There are more than one way to make meaning in this hugely diversified society and as teachers, we have to take into account the diversity of backgrounds (culture, history, language spoken at home, experiences) and schema that our students possess. The pedagogies should aim at helping students to develop, tapping into their potentials, but at the same time bearing in mind constrains of the situation.
The 6 main assumptions of multiliteracies taken from Stein are:
Pedagogy is semiotic activity within relations of culture, history and power.
Meaning making is bodily, sensory, and semiotic.
Meaning making is multimodal.
Meaning making is interested action.
Language is limited.
Meaning making is transformation, creativity, and design.
To sum up all these 6 points, it aims to say that students learn in many different ways and each one of them are exposed to different types of experiences. What student A possesses, might not be what student B possesses. Every student is different, resulting in diversity and a pool of background knowledge in which students can share their experiences and learn from each other too.
Students learn best when they are involved in their own learning. Knowledge is best gained through acquisition (as learnt in previous lessons). They explore and learn through their exploration, investigation and realization of concepts.
However, we also have to bear in mind that in the local Singapore context, we are still very exam-oriented due to the standardized (PSLE, ‘O’ Levels and ‘A’ Levels) examinations. Therefore, we have to consider the reactions of the stakeholders of our education system, namely the parents, who would want our curriculum geared towards preparing for exams rather than having a range of activities.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Lights, Camera, Action
How do we, as teachers, get students to understand that the different elements in videography – angling, movement, positioning of shots, voicing, selection of shots, etc. – generate certain meaning in establishing their personal identities?
To start off, I would pick a theme, for example advertisements. I will select a few products, such as, toys (possibly adverts from Toys R Us), cars (BMW, Mercedes), health supplements, washing detergent/powder, fast food restaurants (KFC, MacDonalds) and restaurants.
In every advertisement, there is a target audience. I will first get the students to identify the targeted audience for the various advertisements. After students have identified the audience, I would ask them to pay attention to the actor(s)/actress (es) in the advertisement and to make a link to their target audience. They have to justify their reasons. Another would be the role that each gender has to play. For example, it is usually the females who would be talking about a certain washing powder to wash the stains, such as mud, off from the males’ white t-shirt. Therefore, portraying that it is the females who are taking care of the household chores, whereas the males are ones who make a mess of things or are the ones who do sports.
I will then replay the advertisement again, asking students to focus at the camera angle. I would expect the students to identify that advertisements such as those of prestigious cars would have a higher angle as compared to those from toys and fast food restaurants. This is to give a high class image to the cars as we have to look up to people who own those cars.
Similar activities can be done to focus on the various aspects, such as the voices, background, context of culture, etc.
If time permits, the teacher can make this a project for students, to create their own short advertisement and justifying the various elements and their selection.
To start off, I would pick a theme, for example advertisements. I will select a few products, such as, toys (possibly adverts from Toys R Us), cars (BMW, Mercedes), health supplements, washing detergent/powder, fast food restaurants (KFC, MacDonalds) and restaurants.
In every advertisement, there is a target audience. I will first get the students to identify the targeted audience for the various advertisements. After students have identified the audience, I would ask them to pay attention to the actor(s)/actress (es) in the advertisement and to make a link to their target audience. They have to justify their reasons. Another would be the role that each gender has to play. For example, it is usually the females who would be talking about a certain washing powder to wash the stains, such as mud, off from the males’ white t-shirt. Therefore, portraying that it is the females who are taking care of the household chores, whereas the males are ones who make a mess of things or are the ones who do sports.
I will then replay the advertisement again, asking students to focus at the camera angle. I would expect the students to identify that advertisements such as those of prestigious cars would have a higher angle as compared to those from toys and fast food restaurants. This is to give a high class image to the cars as we have to look up to people who own those cars.
Similar activities can be done to focus on the various aspects, such as the voices, background, context of culture, etc.
If time permits, the teacher can make this a project for students, to create their own short advertisement and justifying the various elements and their selection.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Critical Reading in Everyday Life
Please look at this website on an online story, with animation and narration on the Little Red Riding Hood, a story that we are all so familiar with.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-stories-red-riding-hood.htm
Coding
The text is accompanied by animation and audio narration. Based on the audio narration and the text, there is an aim to help children make phoneme and word recognition. In addition, there is also reading from left-to-right directionality. This is probably to teach children literacy skills.
Semantic
The role of this text participant is to follow the words as the narrator reads. Fairy tales is probably one of the first genres of text that children are in contact with at a young age. The idea of reading fairy tales is to expose children to stories and non-fiction texts. I would suggest that this text be catered to children aged around 4 who are learning to read. They would most probably have already heard the story of Little Red Riding Hood. By using a familiar text, children can just follow the narration and pictures to help decode words. It may even be possible that the writer is trying to introduce adjectives as we can see from the usage of “nice cake”, “big ears”, “big eyes” and “loud scream”.
Pragmatic
Fairy tales is a non-fiction text, falling under the text type category of narratives. One of the first few text types that are taught in school is writing a narrative. By exposing children to such stories, the concept of narratives is being internalized and hopefully children will be able to apply it when they have started writing.
Critical Competence
Mention the title, “Little Red Riding Hood” to any child and ask the child the gender of the little red riding hood. Chances are, the child would say that it is a female. In my opinion, the child is unconsciously cognitively thinking of the words “little” and “red” which would tend to be associated with girls, rather than boys. Looking at the pictures, the woodcutter is a male. A woodcutter, the hero who saves the day, does manual work and requires strength to chop the trees. Therefore, typically, a male would be more suitable for such a masculine role. The villain although is a wolf in this story, the voice that is given to the wolf is clearly a male’s voice.
On the other hand, Little Red Riding Hood is placed in the position whereby she listens to her mother to deliver the basket of food over. She is portrayed as being obedient, expected from daughters. She then meets the wolf and does not suspect anything amiss when she observed that her grandmother did not look like her grandmother! Instead, she asked questions. In this way, again, females are portrayed as being gullible. Little Red Riding Hood’s mother was also clothed in apron, depicting that mothers are homemakers. Finally, the clothes worn by the woodcutter is blue, whereas the grandmother is in pink. This is again a stereotypical expectation that blue is for males and pink for females.
Critical reading skills in Secondary 2
In this scenario, I will not use this source for critical reading skills. I would select the Little Red Riding Hood text, fully written and ask students to draw the characters. I would then ask them the following questions.
· Why did you choose these colours?
· Why did you choose to draw the clothes in this manner?
· Is it possible that the woodcutter is female?
· Would it change your impression of the story if the roles are reversed – the females are the woodcutter and wolf, while the males are the grandmother, little red riding hood and her father.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-stories-red-riding-hood.htm
Coding
The text is accompanied by animation and audio narration. Based on the audio narration and the text, there is an aim to help children make phoneme and word recognition. In addition, there is also reading from left-to-right directionality. This is probably to teach children literacy skills.
Semantic
The role of this text participant is to follow the words as the narrator reads. Fairy tales is probably one of the first genres of text that children are in contact with at a young age. The idea of reading fairy tales is to expose children to stories and non-fiction texts. I would suggest that this text be catered to children aged around 4 who are learning to read. They would most probably have already heard the story of Little Red Riding Hood. By using a familiar text, children can just follow the narration and pictures to help decode words. It may even be possible that the writer is trying to introduce adjectives as we can see from the usage of “nice cake”, “big ears”, “big eyes” and “loud scream”.
Pragmatic
Fairy tales is a non-fiction text, falling under the text type category of narratives. One of the first few text types that are taught in school is writing a narrative. By exposing children to such stories, the concept of narratives is being internalized and hopefully children will be able to apply it when they have started writing.
Critical Competence
Mention the title, “Little Red Riding Hood” to any child and ask the child the gender of the little red riding hood. Chances are, the child would say that it is a female. In my opinion, the child is unconsciously cognitively thinking of the words “little” and “red” which would tend to be associated with girls, rather than boys. Looking at the pictures, the woodcutter is a male. A woodcutter, the hero who saves the day, does manual work and requires strength to chop the trees. Therefore, typically, a male would be more suitable for such a masculine role. The villain although is a wolf in this story, the voice that is given to the wolf is clearly a male’s voice.
On the other hand, Little Red Riding Hood is placed in the position whereby she listens to her mother to deliver the basket of food over. She is portrayed as being obedient, expected from daughters. She then meets the wolf and does not suspect anything amiss when she observed that her grandmother did not look like her grandmother! Instead, she asked questions. In this way, again, females are portrayed as being gullible. Little Red Riding Hood’s mother was also clothed in apron, depicting that mothers are homemakers. Finally, the clothes worn by the woodcutter is blue, whereas the grandmother is in pink. This is again a stereotypical expectation that blue is for males and pink for females.
Critical reading skills in Secondary 2
In this scenario, I will not use this source for critical reading skills. I would select the Little Red Riding Hood text, fully written and ask students to draw the characters. I would then ask them the following questions.
· Why did you choose these colours?
· Why did you choose to draw the clothes in this manner?
· Is it possible that the woodcutter is female?
· Would it change your impression of the story if the roles are reversed – the females are the woodcutter and wolf, while the males are the grandmother, little red riding hood and her father.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Digital Technology in Schools
Technology has definitely changed the way we live – work, school, communication, shopping, food and almost any other thing you can think of. To put it bluntly, if we were to take technology out of our lives, I am sure many of us will feel handicapped in more ways than one. I realized the importance of technology as I am currently teaching at the CDAC centre. As a small tuition centre set up, the only 2 resources that I have are the whiteboard and worksheets. There is no visualizer or OHP. As such, I always find it very inefficient as I would need some time to write the questions on the whiteboard. If I had a computer and a projector, I would be able to prepare the questions on PowerPoint and make use of the animation to enhance my teaching. I could also make use of websites, videos, clips, music, simulations and other resources to show a concept in various ways.
With the concept of multiple intelligences, these concepts are very important as it caters to the various multiple intelligences that students have. Teaching in the Singapore classroom is no longer confined to chalk and talk. Some students are visual learners, while some are linguistic learners. With the usage of technology, in a single lesson, it can be planned to cater to suit the diversity of learners. Looking at the English syllabus for 2010, new components have been added in such as viewing and representing. There is a need to revise the syllabus due to the ever changing world, which is what we want to prepare our students for.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Movie Posters!
I have selected some movie posters and classified them into 3 main categories – action, the supernatural and romance.
In the first set, the four movies:
1. Die Hard
2. The Mummy
3. Resident Evil
4. Indiana Jones
I would classify these movies under “action”. The general colour theme is brown. Based on the colour theme brown, one could almost predict that the genre is of an action film. My hypothesis is that brown gives people the impression of mud and maybe the countryside. Therefore, it hints that there will be a lot of adventure, seeming to suggest action.
In this second set, the four movies are:
1. Bless the Child
2. The Ring
3. Shutter
4. The Exorcist
These movies fall under the category of “the supernatural”. General the colour theme is black or if not, is rather dark. Based on the colour theme, one would also be able to predict that the story is highly likely to be a horror film. Just like the prince of darkness, the supernatural is the dark side of life, therefore, the colour, black.
In this third set, the four movies are:
1. Bridget Jones Diary
2. Maid in Manhattan
3. Bride Wars
4. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Needless to say, these shows would be classified under “romance”. Opposite from the supernatural, the colours used in these posters are light colours, mainly white, pink and yellow. Love and marriage is looked upon as something divine. A new life, a new beginning. Hope. Therefore, the usage of light colours to signify hope.
Apart from the title and based on the colour theme of these posters, one would be able to guess what the story would be about.
In the first set, the four movies:
1. Die Hard
2. The Mummy
3. Resident Evil
4. Indiana Jones
I would classify these movies under “action”. The general colour theme is brown. Based on the colour theme brown, one could almost predict that the genre is of an action film. My hypothesis is that brown gives people the impression of mud and maybe the countryside. Therefore, it hints that there will be a lot of adventure, seeming to suggest action.
In this second set, the four movies are:
1. Bless the Child
2. The Ring
3. Shutter
4. The Exorcist
These movies fall under the category of “the supernatural”. General the colour theme is black or if not, is rather dark. Based on the colour theme, one would also be able to predict that the story is highly likely to be a horror film. Just like the prince of darkness, the supernatural is the dark side of life, therefore, the colour, black.
In this third set, the four movies are:
1. Bridget Jones Diary
2. Maid in Manhattan
3. Bride Wars
4. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Needless to say, these shows would be classified under “romance”. Opposite from the supernatural, the colours used in these posters are light colours, mainly white, pink and yellow. Love and marriage is looked upon as something divine. A new life, a new beginning. Hope. Therefore, the usage of light colours to signify hope.
Apart from the title and based on the colour theme of these posters, one would be able to guess what the story would be about.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Flower
In my opinion, I see the picture as products of the education system. Singapore, being a meritocratic country, emphasizes heavily on qualifications. Therefore, to survive in such a country, education is very important. The white flowers, being in the centre of the picture occupies a fairly large area and I would equate this to the majority of the people, those who form the major work force. Above the white flowers, the stigma (hope my term is correct), in orange, are standing proud and tall. Those are the high flyers, who outshine the majority of the people, excelling in school and getting jobs with high prospects. And below are the wilted flowers, sadly, are those dropped out of school and have give up hope in life.
In addition, the flowers, in the foreground, are clearer than the background, the grass. Since my focus is on the flowers and I equate it with products of the education system, this also reflects the resource of Singapore. Singapore has no natural resource and we have to rely heavily on manpower. This is the focus of our government, therefore, emphasizing on education in order to succeed in Singapore.
Semiotics
We often take for granted the way we view things around us. We know red means dangers and white signifies purity. We know our traffic signs are available in triangular shape, hexagonal shape and circles. But what is it that makes us understand the meaning behind these colours and shapes? Semiotics.
What about the interpretation of body language? An example of a baby crying can mean so many things. The baby might be hungry, wet his diapers or want his parents. Semiotics also helps us understand the phenomena of babies crying. Babies, unable to talk, use crying as their form of communication and how their parents interpret their crying is also subjective. Meaning-making is there both subjective and objective as shown in the 2 examples above.
While doing this week’s reading, I kept recalling the module AAE102, Language in Context, where we analyzed words and advertorials. Framing, salience and spaces are there for a reason. Why is it that some advertisements work better than others? Why is it that some advertisements can linger on in our mind? What goes behind the making of these advertisements? Semiotic inventories.
In order to value add the meaning behind advertorials or cover page, typography is an element which facilitates making meaning potential. We would not want a straight, serious heavy font for a beach poster. Conversely, we would not want a playful, informal font for the cover of a dictionary.
So next time, don't take the things we see for granted. There is a lot that goes into design that cover, poster or advertisement.
What about the interpretation of body language? An example of a baby crying can mean so many things. The baby might be hungry, wet his diapers or want his parents. Semiotics also helps us understand the phenomena of babies crying. Babies, unable to talk, use crying as their form of communication and how their parents interpret their crying is also subjective. Meaning-making is there both subjective and objective as shown in the 2 examples above.
While doing this week’s reading, I kept recalling the module AAE102, Language in Context, where we analyzed words and advertorials. Framing, salience and spaces are there for a reason. Why is it that some advertisements work better than others? Why is it that some advertisements can linger on in our mind? What goes behind the making of these advertisements? Semiotic inventories.
In order to value add the meaning behind advertorials or cover page, typography is an element which facilitates making meaning potential. We would not want a straight, serious heavy font for a beach poster. Conversely, we would not want a playful, informal font for the cover of a dictionary.
So next time, don't take the things we see for granted. There is a lot that goes into design that cover, poster or advertisement.
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