Expressing Cognitive Operations
Through the Language of Immersion
Introduction
This research deals with the extent to which teachers transmit
as think aloud their own thoughts as they perform cognitive operations
in immersion classrooms. The concern is whether immersion teachers
convey to students in what Vygotsky has termed other-directed or
"public" speech enough of the immersion-language vocabulary
and structure for expressing cognitive operations that their pupils
feel confident doing so on their own. (See L. S. Vygotsky (1961).
Thought and speech. In S. Saporta (Ed.), Psycholinguistics (pp.
509-537). NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.) It is this other-directed
speech which constitutes the input that immersion pupils need in
order to construct their own inner-directed and other-directed speech
in that language. The issue concerns the degree to which immersion
pupils are able to think through cognitive operations calling for
verbalization without having to revert to their native language
in order to express these operations. This study posits that if upper elementary immersion teachers were
to do more verbalizing of their cognitive processing strategies
out loud as if they were fifth or sixth graders, their pupils would
have a richer context for acquiring the carrier language for cognitive
processing in the foreign language. The study also posits that enhanced
facility at cognitive processing in the immersion language would
lead to more processing in that language. The assumption here is
that if pupils have an easier time expressing themselves through
the target language - even during their inner-directed verbalizations
- they will be more encouraged to use the target language for verbalizing
their thoughts and for interaction with others.
The Research Questions
- What effect will an increase in teachers' modeling of the immersion-language
vocabulary and structure that they use for verbalizing cognitive
operations in performing math word problems have on their pupils
use of that language as a vehicle for their own cognitive processing
in math?
- What effect will the teachers' modeling of vocabulary and structures
used for task performance have on their pupils' general oral and
written production in the immersion language?
The Design of the Study
The study is already underway with preliminary visits to Twin
Cities Immersion programs. A 50% time R.A. will be hired in Spring
Semester 2001. Teachers are to be trained in the summer of 2001.
The experiment will be conducted during the 2001-2002 school year.
Colleagues will be invited to collaborate on this project. Subjects
The plan is to conduct the study in fourth-grade Spanish or French
full immersion classrooms. The approach will be quasi-experimental
in that intact full immersion classrooms will be selected for
the experiment, with comparable intact classrooms at the same
fourth-grade level serving as the comparison group. The intention
is to have four classrooms with one native-speaking immersion
teacher and one nonnative-speaking immersion teacher in each of
the Experimental and Comparison classrooms respectively.
Treatment
The treatment will call for having the teachers in the two Experimental
classrooms shift their teaching style enough so that they model
the statement of their own cognitive processes in the performance
of math word problems. In essence, they will be providing on-line,
think-aloud verbalization of their own cognitive processing to
the students in the immersion language, as well as introspective
and retrospective data about what they are doing and have done
as they work through these tasks. In order for the treatment to
take place, participating Experimental teachers will receive training
sessions in which they themselves will receive models for enhanced
statement of their own cognitive processes, with a focus on having
teachers externalize and make explicit inner-directed cognitive
processes. The focus will be on both language and content with
the intention that both the language and content skills of the
pupils will improve.
Instrument
- Teacher Cognitive Processing Measure: this instrument
will be intended to assess retrospectively the extent to which
the teachers use the immersion language for expressing verbalized
cognitive processes in their own minds. It will involve the use
of audio and possibly video-taping to help the teachers reconstruct
their thought processes before and during science and social studies
tasks.
- Teacher Observation Schedule: an instrument will be designed
to observe the extent to which teachers furnish the learners with
immersion language which reflects the externalization of their
cognitive processing.
- Student Cognitive Processing Measure: this instrument
will assess the extent to which the pupils use the language of
immersion for performing verbalized cognitive tasks.
- Student Oral and Written Task Measure: an instrument
will be designed to assess the oral and written output of the
immersion pupils.
Data Collection Procedures
- Developing, piloting, and refining the instruments.
- Identifying the participating schools and finding teachers and
classrooms for the experimental and the control groups.
- Collecting baseline data from the participating teachers in
the experimental and comparison groups using the Teacher Cognitive
Processing Measure and the Teacher Observation Schedule to determine
the extent to which the teachers externalize their verbalized
cognitive processing while teaching word problems in math prior
to any training.
- Training the teachers who will provide the experimental treatment
to their pupils.
- Collecting the data. The Teacher Observation Schedule will be
used regularly over the period of the study, at regular intervals.
The Student Oral and Written Task Measure will be administered
on a pre-posttest basis, while the Student Cognitive Processing
Measure will be used at regular intervals over the duration of
the study.
Data Analysis Procedures
Much of the initial analysis will involve transcription of recorded
protocols. The protocols will be subjected to both quantitative
and qualitative analyses. Protocols for experimental and control
teachers will be compared to determine the extent to which the
treatment was actually administered. Analysis will be conducted
to characterize the statement of cognition in the target language
by experimental and control teachers and pupils. In addition,
quantitative analysis will be used to investigate the relationship
between the nature of reported facility in using the target language
for thinking through problems and measured oral and written proficiency.
The Intended Outcomes and Implications
The findings from the study may have important implications not
only for designing immersion and other forms of bilingual education
programs in the elementary, middle, and secondary schools, but
also at the university level, where immersion programs are slowly
beginning to take hold, such as at the University of Minnesota
(where during Spring quarter, Spanish, French, and German full
immersion programs have been instituted and immersion in other
languages has been planned). The research could have a series of implications for program
design. Findings could have implications for the following:
- Teacher selection: The findings of the study might help
to ensure that teachers are selected not just in terms of their
proficiency in the language of mathematics but their expertise
in academic language in general and especially the technical language
of complex cognition in the immersion language.
- Teacher development: The study may lead to the development
of materials to support teachers in the refinement of their own
academic language proficiency.
- Classroom methods: The study influence how content material
is delivered in class-that is, the extent to which the teachers
share their own verbalized thought processes with their pupils.
