Pedagogical Science
Vira Mirochnyk
National University of Food Technologies (Kiev,
Ukraine)
Language
does more than package or represent something, it embodies an individual’s
understanding of the world. Knowledge is
socially constructed rather than individually received.
Sprague
argued that individuals interested in instructional communication have
focused too much on the role of teacher talk in the classroom. She
contended that student talk facilitates learning of all subjects and should therefore,
be understood by teachers and researchers as well.
Vygotsky
(1981), a prominent Russian scholar, contended that mental
processes
and communication are inextricably intertwined. That is, the ability
to learn and think is connected to communication processes. One of
Vygotsky’s major contributions was the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky,
1978). The zone of proximal development is the distance
between
independent problem solving ability and the potential
development
that can be accomplished through adult guidance or in collaboration with
more skilled peers. Communication, therefore, is the
mechanism
through which these developmental processes occur.
Negotiation
is one of the communication activities that influences
cognition. As individuals move from childhood to
adulthood, they must learn to manage situations
involving
alternative viewpoints. Negotiation requires individuals ot engage
in arguments that reveal strengths and weaknesses of a perspective.
Think
about the way in which students deliberate on classroom projects.
The
relationship between learning and language is at the core of constructivist
approaches to education. Constructivism is predicated on
the
belief that learners construct their own meaning from interaction with
texts, problems, materials, students, teachers, and other features of
the learning environment. Students are not empty
vessels to be filled with some type of intellectual
fluid.
Each student comes to the educational environment, steeped in experiences,
competencies, and beliefs. Communication processes play a
significant
role in the way instructional processes are managed.
The
final aspect of the communication process that we wish to discuss is listening.
Meanings are intimately tied to listening ability. Students who are
distracted do not focus on main ideas and have difficulty following instructional
messages.
According
to Wolvin and Coakley, discriminative
listening is distinguishing among auditory
and visual stimuli. This type of listening undergirds
all
other forms of listening. In the classroom, teachers and students must
sort through a wide range of auditory stimuli. Students talking, shuffling
papers, snapping gum, the squeak of chalk, are among the
sounds
that are processed in the classroom context.
Discriminative
ability is fundamental to musicians, auto mechanics,
parents
and teachers. Each must determine the significance of certain sounds
and how to respond to them. The musician learns how to coordinate certain
tones and blend them into melodies. The mechanic listens
to
the “ping” in an engine to determine why it isn’t running smoothly.
Listening
for comprehension builds
on discrimination of stimuli to an understanding of the message.
Many of the educational processes engage this listening
function. Students listen to lectures, student reports, classroom discussions,
announcements, and the admonitions of teachers.
Successful
comprehension requires that listeners avoid an evaluative attitude about
the topic being discussed or the speaker. A student, who does not
like history, may have difficulty attending to a lecture on the Revolutionary
War. Listening is facilitated when the listener can identify the speaker’s main ideas.
As we have observed, in any instructional context, a multitude of messages
are shared. Listeners must learn to discard extraneous information and
focus on that which is most relevant to the instructional task.
Comprehension
is difficult in diverse classrooms where there may be vast
differences
in vocabulary. Students may hear many words but not know
what
they mean. Finally, comprehension requires listeners to store information in
short-term memory, rehearse it, and move it into long-term
memory
so that it can be retrieved later.
Critical listening requires the
listener to render a judgment about the information
received. This skill is invoked in several ways. When a
speaker’s
purpose is to persuade, a listener must make a judgment about the
validity and strength of evidence. Effectiveness in this situation requires
listeners to understand the way in which persuasive arguments are
structured and supported. Teachers put on their “critical” listening hats
when they listen to student accounts for late work or a problematic pattern
of behavior. They also model good listening when they help
students
process good arguments from more problematic ones. Students must
learn that criticizing an argument does not mean criticizing the person.
There
are numerous circumstances that make effective listening difficult. One
is that listening is always part of an interpersonal relationship.
Communication
processes are negotiated among participants as they act
upon
the meanings they construct and share. Verbal and nonverbal behaviors
are the mechanisms through which instructional sense making is
achieved. Contemporary theorists also emphasize the powerful relationship between
learning and communication. How we come to understand
instructional
material is a function of communication.
References
1.
Forman,
E., & Cazden, C. (1998). Exploring Vygotskian perspectives in education: The
cognitive value of peer interaction. In D. Faulkner, K. Littleton, & M.
Woodhead (Eds.), Learning
relationships in the classroom (pp. 189–206).
New
York: Routledge.
2.
Wolvin,
A. D., & Coakley, C. G. (1993). A listening typology. In A. D. Wolvin, &
C. G. Coakley (Eds.), Perspectives on
listening (pp. 15–22). Norwood, NJ:
Ablex.