Situated Cognition and Comprehensible Input

There is so much I want to say about the third design principle, The Knowledge Principle. So much of what Brown, Collins, and Duguid have to say in their article “Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning” aligns, almost seamlessly, with the progressive methods of teaching a world language today. I’ll try to keep my thoughts organized and to the point.

Dr. Bill Van Patten, professor of Second Language Acquisition of Michigan State University, in his article “Creating Comprehensible Input and Output,” defines communication as “the expression and interpretation of meaning in a given context.” Context is defined as the setting (physical space) and the participants (including their ages, roles, genders). He goes on to explain that “the classroom is one context with fixed participants and a fixed setting. So the classroom context will affect how we express and interpret meaning as well as what kind of meaning can be in focus.”

But just because my context is a classroom, it does not mean that I am restricted to the culture of a traditional classroom; i.e. the typical student-teacher dynamic (teacher as “sage on stage,” students as compliant pupils following directions) or that my interactions with my students are inauthentic.

So here is my struggle: what is the “culture” of my content? One would think that would have a very simple answer, because as a German teacher I am expected to teach German culture, but the “culture” that we learned about through John Seely Brown, et. al. has a slightly different meaning. In their article on situated cognition, enculturation refers to the practice of exposing students to the behavior, language, and culture of practitioners. For conventional core subjects, these practitioners are usually professionals in the field: historians, poets, doctors, chemists, etc. But who would be a practitioner of German? A linguist? A translator? Or the just plain folk (JPF) of everyday Germany?

In order to find the answer, we’ll have to backtrack a few steps. Van Patten explains that “learners hear and see language in a communicative context that they process for meaning. We call this type of language input. Input cannot be equated with the staple of much traditional language teaching: explanation about grammar, presentation of vocabulary lists, practice, fill-in-the-blanks, and so on. For mental representation to develop, learners have to hear and see language as it is used to express meaning.”  Brown, Collins, and Duguid reinforce the idea of input with their theory of “legitimate peripheral participation.” They state that “this peripheral participation is particularly important for people entering the culture. They need to observe how practitioners at various levels behave and talk” From here, then, we can make the assumption that input should come from an authentic place - what would students communicating in German likely talk about? In what communicative/conversational situations would my students likely find themselves? I therefore believe that my job is to enculturate my students into the world of JPF Germans, where they can converse and communicate with peers and native Germans alike.

In conclusion, I need to give students opportunities to hear language in an authentic context, even if that context is a classroom. I just have to make sure the input and communication flows from culture of JPFs communicating and conversing rather than that of a teacher explicitly teaching language rules to her students.

An example of this could involve the following: I tell my students a story about what I did over the past weekend. This is a conversation they would very likely have with a teacher, a friend, or a coworker. Students are given the task of remembering who I saw, and what I did with each person and when (for example, I went to the movies with my husband on Friday evening, but went shopping with my sister on Saturday). Students can then use this model to discuss their weekends with me and the rest of the class. By the end, we’ll have a record of what everyone did over the weekend. I can then pull up an infographic of what Germans enjoy doing in their free time (bike riding, watching TV, playing soccer), and we can compare and contrast our findings, reconnecting them to the work of Germany and its people.