Haynam

Walking with video is a phenomelogical research method. Researchers walk with their participants and filmed the process. It is argued that the method provides sensory experience and allows reserachers to learn empathetically about their participants' experience. The article starts with the author Pink's own walking with video experience in which she walked with a couple around a garden. The couple showed her some features of the garden. Sometimes the camera was drawn to the ground as the couple showed Pink the textures of the soil.                    According to Pink, the "video tour" increases "understandings of the identities, moralities, values, beliefs and concerns of the people they do their research with".  In addition, with the "walking with" audiovisual methods of research, participants better communicate their perception of their environment. Also the filmmaking draws people, things and sensory experiences toget...

In her paper Group Flow in Small Groups of Middle School Mathematics Students , Armstrong looked into two questions: 1 ) what are the observable characteristics of group flow , and 2 ) what conditions may help to promote the experience of group flow in small groups in a regular mathematics classroom setting?  Flow is a state in which a learner or a group ( individual flow/group flow ) is/are highly absorbed to an activity and he/they will do it even at great cost for the sheer sake of doing it ( Csikszentmihalyi , 1990 ) . The occurrence of group flow suggests the individual/group is learning. So it is the optimal state of learning and the author is interested in finding out what characteristics are there when such state occurs and what contribute to the occurrence. There are three rounds of observation. In the first round , the author observed a maths class of grade eight students. In the 40 minutes class , she carried a camera and walked around to record any mome...

Thanks for your wonderful sharing Diana! To be honest I had the same problem in reading those jargonic academic paper just as you did when you just started. So I am very happy to learn that there is an alternative for it, the “faction”. To me, it would be much more readable and approachable than those “patronizing” traditional academic papers. Since I am studying teaching English as a second language, I’ve read a lot of papers in quantitative research, all of which would be an excellent material for “factions”. One records the English learning trajectory of a Japanese girl over two years and that could potentially be a wonderful faction. In a word, I do enjoy your presentation and thank you for the new insight of academic papers! Haynam

In his interview with Wade Davis talking about zombies in Haiti , the host employed different tactics to induce the guest to talk about his findings. Some questions and comment he made are planned and some are improvised. From me , one distinct of an unplanned questions is the large use of discourse markers , also known as filler like “ well ” “ uh ” “ you know ” which signifies struggle of expressions of one ’ s ideas in his brain. The interview is about an anthropologist and his book about his research in Haiti. The interviewer had obviously made abundant preparations before the interview because he asked many questions with quotes from the book. So one lesson for a successful interview to me is to be fully prepared to the topic and the people we are going to interview otherwise we are much less likely to receive meaningful response. Another point I get from the interview is to respect our guest. During the talk , there are times when the host were raising questions and the g...

I like how she developed from the research questions in her Master’s thesis to the ones in her PhD. I wonder if it would make a difference had she not fostered a relationship with the children during the learning experiences? Coming from a science background without teaching experiences, it is amazing that she could work with a large number of children in interviews. As Katie mentioned in the QnA, what impact would it have on her interaction/experiences with the children? Were there any ethical consideration/restrictions that potentially hindered her interaction with the children? If so, how did she cope with them? Jingyu&Haynam

I am interested in finding out the advantages and disadvantages of different second language teaching modes-like biligual, immersion, transitional immersion-to find one that would work on an English as a foreign language environment like China the most.