Research Question: When using priming in the classroom, does the type of prime(in terms of style and content) affect its effectiveness?
Priming for teaching is a strategy which previews difficult content or concepts(there are actually 6 variants of priming, but will not be discussed here, as most aren't as applicable in a classroom context.) in order to prepare students to be able to more effectively think when working on those content/concepts later in the lesson. The existence of the phenomena has been known and used in various fields for much of the past decade. It is primarily seen in advertisements, but its usefulness in teaching is only started seeing interest at the end of the 21st century.
Currently, most research focuses on conceptual priming, with the major seminal study done by Harris et al. in which food consumption was monitored after a prime was given, one group was given a prime for eating healthily, the other prime looked at snacking as a fun activity. It was found that when exposed to the fun prime, subjects consumed significantly more food than the control. This sort of conceptual priming clearly has many practical aspects in the classroom, from subtly encouraging students to participate in classroom discussion to actively reflecting more critically on on the concept being learned.
As a literature teacher in Asia, I am constantly faced with two goals which, while they aren't conflicting, aren't directly aligned either. Most of my students are ESL learners between conversational and fluent in English. The curriculum I teach, IB Language B, uses a partial ESL instruction set, but also has numerous literary elements as well. To improve fluency, students need to speak as much as possible in an immersive environment. In contrast, the literary parts of the curriculum are more focused on skills high on Bloom's taxonomy, with students being required to make inferences and synthesizing texts, which requires development of meta-cognitive skills as students reflect on how they structure and support their ideas and arguments. As research has repeatedly shown that the most effective ESL classroom is one in which there is no fear of failure/embarrassment when experimenting with language creation, where classroom discussion and engagement is of paramount importance, I'm faced with the question of what is the most effective way to achieve these different goals- literary analysis and conceptual skills versus language use skills.
My concern is simple- Should a class like this focus using priming to encourage more communication among the students, which would primarily assist ESL skills, or should they focus on conceptual priming in order to help students develop meta-cognitive skills. I theorize that focusing priming on communication skills will be the most effective prime, as students can develop their conceptual understanding through peer discussions and debates which at the same time developing communication skills. If a conceptual prime is used, students should be able to reflect individually to a greater degree, but a lack of communication with peers may allow for gaps in understanding or misconceptions.
There are many factors that can affect the effectiveness of either type of prime, the most obvious being culture. Classroom participation is a model more commonly seen in western education, with Asian students tending to be more exposed to lecture type classes. The control(native speakers learning same syllabus) and independent variable(ESL learning) subjects therefor will need to be in the same culture in order to avoid cultural bias affecting how students interact. Another issue will be how to classify individual primes. Since there are no neat clean boxes with all real world use of primes falling precisely under a specific type, instead utilizing a mix, (concept, sequential, subliminal, supraliminal, semantic) a central authority will need to make the decisions and choices for which primes fall into which category.
Jennifer L. Harris; John A. Bargh and Kelly D. Brownell (2009): “Priming effects of television food advertisement on eating behavior.” In.
Health Psychology 28.4, 405.
Priming for teaching is a strategy which previews difficult content or concepts(there are actually 6 variants of priming, but will not be discussed here, as most aren't as applicable in a classroom context.) in order to prepare students to be able to more effectively think when working on those content/concepts later in the lesson. The existence of the phenomena has been known and used in various fields for much of the past decade. It is primarily seen in advertisements, but its usefulness in teaching is only started seeing interest at the end of the 21st century.
Currently, most research focuses on conceptual priming, with the major seminal study done by Harris et al. in which food consumption was monitored after a prime was given, one group was given a prime for eating healthily, the other prime looked at snacking as a fun activity. It was found that when exposed to the fun prime, subjects consumed significantly more food than the control. This sort of conceptual priming clearly has many practical aspects in the classroom, from subtly encouraging students to participate in classroom discussion to actively reflecting more critically on on the concept being learned.
As a literature teacher in Asia, I am constantly faced with two goals which, while they aren't conflicting, aren't directly aligned either. Most of my students are ESL learners between conversational and fluent in English. The curriculum I teach, IB Language B, uses a partial ESL instruction set, but also has numerous literary elements as well. To improve fluency, students need to speak as much as possible in an immersive environment. In contrast, the literary parts of the curriculum are more focused on skills high on Bloom's taxonomy, with students being required to make inferences and synthesizing texts, which requires development of meta-cognitive skills as students reflect on how they structure and support their ideas and arguments. As research has repeatedly shown that the most effective ESL classroom is one in which there is no fear of failure/embarrassment when experimenting with language creation, where classroom discussion and engagement is of paramount importance, I'm faced with the question of what is the most effective way to achieve these different goals- literary analysis and conceptual skills versus language use skills.
My concern is simple- Should a class like this focus using priming to encourage more communication among the students, which would primarily assist ESL skills, or should they focus on conceptual priming in order to help students develop meta-cognitive skills. I theorize that focusing priming on communication skills will be the most effective prime, as students can develop their conceptual understanding through peer discussions and debates which at the same time developing communication skills. If a conceptual prime is used, students should be able to reflect individually to a greater degree, but a lack of communication with peers may allow for gaps in understanding or misconceptions.
There are many factors that can affect the effectiveness of either type of prime, the most obvious being culture. Classroom participation is a model more commonly seen in western education, with Asian students tending to be more exposed to lecture type classes. The control(native speakers learning same syllabus) and independent variable(ESL learning) subjects therefor will need to be in the same culture in order to avoid cultural bias affecting how students interact. Another issue will be how to classify individual primes. Since there are no neat clean boxes with all real world use of primes falling precisely under a specific type, instead utilizing a mix, (concept, sequential, subliminal, supraliminal, semantic) a central authority will need to make the decisions and choices for which primes fall into which category.
Jennifer L. Harris; John A. Bargh and Kelly D. Brownell (2009): “Priming effects of television food advertisement on eating behavior.” In.
Health Psychology 28.4, 405.
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