III. MARCO TEÓRICO
3.2 Bases teóricas
3.2.3 Actividad de caries
Direct instruction is a micro-context in which the teacher interacts with the whole class on some aspect of the knowledge or skills relating to the content topic being studied. A range of more specific pedagogic goals can be achieved through direct instruction, such as getting students’ ideas about a topic, introducing or reinforcing a concept, building knowledge together, or revising previously-taught material. In terms of topic, the focus
is always on some content-relevant knowledge, understanding or skill. Even where topics may seem to be ‘everyday’, they are used to elicit learners’ ideas, usually as a preliminary to introducing the subject-relevant concepts or skills. A key characteristic of this micro-context is that the interaction is not mediated by any task or activity carried out by the learners. However, the interaction is often based around a piece of material, such as a coursebook text, or an artefact that the teacher has brought into the classroom. It is also often characterized by the teacher’s use of a visual display, such as a slide or by writing or drawing on the black/whiteboard. Interaction patterns in this micro-context can range from canonical IRF sequences with known-answer questions (especially if going over previously covered content), more open dialogic interaction with referential questions (when eliciting students’ views on a topic) or non-interactive long teacher turns (when explaining a concept, for example). All three patterns were found in this micro-context in all four classrooms. However, as conceptual
understanding is particularly salient in science teaching, illustrative examples from the CLIL biology lessons are analysed here, along with a selection of the teachers’
comments on viewing the video vignettes.
In the first of her two lessons on the topic of genetic variation, the teacher was eliciting from the students their own knowledge and experiences of mutation, before introducing the scientific version:
(6.1) BIOLSN2
T: so so what do you think a mutant is? 1
have you ever seen a mutant anywhere? 2 (2.4) 3 S: films 4 T: mm? in films? 5 (2.0) 6
T: can you give me an example of a mutant? 7
(1.2) 8
what is a mutant? 9
S: in plants when you - 10
T: in plants? 11
(1.0) 12
do you have any mutant plants at home? 13 S: no ( ) 14 T: a mutant. 15 it sounds like 16 (2.5) 17 S2: [the Doberman 18
T: [something that happens in films 19
but (.) actually it doesn’t. 20
it happens in nature. hm? 21
S2: and the Doberman? 22
T: the Doberman (.) is that a mutant? 23
the Doberman? 24
S: ( ) 25
T: it looks it looks weird yes 26
but it’s not a mutant actually 27 (1.4) 28 the Doberman= 29 S: =it’s a mixture 30
T: the breed. it’s a mixture yes (.) of what. 31
S2: of races of dogs <of dogs races> 32
T: different uh breeds you say (.) 33
razas breeds (0.8) of of dogs (.)
34
This extract is a typical example of the interaction in the Direct Instruction micro- context when the teacher’s pedagogic goal is to work directly with the learners on their own conceptions of an aspect of subject-matter knowledge. Referential questions are used to elicit students’ opinions (line 1), experiences (lines 2 and 13) and knowledge (line 7). The topic is ‘everyday’ in that it covers experiences that anyone can have (such as watching films and having or seeing plants). Students’ offerings may or may not get topicalized by the teacher, as can be seen at lines 4 and 10 where ‘films’ and ‘plants’ do not really become substantial topics. It is not until S2’s offer of the Doberman breed of dog as a possible candidate for mutant status, that a student’s contribution is taken up by the teacher at line 23, but the teacher herself closes down the topic by denying the Doberman’s mutant status (rather than, for example, asking the S2 why he thought a Doberman might be a mutant), and the topic shifts at lines 33-34 to a language-focused repair sequence.
In her comments on the video vignette of this episode, the teacher identified the purpose of the interaction (in the interview transcripts, ‘I’ stands for interviewer, and ‘T’ for teacher):
(6.2) VSC4
I: so what was your purpose with this- 1
with these questions 2
T: my purpose, 3
I: at the beginning of this 4
T: yeah what I wanted was to find out 5
what they what mm 6
what conception they had about a mutant 7
the word mutant sounds so weird [you know= 8
I: [mm hm hm
9
T: =I wanted to find out .hh 10
what their eh knowledge about mutants was. 11
just that 12
The teacher’s construction of this sequence is consistent with the pedagogic goals identifiable from the interaction itself. Referential questions about experience or
knowledge are a suitable strategy when the goal is ‘finding out’ students’ conceptions or knowledge. However, her strategy as described in her comments was not only to find out what they thought, but to identify erroneous conceptions:
(6.3) VSC4
I: so the questions in this section then 1
are a bit different are they 2
from the ones that you asked at the beginning? 3
T: yes, because the ones of the mutant 4
I knew that they were going to 5
come with misconceptions. 6
I knew that in advance (.) previously 7
So, not only is her pedagogic goal to find out what they think about mutants, but to expose the misconceptions she ‘knew in advance’ (line 7) that they had. She links this epistemic orientation (her own knowledge about the learners’ knowledge) to her use of language in the classroom, by constructing a causal relationship between what she knew and the questions she asked (line 4). In her own terms, this strategy is successful in uncovering what she takes to be a ‘misconception’, i.e. that the students think that a Doberman, perhaps because of its ‘weird’ appearance, is an example of a mutant:
(6.4) VSC4
T: one of the students mm 1
came up with this idea of of breed 2
a dog breed of dogs the Doberman (.) 3
and he thought he wanted to talk about that 4
he- he said he put that 5
as an example of a mutant 6
so that that’s exactly what I was trying to do 8
and it took me ages to get back 9
I: heh heh 10
T: to my cla(h)ss ( ) because I mean 11
I wasn’t meaning to talk about cross breeding 12
I: hm 13
T: in that lesson so that just was coming 14
something that moved me 15
T: hm 16
I: sidewards to something else 17
and then I had to go back 18
to what I was really wanting to teach 19
at that very moment so 20
T: and what- 21
I: I had to introduce the idea of cross breeding 22
with two examples 23
As was generally the case throughout the data, before attributing an aim or purpose to him or herself, the teacher provides a description of what is going on. However, these descriptions were not just disinterested factual accounts. This is seen here in the way the teacher builds her description in two ways: by giving what happened as simple facts, and by attributing cognitive or intentional states to a student. In terms of constructing facts, the student ‘came up with’ the idea of the Doberman dog (lines 2 and 3), and he put forward this breed of dog as an example of a mutant (lines 5 and 6). In terms of cognitive or intentional attributions, the student ‘thought’ he ‘wanted’ to talk about this (line 4). This forms the background to the purpose identified by the teacher,
‘deconstruction’ of this idea (line 7), and this is built into her account as an explicit statement of purpose at line 8. The teacher also constructs her action as an obligation (she ‘had to’ deconstruct the idea), thus making available the inference that her interactional decision to engage in ‘deconstruction’ was a necessary consequence of what she has described as taking place. Furthermore, at line 12, the teacher uses more intentional language from the cognitive thesaurus (‘I wasn’t meaning to’) to construct her interactional decision as a deviation from what she had been intending to do in the lesson. In this teacher’s account of practice, then, classroom talk is being constructed as a tool that can be used to work directly on learners’ cognitive states, by ‘deconstructing’ erroneous ideas about a concept from science. It is a description of practice that
constructs interactional decisions as being responsive to the students’ perceived
epistemic states. In terms of practical knowledge, it combines knowledge of conceptual content, learners’ cognitive states and language as interaction.
The reflexive relationship between pedagogic purpose and interaction in this micro- context can be seen in how this episode developed into a direct explanation by the teacher of the ‘scientific story’ of mutation. After ‘deconstructing’ the ‘misconception’ and clarifying the difference between cross-breeding and mutation, she gives a ‘real’ example of mutation, albinism, and presents the scientific explanation:
(6.5) BIOLSN2
T: so (.) listen (.) 1
this is the way it is. 2
I’ll write something 3
on the board for you okay? 4
+ starts writing on board
5
okay proteins are over (.) 6
have you studied at all? 7
S: (yes) 8
T: okay listen (.) you all know this? 9
you know this don’t you? 10
there is eh compound A 11
(1.5) 12
that’s gonna turn into a compound B. 13
okay? 14
chemical reaction catalysed by an enzyme 15
(1.0) 16
one enzyme enzyme (.) one (.) okay? 17
(1.2) 18
enzymes are proteins 19
(1.0) 20
are they not? yes 21
so there must be one ↑gene (.) 22
gene one (.) 23
>that codes for this< 24
enzyme one. do you agree? 25
SS: yes= 26
I: =yes (.) now okay now 27
(1.2) 28
compound B turns into compound C. 29
(1.2) 30
and this (.) chemical reaction 31
must be catalysed (.) by enzyme ↓two 32
which in turn would be 33
(1.6) ((writing on board)) 34
>coded for by< gene two. 35 do you agree? 36 (1.0) 37 SS: ( ) 38
I: yeah? well that’s the way it is. 39
In this extract, the teacher’s pedagogic goal is to present to the students the scientific version of how mutation comes about. At lines 2 and 39, she reflexively signals to the students the epistemological status of what she is explaining, building a version of reality that is not a question of opinion, but uncontestable fact, just ‘the way it is’. Rather than producing first pair parts designed to elicit some content, here the teacher either produces both first and second pair parts herself (line 21) or elicits displays of understanding by using the question ‘Do you agree?’ (lines 25 and 36). We are no longer in the realm of exploring students’ ideas dialogically, as in the ‘mutants’ example, but in the realm of scientific knowledge which tells us how things are in nature, not just because someone says so. In her comments on the video vignette, this teacher described her purposes in terms of the students reaching the ‘correct’ conceptual understanding:
(6.6) VSC4
T: that’s the way it is (.) very (0.2) 1
they can say whatever they they want to ↓say (0.2) 2
but in the end I try to (.) focus (0.8) 3
to (.) ↓science= 4
I: mm hm 5
T: =so that they get, (.) they get an idea 6
which is scientifically co↓rrect= 7
I: hm 8
T: =I mean <no matter what they think,> 9
they will end up they need to end up 10
by knowing that, 11
.hh some things are mainly (.) genetic, (.) 12
and most things are mainly (.) both. Hhh 13
Here, the teacher, in her construction of practice, draws the distinction between the much more open kind of interaction in the ‘mutant’ sequence (‘they can say whatever they want to say - line 2), and getting an idea which is ‘scientifically correct’ (line 7). It is a clear orientation to conceptual change, and it is put in quite strong terms (‘no matter what they think’ - line 9). Her role, and it is built up as an obligation (she ‘had to’ deconstruct the idea about the Doberman), is to bring her students to an understanding of the scientific knowledge, the scientific worldview being ‘the way it is’. Later, in her video-based comments, she distinguished between the different kinds of interaction and their purposes:
(6.7) VSC4
I: if you compare this bit 1
with the first bit we saw (.) 2
what about the way 3
you are interacting with the class. 4
T: oh well (.) quite different 5
because the first bit 6
that you just showed me 7
I was interacting more 8
because I was just 9
talking to the class 10
((self-quote)) what do you think 11
well (.) just I mean 12
we were just talking 13
I didn’t need any writing on the board 14
I didn’t need any kind of 15
scientific aspect 16
(1.2) 17
whereas in this one 18
they did need to understand 19
the chemistry of it 20
I mean the science that’s behind 21
all the thing you know. 22
I: hm mm 23
T: sometimes you just talk about things 24
and you give your opinions 25
and I mean it’s not a very 26
scientific way of teaching 27
but some other times it has to be 28
more well this is because of that. 29
you see, this is what’s behind it. 30
I mean it’s not because you say it (.) 31
it’s because this is 32
what’s going on inside a cell, 33
this is the chemistry part of it, 34
biochemistry part of it. 35
that’s it so. 36
In the first part of her long discourse unit (DU), (lines 5-22), the teacher compares the two sequences, script formulating them as one-off events and not as instances of any wider practice. She characterises the first sequence as ‘just talking (line 13), while in the second, she talks about the need to understand the science ‘behind’ the thing they were talking about (lines 21-22). However, in the second part of her discourse unit, (lines 24- 36), she switches to a script formulation of her usual practices beyond these specific instances. This is signalled by her word-selections of ‘sometimes’ (line 24) and ‘some other times’ (line 28). She describes one way of talking as just getting the
students’opinions, which is not very scientific, while the other way of talking focuses on the science itself, which is not a matter of opinion (‘it’s not because you say it’ - line 31). In this shift from describing a specific incident to formulating her general practices, we can see how a teacher’s pedagogic constructions around one topic can provide a window onto their practical knowledge more generally. There is evidence that this teacher is describing her practices in teaching science in this micro-context more generally, not just in the topic of genetic variation.
The analysis of this teacher’s enactments and constructions of practice in this micro- context provides evidence of the ways in which a CLIL teacher can use language in interaction as a tool for achieving specific pedagogic goals. The organization of the interaction changes as the pedagogic goals shift, in this case, from a more open and dialogic exploration of students’ views, to a relatively non-interactive explanation of a the scientific view. Even within one classroom micro-context, this CLIL teacher is seen to have access to a repertoire of interactional practices with which to achieve her pedagogic goals. In constructing her practices on watching the video vignettes, her descriptions of the interaction and her pedagogic goals were aligned with the
interactional agendas as played out in the classroom interaction. Her enactments and constructions of practice were, in an important sense, coming from the same place.