A Teaching Metaphor - the Use of Metaphors in Classroom - Assignment Example

A Teaching Metaphor Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Name Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Course Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Lecture Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date Metaphors have been known to influence every person understands and the way things happen. The ways people interpret the meaning of a single metaphor in a sentence differ, depending on their level of language development. The extent of understanding may also vary depending on the level of educational level achieved by the person. For children under the age 6 years, metaphor interpretation is a complex thing, since the metaphor compares between two things which have a common correlation. At this age, kids have not developed there cognitive mind, therefore the use of metaphor must be selective. By definition a metaphor is comparison and the understanding of concepts and if they have any correlation or similarity between two concepts (Carlson, 2001). The use of metaphor in classroom depends highly on the following factors; culture, experience of the teacher and gender. Again the way the metaphor is put across cuts across the relationships of the teacher with literature language and spoken language. The use of metaphors in classroom has been known to influence the educational values, principles and beliefs. To the teachers, it helps to reveal the attitude and beliefs. Metaphors have also been known to influence the cognitive mind of the learner and to give them insight of the world we live in (Churchill, 2011). For early childhood teachers, metaphor is a difficult language since for it to be understood by this young learners, it must make sense to them. These is because young learners have not developed there cognitive and analytical mind for them to synthetize the meaning of the metaphor. However, the use of metaphor has been encouraged in classroom since it has more than mentioned advantages. Education is power. In this metaphor education is compared with power, it encapsulate how education can be mighty and with it, how someone can achieve anything. Power from definition is the mightiness of something. Children in their young age like to be associated with mighty thing and people (Carlson, 2001). In addition, they aspire to be like them through imitation and other learning activities. Therefore the metaphor used will give the learner the motivation to learn to be like those mighty people. The mightiness in the metaphor can also be achieved by the teacher by introducing new teaching tactics to achieve the ‘mighty’. The metaphor can also be understood from perspective of cognitive development where the learner should yarn to develop the mental mightiness and achieve the educational goals. In the school community, the metaphor is also applicable by the fact that, it will influence the way the children interact with each other. In the field for example, the pupils will put more effort in sports so as to become the best in that area. To the teacher, the metaphor will help him or her to internalize the teaching principle (ACARA, 2011). One of the teaching principles is to implement the learner centered principle where pupils are encouraged to ‘dig’ knowledge for themselves, using the already learnt skills. These already learnt skills are acquired through interaction with the environment and the adult communication. Since pupils perceive adults as powerful, they will be encouraged by the metaphor to interact with adults and in the process acquire or learn new skills from them. The metaphor also may encourage pupils to be close to their teacher as they yarn to achieve the power. In classroom, mostly in group discussions, the metaphor encourages them (the pupils) to be more interactive so as to be mighty. In addition, the metaphor gives the pupils a chance to increase their metacognitive ability. In this respect, the metaphor helps in increasing the memory. In a more general instance, metaphors are associated with the remembrance of concepts (Churchill, 2011). How does this happen? Cognitive mind memory is enhanced by things we have already interacted with and familiar with. Using a metaphor therefore, will enhance memory in the sense that metaphor will compare two things, one unfamiliar thing and the familiar one. The already known thing is used to give description of the unfamiliar one. Again, since pupils at this young stage have not interacted with many things, it’s important to use metaphors of the thing that they already encountered. In the right of content relevancy principle, the metaphor will make the teacher to innovate more learning materials that illustrate power of the education and bring them to class to be used by the pupils themselves. By so doing, the teacher has to go outside the curriculum requirement to come up with the learning resources that best suits the intended achievement and motivated learners. Though the relevancy of the learning resource in highly influenced by culture and the family background of the learner, it is important to note that through culture and environment pupil’s lives pupils get to get encapsulate the meaning of a metaphor (ACARA, 2011). With this in mind, teacher should bring things pupils are familiar with and compare them with things they are not familiar with. Alternatively, the teacher may choose to use unfamiliar things and compare them with familiar thing. Because the second option is difficult for the learners, teachers are advised to be more elaborative when using them. The learning materials should also be modern (in accordance to 21st century). For example, in our metaphor “education is power” the teacher should use materials that demonstrate power such as toys and teddy bears. Thirdly, using ‘know your student principle’, the metaphor will help the teacher to know his or her students in the sense that the metaphor will encourage the learner to interact with the teacher in the search of power. By so doing, the teacher will be in a better position plan for the next lessons since that teacher has interacted with the pupils and he understands the area of weakness of every student. In the need to achieve the national education goal of education, the teacher should be aware of the student; need, educational abilities and the challenges. From the metaphor, the teacher will know the areas of weakness and working accordingly. Holistic learning is another teaching principle. The principle calls for education which is ‘whole’ in that education should be all rounded. In relation to the metaphor power can be developed by encouraging students to work in groups and therefore increase their ability of thinking. It should involve strategies that enhance mental development in all areas; linguistic development as well as numerical development. In the metaphor ‘power’ should be encapsulated in the in all fields of live. Therefore, this metaphor helps both the learner and the teacher to achieve this principle. To shed more light on these, holistic learning embraces the whole concept put across by the metaphor. Last but not least, make the classroom activities entertaining principle. The principle advocates for entertaining classroom activities so as not to bore the learners. The metaphor use makes the classroom entertaining since it gives ideas in parable form. The teacher should exhibit these qualities in his or her class. In addition, the student should enjoy the use of these metaphors. The idea of education as power makes the class entertaining and the resources used also make the learners to enjoy. Teachers should therefore come up with metaphor that are interesting and evoke a sense of humor to the pupils so that they can search for more information. In this principle, metaphors are supposed to be like parables where pupils are left to synthesize the intended meaning. Pupils should thereafter invite the teacher to give his idea of the metaphor. Conclusion The use of metaphors in classroom has been known to influence highly on the metacognitive development of the young kid as well as the adult (Churchill, 2011). In addition, they have been known to increase memory as has been mentioned earlier. So, their use should be a daily and an automatic practice in the classroom by all teachers. By so doing, the teacher will help the learner to define our natural and scientific world and go ahead and understand the behavior of human and their attitudes. Generally, students progress from concrete to abstract thinking from which they develop mental models of either science concept as they rise up the educational radar. Teachers’ use of metaphors also helps student to solve analogical problems as they transfer ideas from one concept to another. In the long run, students make meaningful relations between what is familiar and the unfamiliar things (Carlson, 2001). The additional advantages of use metaphor includes; it acts as a tool of conceptual change in learning, they provide for more understanding of concept through comparison of abstract and real world ideas, they have motivational effects to pupils and finally, they make teachers to visit the previously taught lessons if the pupils have a misconception. However, the use of metaphor can create a misconception if they are not properly understood, and if the metaphor compares between two unfamiliar things (ACARA, 2011). However, this can be minimizing if the teacher uses culturally accepted metaphors because they compare items that are familiar to the pupils. Since education is power, teachers as the education guardian should embrace the use metaphor to deliver the intended meaning and ideas. References ACARA, (2011), The Australian Curriculum v3.0 Retrieved 16th march, 2012 from www.australiancurriculum.edu.au Carlson, T. (2001), Using metaphors to enhance reflectiveness among pre-service teachers. JOPERD, 72 (1), 49-53. Churchill, R. (2011), Teaching: Making a Difference. Milton: John Wiley & Sons Australia LTD Read More