Page 98 - Beyond Methods

86 Minimizing perceptual mismatches Episode 4.6
T2 (noticed S4 looking puzzled) Do you need any help? S4 She...shewantsaused...ausedweddingdress? T2 Yeah.
S4 Why?
T2 Well, you tell me why? Why does she want to buy a used one? Hmm?
The teacher diagnoses the question asked by S4 as a problem of reading comprehension and, since the answer is rather easy to find in the text, tosses the question back to the learner. The source of S4’s problem, however, is not textual but cultural. Coming from an Eastern culture, the learner, a Malaysian female, just could not believe that a bride would rent a wedding dress worn by some- body else. Her culture attaches enormous sentimental value to a wedding dress; every bride buys it, cherishes it, and keeps it for- ever. In her culture, a wedding ceremony is a once-in-a-lifetime event and therefore anything associated with it becomes a sen- timental object to be treasured. It is not something that can be returned to the store to be reused by somebody else. The teacher is clearly unaware of the cultural nuances associated with the learner question.
7. Evaluative mismatch: This source refers to articulated or unar- ticulated types of self-evaluation measures used by learners to monitor their ongoing progress in their language-learning activ- ities. Consider the following episode:
Episode 4.7
S1 Canwejustsaytooexpensive...or... T1 Yeah, that’s fine.
S1 Tooexpensive...hmm...tobuy?
TI Yeah.
S1 (looks confused)