The purpose of this study is to analyse actual conditions of and problems in listening and speaking in socially interactive discourse and to examine teaching and learning methodologies of socially interactive discourse.
For that purpose, a socially i...
The purpose of this study is to analyse actual conditions of and problems in listening and speaking in socially interactive discourse and to examine teaching and learning methodologies of socially interactive discourse.
For that purpose, a socially interactive discourse is defined as 'a discourse through which human relations are built and improved in various situational contexts' and attributes of the socially interactive discourse are presented from 4 different aspects; purpose, physical context, process, talker and listener. The purpose of the socially interactive discourse is to build human relations, and participants in the discourse share the same time and space under a relatively relaxed regulation, and the discourse is conducted in the process of negotiation, and all the participants in the discourse are concurrently talkers and listeners. On the basis of such attributes, socially interactive discourses are divided into 4 types; ‘conversation, interview, discussion and negotiation. And among those 4, conversation, especially a small group conversation, is focused on.
For analysis of actual conditions and problems of listening and speaking in socially interactive discourse, questionnaire survey and analysis of a conversation of a small group of student were conducted. According to the analysis, the participating students showed lack of understanding of negotiating nature of the conversation in the course of listening and speaking and details of the lack of understanding were as follows. First, they lacked recognition, respect and sympathy for others. Second, they lacked understanding of importance of listening carefully. Third, they lacked patience to wait for one's turn to speak. And they also lacked understanding of importance of cooperative attitude in conversation, which was shown by their non-response to each other, criticising and mocking each other, using vulgar language and slangs.
Lack of understanding of negotiating nature of a conversation and inappropriate interaction hinder smooth process of conversation and have negative impact on building personal relationship and maintaining it. In this study, as a remedy for such problems, principle, methodology and model of teaching and learning of listening and speaking in socially interactive discourse are suggested.
The principles of teaching and learning of listening and speaking in socially interactive discourse are outlined as follows. First, education for socially interactive discourse is necessary. Second, negotiation should be made through practical performance. Third, education for participants in the discourse to recognize their roles and responsibility is necessary. Fourth, teaching and learning of the process of a discourse are necessary. Fifth, an appropriate topic should be proposed. Sixth, various methods of education should be used. Seventh, the process should be assessed.
In this study, to reflect the aforementioned principles and to remedy problems in listening and speaking in socially interactive discourse, 'process of teaching and learning through a small group conversation of students', ‘self-checking by a checklist’ and ‘mutual evaluation by a reflective conversation’ are suggested as methodologies of teaching and learning. First, it is suggested that methodology of a small group conversation should be introduced for teaching and learning of listening and speaking in socially interactive discourse, and the direction of organizing the small group is also suggested. Second, the methodology ‘self-checking by a checklist’ is suggested and the items of checklist include purpose, topic and situation of a conversation, roles of a leader and a collaborators of the conversation, recognition of negotiating nature of the conversation, function and attitude of speaking, function and attitude of listening, interactive process of the conversation, effort to solve problems in the course of conversation, interaction of higher-order cognition, so self-checking in various aspects is made possible. Third, ‘mutual evaluation by a reflective conversation’ is suggested. A reflective conversation means reviewing the initial small group conversation. In the course of reviewing the initial conversation, the students will go through analysis of problems in listening and speaking of the participants and mutual evaluation, and by doing so, they will have experience of meta-analysis of their conversation and mutual understanding and negotiation, and this fact is backed up by a model of mutual evaluation by a reflective conversation and actual contents of the small group conversation.
Lastly, a model of teaching and learning process of socially interactive discourse is suggested. The suggest model is not completed enough to be applied in an actual teaching situation, but it has some meaning in that it shows a socially interactive conversation is a dynamic process in which more than 2 participants recognize the negotiating nature of conversation and exchange messages and interact to each other.
In the future, I hope teaching and learning methodologies of socially interactive discourse to be systematic and empirical at schools through further study on an empirical and theoretical research of socially interactive discourse.