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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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 Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 8:28 am Post subject: |
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To get real about the topic, I would prefer not to assign any books. Preferences about literature are highly individual, maybe even to the extent of being a 'fingerprint' realm. Interpretations can vary widly, and can be highly culturally-based....
I think students should be allowed/encouraged to choose the books they want to read outside of required textbooks in their study fields.
In class (and as homework) I personally think that current news articles are better as required reading. Standard language, geared towards the general reader, topics students can have opinions about....much more useful stuff overall. |
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Sashadroogie
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
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| Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 11:42 am Post subject: |
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Seriously, some of mine really love the 19th century classics from Britain. I don't assign them as such, but they like to discuss them in class. Now and then, naturally. Sadly, this leads a few to believing that London is still blanketed in pea-soup fog and that everybody downs tools in the afternoon for tea.
In addition they like to discuss Russian classics, though not read them in English obviously. Can lead to some great discussions about many issues - culture not the least amongst them. I will always remember one young student telling me that one could never understand Bulgakov unless Russian blood coursed through one's veins - Russian soul, you know...
Vladimir Nabokov is another great discussion point. Introduce him as a great American stylist if not the greatest of all time, and you will get an animated discussion on nationality, language and culture etc.
Then again, some students just don't read at all, even in Russia. They get on well with some of my less literate colleagues.... |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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(Ooh, Nabokov! Just a little something here then that I think people will enjoy.  It's taken from an old thread of mine over on the TD forums).
"One of the most interesting things in Widdowson's Defining Issues in ELT is Nabokov's attitudes to the invented examples he studied in learning English:
| Widdowson on pp 131-132 wrote: |
Children appear to be particularly adept at constructing imagined realities out of the most seemingly arid of didactically designed language, and learning from it in consequence. Consider this extract from Nabokov's autobiography Speak, Memory:
I learned to read English before I could read Russian. My first English friends were four simple souls in my grammar - Ben, Dan, Sam and Ned. There used to be a great deal of fuss about their identities and wherabouts - 'Who is Ben?', 'He is Dan', 'Sam is in bed', and so on. Although it all remained rather stiff and patchy (the compiler was handicapped by having to employ - for initial lessons, at least - words of not more than three letters), my imagination somehow managed to obtain the necessary data. Wanfaced, big-limbed, silent nitwits, proud in their possession of certain tools ('Ben has an axe'), they now drift with a slow-motioned slouch across the remotest backdrop of memory...
(quoted in Brumfit 1991:29, emphasis added)
In the case of Nabokov's grammar, the imagined reality that Nabokov as learner derived from it was, presumably, incidental to its intended design. But compilers of traditional language teaching textbooks have very often turned their handicap to creative advantage and composed stories and dialogues out of limited language designed to engage the interest and imagination of learners. The kind of deliberate exploitation of simple language to create a literary effect that I illustrated in this chapter is a common feature of language textbooks. Such materials are effective to the extent not that they are true to life, but that they represent a fictional world that carries conviction. In this respect, the writing of language textbooks can turn into an exercise in literary creativity. |
Also this: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/CHIWEI.html |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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Very interesting, Fluffy - thanks.
We often use vignettes in our materials, mostly drawn from soap operas  Very useful, truly - but now I wonder what 'realities' we are conjuring in the minds of our students  I'll read over that material this week with new eyes. |
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johntpartee
Joined: 02 Mar 2010
Posts: 3258
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| Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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| To get real about the topic, I would prefer not to assign any books |
I don't assign books, I give the students an assignment to give a class presentation about something (anything) they have read. We read some of the abridged, edited versions of western literature aloud in class. Usually that motivates them to seek out something on their own besides movie mags and celebrity profiles. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 10:43 am Post subject: |
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Heh, YW, Spiral!
Another little something, then (also from the TD forums):
| Quote: |
By the way, I've always wanted to ask what people's opinions are of "characterization" in textbooks. Self-study ones (at least, those for English learners of whatever L2) often seem to opt for a clearer cast of characters, centred upon the British/American etc arriving in, immersing into and gradually "succeeding" in a foreign country, whereas ESL ones present a much more random series of encounters. Although the self-study type can appear to disempower the character, and may therefore patronize and irritate, they can end up being more enjoyable and seemingly connected than ESL ones. I suppose the best compromize are those self-study types that leave the foreigner stranded at the airport, and get into following Mr Wang home where he argues with his wife/his wife argues with him over whether to buy two bottles of booze, or only one and a fish for the hungry family. In the next unit, the scene subtly shifts to a young couple remarking on how much their neighbours argue, and about how the police had to be called last week to get the meat cleaver off of the wife.  |
When I was learning Chinese, one example of the slightly irritating sort of (self-study) textbook was the original edition of the Practical Chinese Reader Vols I & II. My Chinese professor (an old Taiwanese gent) couldn't resist occasionally gently poking fun at the "exploits" of the two protagonists, Gubo (Cooper?) and Palanka (?!), and the sometimes dodgy cheapish b/w illustrations.*
An (THE!) example of the "best compromize" sort is the original edition of Routledge's Colloquial Chinese, by T'ung and Baker (boy, I love this book - it's what I based that whole "Wang family meat cleaver episode" on! ).
Hmm, vignettes, Halloween will be with us before too long, and students might get something out of activities like these (in which well-known tales/plots are retold in one's own words, even if to the extent of pastiche or parody!):
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=9143
Sorry for the long post. I had little to do today and was feelin' a bit bored!  
*I later made the mistake (seeing as I wasn't like my Chinese prof "my own boss" and myself picking the books used), when I was teaching for EF in China, of ribbing their legendary "Rapid English" series: I took the opportunity of using the ol' 'How many uses for a paperclip' activity to practise modals, except the paperclip wasn't a paperclip but the book itself. A few of my examples in - 'Maybe it could even be a flyswot, or prop up a short leg of a wonky table' - and a student asked/observed 'You don't like this book(?)'. "Sensitive" as ever to linguistic form, and exhibiting superb 'language awareness' , I of course quickly started backtracking by saying that no, of course not, the book wasn't too bad, it was just that I thought it could be bettered. You can get some idea of how "legendary" these books were from part of the notes I was asked to write up (over ten years ago now, almost at the very start of my TEFL career (" ~ "? LOL) to help other teachers supplement a particular unit (and those other teachers were assigned to supply notes on other units): Unit 2 - Agreeing or Disagreeing with what people say (2.13): A fault of the Rapid English books (especially Book 1 pg 104) is that they present 'Neither do I' as "disagreeing" with somebody; this fault is carried over into Book 3 here. Actually, 'neither' is not a way to disagree at all; rather, it is a way to tell somone that what we think (that is, don't think) or do (that is, don't do) is the same as them. It is thus exactly the same in function as 'so', except that it is used to negate the verbs it is relating to. We should therefore perhaps rename the function associated with both 'so' and 'neither' as simply "echoing". (By the way, replies using 'so' and 'neither' are much the same as their alternative 'I do too/Me too' or 'I don't either/Me (n)either' phrasings; then there is 'Nor...' as an alternative to 'Neither...'). How then are we precisely to "disagree" (picking up on EF's terminology) as quickly and as easily as 'so' and 'neither' help us "agree" (or rather, "echo")? Or more precisely, say our opinions or the things that we do are different, or that we find what the speaker has said a little unsual, strange or simply interesting? (We could generally call this function "querying"). The answer is that the EF books have not supplied the additional language necessary at this point to make any tasks we could develop at all realistic or logically even possible. Yet obviously all we need(ed) is the addition of 'Really?' (which incidentally can also preface 'so' and 'neither' responses) and/or 'Why/Why not?' etc (or whatever other questions or responses may be appropriate, especially if one doesn't want to "echo" much if at all) to the book's inventory of items to make everything fall into place and become workable. [I go on to provide an activity in which each of students complete a sheet of sentence stems such as I like ____ , I don't like ____ , I love ____ , I hate ____ , I can ____ , I can't ____ , I often ____ , I have(n't) ____ (yet) , I think ____ , and then exchange their sheets and simply "echo-respond" (('Really?) So/Neither ____ I!') to what the "other" person has read out; the sheets are then given back to the person who really wrote them, who then reads them out "for real", with the responder now genuinely "query-responding", which will of course lead into generally longer conversations than the echoing practice did, especially if any of the completed statements e.g. the 'think' ones, were particularly contentious or opinionated or something!].
Last edited by fluffyhamster on Tue Aug 31, 2010 4:16 am; edited 7 times in total |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 11:07 am Post subject: |
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Books ?
Read ?
Sorry but where I am (Missle East) students do not read ANYTHING ! |
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Sashadroogie
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 11:19 am Post subject: |
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| Surely the Koran??? |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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Dear scot47,
Not true - one book many of them read is facebook (and probably a lot of "Arab dating sites.")
Regards,
John |
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warda
Joined: 22 May 2010
Posts: 29
Location: in transit
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:33 pm Post subject: |
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I've got Thai YLs and teens... They won't read anything that's not on a computer or phone screen, if even that.
They absolutely HATE the abridged classics we have. I took over a one-on-one and the girl refused to finish an Arthur Conan Doyle story.
We tried Twilight (a waste of paper to be sure, but at least it's in book format) and ended up switching to Harry Potter. Both were her requests.
A few of my teens and tweens read manga comics, in Thai of course. I may see if I can get some English editions and give that a go. |
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jr1965
Joined: 09 Jul 2004
Posts: 175
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| I've got Thai YLs and teens... They won't read anything that's not on a computer or phone screen, if even that. |
There�s quite a bit of so-called �kid lit� that will work well with teen/ young adult English language learners who are roughly at an upper-intermediate level & above. One of my favorites is The Giver. (Actually, lots of adults might also enjoy reading this one.) For more on this book, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giver |
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warda
Joined: 22 May 2010
Posts: 29
Location: in transit
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| Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 4:23 pm Post subject: |
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I remember The Giver from 5th grade... Great book that was! I'm glad to see it recommended. I'll have to track it down for my ITC....
Any recommendations for elementary or pre-intermediate students?
I should also mention, my school uses Dr. Suess with the younger students, and they really seem to enjoy it. |
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