Complexity: Activity 1

Lexical variety and task demand

Please read the information about complexity before working through these activities.

1. Below are the directions read to the learners in both English and Chinese before the Jigsaw and Comparison tasks. Read the directions and think about the cognitive demands of the two tasks. Are the cognitive demands of these two tasks different? If yes, in what ways? And how do you think the difference might affect the learner language in terms of its complexity?

Directions for Jigsaw Task:

In English
Each of you has a photograph of house in Minnesota. Start by briefly describing your photo, and then find three things in your photos that are the same, and three things that are different.  Don’t show each other your photos. For example, you could ask, “This house has two windows.” or you could ask, “Is that house in the city?”

In Chinese
这是两张明尼苏达的不同的房子的图片。你们不能看对方的图片。你们要找出这两张图片里面的三个相同点和三个不同点。比如说，你可以说，这张图片的房子有两扇窗户，或者你也可以问，你那张图片的房子是在市区吗？

Directions for Comparison Task:

In English
Please talk about who might live in these houses. For example, how many people live in each house? What do you think their social class is? What do these kinds of houses tell you about American culture?

In Chinese
现在你们看着对方的图片，然后谈一谈谁会住在这两栋房子里面。比如说，有多少人住在里面？他们的社会地位怎么样？你能看出来美国文化的哪些方面？

2. Now look at the transcripts of Jiulin and AnnaLi’s oral production on the Jigsaw and Comparison tasks. Classify the nouns that they use as concrete or abstract and fill in the table below (excluding erroneous uses of nouns).

Here, concrete nouns are those “referrable to classes of tangible (and sometimes discrete) nouns, categories, events and phenomena in the natural or human world” (Yip & Rimmington, 2004, 1), such as 人 (people), and 窗户 (window).
Abstract nouns are “non-referrable to concrete objects or entities in the natural or human world”, but “products of human epistemology, being convenient, summary labels used holistically to refer to complex or sophisticated situations, experiences, processes, qualities or phenomena in diverse areas of human endeavor” (5), such as 工作 (job), and 地方(place).

Task	Jigsaw		Comparison
Type of noun	Concrete	Abstract	Concrete	Abstract
Jiulin
AnnaLi

3. For concrete nouns, also count those that refer to entities displayed in the pictures and those that refer to entities that aren’t actually shown, but can be inferred to exist. Compare the use of these concrete nouns across the two tasks. Are they different? If yes, what are the differences? What do you think might have caused these differences?

Task	Concrete nouns in Jigsaw		Concrete nouns in Comparison
In the picture	Yes	No	Yes	No
Jiulin
AnnaLi

Please type your answers to the questions in the box below.

Type your response here

When you have finished typing your answer, click to compare your response with the Learner Language staff response.

1. In the Jigsaw task, the learners were asked to compare physical characteristics of two houses, while in the Comparison task, they were expected to make inferences about abstract cultural constructs such as social class, using facts shown in the photos as evidence. The Comparison task demands a discussion of abstract concepts and taps into higher order thinking skills. Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, higher order thinking skills such as analysis, evaluation and synthesis require more cognitive processing than lower order thinking skills (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Therefore, compared with the Jigsaw task, the Comparison task seems to be cognitively more demanding. It requires the expression and development of language that is typically used in academic tasks and may elicit the use of more complex linguistic forms and more abstract nouns.  
   
   
2. As can be seen from the table below, both learners use a greater variety of concrete and abstract nouns in the Comparison task than in the Jigsaw. In particular, Jiulin uses abstract nouns only in the Comparison task but never does so in the Jigsaw task. This is probably because the Comparison task elicits not only concrete entities but also abstract ones while the Jigsaw task specifically requires reference to concrete entities only.
   
   
   

   Task	Jigsaw		Comparison
   Type of nouns	Concrete	Abstract	Concrete	Abstract
   Jiulin	照片  photo 房子  house 墙  wall 门  door 车  car 楼  building 树  tree 马路  road 草  grass 窗户  window 边  side 前面  front 旁边  side 人  people 电脑  computer		窗户  window 房子  house 门  door 墙  wall 油漆  paint 车  car 后面  back 马路  road 隔壁  neighbor 外面  outside 草  grass 钱  money 大人  grownups 工厂  factory 明州  Minnesota 人  people 父母  parents 孩子  kids 城市  city 狗  dog	工作  job 地方  place 事  things 派对  party 东西  stuff 穷人  the poor
   AnnaLi	房子  house 车  car 窗户  window 门  door 墙  wall 树  tree 草  grass 旁边  side 前面  front 电视  TV	事  things 东西  stuff	设备  facilities 空调  air-conditioner 外面  outside 颜色  color 电视  TV 窗户  window 屋子  room 房子  house 钱  money 人  people 工厂  factory 公司  company 明州  Minnesota 孩子  kids 城市  city	事  things 东西  stuff 工作  job

   
   
   
3. In the Comparison Task, both learners sometimes use concrete nouns to refer to entities not visible in the photo, and to make inferences about cultural constructs like social class. In the Jigsaw Task, they only use concrete nouns to refer to visible attributes of the houses.
   
   

   Task	Concrete nouns in Jigsaw		Concrete nouns in Comparison
   In the picture	Yes	No	Yes	No
   Jiulin	照片  photo 房子  house 墙  wall 门  door 车  car 楼  building 树  tree 马路  road 草  grass 窗户  window 边  side 前面  front 旁边  side	人  people 电脑  computer	窗户  window 房子  house 门  door 墙  wall 油漆  paint 车  car 后面  back 马路  road 隔壁  neighbor 外面  outside 草  grass	钱  money 大人  grownups 工厂  factory 明州  Minnesota 人  people 父母  parents 孩子  kids 城市  city 狗  dog
   AnnaLi	房子  house 车  car 窗户  window 门  door 墙  wall 树  tree 草  grass 旁边  side 前面  front	电视  TV	设备  facilities 空调  air-conditioner 外面  outside 颜色  color 电视  TV 窗户  window 屋子  room 房子  house	钱  money 人  people 工厂  factory 公司  company 明州  Minnesota 孩子  kids 城市  city