Complexity: Activity 2
Lexical variety and task demand
Do you think the differing cognitive demands of the Jigsaw and Comparison tasks will affect the learners’ vocabulary in terms of use of its variety?
Here concrete nouns are those “referable to classes of tangible (and sometimes discrete) entities, categories, events and phenomena in natural or human world” (Yip & Rammington, 2004, 1) such as “Pænjære (window)”, “Mashin (car)”. Abstract nouns are “non-referable 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”, such as “Rævanshenasi (psychology)”, “Zehn (mind)”.
- Look at the transcripts of Fereshteh and Pari’s Jigsaw (PDF) and Comparison (PDF) Tasks. Which nouns are concrete or abstract? Fill in the table below (excluding erroneous uses of nouns).
Is the cognitive demand of each task related to the learners’ use of concrete or abstract nouns?
- Now list those concrete nouns that refer to entities displayed in the pictures and those referring to entities that aren’t actually shown in the photo but can be inferred to exist. Compare the use of these concrete nouns across the two tasks. Are they different? Why?
- Reflection: As a language teacher, you may have assigned various tasks to your students from time to time in class. Have you ever noticed differences in their language as a result of assigned tasks? If a task affects Fereshteh and Pari’s use of concrete and abstract nouns, could that fact affect your teaching practice? How?
| Task | Jigsaw | Comparison | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type of noun | Concrete | Abstract | Concrete | Abstract |
| Fereshteh |
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| Pari |
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| Task | Concrete nouns in Jigsaw | Concrete nouns in Comparison | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| In the picture | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Fereshteh |
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| Pari |
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Please type your answers to the questions in the box below.
When you have finished typing your answer, click to compare your response with the Learner Language staff response.
| Task | Jigsaw |
Comparison |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Type of nouns |
Concrete |
Abstract |
Concrete |
Abstract |
Fereshteh |
Mashin (car); Khune (house); |
|
*Mohændesi[mohændes] |
Olum-e siasi (political sciences); |
Pari |
Mashin (car); Khune (house); |
Chiz (thing) |
Kargær (worker); |
Rævanshenasi (psychology); |
2. The directions for the Jigsaw Task ask about concrete entities. Consequently, in this task both Fereshteh and Pari used concrete nouns to refer to entities they could actually see in the pictures, such as “khune (khaneh) (house)”, “mashin (car)”, and “derækht (tree)”. In the Jigsaw Task, Pari also used concrete nouns to refer to entities that she could not see in the pictures, such as “haemsaye (neighbor)”, but Fereshteh did not. In contrast, in the Comparison Task, in addition to using more abstract nouns, as just seen, both learners also used concrete nouns to refer to entities that they could not actually see in the pictures, such as: “dokhtær (daughter)”, “madær (mother)” and “mædrese (school)”.
Task | Concrete nouns in Jigsaw | Concrete nouns in Comparison
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|---|---|---|---|---|
In the picture |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
Fereshteh |
Mashin (car); Khune (house); |
|
Khane (house); |
*Mohændesi[mohændes] |
Pari |
Mashin (car); Khune (house); |
Hæmsaye (neighbor); |
Khune (house); |
Kargær (worker); Zæn (Wife); |
3. Reflection. Some tasks only require expression of lower order thinking skills, while other tasks require higher level thinking skills. It is very helpful for language teachers to give both kinds of tasks, and include at least some that require learners to push themselves to go beyond lower level cognitive processes (such as listing concrete entities) to use higher order thinking skills, such as providing evidence for hypotheses or grouping objects into classes. Giving these opportunities to learners is important to help them develop more complex and varied learner language.
