1. How does this topic fit into what I have learned already in this course?
As I was reading the section on speaking, it amazed me how many processes are going on in the mind just to be able to speak one sentence. I had never thought of this before. The brain truly works at remarkable speeds. This also showed me all the processes from our past readings that are involved – phonological loops, top-down processing, working memory, semantics, schema, central executive, and long term memory. So many processes work together to make just one sentence.
The same applies to producing written work; so much going on in one’s brain just to produce one little sentence. The brain truly is an amazing organ.
2. What am I still not clear on in this week's reading(s)?
This all seemed to make sense to me. Although I continue to be baffled by the top-down processing. I know that seems silly, but I just haven’t gotten that straight in my brain and it continues to come up in every chapter.
Also, I was wondering about the introduction at the beginning of chapter 9. It gave four goals of speech production. The goals did not contain – To inform. Isn’t one of our goals of speech simply to pass along information?
3. Under what conditions would I apply this material to my own teaching/work?
One thing that hit me right off the bat was that when I am teaching, I had better be following the rules of pragmatics. Before I begin any lesson, I need to be sure that my listeners have common ground with me. For instance, if I am teaching a lesson about weather and I am talking about how the meteorologist makes predictions based on the air pressure, the air currents, etc…, I had better make sure that the children know what a meteorologist is, or the lesson has no meaning. Having common ground is very important in teaching; and I think that is one area that is often overlooked. One cannot assume common ground has been established especially with the growing population of poverty children that is appearing in the scho
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I like that you mentioned following the rules of pragmatics. It makes so much of a difference if your students have the background knowledge of what you are teaching about. I find that a quick review is always helpful!
ReplyDeleteWhen you mentioned the top-down processing, I also have to really think about this. To me, this is similar to what we learned in Dr. O'Donnell's class with the big idea. For the top down process, I assume that it starts with the big idea, and then breaks down into all of the smaller concepts. To me, this is a tough one to visualize. I try to think of the bottom up as pieces of a puzzle that come together to make one picture. As for my students' thinking, I can see how they may think more in top-down processes, but they are likely to perform in bottom-up approaches.
ReplyDeleteIt is pretty amazing that we don't make more mistakes considering all the work that goes into one sentence. I too am confused with top down processing and I think I may always be. It is interesting what you said about common ground because I wouldn't have thought about it this way. I think teaching is allowing the students to have common ground with you regarding the subject. Students who miss a lot of school may not always have common ground with the teacher.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading about pragmatics and common ground, I had the same thoughts. The book states speakers will often overestimate the listeners ability to understand a message and the speaker can mistakenly assume the listener's wants and needs are in line with the speaker. I was thinking of individual subjects when reading about this. It can be true for any subject - as teachers we pick our subjects because they interest us ie: math, English, health etc. Just because I love health class and think it is really important for the kids to learn about making healthy choices in life does not mean they have the same interest or desire to learn and discuss those topics, so I need to find common ground with my students. In an effort to do this, I try to personalize material when I can and in health class this can be done fairly easily.
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