The Place of Embodied Learning Activities in the English
Classroom Marcello Giovanelli January 2013
Slide 2
I was waiting at the station feeling a little down as I had
some heavy issues on my mind. But I was looking forward to seeing
my friend and going out that evening. I saw a man at the other end
of the platform. He had an icy stare. He walked over to me. His
eyes were continually on me. He stopped and told me he was a Spurs
fan. I could now see why he was sad: he was clearly having a rough
time of it too. Sadness is down Emotions are objects Emotions are
movements Emotions are physical states (warm = good; cold = bad)
Seeing is touching Seeing is understanding Life is a physical
surface (good = smooth; bad = rough)
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Embodied Cognition Thought and speech use our experience of
physical movement and the bodys interaction in space to explain the
abstract The whole bodys role in perceiving and learning to make
sense of the world
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Climbers stated that a hill appeared steeper when wearing a
backpack Students holding a warm drink rated an imaginary person as
more friendly than those who were given a cold drink to hold
Participants were more likely to remember a positive experience
when pushing marbles up a ramp than rolling them down People
imagined object rotations more quickly when they could physically
rotate an object with their hands Children who practised reading a
passage whilst manipulating figurines to mirror the actions in that
passage were better at recalling events from new passages they
subsequently read Participants responded yes faster to the question
is it possible to squeeze a tomato? when they had their hand formed
into a closed grip rather than a flat palm
Slide 5
Structure A) Some fundamental principles behind a cognitive
approach to teaching aspects of grammar, structure, and meaning in
the context of the English classroom B) Illustration of some ideas
for and examples of teaching complex topics
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A: Fundamentals Embodied cognition From the physical to mental
conceptualisation Image schemas The pedagogy of embodied learning
activities: teaching through movement
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B: Embodied Learning Activities Modality Metaphor
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Orientational metaphors HAPPINESS IS UPSADNESS IS DOWN
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Stand Retaining a position We must stand our ground He stands
for freedom I cant stand that music Becoming more visible or
prominent Shes standing in for Paula today She stands out in a
crowd Hes a teacher of real standing Standing up
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Image schemas STAND meaning structures
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bodily experience>>cognition
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Image Schema CONTAINER He was in the room He went into the room
PATH TRLM
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Image Schemas Are not images but analogue representations Are
multi-modal Are inherently meaningful
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Functional Significance
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Interpretative Significance
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Embodied Learning Activities Approaches to learning that
deliberately use the body to engage with abstract concepts Make use
of the bodys capacity to make explore and make sense Rely on the
notion of embodiment since meanings develop from concrete bodily
experience........it makes sense if pedagogical sequences do also
Holme (2009: 22)
Slide 17
Seattle Pacific University Energy Project
Slide 18
ELAs in the English Classroom L2 vocabulary and grammar
teaching (e.g. Holme 2009) Hallidays (2002) grammatics: using
grammar to think with Grammar as meaningful
Slide 19
Modality
Slide 20
1.You must not enter 2.You cannot buy tickets here 3.You may
now open the window 4.You can sing really well 5.You will be fined
6.You might win
Slide 21
Modal senses are connected and related by virtue of force
schemata Johnson (1987: 49)
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COMPULSION BLOCKABLE REMOVE CONSTRAINT
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1.You must not enter = COMPULSION 2.You cannot buy tickets here
= BLOCK 3.You may now open the window = REMOVE CONSTRAINT 4.You can
sing really well = ABLE 5.You will be fined = COMPULSION
(certainty) 6.You might win = ABLE (perhaps?)
Slide 24
Epistemic
>>>>may>>>>will>>>>must Arsenal
might win>>>Arsenal will win>>>Arsenal must win
LESS CERTAIN MORE CERTAIN
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Deontic >>>>may>>>>ought
to>>>>must He may go>>He ought to go>>He
must go PERMISSION OBLIGATION NECESSITY
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BLOCK He mustnt be the one I was thinking of
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BLOCK
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REMOVE CONSTRAINT
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Modality in written discourse
Slide 34
Your vehicle must either be taxed You may not be able will not
be committing.. You must keep your vehicle off the road You must
declare your vehicle You could be fined 1000 you could be fined and
sent to prison.. You must display the tax disc
Slide 35
COMPULSION
Slide 36
Taking it further Each force schema could be explored in turn
to identify degrees of modality along a continuum. For example, are
there some modal constructions (and therefore texts) which present
greater degrees of compulsion? Explore modal lexical verbs (e.g.
permit) and modal adjectives/adverbs (possible/possibly) to produce
a more detailed analysis of the kinds of power inherent in
modalised expressions in a text Ask students to rewrite or re-act
texts which rely on modal constructions, replacing them with either
stronger/weaker modals or non-modalised expressions. A comparison
of the two should give further insight into the role of modality.
Find and analyse texts where modalised expressions occur with other
dominant features such as imperative sentences. Ask students to
collect examples of texts and consider how these language features
combine to create particular effects.
Slide 37
Metaphor
Slide 38
Structuring one thing through another Understanding the
abstract through the physical
Politics = sport (football) Players on a pitch Kick footballs
around Footballs are passive Players take the glory Its a game
Politicians Voters Power Rewards Consequences Provides a structure
for understanding SOURCE DOMAIN (FOOTBALL) TARGET DOMAIN (POLITICS)
Mapped onto
Slide 41
Politics = sport (football) Players on a pitch Kick footballs
around Footballs are passive Players take the glory Its a game
Politicians Voters Power Rewards Consequences Provides a structure
for understanding
Slide 42
Slide 43
GOOD IS UP; BAD IS DOWN GOOD IS MOVEMENT; BAD IS STASIS
COUNTRIES ARE PEOPLE POLITICS IS AN OBJECT IMMIGRATION/FINANCIAL
DEFICITS ARE BARRIERS CHANGE IS ACTION
Slide 44
Exploring metaphorical mapping Take one metaphor Identify
source and target domains Explore what attributes are being mapped
across How is metaphor used as a structuring device?
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Taking it further Rewrite (re-act) making the source domain
more up front (e.g. write the Frank Dunne text as a football
commentary) Script and perform an advertisement to emphasise the
embodied nature of abstract ideas
Slide 50
A model for using ELAs Set up deliberate embodied activities
Ask students to consider the role of the physical in the
structuring of meaning Discussion of patterns of experience and
patterns of meaning Synthesis of learning and theoretical
Interpretation and testing
Slide 51
Wider implications: pedagogy Generative and functional
dominance Hammond and Macken-Horarik (2001): 69% of teachers
thought that functional grammar would be useful in supporting the
teaching of writing; 6% felt confident to use it in their teaching
Watson (2012): competing grammar discourses Giovanelli (2010,
2012): a cognitive grammatics in the secondary classroom (text
world theory)
Slide 52
Wider implications: the classroom In traditional classroom
situations, students are seated, often in individual desks, and
often all facing the front of the classroom. This....leads to the
restriction of many forms of expression (Close et al. 2010 )
Slide 53
References and further reading Close, E.W., Close, H.G.,
McKagan, S.B. and Scherr, R.E. (2010) Energy in action: the
construction of Physics ideas in multiple modes, 2010 Physics
Education Research Conference. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume
1289, pp. 105-108. Evans, V. and Green, M. (2007) Cognitive
Linguistics: An Introduction, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press. Gallagher, S. (2005) How the Body Shapes the Mind, Oxford:
Oxford University Press. Giovanelli, M. (2010) A text world theory
approach to the teaching of poetry, English in Education 44 (3),
214-31. Giovanelli, M. (2012) Text world theory and the teaching of
reading and writing, Paper delivered at National Association for
the Teaching of English Conference, York. Halliday, M. (2002) On
grammar and grammatics in J. Webster (ed.) On Grammar: Vol 1 of the
Collected Works of MAK Halliday, London: Continuum: pp. 384-417.
Hammond, J. and Macken-Horarik, M. (2001) Teachers voices, teachers
practices: insider perspectives on literacy education, Australian
Journal of Language and Literacy, 24 (2), 112-132. Holme, R. (2009)
Cognitive Linguistics and Language Teaching, Basingstoke:
Macmillan. Johnson, M. (1987) The Body in the Mind: the Bodily
Basis of Meaning, Imagination and Reason, Chicago, IL: Chicago
University Press. Lakoff, G and Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors We
Live By, Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press Lakoff, G. and
Turner, M. (1989) More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic
Metaphor, Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Mandler, J. M.
(2004) The Foundations of Mind: Origins of Conceptual Thought,
Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scherr, R., Close, H., McKagan, S.
And Close, E. (2010) Energy theater: using the body symbolically to
understand energy, 2010 Physics Education Research Conference
Proceedings, Volume 1289, pp. 293- 296. Ungerer, F. And Schmid, H.
(1996) An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics, Longman: London.
Watson, H. (2012) Navigating the pit of doom: Affective responses
to teaching grammar, English in Education 46 (1), 21-36.