Reframing proficiency, literacy and culture in the classroom

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Reframing proficiency, literacy and culture in
the classroom
Mark K. Warford, Ph.D. Buffalo State College 1300 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo, NY 14222 warformk_at_buffalostate.edu 716-878-4814 William L. White, Ed.D. Buffalo State College 1300 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo, NY 14222 whitewl_at_buffalostate.edu 716-878-4817 Wendy W. Amato, M.Ed. University of Virginia Ruffner Hall405 Emmet StreetCharlottesville, VA 22904 wwa9b_at_virginia.edu 540-290-4159
Welcome! Please Make yourself comfortable and
complete Question set 1 in your workshop
Journal
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 1. Objectives of the training

• Clarify and reconfigure concepts of proficiency,
  literacy and culture in LOTE (Language Other Than
  English) teaching and learning.
• Explore interconnections between proficiency,
  literacy and culture that are essential to
  ultimate attainment in a LOTE.
• Introduce the Sociocultural Lesson Plan Model,
  which is centered on the integration of
  proficiency, literacy and culture-oriented
  learning outcomes.
• Create an original Sociocultural Lesson Plan
• Discuss the creation of a learning community
  dedicated to promoting more culture and
  literacy-enriched language teaching practices.

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 1. training SCHeDUlE

• Greetings/Introductions
• Pre-test proficiency, literacy and LOTE
• Group warm-up discussion What is proficiency?
  literacy? culture? how do they connect?
• Two models for promoting connections between
  proficiency, literacy and culture in LOTE
  teaching
• Sociocultural Lesson Plan Model (SLPM) demos
• Workshop Creating an original SLPM Lesson Plan
• Presentation of plans
• Begin a conversation about further refinement and
  promotion of the approach advanced in this
  workshop

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 DEFINING TERMS

• Proficiency
• At the height of the proficiency movement, over
  70 distinct definitions of proficiency in another
  language emerged (Schulz, 1986).
• Canale and Swain (1980)
• Grammatical competence (What form of the verb?)
• Discourse competence (How do I close a letter to
  a friend?)
• Sociolinguistic competence (How do I greet Sr.
  X?)
• Strategic competence (Cant remember the exact
  word. Whats another way to say that?

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 DEFINING TERMS

• Literacy
• Defining literacy, like betting on the lottery,
  is a risky business. Where oncemany years
  agoits definition was simple and
  non-controversial, now a wave of political,
  economic, and educational theories have impinged
  on the definition, pulling it in different
  directions. Literacy definitions have become the
  battleground over competing social theories,
  obscuring a common core of understanding that
  crosses most interests. Richard Venezky (1998)

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Defining Terms

• The focus on linguistic proficiency neglects the
  discourse-level of communicating capably across
  cultures. Evidence
• Good grammar computation not translating to basic
  functions in the target culture (Pearson, 2006).
• The discourse level centers on
• Literacy
• Conceptions of literacy capital L, critical
  theoretical stances (literacies), digital
  literacy
• From basic writing systems to arts and letters,
  literacies often carry centuries of sociocultural
  history and meaning-making that are just as
  important as proficiency.
• any organized and reasonably stable area of
  skill or knowledge and its associated discursive
  practice(s).

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 III. The Composite Textual Comprehension Model
(White, 2008)

• Based on the notion that the goal of language
  use, whether interpretative or interactional, is
  communication for COMPLETE comprehension.
• To achieve this goal learners need the ability
  to
• 1. decode messages at the surface level.
• 2. understand discourse markers and extended
  discourse
• 3. comprehend the cultural subtexts upon which
  the conversation is built

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 III. The Composite Textual Comprehension Model
(White, 2008)

• Extends Grices (1975) Maxims of Conversation
  (quantity, quality, relevance and manner) to
  center attenion on a
• Maxim of Cultural Appropriateness
• 1. Avoid transfer of personal cultural
  practices/perspectives onto the C2.
• 2. Do not assume that cultural values transfer
  across linguistic borders.

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 III. The Composite Textual Comprehension Model
(White, 2008)
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 III. The Composite Textual Comprehension Model
(White, 2008)
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 DEFINING TERMS

• So, how do we connect proficiency and literacy?
• Culture
• a historically transmitted semiotic network
  constructed by humans...which allows them to
  develop, communicate and perpetuate their
  knowledge, beliefs and attitudes about the world
  (Geertz, 1973, p. 89).
• a setperhaps a systemor principles of
  interpretation, together with the products of
  that system (Moerman, 1988, p. 4).
• a combination of cognitive, sociolinguistic and
  behavioral capacities (AATF, 1989)

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 DEFINING TERMS

• Culture
• Vygotsky (1986) Animals can only react to
  nature human beings, thanks to our ability to
  fashion tools, can transform nature by moving,
  naming, shaping, and generalizing whats
  happening around us. Cultures are colored by
  particular toolkits
• 1) physical tools pencils, hammers, chopsticks
  and
• 2) symbolic tools spoken language, writing,
  grammar, road signs, post-its, e-mails, texts,
  spam

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 DEFINING TERMS

• Culture
• National
• Standards (1999)
• Problem What if a product can be a practice (or
  vice-versa)?

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 DEFINING TERMS

• Culture
• Instead of the 3 Ps Pyramid, Tang (2006)
  proposes 2 Ms
• Cultural mind
• Cultural manifestations (products and practices)

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 DEFINING TERMS

• Culture
• something that progresses through several stages
  (Seelye, 1993)
• based on Seelye (1993), the AATF framework
  (1989), the National Standards (1999) and
  Vygotsky (1986)

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 DEFINING TERMS

• Culture is
• At the center of
• proficiency and
• literacy development

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Second symbolic capacities Model

• There are reasonably measurable symbolic
  capacities that learners must attain,
  representing the broadest possible range of
  mediation within and across social systems.
  Expansion from first to second symbolic
  capacities produce a third set that connotes a
  higher level of symbolic capability.

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First symbolic capacities
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PLUS SECOND symbolic capacities
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greater symbolic capability
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A walk through the Second Symbolic Capacities
Model

• Vygotskys (1986) water molecule metaphor for
  development we cannot study water by breaking it
  down into its component elements (oxygen
  hydrogen atoms) water is the dynamic interaction
  of these elements.

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A walk through the Second Symbolic Capacities
Model

• Like water, symbolic capacity must be not be
  approached atomistically just as the bond oxygen
  shares with its two hydrogen units forms a unique
  molecule, symbolic capacity has to be understood
  in terms of a central cultural core that is
  simultaneously the origin as well as the
  beneficiary of mediational activity in two key
  symbolic systems, proficiency and literacy.

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A walk through the Second Symbolic Capacities
Model

• Like water, literacy and proficiency are
  dynamically interconnected. Like the electrons
  whose laps around the three atoms keep the water
  molecule together, mediational activity centered
  on the use of a myriad of physical and
  psychological tools, is the thread that holds
  symbolic capacity together.

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  Activities for INTEGRATING CULTURe AND
proficiency

• Kasper and Rose (2002) on five stages of L2
  socio-pragmatic development (lags behind
  linguistic development)
• 1) prebasic competence, which is
  context-dependent and lacks syntactical
  development,
• 2) a formulaic stage that involves use of the
  imperative,
• 3) an unpacking stage in which imperatives
  generalize to more indirect forms of requests,
• 4) pragmatic expansion, a stage at which requests
  repertoires increase in number and syntactic
  complexity, and finally, a
• 5) fine-tuning stage marked by adjusting requests
  around a diversity of goals, participants and
  settings.

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Activities for INTEGRATING CULTURE AND
proficiency

• Huth and Taleghani-Nikazms (2006) five
  components of socio-pragmatic L2 instruction
• 1) Guided reflection on the nature of particular
  conversational practices the formulas, setting
  topics
• 2) Compare and contrast L1 and L2 interaction
  with regard to particular turn-taking sequences
  create worksheets and transparencies that
  facilitate exploration of key differences between
  L1 and L2 with regard to a particular speech
  event.
• 3) Interpretation of authentic a/v sources
  accompanied by transcripts
• 4) Opportunities to re-create and practice the
  particular speech act represented (i.e. role
  plays)
• 5) Evaluation of the cultural perspectives that
  pervade the conversational practice under study.

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 Activities for INTEGRATING CULTURE AND
PROFICIENCY

• Cultural Gouin Series (Knop, 2008) Take a C2
  practice/event and stage it in 6-8 statements
  that
• are formulaic
• avoid changes in time, person.
• are enhanced by linguistic (emotive quality,
  chunking, motherese) and extralinguistic
  (props, clip art) cues

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 Activities for INTEGRATING CULTURE AND
PROFICIENCY

• Como hacer el chilate
• Se pone a tostar el maíz en un comal.
• Una vez tostado se muele,
• pero para hacerlo se moja
• y se cuela.
• Usualmente se hace con un colador fino.
• Después de hecho esto se pone a cocer y mientras
  hierve se le agrega la pimienta gorda
  y el jengibre .

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 Activities for integrating culture, proficiency
and literacy

• Literacy event exploration (Kramsch, 2003) Have
  students collect authentic texts (i.e. blogs,
  vodcasts, newspapers, photos). Foci for graphic
  organizers, Venn diagrams, QA include
• Events depicted
• Target audience
• Purpose
• Register (i.e. formal, informal) related to
  audience
• A stance or tone (serious, ironic, enthusiastic)
• Prior text (relationship to a particular
  discourse)
• Setting/perspective

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 Activities for INTEGRATING CULTURE AND
proficiency

• Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) with
  Forced-Choice Response Exercises
• Students are provided a detailed account of a
  situation and asked to choose the most
  appropriate response from a list.
• As a whole, the class can discuss the response
  and provide rationale for the choice that was
  made.

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Activities for INTEGRATIng CULTURe AND
Proficiency
Context Possible Responses Explanation
Vous êtes dans la bibliothèque à votre école. Vous essayez de lire un livre, mais un autre étudiant, que vous ne connaissez, parle à haute voix, avec sa copine. Alors, vous vous sentez obligé de lui dire de se taire. Vous dites  Rien Taisez-vous sil vous plait. Un peu de silence, maintenant. Fermez-la ! Sil vous plait. Je ne peux pas me concentrer. Alors, sil vous plait, parlez moins fort.
Vous êtes chez votre patron. Il vous sert de la viande, mais vous êtes végétarien. Vous dites Rien Excusez-moi, mais je ne mange jamais de viande. Cest horrible ! Cest dégoutant de manger de pauvres animaux. Jai mal au ventre. Il faut que je rentre chez moi. Cela a laire somptueux, mais je suis végétarien. Alors, je prends des légumes et un peu de salade.
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The sociocultural model lesson plan

• I. Key features The SMLP is centered on
• dialogic and cross-symbolic exploration of a
  discursive practice (Young, 2009) filling out a
  form, attending a dinner party, genre of writing,
  driving, art, rap, folksong, subway map, blog,
  editorial
• the promotion of trans-cultural, trans-literate,
  and translinguistic capability
• Stages that move from exploration to reproduction
  and critical awareness of similarities and
  differences between first and second culture
  (NSFLL 4.2) and language (NSFLL 4.1)

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The sociocultural model lesson plan

• I. Activation of schemata
• Lexically and morpho-syntactically simple
  top-down and bottom-up leading questions about
  cultural conventions (in L2) that pertain to the
  text students are about to explore.
• The teacher then collects students comments,
  translating them into L2 if offered by students
  in L1. These may serve as hypotheses to test
  later in the lesson.

Top-down activation Leading questions about students (C1) experiences of the symbolic capacity in question, preview text (freeze frame, if video) generate and record for further discussion some hypotheses about content. Bottom-up activation Address unfamiliar lexical, idiomatic items that may undermine comprehension of the text vis-à-vis a glossary and or, students to scan for and present unfamiliar terms for clarification.
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The sociocultural model lesson plan

• II. Text Interpretation Combine bottom-up and
  top-down leading questions to process text

Top-down strategies (in L2) What is the purpose of ____? Is it to ____? etc. What is the emotional state of person A/B? What are the interactants trying to accomplish? Do they accomplish the task? What are the phases of this discursive practice? (beginning, middle, end?) Bottom-up strategies (in L2) What do you think _____ means? Is ______ a cognate or false cognate? What do you think of when you picture __? What does person A ask? How does person B respond? What form of the verb does person A/B use in addressing the interlocutor?
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The sociocultural model lesson plan

• III. Sociocultural interpretation (top-down)
  Lead learners through an examination of the
  points raised in the activation stage. Sample
  leading questions include
• What similarities do you see between the way
  native speakers approach X and our approach to
  X (for examining L1 and C1 assumptions).
• Which of our assumptions about this text were
  correct? incorrect?
• What are the rules for carrying out this speech
  event in the L2? (address relevant
• grammatical, lexical, discourse socio-pragmatic
  elements)

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The sociocultural model lesson plan

• IV. Sociocultural presentation
• Students develop an adaptation/ recreation of the
  presented text.
• Wendys demo
• Marks demo

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The sociocultural model lesson plan

• V. Sociocultural debriefing
• Teacher and students examine appropriateness
  simulations against the elements identified at
  Stage III (and, if applicable, assumptions
  generated at Stage I).
• May be some lingering transference of L1 and C1
  to the L2 and C2 features imbued in text.
• Bills demo
• Wendys demo
• Marks demo

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  Technologies that are SMLP-friendly

• Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended
• Create or adapt authentic texts
• Embed videos, clip art and other media
• Easy, expansive file-sharing
• Sample

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  Technologies that are SMLP-friendly

• QuestGarden
• Format can be adapted to lesson plan model
• Offers nice design templates and opportunities
  for feedback.
• Easy to embed pictures, clip art, videos through
  links.
• Sample Corrido webquest

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From second language acquisition to second
symbolic capacities

• Questions?
• Feedback appreciated
• warformk_at_buffalostate.edu
• whitewl_at_buffalostate.edu
• wwa9b_at_virginia.edu
• Thanks and enjoy the conference!