Data Analysis and Procedures

This research was divided into two main parts: firstly analyzing Mr. Keating’s teaching strategies and secondly making a comparison between DPS and FOC to discuss life education meaning. First of all, the analysis of Mr. Keating’s teaching strategies was conducted both quantitatively and qualitatively. For quantitative

analysis, we applied corpus-based approaches with the novel version of DPS as the major corpus. In addition, we set the standard of one unit of utterances and quantified the number of the utterances produced by Mr. Keating to students. The quantified data would help us to do the qualitative analysis. For qualitative analysis, we resorted to concordance, IRF model and multimodal discourse analysis to figure out the stance and discursive strategies Mr. Keating took. In this part, the novel version of DPS was the primary research target with the support of the movie version, providing information with regards to different modes of communication. As for the other part of qualitative analysis, the classes Mr. Keating gave would be closely examined and elaborated with the help of anticipatory discourse and experiential learning. Secondly, since the fact that DPS ends in tragedy, we compared DPS with FOC by means of previous findings as medium, and discussed about possible elements making the outcomes of the two stories so different. Table 3.3 presented the purposes that DPS and FOC were chosen for this research and the target areas that we would like to investigate in respectively. Finally, an APP and some teaching materials would be provided as an application of this research with the integration and demonstration of the overall results received from both the quantitative and qualitative analysis. The comprehensive design of this research was illustrated in Figure 3.4.

Table 3.3 Target Areas for Investigation and Purposes of Using DPS and FOC

Target Purpose

DPS Language & Pedagogical Approaches

FOC LE Implication

Figure 3.4 Research Procedure and Method for the Current Study

3.3.2 Corpus Analysis

The researchers utilized the software, WordSmith 5.0, to conduct the analysis.

The main objective of corpus analysis was to find out the top most frequently-used booster and hedge markers in both the major corpus and sub-corpus.

According to Hyland (2005), booster expresses stronger voice and confidence, and renders readers/listeners less space to contest. Hedge is the opposite strategy, which steps back and delivers a statement more like an opinion rather than a fact.

With the concepts, top 1000 words on the wordlist of the main corpus were examined to list out the top modifying devices used for boosters and hedges, including both function words and content words. We also explored how booster and hedge are

realized in the sub-corpus. Table 3.4 shows the top booster types in function words and Table 3.5 shows the content words (words with asterisk appearing both in the main corpus and sub-corpus). The hedge types are attached in Appendix I.

Table 3.4 Boosters in Function Words

Word Freq. Word Freq. Word Freq. Word Freq.

DON'T* 106 I'LL* 29 WON'T 14 THEY'D 6

DO* 98 CAN'T 19 GOTTA 12 WE'VE 6

HAVE* 92 MAY* 17 YOU'LL* 12 YOU'VE* 6

WILL* 74 HAS* 16 WE'LL* 11 COULDN'T 5

HAD* 71 MUST* 16 I'D* 10 DOESN'T* 5

DID* 44 SHOULD* 16 DOES* 9 HE'D 5

CAN* 36 I'VE 15 HE'LL 9 SHALL 5

DIDN'T* 32 GONNA 14 WOULDN'T* 9 YOU'D* 5

(* represents the overlapped booster words in the main corpus and sub-corpus)

Table 3.5 Boosters in Content Words

Word Freq. Word Freq. Word Freq. Word Freq.

RIGHT* 42 ONLY* 25 FINALLY* 12 VERY* 9

WANT* 39 REALLY* 20 WANTED* 12 EVERYBODY 8

LOVE* 36 SURE* 19 ALWAYS 11 SHOW* 8

LET* 33 EVERY* 17 LET'S* 10 QUITE 5

MEAN* 25 NOTHING* 14 ENTIRE* 9

NEVER* 25 BELIEVE* 12 EVERYTHING* 9

(* represents the overlapped booster words in the main corpus and sub-corpus)

Obviously, boosters and hedges cannot be exclusively examined apart from the context. Teacher-student discourse would be analyzed with the help of the concepts of boosters and hedges to find out Mr. Keating’s discursive strategies and the influences on students. The model used for discourse analysis will be elaborated in the following section.

3.3.3 Discourse Analysis

It is threefold to investigate the data in the discourse analysis: (1) Mr. Keating’s stance on students’ development with the help of results from corpus analysis, (2) Mr.

Keating’s discursive strategies and students’ reaction, and (3) Mr. Keating’s teaching strategies. The details will be illustrated in the following paragraphs.

First, teacher-student interaction in traditional language classroom can be generally deconstructed to three moves, initiate, responding, and follow-up (IRF). IRF model was adopted to analyze the teacher-student interaction. IRF model is adoptable for analyzing discourse both in and outside classroom. It is a simple and straightforward structure of communication. The communicational discourse between Mr. Keating and students were slotted to the three discrete moves for further analysis.

The model would demonstrate the dynamic interaction, within which the strategies Mr.

Keating exploited, and student’ corresponding responses could be clearly analyzed.

In addition to IRF model, we also adopted multimodal approaches to make up the gap between the information provided by language and visual resources. The movie version of DPS would help for multimodal discourse analysis. Adapted from Sindoni (2014), three factors would be emphasized: speaker’s facial expression, kinetic action, and proxemics. Information gained from the non-verbal resources as well as language cues would work together to have profound analysis on Mr.

Keating’s classroom discourse.

In the novel, there are in total seven classes Mr. Keating gave, among which the classes with relatively compact IRF frame would be selected for analysis. Moreover, the seven classes would be theoretically analyzed in order to find out the teaching strategies Mr. Keating used to construct his classes. It was found that four out of the seven classes could be elucidated with theories of experiential learning and anticipatory discourse.

3.4 Summary

This research was conducted quantitatively and qualitatively. Firstly, the movie novel, Dead Poet Society, was selected as the major corpus. Sub-corpus was built from the collection of Mr. Keating’s utterances to students. Secondly, WordSmith Tool 5.0 would be applied to analyze the corpus, generating wordlist, keyword list, and concordance. Thirdly, on the basis of the quantified data, Mr. Keating’s stance, discursive strategies to students, and teaching strategies would be further analyzed.

Finally, based on the findings of the analyses, we developed an APP to incorporate useful information of this research about LE, and the teaching materials that were actually practiced by the researchers in LE classes would also be provided.

CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS

In this chapter, we will present the findings of this research, which involves two categories: 1) teaching strategy and 2) LE. For the first category, the results of quantitative analysis are presented at first, and are followed by the analysis of Mr.

Keating’s stance on student’s development. Next, it moves on to the analysis of Mr.

Keating’s discursive strategies under the IRF model and multimodal approaches.

Finally, by means of the concepts of experiential learning, how Mr. Keating organized his lecturing is illustrated. Moreover, the self-developed anticipatory discourse will demonstrate the overall design of Mr. Keating’s teaching with results of previous sections as components. As for the category of LE, Bradley’s duel role as a student and a teacher is compared and contrasted with Neil and Mr. Keating respectively in regard to the challenges they met, their resolutions, and consequences, bringing out the important topic of LE. Details of each category and section will be provided below.