

Effects of Strategy

Strategies are "steps, plans, insights, andreflections that learners employ to learnmore effectively" 1995. 13).They are very important in both first andsecond language listening. But efficientand critical listening is not easilyobtained- it requires systematic training.Listening strategy training is atincreasing researchliterature (as reported in

suggests strategy training does lead to an increase in listeningcomprehension. (1995) recentreview of studies on the effects ofstrategy training . on listeningcomprehension also indicates thatstrategy training can enhance listeners'comprehension.

CONCLUSION

The studies reviewed all indicate that teaching students listening strategies todevelop their own learning thelanguage is both efficient and cost-effective. It can also broaden students'metacognitive knowledge. Given the keyrole English has in the wider school

that English input in theclassroom in Singapore is notadequate for a variety of reasons(Saravanan Gupta, theimportance of increasing students'awareness about effective strategies fororal communication (listening andspeaking) cannot be underestimated.Listening comprehension, like reading

a strategicprocessneeds to be taught by the classroomteacher. Enhancing students'metacognitive awareness is an essential part of teaching listening. Skills-strategytraining is thus particularly relevant toclassroom practice.

r IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING

Raise students' awareness themselves as theimportance of planning listening by:

teaching students to plan for listening;

setting up a purpose for listening and prepare students for the listening task interms of its content area, topics, and discourse means givingstudents adequate guidance about the features of differentgenres of discourse;

encoumging students to use which they can apply to their real-lifelistening comprehension monitoring strategies to checkthe accuracy of their comprehension.

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REACT

to strategies they found to be andin by:

assigning rhem listening to record their learning for the dayand having them reflect on what success and mean for interactive listening and spcaking;

. providing listening and speaking cxpericnces to listenerconfidence and awareness through group or class discussions.

Help strategies into skills

them to evaluate their own effectiveness as listeners, the listening tasksand the strategies they in their comprehension processes;

encouraging them to consciously use the strategies they find from theirown expericnccs.

SOURCES

A (1995). Learningstrategiesand comprehension. In D.

J. A guidefor the of language

13-30). San CA:Dominie Press.

and metalinguistic skills:Analysis and control in Swrdish-English

J. H.cognitive monitoring: area ofcognitive-developmental inquiry. Nelson (Ed.).

(pp. Boston, MA:Bacon. [Original published

Flowcrdcw. J. (Ed.) AcademicResearch

Cambridge Press.awareness

and second language listeners. ELT

Goh, (1998). How ESL learners withdifferent listening abilities use comprehension strategies and tactics.Language TeachingResearch,

Goh, C. (1999). learnersknow about the factorstheir listening comprehension?

of Applied Linguistics, 17-42.

Goh, (2000). A cognitive perspective on language learners'comprehension75.

Gopinathan, policy

25

changes PoliticsPedagogy In S. K. input in Singapore English classrooms.Ho V. Saravanan Language, RELCsociety and education in Singapore:Issues and pp. 19-44). Seet, 0. B. H. A n innovative

Academic Press. approach to language an applied

Murphy, M investigation intothe listening strategies of ESL college thesis, National University of Singapore.students. [ERIC No. ED 278 275.1

L. The comprehensionM., U. (1990). strategies of second language (French)

Learning strategies in second language listeners: A descriptive study.acquisition. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

A. L. (1998). Metacognitive Samuels, J. (1987). Factors influencing knowledge and language learning.listening and reading In Linguistics, 5R. Horowitz S. Samuels

oral and writtenlanguage (pp. SanAcademic Press. .

JUNE 200

SHOULD THEY LOOK IT UP? THE ROLEO F DICTIONARIES IN LANGUAGE

LEARNING

Review by Wang

INTRODUCTION

A dictionary is among the first things a foreign language learner purchases and most language teachers believe thatdictionaries can assist the learning ofvocabulary (Scholfield, 1997).Dictionaries give information on wordderivation, meaning, spelling andpronunciation. A good dictionary carries additional information about grammarand usage, synonyms and derivations,aswell as distinctions between spoken andwritten English.

However, many educators andresearchers discourage the use of

idea that words can belearned through dictionaries, they say,may not be linguistically sound.Honeyfield (1977: for example, issceptical of the value of dictionaries.Hesays that trying to learn a new word bylooking it up in a dictionary is a form ofrote learning, and that it may be morebeneficial for learners to refrain fromusing dictionaries and be forced to inferword meanings from context. Nor is Honeyfield alone. Nation advisesstudents to guess at word meanings andto use the dictionary only as a last resort.Bensoussan, Sim and Weiss

discourage the use ofdictionaries in languagebelieve that apart from providing

students with lists of synonyms,dictionaries do not help students fit words appropriately into situationalcontexts.Learners, they can becometoo dependent on dictionaries and fail todevelop their own self-confidence andguessing ability.

The primary concern is that looking upwords frequently can interfere withshort-tern~ and disrupt thecomprehension because it slows reading speed and binds readers to the sentence level, this interferes withglobal comprehension. Dictionary use, critics say, not only detracts from theenjoyment of reading, but also disruptsthe train of thought. Another issuedebated among language teachers andlexicographers is whether somedictionaries are better than others. Aremonolingual or bilingual dictionaries more for language learners? Whatkind of dictionary, if any, should we

to our students? Dodictionaries assist or interfere withreading and language learning? Thisarticle reviews research into the effectsof dictionary on comprehension andvocabulary learning and suggests someimplications for second languagelearning and teaching.

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REACT .)LINE 2001

REVIEW OF RESEARCH

Dictionary use andcoinprehension

Most of the research around dictionarieshas focused on reading comprehension.Bensoussanet al. (1984) wanted to see ifdictionary use improved the readingcomprehension of advanced EFLstudents in groups of studentsread texts using either monolingual orbilingual third group hadno dictionary dictionary user group was asked to underline the wordsthey looked up whilethe text still in front of answered

questions designed tocheck reading comprehension.Surprisingly, dictionary use had nosignificant effect on readingcomprehension. more surprisingwas the discovery that dictionary use hadno effect on reading speed. This has aroused a lot of amongresearchers.

In a recent experiment, Knight(1994) investigated the effect of on-linedictionary access on vocabularyacquisition and readingin Spanish. Students were stratifiedaccording to their Americanverbal scores and were randomly placed in two groups, half having access to anon-line dictionary and the other halfhaving no dictionary studentswere asked to two short articles inSpanish via computers. Any wordslooked up by dictionary group wereelectronically recorded without theirknowledge, reading, the studentswere asked to write down in Englisheverything they could remember, andthen given two vocabulary tests:

providing an English equivalent to aSpanish word,and selecting a definitionfrom five alternatives. The same tests were re-administered as a post-test two weeks later to test long-term retention. The results clearly showed that thedictionary-usinggroup outperformed theno-dictionary group both in reading

and vocabulary

Contrary to the earlier findings ofresults

suggest that lookup doesdisrupt short-term memory but ratherenhances He also found that low verbal ability students are more dependent on vocabulary knowledge inreading than high verbal ability studentsseem to be. For this reason, he claims,weaker students are disadvantaged if toldto simply guess meaning from contextand might benefit from dictionary use than proficiency students,whocan make better of contextual guessing.

However,conclusions about the value ofdictionary use depend to some extent

nature of the material used.and

noted that some texts contain morecontext information about difficult ortargeted words than othersdefinitions or examples much likedictionaries. can probably safelyconclude that students will learn more new word can both seethe words in also haveaccess to a

Dictionary use and vocabularylearning

Relatively few studies have

centrally on vocabulary learning throughmost likely reason is that

language practitioners agree that wordsshould not be learnt or taught in isolation,and dictionaries are seen as reinforcingstudents' tendency to learn individualwords (Honeyfield. so this aspect of language learning has not received theresearch attention it deserves.

Summers (1988) explored the relationship between dictionary use and vocabulary learning in a series ofexperiments in which the subjects wereassigned randomly fourgroups had access to one of threedifferent types of dictionary entry types:definition only, only, anddefinition plus fourth groupreceived no dictionary assistance. The

found that in all cases,was substantially

improved when a dictionary entry of anytype accompanied the text. The third

tested the of thethree different definition techniques.showed that the mix of definition plus example was the most successful forproduction purposes. Summersconcluded that three types ofdictionary entry substantially improved students performance" but thatdictionary use aided comprehension

than production. According toSummers, the dictionary, though notalways a perfect tool, is "a useful one,

which to gain understandingof the range of use of new language,leading eventually to accurateproduction, mainly in 123).

In a study by Luppescu and DayJapanese EFL university students wereasked to read a short story in class.Halfthe students read with access to a

bilingual dictionary of their own choice;the rest were not permitted to usedictionaries. Immediately after reading, the students were given a surprisevocabulary test. The dictionary-users'scores were, on average, about 50%higher the non-users' scores. However,there were two theuse of dictionaries slowed reading speed,and learners tended to be whenheadwords in the dictionary were followed by multiple entries.

(1999) focussed on the strategiesESL students said they preferred to usewhen they met unfamiliar words while reading, and how successful thesestrategies were for vocabulary learning. Self-reflective data was gathered fromeight students who read eight texts overa five-month period. A week aftercompleting each reading, the students

a recall task to their learning of the self-identified unfamiliar words.The results showed that whenparticipantseither only consulted,or onlyinferred word meanings, they recalledaround 30%of thethey first inferred meanings thenconsulted, their recall increased to 50%.

Several recent survey studies (GuJohnson,1996;1999; Schmitt. 1997) all reinforce theimportance of dictionary use invocabulary learning. In Schmitt's (1997) study, Japanese EFL learners reported"use of a one oftheir most useful that theyused bilingual dictionaries most

studies by and Johnson (1996) and and Lightbown(1999) all demonstrate learners'vocabulary knowledge and their overalllanguage proficiency are, among other

REACT JUNE I

factors, much related to their dictionary use.

All these results highlight the value ofdictionary as an explicit

strategy,when used to verify an inference,suggesting that dictionary use should have a more important role in secondlanguage reading classes.

What kinds of dictionaries best?

Traditionally, monolingual dictionaries have been preferred because bilingualdictionaries are thought to tie learnersdown to a perpetual exercise intranslation, which might inhibit theirability to express the target foreign language ; 1987).

Others believe dictionaries of both types can be but different reasons

Theadvantage bilingual dictionaries have isthat learners can use of both theirfirst and second linguistic knowledge todecode word meaning. A well-chosenequivalent explanation can transit, in asingle gloss, the part of meaning sharedby the word and the L2 littleeffort expended by the learner.Monolingual dictionaries, on the otherhand, describe meaning in a moreanalytical way, giving synonyms andassociations as well as parts of speech,derivations usage, problemwith monolingual dictionaries for foreign language learners is the unavoidableinherent circularity of the entries.

When the "feel" of the foreign word iswell conveyed,bilingual dictionaries be more vivid than monolingual ones for

a common is that

these dictionaries often give only sketchyinformation about items, and some fearthat prolonged use of bilingualdictionaries could perhaps retardlanguage acquisition et al.,1984). By t h e same argument,monolingual dictionaries are believed toboost language acquisition because theystimulate thinking in the foreignlanguage.

However, these are based onassumptions about language, languageacquisition and language use, and littleempirical work has been done to bearout these it is not possible tooffer arguments for or against

or bilingual dictionaries.Rather,learners should not stick to one type of dictionary but see the two typesas complementary. serving differentpurposes. Monolingual dictionaries are

for checking correct Englishuse of a word;bilingual dictionaries can show a learner how to say something in English at all.

Based on the above empirical studies, itcan be reasonably concluded thatdictionaries, whether or

play an important role in language learning. inresearch studies all tend to show a clearadvantage over non-users in the numberof words learnt. It would seem that for

learners wanting to a well-rounded concept of a word meaning,thedictionary is probably theconvenient and reliable crutch canemploy, because unlike first languagelearners, they do not have access to the

excellent dictionaries inthe form of parents and teachers,

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REACT 2011 JUNE

frequentlyasked to give explanationsfor new words to children" (Summers,1988: 113).

While dictionaries give low verbal ability learners a special cannot be

that high proficiency studentswill use a dictionary less than low proficiency students (Knight, 1994). Infact, the reverse is probably true. InKnight's study, high verbal ability students looked up around 20% morewords than lower ability students. Highproficiency students tend to look up aword even if they have successfully guessed its meaning 1993;Knight, studies suggest thatwhile dictionaries can give weakerlearners much needed linguisticknowledge, help highlearners to gain confidence duringreading. have led researchers toconclude that, whether forcomprehension or vocabulary learning,an approach that combines dictionaryuse with contextual guessing is moreeffective than either single method inisolation.

Whether teachers pay much attention ornot, many learners use dictionariessubstantially. In fact, one trait that

good learners is their clearawareness of what they can learn adictionary about newcollocation and andtheir use deserve more attention, both from teachers in the classroom andresearchers in SLA and applied linguistics.

SOURCES

effect of dictionary usage on EFL test

performancecompared with student and teacher attitudes and expectations.Reading in a Foreign Language, 2,276.

Fraser. (1999). Lexical processingstrategy use and vocabulary learningthrough reading. in Second

Johnson,R.K.learning strategies and language learning outcomes. Learning,679.

R.R.K. theof learners' dictionaries? Institute of

in Education83.

Honeyfield, frequencyandthe importance of context in vocabularylearning. RELC 35-42.

MFL11-16 Learning

J.H. (1993). When dolanguage readers look up theof unfamiliar influence of taskand learner variables. The

Knight, S. (1994). Dictionary use whilereading:The effects on comprehensionand vocabulary acquisition for studentsof different verbal abilities. TheLanguageJournal, 78,

Kojic-Sabo. Lightbown, M.Students' approaches to vocabulary

their relationship to success,

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& (1993). Reading,dictionaries, and vocabulary learning.

Learning,

Nation, I.S.P. Teaching a n dlearning vocabulary. Boston, Mass:Heinle

Piotrowski,T. (1989) Monolingual andbilingual dictionaries: Fundamental differences. Indictionaries: State of the art.Regional Language

Schmitt, N. learningstrategies. N. Schmitt M. McCarthy(Eds.), descr ip t ion ,acquisition, (pp.Cambridge University Press.

Scholfield, (1997). referenceworks in foreign learning. In N.Schmitt & M. McCarthydescription, acquisition,

in the dictionary.In J.M. Looking account

in lexicalLondon and Glasgow:CollinsELT.

Different word knowledgeand reading comprehension.

D. 988). The role of dictionariesin language learning. In Carter M.McCarthy

(pp. London:

32 REACT JUNE 200

DICTIONARIES INLANGUAGE LEARNING

IMPLICATIONS

I . The results of research in this area present strong evidence insupport of the views:

Learners stand a better chance of remembering a word when they refer a dictionary as opposed to just wild guessing.

Learners' vocabulary knowledge and their overall language proficiency aremuch related to their dictionary use.

language learners a clear awareness of what they can learn aboutnews words and tend to use dictionaries more efficiently than weak learners.

Dictionaries help learners gain confidence and become independent learners,

2. The following implications can be drawn up for ESL fnstt'uction:

Students, especially weaker ones, need to he how to consult adictionary and how to sift the information in dictionary entries. Scholfield(1997) provides some useful exercises for helping to familiarize studentswith the dictionary.

Students need to be shown how to process the information they in a dictionary, bow best to categorize and store the information for use (alphabetically, by by topic, by date or by synonyms); how totake down phrases or example sentences containing the words; and how totest each other on what they hare learnt, or set self-tests.

Students need practice in and deducing meaning from contextand other clues.

3. Two caveats be heeded in relation to dictionary

If it is to be learned,vocabulary picked up through dictionary consulting must bereinforced in daily communication, though writing and extensive reading

Students should be warned of unthinking dependence on needto know that a dictionary is best used as a last resort after sensible guesswork has Failed. One of the most dictionary skills is to know when not to use adictionary.

REACI' JUNE 1

REACT Turns 21 . . .

CELEBRATORYISSUE,June 2002

Call for articlesREACTwas first published in 1982.To mark twenty-one years of areplanning a special issue. We are particularly interested in highly readable, state-of-the-art reviews of research development in education, includingcurriculum studies, classroom practice. applications of new technology,based research, etc. Articles that provide appropriate historical perspective ondevelopments in practice and research in the region will also be welcome.

Articles should be submitted by 1 March for thelune issue, and September 1 for the December issue. Please send articles to:

The Editor.REACTNanyangTechnological UniversityNational Institute of Education1 NanyangWalkSingapore 637616

34 REACT JUNE 2001

RESEARCHFEATURE

USING MULTI-POINT DESK TOP VIDEOCONFERENCING FOR THE

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT O F NIETRAINEE TEACHERS ON TEACHING

PRACTICE

Report byS. Chun, Moo Swee Ngoh,

Swee Leslie Sharpe, Angela Wong

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the rapid development experiment with an exciting newof information technology range of instructional and learningan opportunityfor teachers and students processes. Teachers and students can

REACT 1 JUNE 2001

now interact using the internet, WorldWide Web, computer-mediatedcommunication, intelligent tutoringsystems, virtual reality, chat rooms, andmulti-point desk top video conferencing

providesincreasing opportunities for

supervisors to share professional experiences across and space

teachers on teaching practice andto re-define, in respects,conventional notions of the practicum.

Traditionally,time and space have beenmajor constraints for supervisorsinvolved in teaching practice to promote professional sharing. For the most part,supervision is heavily dependent onshort, but often consuming visits toschools. Despite its many merits (DillStafford, the introduction ofschool-based initial training has exacerbated these constraintsof timespace,throwing the trainee teacher more and more on the resources of theschool where he or she is posted forschool-based learning. Moreover, it hasled supervisors to complain that theyhave 'lost touch' with their trainees.

In Singapore, a number of paralleldevelopments important in

the use of MDVC on teaching practice. Firstly,during 1998 NIE beganto restructure its practicum on a'partnership' model 1990; NIE.

schools were givenmore responsibility for supervising traineeteachers on teaching practice. The traditional block teaching practice was retained, but school-based cooperating

by senior teachers(school coordinating mentors) took over the major role of guiding the NIE trainees.University supervisors, who had

previously made about five or morelesson observations, were now toa of Secondly,the Ministryof Education began groupingschools in Singapore the overall direction of schoolsuperintendents. Thirdly, the buildingbegan of a new located atthe western tip of the island in thegrounds of Nanyang TechnologicalUniversity(NTU).Finally,the begana major overhaul of the education system arguing that Singaporeneeded to prepare urgently to secure a place in a

world. A wasto be placed on creativity, autonomy and

technology, summedthe notion Schools,Learning

in: Ho, 1998). Eachof these developments had far reaching implications for the and thepart that video conferencing could playwithin it et 1999).

This article reports on NIE studywhich desk top videoconferencing (MDVC) for theprofessional development of NIE traineeteachers on teaching practice.

What is MDVC?

desktop video conferencing(MDVC) allows users at different locations to see hear each other using

desktop computers fitted withmicrophones, speakers and

necessary hardware and is a significant difference, however, between 'multipoint' and'point-to-point'conferences. The involves threeor tnore people whereas the latterinvolves just research team thuscoined the phrase 'multipoint desktop video conferencing' (MDVC) to

distinguish the platform from theerstwhile 'point-to-point'platform. In this

supervisor located at the NIEwould typically link up in cyberspacewith five students located in five differentprimary schools in Singapore.

REPORT OF NIE STUDY

This study is a two year NIE researchproject fully by the Ministry ofEducation's Education Research The origins of study lie in the findingsof a 1994 NIE project (Sharpe et al.which concluded that and means needed to be found to improve the

and quantity of discoursebetween trainee reachers and their NIE

school-based supervisors duringteaching practice.

The study incorporates a partnershipbetween NIE and School Clusters and

and has two parts: the 'Mentor Study' and the 'Pre-Service Study'. The formeruses MDVC to link together SchoolCoordinating Mentors atsecondary schools in Cluster

are senior school staff underpartnership model'

responsibility for the management of thePracticum at their latter uses MDVC to link NIE trainee teachers onteaching practice at different schools toeach other and to NIE supervisors/researchers at NIE researchersand school staff work in a partnershipwhich involves collaboration on a rangeof matters, such as the purchase andsharing of hardware and software, thetimetabling of trainee teachers and theprovision of support services.

Aim of Project

The study has two principal first is technical and developmental,involving the practical feasibility ofputting into reliable MDVCsystem that fully exploits existingtechnologies. The second aim ispedagogic and is to establishwhether and, if so, how MDVC can addvalue to Practicum by enhancingthe professional preparation of NIEtrainee teachers.

Essentially, the purpose of using MDVCin the 'Pre-Service Study' is to:

enable trainee teachers to hold private discussions on any matters relating to

teaching practice;encourage trainee teachers to discussteaching practice matters with members of the research team, whoin many cases their supervisors; draw up the basic pedagogic protocols for using MDVC as a vehicle forpracticutn conferencing; enable students to view themselvesteaching using video clips which arestreamed to NIE by file transfer;collect basic qualitative andquantitative relating to thetechnical and pedagogic aspects ofconferencing.

METHOD

Eight cohorts of students from the PostGraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE)and the Diploma in Education (Dip. Ed.)

were involved in the projectfrom July 1999 to May wereposted to schools in Cluster whichwere equipped with White Pine's

software and were linked to the

- -

2011 a J U N E 200

high speed band ATM internet network with access being provided bySingapore's Telecom's

The size of groups varied from thirteento forty the availabilityof the and the availability ofthe research staff toconduct conferences. Through a seriesof stages,the conferenceorganisation included:

. the allocation of students to specificconferencethree periods blocked off onstudents' timetables;an agenda of questions for eachconference session;the opportunity to conference with

and English specialists at theNIE;. a schedule to record video clips ofstudents teaching:the opportunity to' view and discussvideo clips of trainees teaching;

At the end of each teaching practice,participating students met at the NIE fora session. They were givenquestionnaires to fill in and participatedin open-ended discussions.

RESULTS

In general,the response to the pointdesk top video conferences was positive. Students involved in the early stages ofthe project, reported that the topicsdiscussed were relevant to the

was to to othertrainees via MDVC;they felt less isolated: they were able to implement some of theideas suggested during the conferences;and were supported and encouraged bytheir peers and supervisors.

Students involved in a later stage of theproject with Maths and Englishspecialist lecturers from NIEappreciated the advice on differentstrategies and different concretematerials to teach particular appreciated the advice on how to dealwith boisterous children and bow tostimulate interest in their lessons byusing video clips as an introduction.Interestingly, the students commentedon the empathy the specialists sharedfor the problems students werehaving, particularly teaching children from dialect homes, either Chinese.Malay who had poorgrasp of the English language, the

of instruction in Singapore's sense of shared experience

helped to boost morale.

Students involved in video streaming identified both from watchingand discussing the video clips of theirown teaching as well as their peers'teaching. Viewing video clipsprovided a good opportunity for thestudent teachers to reflect on theirteaching comments about viewing their own teaching included "we know our own weaknesses andhow to avoid them in "we canlearn from trainees in other schools whohave varied teaching experiences" and"we can adopt the strategies our peers have used." They thought it was"important to see fellow trainees teachas well as observing experiencedteachers."

DISCUSSION

The ability to cut down on supervisors'travelling time is generallyseen as being a major potential advantage of MDVC.

JUNE

This will now be increasingly importantas supervisors will be located at the NTUcampus in In the current educational context in Singapore, where

and reflectivity in the of critical and thinking are

being the observation thatMDVC helps to break downcommunication barriers and iteasier to identify and bring up issues,share burdens and experiences is highlysignificant.Clearly,however,we will needto collect more varied and richer data on

well as on the question of whetheri t leads to more learning andunderstancling. Interestingly, there was adefinite feeling amongst all the studentsengaged in this project that they had become more with each other,and the NIE more than they would have done in an ordinaryface-to-face situation. This could bebecause MDVC offers a more

to the formallyface-to-face supervisor visits.

Althoughwe have limited our discussionto the there are othereducational applications. For example,school principals, superintendents, heads of departments and school coordinatingmentors can use the equipment forsharing experiences without theconsuming process of travelling to acentral venue for a meeting. It seemsinconceivable to us that MDVC will notbecome a routine feature of life in thenew millennium.Our particular interestis in whether and how it will make asignificant difference in reshapingteacher education and education ingeneral.

CONCLUSION

largely to the support receivedfromthe NIE,schools in clusters andthe Ministry of Education andcommercial organisations in Singapore, it has been possible to establish aworking MDVC system. Having beenawarded a substantial from theSingapore Ministry of Education, theproject team was able to purchase the latest Meeting Point system, that improved technical performance, extended its multi-task capabiliry andenabled video streaming for sharinglesson clips and other materials.

As the basic equipment is now in place,we can to our central researchquestions which concern the role ofMDVC in developingprofessionaland professionalshall be investigating whether and,if so,to what extent can improvequality of teaching practice conference discourse. Thus our motivation aseducators lies less in the technologyand more in its pedagogic potential. Ifwe are correct, MDVC could genuinelyadd value to theat NIE and thereby help improve thequality of the teaching professionturn, the pupils (Sharpe1993,Sharpe et 1998 1999).

JUNE I

SOURCES

(Ed.) (1990). The Oxford+

Partnership i n i n i t i a l TeacherLondon:

Foundation.

Stafford,D. (1994). School-basedteacher education.Phi Delta

pp.

C.T. (1997). Shaping ourSchools Nation,

in M.L. Ho (1998).Processes Going

Singapore: PrenticeHall.

NIE (1998). Improving Initial TeacherTraining Singapore via a PartnershipModel: A Consultation Document.Discussion Paper, National Institute ofEducation.

Sharpe, L. S. Gopinathan. S.Practice and

ComputerConference paper submitted to the

Inaugral Malaysian Educational Research Association Conference. Penang:Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Sharpe. L , S. Gopinathan, S Computer Communications:

for Singapore's practicumStudents in Enhancing Learning:Challenge Of Integrating Thinking andlnformation Technology into the

(Ed.)Singapore: National Institute

of Education.

Sharpe, L. Gopinathan, S.and the reform of

teacher education. the case of Britain andSingapore. Research 50,pp. 5-16.

Sharpe. L. Moo, S.N., Crawford. L.Gopinathan, S. (1994). Teacher Supervision Patterns and Discourse. Singapore: National Institute ofEducation.

40 REACT 1 JUNE 2001

LISTENING TO CHILDREN:WHAT TEACHERS CAN LEARN

Review by Robyn Gail Cox

INTRODUCTION REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The article seeks to bring together somerecent theorizing research findings highlighting importance of children's talk in school role of talkingin is important not only in theearly but also as students progressinto the years of school when moreacademic on writing.A to the importance of

talk in the school learning isthe recognition of the value of children'sprior knowledge in learning. Teachers need to be constantly alert to the "fundsof knowledge" that their students bringto the classroom Neff,

need firstly to beable to recognize this knowledge,secondly to see it as valid, culturally based

vitallyimportant for bridging the gaphome and community.

By providing opportunities for children to talk in the context,teachers can gain privileged insight intochildren's prior learning ancl thus theopportunity to students to thenew knowledge and experiencesinherent in the school subject material.

teacher's recognition ofthe home knowledge of a student orcommunity can provide opportunitiesfor highly motivating curriculumdevelopment.

It is important to acknowledge not only home knowledgeand its relationship to schoolbut also the of student talk inlearning. Much student failure anddropout in minority theworld over is due to the gap between

the students know about the worldand how the school portrays their worlddifferently.

Michaelsand Sohmer (1995) have arguedthat teachers must guide, model andscaffold students in schools ways ofthinking: by giving explanations,constructing arguments and askingquestions that are specific to

question.In order to do this,teachers need to build onbased ways of speaking and reasoning as a bridge to the new thatfocus on meaning instead of thatemphasise process over correctness ofthe product, and make learning meaningful and relevant to children'severyday lives are paramount.

At this point it will be useful to refer tothe notion isto say,shared understanding based on a

focus of attention and somepresuppositions that the for

intersubjectirity, as Vygotsky (1981)

REACT 2001

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IMPLICATIONS FORCURRICULUM

Malcolm theeducation when he talked aboutAboriginal English. Malcolm's workinvolved developing a teacher educationcurriculum which Here teacher must accept AboriginalEnglish. create a bridge to standard English,and Aboriginal ways of approaching experience knowledge

1995).

1 would like to suggest a form of two-way education wherestudents and teachers might learn toappreciate qualities inherent intraditional experience and knowledge.

There are a number of instances in theproviding examples of what I

described as "two-way education".All are based on the principle that"children in households are not passive bystanders as they seem in theclassrooms, but active participants in abroad of activities mediated bythese social relationships" (fromFontaine, 1986-quoted in Moll et al.,1992, 134).

A brief review of the literature hasrevealed three such programs operatingin the United States. Each will be brieflydescribed here to providea starting point for further of two-wayeducation. The first instance wasdescribed by Moll et al. wherework with teachers engaged in simple anthropological data collection tasksidentified Carlos, a fifth grader, whoimported Mexican candy into the UnitedStates and sold it to his classmates (thecandy was specific to Hispanic border

communities and not availablein the United

teachers identified Carlos as having aspecial of knowledge about candytaste and ingredients.By working within the to identify theingredients, methods and additives (surprisingly, the Mexican candy usednone of the artificial colours o rflavouringsof the US the teacherscreated a bridge from Carlos's knowledgeto the science curriculum. A Hispanic parent into the classroom and theteacher and class spent two days makingcandy, designing wrappers anddeveloping marketing strategies forselling the candy.

A second instance occurred in anotherMexican American community (Civil,

where teachers in the projectvisited the homes of some of theirstudents to uncover their funds ofknowledge. They observed householdactivities, family structure, labor history

of the parent's views on childrearing specific focusof this project the of amodule on in a fifth grade class,in

to assist learning.

A was a"making maths and science relevant" project

1996) which discussed the useof a child's home culture as a springboardto learning science anddescribed the implementation in a ZuniPueblo school of a "Playtime is Science"program in which parents were involved

experiencing how everyday chores arerelated directly to science.

The use of of knowledge in two-way education moves beyondrecognising drawing attention to

REACT JUNE 200

cultural knowledge. It aims to become sensitive to the cultural knowledge and thereby develop "a culturally sensitive curriculum." It actually undertakes tobridge the cultural gap and the place of cultural knowledge inlearning.

DISCUSSION

can studytalking

The following discussion reveals howteachers can work systematicallyidentifying "funds of inchildren's excerpts ofstudent talk, and analysis of these,illustrate the rich potential of student

In transcript 1 Bonnie, a 7-year-old girl, from the Australian South Sea

community in Queensland,talking with her teacher. The

people came to Australiaand the Solomon Islands around

1850 as indentured workers to labour in the sugar cane and pastoral industries.The descendents of these workers remain in close-knit communities up anddown the east coastMay 1993, following political agitation over many years, the Human andEqual Opportunity Commission

document , Call fo rRecognition (HREOC, 1992) called onthe Australian government to recognisrthis group as one o f the mostdisadvantaged minority groups in

How children and canbe at odds

TranscriptI : else to you do at the beach?B: oh go I up to the rock

go onI : Run out on jetty. Do you fish

there as well?B : Yep.1 : sounds neat.B: An' when I throw down I

caught thisum toadfish. I : What do they look like ?B: ... they are small and they are in

the shallow an' ... got spotson them an' they got big an'puff up to be fat.

: Oh, neat.B: An'the big lives at the

an'wait my friend he caught a bigtoadfish'bout that big (shows with

: Yes.An' my brother he caught a

'bout that big too (showsbands).

1 came a discussion ofthe holidays", when theteacher about activities at the

can be seen that thewas seeking global about thetypes of activities that wasinvolved in; however,Bonnie wanted totell about single events, attempting tocapture these events. The interviewerpersevered to get the descriptions thatshe expected.

Bonnie wanted to tell a story about event which happened when visiting thebeach but was in this attemptby a factual question which required adescription of a Bonnie

REACT 2011 JUNE

persevered and eventually got to tellsome"fishing as Michaels(1986, p. 101) suggested, although theteacher's contributions were designed tohelp develop the talk, they actuallyrestricted Bonnie's madesome false starts (for1 go, 1 climb") during her reply to theinterviewer's questions but theseappeared to help frame her talk withinthe scaffold that the interviewer had

is a common feature inother studies 1983; Malcolm,1995;Michaels,1986).

How talk can reveal children'sknowledge

Bonnie did get to tell more fishingstories,but it took some resolve on her part toget to the where she was ableto do this and thus establish herself as the narrator. Simple reflection on the subject matter of Bonnie's talk reveals something of the scientific nature of herknowledge.

Systemic functional linguistics1985, 1994) allows text to be analysedfor a of purposes.It was founded on the principle language is sociallyconstructed, that is to say,it develops tomeet the needs of people in particularcontexts. The following text has beenanalysed at the clause level for a numberof functions (see

most relevant function to lookat discussing Bonnie's talk for thepurposes of this paper is the semanticlevel (or meaning level) in terms oflexical particular,taxonomic lexical relations. Lexicalrelations provide a way of systematicallydescribing how words in a text relate to

other, how they cluster to build up

lexical sets or lexical strings By lookingat Bonnie's answers to the interviewer's

about we can begin tothink analytically about her languagechoices.

Transcript 2 .I : Tell me about the fish that youcaught? Describe the fish.B : 1 caught a little whiting

'bout that big (showsand 1 caught a

this big (shows1 : what do they look like?B : The bream is spikey and he's got

spikes on the top and he's got... sharp and he's he an'he flip, jumps around.

: And what about theme about the flathead?

B: When you catch it when youthrow the ... line in the wateran' you get a bite he he'llup he'll jump up an' try and get off

: Yeah?B: An' he'll swim back away.

I depicts the taxonomic lexicalrelations displayed in Bonnie's talk inTranscript2.lt indicates that the lexicalitems in the text are into tworelations or categories-the participants in fishing (the people and the fish), andthe procedure of how to fish(actions and

lack of detail about time suggests that the speaker does

not see the need to locate the event in aplace or time. Bonnie was intent ondescribing the appearance and behaviourof the different types of fish-a practiceperhaps directly related to scientificenquiry.

REACT 2011 2001

participants

fish behaviourwhitingbream got spikes the bream got spikes on tophe got sharp teeth he the bream jumps aroundhe jumps off

I.Taxonomic relations of Bonnie's talk in transcript 2.

procedure

Bonnie did not seek to tell a story aboutevents (as she had done previously) butreplied to the interviewer'squestions. Her answers detailed thematerials the procedures necessaryfor engaging in the task of fishing. Shealso provided detailed knowledge aboutthe physical and behaviouralcharacteristics of bream, whiting and

writer recognises that thecategories of taxonomic relations in thistext resemble closely the writtenprocedural text expected of a studentwho describes an experiment that hasbeen carried out in a science the expectation is that text willinclude descriptions of "procedures."

and "conclusions." Itcould therefore be argued that Bonnieknew the lexical relationships for the

of a written text in a

catchcaught

secondary science classroom, hencewas well prepared to begin work ontype of classroom activity.

linecaught your line throw the bait

SUMMARY

Classrooms need to take serious time toallow students to talk - not in everylesson, and not every child every

but teachers must recognize that talkis an important medium for learning and presenting knowledge. Teachers oftenuse the tabula rasa approach,anticipating that students lack everydaylogical knowledge about the world thatthey to school as In

not only herknowledge about fish (biology), but alsoher apparent ease with the lexical items and lexical taxonomy necessary for thedevelopment of a written text.

REACT JUNE 2001

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING

Teachers need to plan for talk in the classroom not just hope that it will

There are some effective ways to plan for talk. Cummins (1988) describes the'interactive classroom' as a classroom which is not teacher-centred but where there is scope for genuine dialogue teacher and students.

There are opportunities in the regular teaching to set upopportunities for talk. Below is a lit of ideas adapted from Gibbons (1991).

Describing people known people and things, whatsomething looks like

telling a a recounting a personal experience

Giving an opinion responding to a news event,a book,a novel

Gluing instructions - explaining how something works or is made,how to play a game

an - explaining why something occurs, how itoccurs in nature

Presenting argument small group discussions,debates

-What do you think might happen if.

Listening to student talk is also helpful in determining student readiness fornew concepts or new curriculum foci.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The data in this paper were collecteda research team the purposes oflinguistic analysis across a sample of sixprimary-age findings of this study been reported elsewhere (Cox, Webb, 1997). Thepresent represents a reanalysis ofthe original data a broader purpose.

REFERENCES

Civil, M. (1994). Connecting the homeand school: Funds of knowledge formathematics andpresented at the Annual meeting of theAmerican Educational Research Association (EricED.?70987).

REACT JUNE 200 1

Cox, R.,Webb, G., N. (1997).Perspectives on Australian South Sea Islanderlanguage use. Unpublished

Cox, &Webb, (1999). Literacy in itsbroadest Australian South SeaIslander project.of Language Literacy

(1986). Literacy in TESOLQuarterly 20, pp. 7

Gibbons, (1991). Learning to Learn in aSecond Language. NSW: Primary

Association.

Graves, D. H. (1975). An Examination of theWriting Process of Seven Year Old Children.Research in the Teaching

Graves (1978) Balance the Basics: LetWrite. Ford Foundation.

Graves, D. (1983). Teachers a n d

Researcher to Write. Portsmouth NH:Heinenmann Publishers.

aThe Education Digest 60 pp.63-69.

M.A. K. (1985). Spoken WrittenLanguage. Deakin University Press.

M.A. K. toFunctional Grammar (2nd edition). London, UK:EdwardArnold.

Ways withUK:Cambridge University Press.

Human Rights and Equal OpportunityCommission (1992). The Call forRecognition-A Report the Situation ofAustralian South Sea Islanders. Canberra,

Australia: Australian Government PublishingService.

(1972). Language in the City.Philadelphia USA: University of PennsylvaniaPress.

La Fontaine, J. (1986). An anthroplogicalperspective on children in social Richer Light (Eds.) of Social

a SocialCambridge,UK:Polity Press.

Malcolm,I. developmentfor bidialectal education. Paper presented atthe International Conference on Language in

(ERIC Documentno

oral preparation for literacy with first graders. In J. (Ed.), The Social

of Literacy pp.Cambridge,UK:Camhridge University

andinscriptions: Cultural tools, power andpowerful sense making. Unpublished paper.

K. Gchachu, K. (1996). Makingmaths science relevant. InDevelopment Research Association

USA), pp.

Moll, L. C., D. Gonzalez,N.of for teaching: Using

a qualitative approach to connect homes andclassrooms. Theory Into Practice,

Apprenticeship inCogrzitiue in SocialOxford,UK:Oxford University Press.

Vygotsky, L. (1981). in Society: Theof Higher Psychological

Processes. Cambridge, Harvard UniversityPress.

48 JUNE 200

WHAT YOU HAVE TO DRINK?FOR T H E PHYSICALLYACTIVE.

Review by Michael

Water is essential for Mostpeoplecnn30 days but not more than three

at leastday, Our bodies

on it forprocesses. Water thebody's gases and waste

and enablesreactions in the toAll bodilya high

muscle, are 75%As sweat, water the

body a stable coretemperature through Water aidsalso gives the body

The person iscomposed of 45 to 55 litresof'

A recent among young people inSingapore revealed that on the average,they consumed the equivalent of 1.4litres of fluids,when their needs are projected at 2 litres, not taking intoaccount their needs when theyare physically active. (Asian Food

Centre, samesurvey revealed that women between 55 and 65 years old were alsonot meeting their hydration needs

Booth,

Complete of fluidexercise is an essential part of the

recovery this becomes evenmore important in hot humid

speed of re-hydration iscrucial when a subsequent exercise bouthas to be performed after a relativelyshort

REVIEW OF RESEARCH

thirstINTRODUCTION

In hot and humid climates like those ofSingapore and adult body canlose up to 3.5 litres of daily evenwhen it is sedentary. Even more water islost when exercising in the heat, yetresearch tells us that most people,particularly the young and elderly,do notdrink enough

201 JUNE 200

The desire drink is initiated bysensation of thirst and this is importantin the control and of fluid intake.Thirst, however, is a poor indicator ofhydration status, and some researchers are of the view that by the time the sensation of thirst is noticed. the personwill already have dehydrated over the last

prevent this,others recommend

that we should about one offluids more than our thirst dictates.

The typical drinking response, after humans have developed water deficit,is the ingestion of than 50% of the total intake, followed byintermittent ingestions of smallervolumes of several hours(Shirrefs Maughan, amountof fluid we take in is thought to beregulated by receptors in the mouth,esophagus and stomach, the

of the stomach is thought toreduce the perception of thirst.

Water loss

Body temperature maintenance, known as 'thermal homeostasis', especiallyduring exercise, is made possible byprocesses of thermal conductance

cooling is produced byevaporationof sweat off the surface).During exercise in and not-too-humid environments (aboutrelative humidity), cooling byevaporation (perspiration) is the body's

means of dissipating the heatproduced by the exercising muscles.

This process accounts for 55%ofheat loss, but water losses increase withvigorous exercise. Research usthat trained and acclimatized people can lose sweat at a rate of 2 per houreven in a cool environment, when thework rate is high. Indeed, body masslosses in marathon runners can rangefrom between 1%and (0.7 to 4.2 kg

mass for a 70 kg man) at low (10"ambient temperatures to more than

8%(5.6 kg) in warmer conditionsMaughan, 1998).

The most practicable indicator ofafter physical one's

re-hydration status after some hours ofconsuming food and the colourof urine. When the body isdehydrated,the colour of urine tendsto be darker.A lighter shade of yellowindicates adequate oneself before and after exercise isanother way of estimating fluid loss fromexercise the restoration of that

Performance and water deficit

Research tells us thnt inadequateof fluid loss,both and

during exercise, affects performance.According to and Booth awater deficit even as Little as 1%of bodymasscan impair exercise a 35% drop in high-intensity exerciseperformancehas been reported afluidlossof of bodymassinduced byexposure.In racesof over1500 5000

performance times increased by and 2.62 in athletes who were eu-hydratedadequately hydrated) after being dehydrated 2%of body mass.

There is no doubt that our capacity forwork is negatively affected with

studies have indicatedthat adequate hydration is necessary forpeak performance, especially when the activity is prolonged.For instance; a lossof just of body water causes a 22%decline in performance and when the loss rises to 7%of body water,weaknrsssets in and the person may even havedifficulty spenking Booth,

Blood flow to the muscle must bemaintained at a high level during exercise

--

SO REACT 1 JUNE 200 1

supply oxygen and energy substrates. At the same time, increased flowto the skin is necessary to dissipate themetabolic heat produced by theHypo-hydration inadequatehydration) before and during exercise isassociated with higher cardiovascularstrain and impaired thermoregulation.This also nullifies protective benefits that are conferred by acclization.

Re-hydration after exercise

The primary factors that determine hydration exercise are the volume

composition of the fluid that isconsumed.Many other factors influence

the palatabilityof thedrink and its effect o n the thirst

ingestion of solid foodis also an important factor, but most people tend to avoid eating solid food between exercise sessions orimmediately after exercise.

Beverage

The composition of the beverageis important for the

restomtion of fluid balance followingexercise. Recent studies have shown thatplain water is not the ideal post-exercisere-hydration beverage when rapid andcomplete restoration of fluid balance isdesired and where the is solely inliquid form. When water the liquidfor re-hydration following a 4%body massloss in fluid induced byfluid balance had not been achieved even after four to increased urinary loss from drinking water. In contrast,when an electrolyte-containing solution

2 2sodium, 2.6 potassium, 17.2

chloride) was ingested, urine

output was less and the balancecloser to pre-exercise level after four

hours Booth, 1991).

It appears,then,that the consumption ofelectrolyte-free drinks such as plain waterresults in greater urine production and therefore does not people to regainpositive fluid balance for a long time. Inexperiments, plasma volume was bettermaintained when the ingested drink contained electrolytes, particularlysodium. It has been proposed that theamount of sodium added to the hydrationfluid should also mirror the of

loss in the sweat. However, theconcentration of sodium in sweatshows considerable variation amongdifferent people, making it difficult tohave a single prescription to suit allpeople.

Sports drinks

Sports drinks are popular among peopleexercise as well as people who do

exercise. In the early days whensports drinks became available, manysports nutritionists considered them "gimmicky", as they were either toosweet or had too much sodium in them.The high sugar and sodium content inthe drinks stimulated drinking hut didnot actually quench hirst. Since then,better drinks have evolved. Most sportsdrinks nowadays 'contain less sodium.and carbohydrate in the form of sugar inthe drink helps in the absorption of thewater from the gut to the blood streamwhere it is needed. Hence sports drinksdeliver not only water,but also energy tothe body.

REACT 20/ JUNE 200

A sports drink consumed before an exercise session just the rightamount of calories to boost energy and hydrate at the same time and is aconvenient energy source. Followingintense exercise, the insports drinks also helps to replenish the

carbohydrate used up during theexercise. To replenish the lostcarbohydrate in the after exercise,it is important to enoughcarbohydrate within the first two hoursafter exercise, as this is the time whenthe body is most active in themuscle carbohydrate

Drinking carbohydrate sources very intense exercise is a strategyto the appetite to eat solid foodis usually decreased. Sports drinks are most suitable during the first two hours following vigorous generalconsensus from research is that

amounts of carbohydrate andsodium,as well as the other electrolytesthat are present in most sports drinks,stimulate consumption andabsorption better than plain water can.

Fruit juices

Fruit juices come in many flavours andin many taste and they are a rich source of and vitamin C. Fruit juices are also a good source ofpotassium,an important mineral for thehealthy function of the system.However, fruit juices contain fructose, aform of sugar that interferes with theabsorption of water, so they are not agood source of hydration just before and during exercise, but they are a greatsource of carbohydrate and water after exercise.

Carbonated soft

Some people drink carbonated softdrinks to boost energy levels beforeexercise. The contain sugar andcaffeine, a stimulant that increases heartrate and stimulates the nervous systemmaking you more alert. The sugar incarbonated drinks is a reservoir of

energy and may benefit theperson who the calories. It is notwise, to drink carbonated softdrinks just before, or immediately after

sugar in carbonated drinksis in form of sucrose and someresearch has that sucrose, likefructose, also interferes with theabsorption of water during exercise.Moreover, the caffeine present in mostcola drinks may induceincreased urine output , thusexacerbating, rather than alleviating,dehydration.

Alcoholic drinks

It is common to players of sportsin venues where is a copious

of post-trainingandto begaining

popularity. Alcohol has known diureticproperties is therefore not reconmiendedwhenfluid is a priority.

Research informs us that when subjects were hypo-hydrated (dehydrated) followingexercise,the of a 4%volumealcohol drink resulted in the greatest urineexcretion,but all alcoholic drinks resulted ina predicted of nearly 8%acrossall trials Maughan,1997).Clearly,alcoholconsumptionin nowayaids following exercise: instead, it exacerbate it.

REACT JUNE,

Volume

Even in the dehydrated state, there isobligatory urine excretion due to the need to get rid of metabolic waste. For

reason it is pnident to ingest morefluid after exercise than has been lostduring the advice to drinkat least one of more than thirstdictates, and to drink more than the amount of fluid lost throughhas merit. In an experiment followingexercise, subjects consumed volumes of

and 200% of the sweat lossafter a 2%body mass loss in body water.The best hydration results obtainedsome six hours after the exercise werewith the subjects who had consumed

and 200%volume of their sweat lossand where the drink composition had thesame amount or higber concentration ofsodium as their sweat Booth,

palatability and voluntary

Unlike controlled research trials, wherefixed volumes of various compositionsare consumed, the amount of fluidconsumed in everyday situations isdetermined by a combination ofpsychological and physiological factors.

and Booth (1991) reported thatwhen beverages consisting of carbonatedwater, a commercial sports drink, anorange mixture and an oral re-hydration solution (a mixture usedin the treatment of diarrhea) were made

drank a greater volume of sports drink and the orange juice/lemonade mixture than either of the other drinks over a period of two hours.These results demonstrate theimportance of drink palatability in getting

people to drink enough followingexercise where great amounts of fluidmay have been lost.

CONCLUSION

Restoration of fluid balance after strenuous exercise where substantialbody water may be lost is an importantpart of the recovery process and is evenmore important in hot humidconditions. If a second exercise bout isrequired after the first,the speed of re-hydration is crucial in maintaining good performance. Re-hydration afterexercise requires that both fluid andelectrolyte losses, particularly sodium, be replaced for fluid balance. Althoughthe electrolyte composition of sweat ishighly variable among individuals, theideal re-hydration drink is one where the

content of the drink matches thesodium amount that is lost throughsweating.Ingesting excess sodium from a post-exercise drink is rarely a problem, for any excess sodium will be excretedin the urine as the kidneys restoreequilibrium.

Drinks intended specifically for hydration after exercise must have a higher electrolyte content than drinksformulated for consumption during

most common soft drinks contain virtually no sodium at all, thesedrinks are ineffective for the restorationof fluid balance after exercise. Drinkswith sodium content are ineffectivefor re-hydration and will also reduce thestimulus to drink.The problem is thatspecially formulated drinks with a highsodium content may not be palatable topeople and this may result in

a small amount ofsugar may improve the rate of intestinal

REACT JIJNE 200 1

uptake of sodium and water and will alsoimprove palatability.

The importance of palatability of thedrink cannot be overlooked,when large volumes of fluid need to be consumed.

SOURCES

Drink Survey Results. Asian FoodCentre. Singapore. 1999.

Booth, D. (1991). Thirst:

International Life Sciences InstituteHuman Nutrition Reviews. New York,

Shirrefs, R.(1repletion following exercise-inducedvolume depletion in man: replacementof water and sodium losses. American,Journal of Physiology, 274:

Maughan,(1997). Restoration of fluid balance

after exercise-induced dehydration: effects of alcohol

IMPLICATIONS

Encourage young peopleand the physicallyactive to drink beyond the sensationof thirst following exercise.

To restore fluid balance after exercise,drink up to twice the amount in fluids that was lost in the form of sweat.

Continue to drink in small amounts 150 ml) every 15-20 minutes up to5 hours after exercise.

Contrary to popular water is not the best re-hydration fluid if thefluid loss during exercise is to be replaced quickly.

The ideal re-hydration drink following exercise is one that contains sodiumand some carbohydrate in low concentrations, as this will stimulate drinking and aid in absorption of fluid from the gut.

Cola,carbonated drinks,and alcoholic drinks do not help in the restoration offluid balance after may exacerbate dehydration.

54 REACT JUNE 2001

TEACHING LEARNINGA Publication for Educators

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