An analysis of a primary five English lesson with the theme:
“Knowing our teachers” using the Variation Theory
Lo Mun Ling, Centre for Learning-study and School Partnership, the Hong Kong Institute
of Education
My main concern, when observing this lesson, was whether it resulted in improved student
learning outcomes, rather than focusing on the performance of the teacher alone. When viewed
from that perspective, I am confident that this was a good lesson because I was actually able to
observe how students’ performance changed during the lesson.
The conceptual framework for analysis
There is strong evidence to show that learning is a function of discernment, which is, in turn, a
function of variation (Marton & Booth, 1997); and we have found that the Variation Theory is
a very powerful tool for analyzing lessons (Marton & Morris, 2002; Marton & Tsui, 2004).
This is also the framework that I would be using to analyze this lesson. To appreciate this
lesson, we can look at it from two levels. Firstly, at a micro level, we would like to look at
how this lesson led to the students’ acquisition of new knowledge. At a macro level, we would
like to know how this particular lesson contributes to the whole learning experience of the
students. Corresponding to these two levels of analysis, we can describe the object of learning
(key focus of learning) for this lesson in terms of two aspects: a specific aspect and a general
aspect.
The specific aspect is more to do with the micro level, the short term goals immediate to the
particular lesson, in this case, to teach some language functions which would be useful as tools
to ask for information and to develop a conversation. In this lesson, the main focus was to
teach the students to use “Have you been overseas?” and “Tell me more about it.”
The general aspect is to do with the macro level, the long term goals and the development of
generic skills. In this case, the long term goal was to help develop students’ communicative
skills so that they could engage with others in natural dialogue and carry out an authentic
conversation. Both aspects are important, and the teacher in this case, achieved both very
well.
Analysis at the micro-level – focusing on the specific aspect of the object of
learning
At a micro-level, the teacher skillfully brought in patterns of variation to facilitate student
learning.
Pattern 1: The question was kept invariant while the answers varied
Question: How long have you lived in Tai Po?
Answer 1: I have lived in Tai Po since 2002.
Answer 2: I have lived in Tai Po for 2 years.
Here, the variations served two functions. In the first function, the variation in the answers to
the same problem helped students to understand how to answer the question in different ways,
i.e. it helped them to develop better understanding of the problem. In the second function, the
students could contrast the difference between the use of the word ‘since’, and the word ‘for’ in
the answers.
Pattern 2: The text type (dialogue) was kept invariant while the responses varied
To the same question ‘Have you been overseas?’, the teacher compared and constrasted the
dialogues generated by different pairs of students (e.g. between Sandy/Christy and
Joey/Cherry). Again, we see the same pattern of variation: same question, different answers.
Here again, the variation served two functions. In the first case, responses from different
pairs of students contributed to the pattern of variation, and students could learn from each
other different ways of answering the same question, thus contributing to a deeper
understanding of how the dialogue could be generated. In the second case, the teacher
requested the students to contrast the two dialogues. The students could actually point out by
themselves the difference between the two, e.g. the dialogue between Sandy and Christy was
better because the two students were more polite, and they had more and richer ideas, the
conversation was richer in details and in interaction. The teacher asked the students to identify
what the second pair did to add to the dialogue, e.g. the conversation could have been closed
when Sandy replied that she had not been overseas. But Christy quickly changed the subject
to ask about her hobbies. Then Sandy also made a contribution to the conversation by asking
Christy “What about you?”. which greatly helped to sustain the dialogue. By contrasting a
‘good conversation’ with one which is not so good, the students could discern what was
actually required of a good conversation and they all said that they were confident that they
would be able to carry out another dialogue of similar quality.
Analysis at the macro-level – focusing on the general aspect of the object of
learning
The general aspect of the object of learning was achieved through careful planning and
organizing the learning experience for the students, so that the lesson not only achieved the
short term goal of teaching some language functions, it also enhanced the capability of the
students in carrying out conversations. The teacher achieved this through another two different
patterns of variation.
Pattern 3: The purpose of knowing more about someone remained unchanged, but the
targeted person varied
The theme of the lesson varied from “knowing your teachers’ to ‘knowing your classmates’,
to ‘knowing your ‘visitors’. Here, all other things remained unchanged except the targeted
person (from teachers, to classmates, to visitors). Students therefore would be able to
generalize the use of the language functions to other persons and apply the knowledge they
acquired in this lesson to other situations.
Pattern 4 : The language functions remained unchanged while the content of the
dialogue varied
The same question and answer in fact appeared in all the dialogues: Have you been overseas?
Yes, I have been to (Thailand). However, the whole dialogue was very different from pair to
pair, as the students were encouraged to use their prior knowledge to contribute to the dialogue,
so that they could add in comments, ask for elaboration, etc. In this way, the conversation was
enriched, linking what students had learnt in the past to the present lesson. At the same time,
the new knowledge that they acquired in this lesson was being embedded in a meaningful
context, which enhanced and deepened the understanding of how the new knowledge could be
used.
Conclusion
Ms Leung is a very gifted English teacher, and for that she was awarded the Chief Executive
Award for Teaching Excellence for English teaching. What I have tried to do, to some extent,
is to demystify what excellent teaching is. If we can analyze and explain why her lesson is so
good, using an analytical framework, then other teachers may be helped to attain similar level
of excellence by applying the same framework to plan their lessons in the future. I did it
using the conceptual framework of variation, and I have shown that although the teacher
herself may not be aware of it, this lesson demonstrated a good use of patterns of variation to
bring about deeper and more worthwhile learning by the students.