Grzegorz Grzegorczyk

The article undertakes the new emerging perspective of language as a dynamic form of activity between interacting human agents and redefines it as “an activity in which wordings play a part” (Cowley). Drawing on the views of Maturana, Bottineau, Harris, Thibault, Cowley and others, the author situates the concept of language in the vast field of ecology, agency and interactivity. Language thus conceived is not a code-like denotational structure but an aspect of sense-saturated communicative coordination and a result of human actions and co-actions. On this view we describe a conversation as an unfolding process of two or more interactants entering the cognitive dynamics which allows them to connect to each other and to their environments thus pursuing their individual and shared goals. This can be referred to as sense-making through dialogicality.

Following the relational turn that has been observed in the areas of therapy and medical care (cf. Dinis 2010), a similar trend is beginning to develop in education. One didactic manifestation is in academic tutoring, and can be considered as a prototype of personalized education, which is founded on interactivity, dialogicality, and languaging. In our text, we focus on the phenomenon of interactivity and, predominantly, languaging as the substrate for the emergence of a special domain. Here, the learning space is defined as “a cognitive situation where a learner attunes in his/her own epistemic change.” We observe that a learning space occurs as a teacher/tutor engages with aspects of the student’s/tutee’s epistemic frame by questioning, commenting on, or perspectivizing the utterances of the student. It follows that a learning space can be necessary but not sufficient for effective learning. As we show, some research into tutoring excessively idealizes it as an effective teaching ...

Following the relational turn that has been observed in the areas of therapy and medical care (cf. Dinis 2010), a similar trend is beginning to develop in education. One didactic manifestation is in academic tutoring, and can be considered as a prototype of personalized education, which is founded on interactivity, dialogicality, and languaging. In our text, we focus on the phenomenon of interactivity and, predominantly, languaging as the substrate for the emergence of a special domain. Here, the learning space is defined as "a cognitive situation where a learner attunes in his/her own epistemic change." We observe that a learning space occurs as a teacher/tutor engages with aspects of the student's/tutee's epistemic frame by questioning, commenting on, or perspectivizing the utterances of the student. It follows that a learning space can be necessary but not sufficient for effective learning. As we show, some research into tutoring excessively idealizes it as an effective teaching tool. In the course of our brief scrutiny we find that success of the learning process also draws on factors like: • being prepared • being good at hearing and using hints • being willing to improvise a learning trajectory • allowing some degree of interdependence with the tutor • using many kinds of first-order activity

Th is article discusses coaching as a problem solving method and adopts an innovative linguistic perspective. Reducing the psychological aspect to the minimum the author promotes language to its deserved status presenting it as the basic coach's tool and initial reason for the eff ectiveness of coaching itself in instigating behavioral, attitudinal and emotional change. Th is is done by resorting to the philosophy of language (theories of relevance, speech acts and communication). It appears that a coaching conversation occurs on two levels of communication and by using two main linguistic devices, refl ective language and powerful questions, the coach can provoke client's change with little intervention. Coaching as a form of psychological help covering an extensive area between a problem solving method and pro-active leadership development is gaining in popularity with nearly 50 thousand professional coaches globally and nearly billion US Dollars total annual revenue (data collected by International Coaching Federation in 2012), the sum which doubled in the past few years. The volume of popular literature devoted to this area is constantly increasing, nevertheless, academic debate is limited and insufficient comparing to the extense of the phenomenon. This text aims at adopting a linguistic perspective and attempts to establish firm scientific grounds of coaching practice provided by the philosophy of language and communication studies. We will also propose some claims explicating the effectiveness of the coaching method. which is proved by the data published in the 8th annual survey executive coaching [http:// sherpacoaching.com]. The bulk of scholarly texts and research in coaching is written from the psychological stance with the linguistic factor virtually nonexistent. Such state of affairs is particularly surprising in view of the fact that language is a crucial element of a coaching conversation. One of the few approaches where language receives due recognition is the model of ontological coaching promoted by Fernando Flo-res and Alan Sieler, who consider it as one of the three pillars of successful coaching along with biology of cognition and existential philosophy. This article will be based on the following premises: • Coaching cannot exist without resorting to language tools.

Why is it important to discuss narrativity in personalized education (PE)? Before we answer this question let us briefly define the field of our study. What we mean by personalized education is all forms of tutoring, coaching, mentoring or instructing where the educator is in one-to-one contact with the student. Nevertheless, in this text we will be predominantly focusing on tutoring in its academic dimension as it seems to be least recognized. Therefore, one of our aims will be to appreciate this form of pedagogy as highly effective and rewarding in student's and tutor's personal and intellectual growth. The abovementioned Narrative Paradigm is a nexus between educational processes and communication between a teacher and a learner. We see communication in education as an activity addressing primarily cognitive needs but also satisfying the requirements of effective interpersonal relationships. In the case of the latter, communication-wise, narratives offer a chance to strike a bond between the two interactants thus giving them a good reason to listen to each other's 'stories'. However, we will focus in larger part on the cognitive benefits of the narrative aspect in PE. Our claim in this text will be that narration in PE facilitates the process of learning. We will base our discussion and attempt at evidencing our arguments in constructivist and enactivist approach to education as well as biocognitive view of communication. We think that through the accounts delivered by both the tutor and the student learning on both sides becomes more effective. TEXT Narrativity is a naturally endowed human way of sense-making in various social events. Through personal accounts we communicate our understanding of the world, order meaning processes about our contexts, outline our needs, desires and obstacles we see on the way to satisfying them, finally, we report the more and less successful moments in our life (Bruner 1986). In short, see narration is an implicit default mode in communication with the self and others, which corresponds with Fisher's approach in which all forms of communication are narration. Therefore, we will treat narrative in broader terms, i.e. following Fischer's Narrative Paradigm concept (Fisher 1984) in which all meaningful communication is a form of a narrative. In order to make it work, however, we have to start by debunking the story-telling myth that narratives are blemished with. Stories are in our life an indispensable tool for integrating newly gained experience as we juxtapose new stories with old ones thus reflecting upon them in the process of sense making. We want to make sure if what we know is coherent with what we observe and this process. Information thus gained becomes the difference which makes a difference in Batesonian terms. The process of cognition thus understood leads to the effects which " are to be regarded as transforms (i.e., coded versions) of events which proceeded them. The rules of such transformation must be comparatively stable (i.e., more stable than the content), but are in themselves subject to transformation " (Bateson 1979, p. 92). For us narratives are constructions, interpretations and evaluations which require and then follow involvement in multiscalar and conversations which in themselves form records of the stories " we live by " , stories which remain human-specific natural endowment revealing their potential in linguistic activity. The concept of narrativity and language in the dynamic perspective It is a fact that narratives are naturally oral pieces of language. Despite the classical Bakhtinian story-analysis approach we have to admit that there would be no reference to literature or poetry as exemplars of narratives if initially there had been no vocal utterance.