From the perspective of teaching, all projects are related to local context and a living knowledge (Sia, Lin-Cing, 2004). The engagement with the background before teaching, the interaction between teachers and learners, and reflection after teaching are all important. These three steps provide valuable input for action research. Details of the three steps for two action research cases were kept in the researcher’s journals, in Appendix C and D.
The first session of this chapter presents the results of Digital Tutoring Companion Program. The main purpose of this action research is to enhance indigenous students’
learning motivation for English and to cultivate their cultural awareness.
Course Design Concept
After an analysis of students’ learning issues, the main problems were found: their low learning motivation and lack of a teacher who could give them continuing company (see Appendix C). The researcher thought of the Western Rukai, Du, Han-Song’s (Pacake Taugadhu) original picture book, Lrikulau, which was adapted from Wutai Township’s ancient mythology. The picture book is narrated from a third-person perspective about a story told by a modern day Rukai father to his son. There is a quite touching bonding between a sculptor, Adriu and a cloud leopard named Lrikulau.
However, with Lrikulau’s help to hunt game, Adriu becomes lazy and no longer does his sculpting work (as the below picture). Lrikulau thinks if the lost glass bead necklace were found, Adriu would regain his previous hard-working spirits. The story ends with a sad conclusion; Lrikulau is swallowed by a big snake and disappears in the lake. After
35
listening to the story, the son starts to sculpt diligently in the early morning, believing that one day Lrikulau would come back to the Rukai people.
The researcher hoped the story could inspire students to cultivate a diligent attitude towards learning. A life-education course theme was set up: “Diligent Learning and Hard-work: Lrikulau, Come Back!” And the teaching goals are improvement of students’ learning motivation and establishment of cultural identification.
Course Schedule
The duration is one semester (18 weeks, 9 courses in total). The time of instruction was after school on 19:00~20:30 every Tuesday. The course content was mainly based on the Lrikulau text and supplemented by textbooks from school. The English textbook from school was Super Wow, Book3 published by the Kang Shuan Educational Publishing Group. The learning objectives of each unit could be found on the Kang Shuan website17. The picture book story is divided into six parts. Every week’s course was progressed according to the ethnic English teacher’s LVDS teaching process.
Table 3. Course Schedule for Digital Tutoring Companion Program
Date & Passage of Lrikulau
Questions & Drawing Super Wow Units&
Learning Objectives 10.11 Part Two Question Two & Home Unit 1: “Where’s My
Book?”
(Asking and answering
17https://www.945enet.com.tw/945enet/classplan.asp?lv=E&br=EN_NWE&vol=3&ex=0
36
items’ location) 10.25 Part Three Question Three & Crown Unit 2: “Is This Your
Watch?” ethnic English teacher’s LVDS teaching process and the researcher’s observation on the student’s learning situation and performance.
(L) Listen to the Story
The researcher’s student was a fourth grader not proficient in basic English. She
37
only got 3 points for the pretest (see Appendix B). Through the first week’s getting along with her, the researcher understood that she had short term attentiveness and lacked patience for reading static text. The practical consideration was that the length of the picture book was too long to finish in one session. It was impossible to adopt a
“performing” approach, utilizing both sound and body language to attract the student’s attention for the reason of limited classroom space and teaching through video.
Therefore, adjustments were made to the content arrangement and the power-point design.
The story was divided into six passages in accordance with the story’s transition.
Without using the lengthy English description found in the picture book, the plot was presented in the form of questions. The answers for the questions posed are “facts,”
which could be obtained by reading the pictures. This way allows the student to learn and understand literature’s related elements in a short period of time, including the story’s context, main characters, characters’ personality, causes, process, and the result of the conflict. Before progressing to the weekly-scheduled portion of the class, a summary of previous week’s passage would be provided to help student to remember and to continue the story. The following represents each week’s passages:
38 Figure 7. The story passage on 10.4.
The guiding questions on the fourth of October include, “What were the Rukai’s ancestors doing?” “What’s the purpose of doing it?” and “Guess what the boy saw?”
Figure 8. The story passage on 10.11.
The guiding questions on the eleventh of October include, “Guess Adriu’s profession.” “What was he doing?” “What does he carry on his back?” “Why did the little Likulau cry?” “What would Adriu do to the little Likulau?” “How did Adriu treat the little Likulau?” and “What did Adriu say to the little Likulau?”
39 Figure 9. The story passage on 10.25.
The guiding questions on the twenty fifth of October include, “Did the little Likulau like Adriu’s work?” “Have you ever seen similar work in your hometown?”
“What did the little Likulau see?” “In what situation can you see the similar scene?”
and “What do you see in the picture?”
Figure 10. The story passage on 11.15.
The guiding questions on the fifteenth of November include, “Why was the little
40
Likulau so angry?” “What was Adieu doing?” “What hang around Adriu’s neck?”
“Where did the glass bead necklace fall?” “What would Adriu do?” “Why was Adriu so sad?” “What did the elder in the tribe warn children about the forbidden place?” and
“Did the Little Likulau know about the secret of forbidden place?”
Figure 11. The story passage on 11.22.
The guiding questions on the twenty second of November include, “What magical ability did the little Likulau have?” “What mistake did Adriu make?” “How did the little Likulau look like?” “Why was the little Likulau so sad?” “Why did Adriu no longer sculpt?” and “Was there any way to restore Adriu’s spirit?”
41 Figure 12. The story passage on 11.29.
The guiding questions on the twenty ninth of November include, “Could the little Likulau find the glass bead necklace?” “The glass bead necklace turned out to be…?”
“Could the little Likulau escape from the danger?” “If you were the little Likulau, what would you do?”and “Guess what happened to the little Likulau.”
(V) Read the Story
After listening to the story, students learned vocabularies related to Rukai cultural elements in English and Rukai language. Originally, the researcher designed word cards in English and Wutai Rukai language with QR codes for oral competition. However, the student had no cell phone, so the researcher replaced QR codes with links to a Wutai
42
Rukai language dictionary18 after class for reviewing proper pronunciation.
The student was in the fourth grade, so the researcher assumed that she had learned Phonics in the third grade. However, she was still afraid of pronouncing English vocabulary, so Phonics practice was provided. In addition to the basic vocabularies, such as “a” in “ant” and in “apple,” the vocabulary in the picture book could be used for Phonics (see Figure 14). In the next weeks, the activities of “fill-in” or “matching English words with pictures” (see Figure 15) were utilized as reviewing. As for the situation of learning Rukai dialect in Wutai County, to deal with the student’s same problem with Roman characters’ pronunciation, Chinese was provided to help to pronounce the Rukai language.
Figure 13. Phonics practice.
18 https://m-dictionary.apc.gov.tw/dru/Search_1.htm
43 Figure 14. Matching English words with pictures.
On word cards, English word choice needed to be linked with the cultural meaning behind the indigenous language. The following is an example, “Slate house” and
“home”: When using English to introduce Rukai language, “talalibi,” there are two expressions, “Slate house” and “stone-slab house.” However, the difference between slate and slab is that “slate” is more often to use to express a plate of rock for roofing.
Therefore, “Slate house” was finally put on the work card.
Figure 15. The word card for “Talalibi”
The researcher utilized “home” to interpret the “Balriw,” traditional dwelling of the Rukai people. “House” is only considered to be the physical building, while the
44
connotation of “Home” has the aspect of affection, a place where the heart belongs. As the passage in the picture book showed, ‘The tribes people gathered around the fire in the cold slate house, which was lit to warm the hearts for ancestors sleeping under the floor and to let the Lrikulau know the way “home,”’ “Balriw” is not only the place where people have lived for generations, but also where their hearts and spirit finally return.
Figure 16. The word card for “Baliu”
(D) Discussion and Drawing
The activity of discussion and drawing were added after listening and reading to the story in each class. In the discussion activity, some questions were designed to help student understand the picture book’s content, observe the pictures, and connect the pictures with their own background. Some questions were aimed to understand Maolin Rukai’s culture.
Then, a drawing activity was followed after questions were discussed. In the beginning, the student was asked to draw independently, but it seemed too difficult for her without images or a basic understanding of Rukai culture in her mind. Therefore, from the 2nd week, relevant pictures were provided and the researcher would draw
45
together with her.
Question 1:
The “Rukai” in your mind?
Match the drawing of “Rukai people.”
Figure 17. The “Rukai” in your mind. (The student’s drawing, 2016.10.4)
This question was aimed to know in advance whether the student had any basic understanding of the indigenous group she belongs to. Before listening to the story, the student was asked to draw the image of the Rukai in her mind. Because Duona Elementary had provided a cultural curriculum for children in kindergarten since the year, 2012, the researcher supposed the student might draw a Taiwan Blue Magpie, a purple butterfly, or glass beads, etc. However, the student kept delaying, so the researcher offered reference directions like “animals,” “plants,” “ornaments,” or
“symbols.” Finally, she drew an animal seemingly to be a cat or a rabbit. In this process, it can be roughly confirmed that the student does not understand the culture of the Rukai.
46
Question 2:
What is the reason for the Rukai people to have fire in the central house?
Match the drawing of “home.”
Figure 18. “The home” in your mind? (The student’s drawing (left) and the researcher’s drawing (right),
2016.10.11)
This question is designed to understand what kind of house the student lived in, not only the physical “house,” but also the spiritual “home.” The answer to the question is “the fire was lit to warm the hearts of the ancestors sleeping under the floor and to let the Lrikulau know the way home” (Pacake Taugadhu, 2016). The researcher wanted the student to express her feeling towards her family through painting “the home” in her mind. For example, for me, my family loved each other very much, so I put a cartoon figures, dancing together with love heart shapes. However, the student did not verbally express her feeling towards her family. She has not trusted me yet.
From the 2nd week, the researcher accompanied the student in drawing pictures together. In the student’s drawing, it was hard to distinguish whether the student’s house was a slate house or a general concrete house common in Taiwan because of no stacked
47
lines of slate. Nowadays there are more and more concrete houses among the Duona tribe, but still entire slate houses are preserved.
Figure 19. Super Wow, Book 3, Unit One.
Unit One’s course learning goal is asking and answering item locations. The main sentence patterns are:
“Where’s my book?” and “It’s on / under the bed.”
In addition, to help students to review the textbook’s learning content, Rukai cultural elements would be linked to sentence patterns and textbook dialogues (see Figure 19). For example, “Where are the Rukai ancestors?” and “They are under the floor.” Another example is when reviewing the Rukai language for cloud leopards, the researcher proposed the issue of extinction and asked the student, “Where are cloud leopards now?”
48
Question 3:
Where have you seen similar woodcarvings?
Matching the drawing “Rukai’s head crown.”
Figure 20. Duona tribe hunting ground (Lisa, 2011)
The question’s designed purpose was to connect Adriu’s totem works in the picture book to the artworks at Duona tribe hunting ground. This question could connect to Super Wow, Book 3, Unit Two’s sentence pattern (see Figure 21). The student said that she did not see the hunting ground before. The researcher went on to share interesting history: Long time ago at the time of worshipping the ancestral spirit (molapangolai), young people would perform the activity of headhunting. Later, after the Japanese colonized Taiwan, and they asked the Rukai people of the Sia-Xan Community to hunt
“stone” instead of “head” (Lin, Huei-Jyuan, 2013).
49
Figure 21. Super Wow, Book 3, Unit Two and Adriu’s woodcarving (Pacake Taugadhu, 2016)
Unit Two’s course learning goal is asking and confirming which items belong to whom. The main sentence patterns are: “Is This Your Watch?” and “Yes, it is. / No, it’s not.”
Figure 22. Rukai’s head crown (The student’s drawing (up) and the researcher’s drawing (down),
2016.10.25)
The person in the picture did resonate with the student. She was excited to say that the woman in the photo was a teacher she had met before and said she drew the teacher’s face. The image in the picture book (Date 10.4. the first picture in Figure F) shows that each Rukai person wore traditional headgear, decorated with animal teeth and lilies.
Lukai’s headwear mainly represents social classes and personal glory. Wearing glory- symbolic headgear is the privilege of aristocracy. Lukai people with special talents or
50
achievements can also wear one.
Question 4:
What do you think about Adriu’s behavior of not carving any more after having the little Lrikulau hunt game instead?
Match the drawing of the “Lily.”
Figure 23. Super Wow, Book 3, Unit Three
Unit Three’s course learning goal is asking others’ feelings and addressing your own. The main sentence patterns are: “Are you angry?” and “Yes, I am. / No, I’m not.”
Figure 24. Lily (The student’s drawing (left) and the researcher’s drawing (right), 2016.11.12)
51
The course topic, “Diligent Learning and a Hard-working Life: Likulau, Come Back!” was proposed in Question 4, 5 and 6. The event described by Question 4 was the key point that changed the character’s fate. It should be avoided to imply that Adriu’s behavior was bad as part of the question so that the student could think on her own and express her thoughts directly. And then the researcher would mention the benefit of “hard-working” in order to achieve the topic’s course objectives. In this question, I would connect to Super Wow, Book 3, Unit Three (see Figure 23) to review sentence pattern in the textbook.
The children’s drawing reflected the researcher’s lack of imagination and a lazy mindset. I just imitated the picture I found online. The student showed her understanding of “a flower,” that is a sunflower. Lilies have different meanings for different genders. They represent women’s chastity and warriors who are good at hunting. The researcher shared the experience of visiting Wutai County and seeing the house of the most powerful hunter ever, Long, Chih-Wu (Caev), who had hunted more than a thousand male pigs and the only one wearing an unopened lily.
52
Question 5:
If you were Lrikulau, how did you comfort Adriu after losing the glass bead necklace?
Match the drawing “glass bead bracelet.”
Figure 25. Glass bead bracelet (the student’s drawing (up) and the researcher’s drawing (down),
2016.11.15)
The question is intended to let students practice articulation. The researcher could ask the student why she chooses the method. The student seemed pleasant on that day.
She said she would give Adriu a big hug. And then the researcher connected to Super Wow, Book 3, Unit Three’s sentence pattern (see Figure 26).
53 Figure 26. Super Wow, Book 3, Unit Four
Unit Four’s course learning goal is asking and confirming people’s location. The main sentence patterns are: “Is he/ she at home?” and “Yes, he/ she is. No, he’s/ she’s not.”
In the student’s drawing, although she might imitate the picture, it was still surprising to find that she granted each glass bead with eyes and mouths before the researcher mentioned any knowledge about the glass bead’s cultural meaning. It was observable that she became more active in drawing pictures than the previous weeks.
In the Rukai and Paiwan culture, different patterns of glass beads have their own lives, names, legends, and symbolic meanings. The teachings and blessings of ancestral spirits were communicated through the glass beads. In addition, Wu, Ma-Sih, “the Father of the Glass Beads,” said one of the important meanings of the glass beads is to maintain the cultural inheritance and present the disappearing things. Therefore, in the story, the losing of a family’s glass bead necklace symbolized the gap of cultural inheritance, as the ancestral blessings vanished.
Question 6:
Who is your “Lrikulau” in life?--a friend who can accompany you? What would you do to make a change as a part of the Rukai community, and do you believe that this change will allow Lrikulau to return to Kochapongane? Matching drawing the “Cloud
54
Leopard.”
Figure 27. Clouded Leopard (The student’s drawing, 2016.11.29)
The question’s aim to let students try to find out some events in her real life which one could reflect on the context in the picture book, so that they could actually appreciate more about the characters’ life experience. And further “the Spirit of Cloud Leopard” (Auvini.Kadreseng, 2006. p.60) was brought about and hoped to reverberate in the student’s heart.
The painter Du, Han-Song transformed his personal reflection into Lrikulau story.
After listening to the father telling the story of Adriu and Lrikulau, the little boy realized that Adriu lost his diligent attitude, so Lrikulau left Adriu forever. The next morning, the little boy made a change on his own immediately. The little boy was the embodiment of Du, Han-Song, who realized that as a part of Rukai people, he was a descendant of the cloud leopard, carrying on a cultural mission for the Rukai people.
The cloud leopard was Adriu’s good friend in the picture book. And it is a permanent partner to the Rukai people in the real life because it has been living in their heart even though it disappeared in real life19. Through painting, Du, Han-Song gradually found his lost heart and finally elected his conception: “The image of Lrikulau
19As Jiang, Bo-Ren wrote in the postscript to the story, “Lrikulau is a cloud leopard, a hunter, a tribe, a home, a forest, a mountain, and our own heart.”
55
could be imprinted in children’s mind and bring deep effect to the next generation. In the future, they would make an effort to achieve cultural preservation together (Du, Han-Song, 2016).”
The integration of culture and language benefited the enhancement of children’s learning motivation for English. Judging from a comparison of pretest and posttest,
The integration of culture and language benefited the enhancement of children’s learning motivation for English. Judging from a comparison of pretest and posttest,