Esquemas: Preparar a los estudiantes de Inglés como lengua extranjera, de niveles básicos, para interactuar con textos literarios

SCHEMING WAYS: PREPARING LOWER LEVEL EFL LEARNERS TO INTERACT WITH LITERARY TEXTS GEORGE MURDOCH* UAE University, United Arab Emirates ABSTRACT This article supports the position that language-based approaches to literary texts can make literature relevant to the needs of lower level learners. It is argued that well-selected texts and materials can provide immensely stimulating curriculum content, which provides an excellent basis for developing thought-provoking, interactive and imaginative activities for students. However, the principal focus here is the importance of eliciting / supplementing the background knowledge, or schemata, which students require to engage with texts. It is seen as particularly important that foreign students, studying in countries where English is not the first language of communication, and who draw on very different socio-cultural background knowledge and personal experiences to that of a Western writer, should be supported in applying the cultural awareness that the writer assumes from the reader. The difficulty of a text is therefore seen as a function of a wider set of factors than surface linguistic ones. The implications of a schema based model of the reading process for the study of literature in ELT are discussed. Practical suggestions for preparing students to engage with a literary text are put forward. Finally, part of a poem by Tony Harrison, Long Distance II, is analysed from a pedagogic point of view. The intention is to illustrate an approach and associated activities which take full account of the need to develop and involve foreign students’ background knowledge and experience, in order to enable them to access the dimensions of a text which are of universal interest and appeal. KEY WORDS Schema, Background knowledge, thematic approach, cultural awareness, language-based materials, text reconstruction. CAUCE, Revista de Filología y su Didáctica, nº 24, 2001 / págs. 493-506 493 * George Murdoch is involved in curriculum development work for the UAE University’s foundation English Program. He was formerly a British Council adviser for a teacher development project in Sri Lanka. His ELT career has also included spells in Morocco, Iran, Kuwait, Oman and the UK. He has given international conference presentations, run workshops and published articles on his areas of special interest: literature in ELT, interactive reading skills, curriculum renewal and teacher evaluation. GEORGE MURDOCH 494 RESUMEN La aproximación lingüística a textos literarios puede hacer de la literatura un útil instrumento en la enseñanza del inglés en niveles básicos. Bien seleccionados, los textos y materiales pueden aportar un contenido curricular que motive al estudiante y le sirva de valioso punto de referencia para el desarrollo de actividades reflexivas, interactivas e imaginativas. Este artículo, sin embargo, se centra especialmente en la necesidad de facilitar al estudiante el conocimiento de fondo, o “schemata”, que necesita para poder enfrentarse a textos literarios. El estudiante extranjero, que estudia inglés donde éste no es la primera lengua de comunicación y cuyos conocimientos socioculturales y experiencias personales difieren de las de un escritor occidental, precisa un apoyo especial a la hora de incorporar la conciencia cultural que el escritor supone en su lector. La dificultad de un texto sobrepasa por tanto el nivel meramente lingüístico para integrarse en un conjunto de factores más amplios. De ahí proviene la importancia de enseñarles un modelo de lectura de textos literarios basado en esquemas culturales, que incorpore sugerencias prácticas de apoyo en el enfrentamiento a dichos textos. En este sentido, y desde una perspectiva pedagógica, se analiza parte de un poema de Tony Harrison, Long Distance II. Con esto se intenta ilustrar un tipo de aproximación que desarrolle y al mismo tiempo integre el conocimiento de fondo y las experiencias de dichos estudiantes en su camino de percepción de las dimensiones de un texto cuyo atractivo e interés son universales. PALABRAS CLAVE Esquema, conocimiento de fondo, enfoque temático, conciencia cultural, materiales basados en la lengua, reconstrucción textual. RÉSUMÉ Selon l’auteur, une approche linguistique du texte littéraire peut répondre aux besoins des étudiants de langue à tous les niveaux. Des textes littéraires soigneusement choisis peuvent enrichir les programmes et servir de base à des activités qui stimulent la réflexion, l’imagination et l’interaction chez les étudiants. Le thème centrale de l’article est l’importance de la connaissance schématique et culturelle pour aborder le texte littéraire. Cela est particulièrement important pour les étudiants des pays non-anglophones qui disposent souvent d’une expérience et d’une conscience socio-culturelle différentes de celles que l’auteur présuppose chez les lecteurs. La difficulté du texte littéraire dépend donc de facteurs qui ne sont pas seulement d’ordre linguistique. L’auteur discute les implications d’un modèle de lecture basé sur la connaissance schématique pour l’étude de la littérature et pour l’enseignement de l’anglais. Il propose aussi des suggestions pratiques pour préparer l’étudiant à aborder le texte littéraire. Enfin, l’auteur fait une analyse pédagogique d’un extrait du poème de Tony Harrison, Long Distance II, afin d’illustrer une approche du SCHEMING WAYS: PREPARING LOWER LEVEL EFL LEARNERS… 495 texte et des materiels qui permettent les étudiants d’accéder aux dimensions universelles et intéressantes du texte. MOTS-CLÉ Connaissance schématique, connaissance socio-culturelle, approche thématique, conscience culturelle, materiels pour une étude linguistique des textes littéraires, reconstruction textuelles. LITERATURE FOR LOWER LEVEL EFL STUDENTS? Over the past decade a convincing case has been made for the inclusion of literary texts in ELT curricula. Carter (p. 96) reminds us that literary texts need not be reserved for use with more advanced students in order to develop higher order critical skills, such as appreciation of the socio-cultural perspective of an author - their content can equally validly be exploited to create stimulating language development and awareness raising activities for intermediate/lower-intermediate level learners of English. Carter stresses that a language-based approach to literature geared towards lower level learners will frequently involve applying familiar ELT activity types, such as prediction, cloze and jumbled reading tasks, in order to not only provoke engagement with a selected poem or prose extract, but also develop students’ reading skills and sensitivity to selected linguistic features of different types of literary texts. Meanwhile, McRae (pp. 91, 96) has argued persuasively for the use of literary and other non-information types of texts with all levels of language students, on the grounds that what he terms ‘representational materials’ have the ability to engage students’ imaginative and cognitive faculties, thereby adding an important interactive dimension to the ELT curriculum. Language-based approaches can tap, then, the potential of literature to provide thought-provoking and interesting materials without launching into a full study of literature as a subject with all the critical baggage that naturally entails (though that type of study can be provided for those students who attain proficiency level). However, with the lower level students whose needs this article is concerned, the main objective will naturally be to provide ways in to a basic understanding of the context, characters, events, themes, emotions and viewpoints that the text provides. Interaction with the text at these levels will, of course, also provide excellent conditions for developing students’ more general reading, writing, speaking, listening and thinking skills. GEORGE MURDOCH 496 The need to develop coherent approaches to literary text study for lower level learners must be given high priority, given the apparent reluctance of many ELT teachers to use literature with lower level learners, and the fact that the majority of course materials seem to be pitched towards more advanced level students (Preran, 2000). A familiar mix of pre-/while-/post-reading questions is used in most sound interactive EFL collections designed to guide adult and younger learners towards a meaningful reading experience (e.g. Chapter & Verse, McRae & Pantaleón, p. 91; Voices in Literature, McCloskey & Stack, p. 96). Questions and activities for lower level students must, as these collections illustrate, be carefully selected so as to encourage and support the reading and response process without turning the whole experience into another set of exercises for the poor student to plough through mechanically. Any text tasks must have a clear purpose in terms of development of reading skills or enhancing students’ interest in reading imaginative texts. The point of entry for uncovering dimensions of the text will often be particular linguistic features, such as choice of lexis, register or pronoun related to a switch of viewpoint. Such an approach to texts has been shown to be equally relevant to texts selected from new literary sources as it is to traditional British and American texts (see Vethamani, p. 96). An interesting feature of language-based materials is activities that involve personal response to the ideas, images and emotions communicated via the texts. Such personalisation can be effected by eliciting memories and experiences relevant to the theme prior to an encounter with the text, or post-reading questions that call on the learner to articulate their reaction to, say, the characters and their actions. Rewriting activities can involve textual intervention (Pope, p. 95) to produce an alternative ending or write the text in a different style. More imaginative and less tightly text focused extension tasks might involve asking students to create a dialogue incorporating characters and emotional relationships from a short story which has already been exploited via a more typical set of questions about the plot and the characters. The ongoing interest in literature in the context of teaching language to all levels of students can to a large degree be attributed to current concerns about course content. On many international, tertiary level ELT programmes, there is an increasing concern to develop courses that offer more than the bland topics and limited characters and lifestyles served up by most general coursebooks. There is a new desire to select course materials that tackle global themes and serious topics which relate to important aspects of people’s lives (see, for example, North Star: Focus on Reding & Writing, Intermediate, Sardinas & DuPaquier, p. 98). A thematic approach can provide fertile ground to develop interactive language and thinking skills for students at all levels.. Literature can make a vital contribution to this thematic agenda, as it clearly relates to the content of people’s lives in imaginative, stimulating ways. Seamus Heaney, in a recent interview*, reminded us that literature is so attractive because it provides great pleasure and moves us emotionally. For this reason, it is a very powerful resource which can promote language learning. Also as Preran (2000) points out, it involves learners as people with feelings and responses, thereby connecting with their inner lives. DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE However, the inclusion of more substantial, representative text material does require more careful pedagogic structuring. The need to prepare students for their encounter with the text becomes even more vital when the texts call for engagement at different levels, not just mechanical extraction of key facts and ideas. Students need to be primed to deal with the themes, emotions, characters, settings, social and cultural understandings etc. that the text calls into play. For example, students living in relatively stable and peaceful societies, which have not been through major wars in their recent past, may need considerable historical, social and emotional preparation to be able to appreciate the contexts and experiences that result in the bitter emotional tone of a Wilfred Owen poem, such as Anthem for Doomed Youth, with its startling opening lines: What passing-bells for those who die as cattle –Only the monstrous anger of the guns The necessary pre-reading awareness raising might be achieved by using documentary footage from the First World War, or period photographs, to help students understand the poet’s anger and choice of imagery. The importance of eliciting personal experience and ensuring a learner grasp of vital background knowledge becomes even more crucial when teaching English in an overseas setting. It is quite frequently the *Interview in The Sunday Times, reported in a Gulf News article of the 13.2.2000. SCHEMING WAYS: PREPARING LOWER LEVEL EFL LEARNERS… 497 GEORGE MURDOCH 498 case that certain socio-cultural aspects of the text may be unfamiliar to students. Steps taken via text warm-up/preparation activities to enhance background knowledge can make texts more imaginatively and intellectually accessible, and render them more useful and interesting as course readings. Most Middle East or Asian groups of students who had not lived in Europe or the US, might, for example, need to be made aware of the use of the term the “Old Masters” to refer to classic painters like Rembrandt and Breughel, whose famous painting, Icarus, and the scene it depicts, is a key point of departure for the ideas developed in the poem by W. H. Auden, Musee des Beaux Arts. Text preparation work which discussed the work of the classic painters and involved students in viewing and discussing this actual picture would, of course, help students immensely to understand the Auden poem. The need to carefully prepare the foreign learner for imaginative texts accords well with the essence of schema theory as it relates to reading as an interactive process (see Carrell & Eisterhold, 1988, for a useful synopsis of schema theory). The essence of schema theory is that pre-existing fields of knowledge are activated in the processing of any text. This conceptual knowledge will include knowledge of sociocultural conventions, attitudes and behaviours associated with different areas of experiences. The ability to activate appropriate fields of knowledge is therefore a vital necessity for engagement with any literary text. Now, as pointed out above, EFL students, particularly those studying overseas, may, as a results of different cultural experiences and influences, have developed equally valid, but nevertheless different sets of schemata to those assumed by Western writers. This situation has a number of very important implications for the teaching of literature to EFL students: •Texts may be difficult for students, not principally because of their linguistic difficulty, but because their different social cultural and affective schema do not empower them adequately to recreate and interact with the writer’s discourse. •Our pedagogic activities should provide the necessary thematic, cultural and linguistic preparation and/or supplement, so as to make literary texts accessible. However, the desire to ensure that students have adequate background knowledge should not result in selection of texts for study which only draw on situations and contexts which are familiar to students. Part of the agenda of literary study is always to extend horizons and make learners use their imagination. What is SCHEMING WAYS: PREPARING LOWER LEVEL EFL LEARNERS… 499 important is that students should be able to engage with a text at a cognitive and emotional level. Therefore, texts will need to be selected thematically to suit students’ age and range of life experiences. Cultural constraints regarding what topics can be discussed comfortably in different international educational settings should also be taken into account. For example, a text dealing with an adulterous relationship could be problematic in some school or tertiary teaching situations. If literature is to be more widely integrated into ELT curricula, then students must be able to discuss and respond to it freely. •The reader’s background knowledge is an extremely important part of the reading process and can even compensate for learners’ linguistic deficiencies, such as problems with lexis or syntax. It is crucial to the prediction and inference making processes that are so vital for dealing for reading poetry, where there is generally so little redundancy, and the poet tries to get maximum semantic mileage from each word. Actual preparatory text engagement activities to elicit/build background knowledge will only be successful if they can connects to the experience of students in interesting ways. As stressed in a recent ELTJ survey of books on the teaching of literature (Paran, 2000), it is vital, too, to ensure that the activity type fits the texts and aids the process of uncovering its meanings. The possibilities for actual activities are numerous, but will typically include: 1. Using pictures or a short video sequence to stimulate thought or discussion relevant to the theme of the text or the situation of the characters. 2. Asking students to find out about a particular place, period of history, famous person, city, artist etc. that is highly relevant to the content of the text. 3. Getting students to read non-literary texts related to a central theme of the text to be studied, in order to develop the awareness needed to understand it fully. For example, a letter from a soldier to his girlfriend or parents from the war front, might provide an appropriate way in to the Wilfred Owen poem, Anthem For Doomed Youth, already referred to above. 4. Get students to discuss personal experiences of an emotion that is at the core of a literary text. For example, students might recount experiences of receiving shocking news before reading Raymond Carver’ poem, What The Doctor Told Me, in which the poet describes his GEORGE MURDOCH 500 reaction to being informed by a doctor that he is suffering from lung cancer. 5. Direct focus on particular socio-cultural conventions, contexts or references that are crucial for understanding the impact of the text. 6. Focus on possibly problematic lexical, syntactic, register features of a text at an early stage, so as to ensure students will not find a text too demanding on first reading. 7. Use a short extract from the text for a text reconstruction activity, such as putting parts of a text into a correct order, so as to ease the students in to the text via a task that will make them familiar with some part of the situation. The activity also serves to familiarise them with the language of the text without requiring them to deal with its deeper levels of meaning. PREPARING STUDENTS FOR LONG DISTANCE II In order to illustrate the type of extended preparatory text approach that focuses on activation/supplementation of the background knowledge that the EFL learner needs to interact with a literary text, I have selected the second part of a poem, Long Distance, by Tony Harrison (see Appendix), which I have used successfully with students and teachers in training in different countries. The poem uses contemporary language forms and does not confront the reader with difficult lexis. It deals with close family relationships - a theme that students around the globe can definitely relate to, even though the situation of isolation that the characters find themselves in may be more unfamiliar in non-Western societies. However, the emotional impact of the poem is one which certainly has universal valence. Importantly, too, from an international teaching perspective, the text does not contain content or scenes which could be potentially embarrassing for students to discuss or respond to in more culturally conservative/traditional classroom settings. In the poem itself, a father’s enduring need and love for his wife is observed through the eyes of his son. We see the father’s total inability to come to terms with her death. Our exposure to his attempts to carry on as if she were still alive take us into the emotional territory of reactions to the loss of a close and much loved relative. A valid way in to the theme of this text, would be to get students to discuss in groups the most happily married real or fictional couples they know, SCHEMING WAYS: PREPARING LOWER LEVEL EFL LEARNERS… 501 and pool lists of the features of these couples’ lives and personalities. They might then read a magazine article about happily married Western or international couples with children, to see whether their stable relationships were based on the same qualities as had been brainstormed. The first task obviously aims to elicit the kind of schematic awareness about married life relevant to the poem, while the role of the magazine articles would be to bring to students’ minds aspects of a solid, affectionate marriage so they can connect with the plight of the father and son in the text. At the next stage, students might be asked to do a text reconstruction activity, such as a cloze with the rhyming words at the end of lines 3 and four of each verse omitted, with students being asked to select the correct words from a list: bed, pass, alone, crime, grief, tea, name, call to reconstruct the full poem. Besides alerting students to the rhyme pattern, and making them aware of the simplicity of the vocabulary, the activity also alerts them to the change of rhyming pattern in the last verse, which reflects an important change of direction in the poem –something which can be explored with students later. Another benefit is that the activity provides a motivating way in to the poem without burdening the text with lots of questions when the students first meet it. After this, some of the vocabulary items expressions which are very loaded in terms of the poem’s cultural and social context can be made clear for the students. The harsh north of England climate, domestic routines in badly heated houses and the traditional roles of men and women in lower middle and working class homes in the 1950’s and 60’s pervade references to putting hot water bottles in beds, keeping slippers warm and renewing transport passses in verse 1. The reference to being able to “drop in” has deep resonances in relation to close communities where families and neighbours were friendly and supportive. It is also important to explore the way that the first line of verse 2, “I believe life ends with death, and that is all.” should be interpreted in the light of the fact that most people in the UK have no strong belief in religion or life after death, since that situation contrasts dramatically with that in many countries around the world where English is studied. This awareness can help students eventually appreciate how the poet’s lack of belief leaves him so emotionally devastated by the loss of his parents and in need of communicating with them.