Cool English

© http://www.flickr.com/photos/lau/317409154/

IN her advocacy of new-age and politically correct approaches to English teaching, represented by postmodern theory, critical literacy, gender politics and embracing computers and the internet, Monash University's Ilana Snyder makes no bones about why she wrote her new book The Literacy Wars and who the enemy is.

The opening and closing chapters begin with references to The Australian's campaign for a more traditional approach to English, where the literary classics are centre stage and phonics and grammar play a significant role.

Snyder writes: "However, it was the Murdoch paper's crusade against contemporary approaches to literacy education that motivated me to write the book. It is time to hold them to account."

Parents and the public might like to believe the fourth estate has every right to reveal shortcomings in the nation's education system and to hold those responsible to account for failed experiments such as whole language and critical literacy, but not Snyder. Not only does she label the paper's stance and commentary on English teaching as ideologically driven and misleading, but commentators associated with the paper, including Luke Slattery, Christopher Pearson and me, are condemned as conservative, elitist cultural warriors guilty of manufacturing a literacy crisis.

Notwithstanding its flaws, The Literacy Wars deserves to be read. While attacking so-called conservative critics for getting it wrong, Snyder admits that during the 1970s and '80s grammar disappeared from the classroom.

She also admits there is no evidence that new technology raises student achievement, and accepts the truth of many of the criticisms detailed in The Australian when she states: "The issue of fragmentation of the curriculum is real and there are also problems with political correctness as it has played out in Australian schools."

The Literacy Wars provides a useful summary of how English has developed since the early '70s, including the use of the personal-growth model and process writing, where the child's experience is paramount and creativity replaces formally teaching grammar, spelling and syntax.

But Snyder's treatment of recent literacy debates is confused and one-sided. Take the issue of falling standards. The Australian's criticisms of professional associations and teacher educators relate to the fact, as the result of a dumbed-down English curriculum, that many students enter secondary school without the basics, and first-year university undergraduates have to take remedial classes.

One expects a literacy expert such as Snyder to be clear on the issue of standards; unfortunately she is not. First, readers are told it is impossible to decide if standards have improved or declined: "Reading and writing are dynamic practices, changing over time."

Two pages later, she argues there has not been "a general decline in literacy standards" and, notwithstanding her statement that it was impossible to judge either way, in the final chapter she says: "Allegations of declining standards and literacy crises are not tenable."

As shown by the 2000 and 2006 results in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's program for international student assessment, where Australian students dropped from second to sixth in terms of literacy performance, there is evidence that standards have fallen. Research by Canberra-based academic Andrew Leigh also concludes that "troubling new evidence suggests that literacy and numeracy scores have stagnated or fallen since the 1970s, despite the doubling of resources".

Snyder is also incorrect in attacking Australia's education system for being what she terms "high quality/low equity", an argument, often put by the University of Melbourne's Barry McGaw, that, compared with other countries, not enough is being done to help disadvantaged students.

As noted by Geoff Masters, the head of the Australian Council for Educational Research, the claim is wrong. Masters states, after analysing the 2006 PISA results: "Another indicator of the world-class nature of our education system is the observation that the relationship between socioeconomic background and student achievement in Australia is weaker than the OECD average. In the popular jargon, Australia is a 'high quality/high equity' country."

The failure to take note of research evidence is not restricted to Australia. Snyder condemns the type of testing associated with US President George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" initiative, claiming that a back-to-basics approach does not work. According to a report by the Washington-based Centre on Education Policy, released midway through last year, such is not the case. After analysing the data from 50 states, the conclusion is that the majority show improvements in learning outcomes as measured by reading and mathematics test scores.

In the final chapter of The Literacy Wars, Snyder states: "It is time to abandon the language of attack and accusation to concentrate on improving literacy education for all Australian students." It's a pity she does not follow her own advice.

Instead of welcoming public debate led by The Australian, she accuses the paper of manufacturing a crisis to increase sales and simply wanting to promote the conservative Howard government's political agenda. One wonders how those on the cultural Left will deal with Education Minister Julia Gillard's description of herself as an education traditionalist and the Rudd Government's back-to-basics approach to curriculum?

Instead of accepting that critics are motivated by a desire to empower students by giving them a rigorous education, Snyder also argues that those advocating the classics and curriculum are disinterested and driven by a desire to win the class war and to denigrate the work of government schools.

Debates about grammar, according to Snyder, reflect a "clash between proponents of social control and the proponents of social autonomy" and such battles are "as much about the restoration and renewal of traditional hierarchical relations in society as they are about schooling".

Ignored is the argument of David Kemp, a former minister for education under the Howard government, that the best way to help disadvantaged students is to teach them the basics and introduce them to the enduring works of the Western tradition.

Snyder's apparent position that many students are destined to failure due to their disadvantaged background and therefore schools cannot be held accountable for how well they learn, is self-fulfilling and defeatist if taken seriously.

Also ignored is The Australian's role in outing an exclusive Sydney-based non-government school for making students deconstruct Shakespeare in terms of neo-Marxist, postmodern theory. The reality is that politically correct approaches to curriculum affect government and non-government schools alike.

Kevin Donnelly taught English for 18 years and his PhD thesis examines developments in English teaching since the late 1960s. He has been a member of state and national curriculum committees and is a past member of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English.

© http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23145537-7583,00.html

 

Top 

© http://www.flickr.com/photos/mercanegra/2843423878/

Dr Ilana Snyder Senior Lecturer School of Graduate Studies Monash University Clayton 3168 Australia Ph: 03 9905 2773 Fax: 03 9905 2779 Email: ilana.snyder@education.monash.edu.au

 

Abstract

When writers use hypertext - the technology that makes possible nonsequential, fully electronic reading and writing - to produce a fictional narrative, the result is interactive hyperfiction. This article charts what we know about electronic nonlinear narrative: its origins, literary precursors and distinctive features. It also explores the potential of hyperfiction in the English classroom. Finally, it examines some of the difficulties associated with the use of hyperfiction as well as the hype that has surrounded its introduction into educational settings.

Number of words: approximately 4,700

Key words: hypertext, hyperfiction, electronic technologies, computers, narrative, writing, interactivity

 

Hyperfiction: its possibilities in English

 

When the American writer, Robert Coover, published an article in the New York Times Book Review titled The end of books (1992, pp. 1, 23-25), not many people outside of multimedia business organisations and academia knew much about hypertext, let alone the use of hypertext to create interactive fiction. Coover announced the arrival of hyperfiction, a new narrative art form, readable only on a computer, and made possible by the developing technology of hypertext and hypermedia. He also explained how users 'read' these new forms of text and the nature of the experience. The consternation aroused in readers of the New York Times, reinforced by the bold headline, centred on the fear that the birth of hyperfiction necessarily signalled the death of the printed book.

 

Extreme responses to discussions of the changes to literacy practices and narrative form associated with the use of hypertext are not unusual. It seems that belief in the intrinsic value of the printed book is so deeply ingrained in our cultural consciousness and memory that any challenge to its five hundred-year reign is greeted with hostility, even outrage. However, debating whether or not books will disappear with the advent of hypertext seems to be a rather pointless exercise. The relentless hype about the Internet, the World Wide Web and hypertext may lead people to fear otherwise, but the growing presence of the computer and electronic text does not necessarily signal the death of the printed book. The introduction of a new technology of writing does not automatically render older ones obsolete, mainly because no technology has ever proven adequate for all needs. For example, even though printing completely replaced handwriting in book production, it did not spell the end for handwriting. Rather, the boundaries between the two writing technologies blurred. It seems that typesetting, electronic writing and handwriting will continue to coexist and complement each other, at least for the immediate future (Snyder, 1996).

 

What is hyperfiction?

 

Hyperfiction depends on hypertext technology - a structure composed of blocks of text connected by electronic links that offers different pathways to users. Hypertext provides a means of arranging information in a nonlinear manner with the computer automating the process of connecting one piece of information to another. If the structure accommodates not only printed texts but also digitised sound, graphics, animation, video and virtual reality, it is sometimes referred to as 'hypermedia' or 'multimedia'.

 

When writers use hypertext to produce a fictional narrative, the result is interactive hyperfiction. A significant distinction between traditional print narratives and hyperfiction lies in how we approach them. Readers of print narratives usually begin on the first page and, even though they may move backwards or forwards, generally proceed through the text to the end. Their gradual progression follows a carefully scripted route which ensures that they get from the beginning to the end in the way the author wants them to. By contrast, most hyperfictions have no single beginning or end. A further distinction is based on the tangibility of the text. Whereas the length of a work of fiction can be gauged just by holding it, readers of a hyperfiction do not know what the hypertext contains till they load it into their computer, and even then they may never experience its full magnitude. The possibilities for readers to create their own stories are considerably greater in hyperfiction than when reading a print narrative or Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, both of which have highly visible beginnings and endings, as well as other structural limitations.

 

Literary and electronic precursors

 

Although books are a poor medium for participatory discourse, since the beginnings of modern fiction authors have attempted 'to jar or cajole readers out of passivity' (Kaplan & Moulthrop, 1991, p. 11). Literary precursors of hyperfiction include Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759-67) and more recent fiction such as Cortazar's Hopscotch (1966). Sterne and Cortazar are self-consciously absorbed in both the act of writing itself and the difficult relationships between narrator, text and reader. Both work strenuously against the medium in which their books are produced. Any reader familiar with hypertext will look at such texts anew, and observe that in their resistance to linear narrative they have much in common with hyperfiction. By attacking the convention that a novel is a coherent narrative of events, such texts simultaneously invite and confirm reader-interaction.

 

But whereas Sterne and Cortazar can only pretend to offer their readers the opportunity to take part in the construction of their books, hypertext can demand that the reader participate. In a hyperfiction, no text appears on the screen until a reader summons it with a keystroke or the click of a mouse. Furthermore, the electronic environment gives a stronger sense than does the printed page of the author 'being there'. 'The author is present in the electronic network of episodes that he or she creates and through which the reader moves along associative paths' (Bolter, 1991, p. 134).

 

Hyperfiction develops from a twentieth-century tradition of experimental literature. Dadaism, for example, aimed at destroying the structures of established art and literature, and 'in that breakdown the Dadaists worked in the same spirit as writers now work in the electronic medium' (Bolter, 1991, p. 131). Dadaists often attacked the conventions of the realistic novel that tells its story with a clear and cogent rhythm of events, and in doing so found themselves straining at the limitations of the printed page. Because the linear-hierarchical presentation of the printed book was so well suited to the conventions of plot and character in the realistic novel, 'to attack the form of the novel was also to attack the technology of print' (p. 131).

 

Many other twentieth-century novels, plays and films also critique narrative conventions. In The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), Fowles gives the book two endings (or three, if you count the one that occurs three-quarters of the way through, which supplies a conventional Victorian outcome). Fowles here highlights the spurious meaningfulness of the fictional world he has created and the indeterminacy of the real one. In Reisz's and Pinter's 1981 film of the novel, the two endings are translated into a film-within-a-film.

 

Because interactive fiction already existed in print and film, the technological challenge for creators of electronic interactive fiction was 'to find a way of turning imaginary worlds lodged in the writer's head into virtual worlds lodged in the computer's memory' (Woolley, 1992, p. 155). The precedent was Adventure, developed in the 1960s at Stanford University's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL). The program was conceived of as an experimental game. A computerised version of role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, Adventure comprises a series of descriptions of fictional locations inspired by Tolkien's fantasy The Lord of the Rings (1954). It maps an imaginary environment into electronic memory and allows its player-readers to explore that space by issuing simple commands. In giving these commands, the reader attempts to negotiate a series of spatial and narrative obstacles to reach some hidden goal. Adventure became a diversion of programmers and computer scientists, 'who built ever more intricate and challenging versions of the game' (Kaplan and Moulthrop, 1991, p. 12).

 

Adventure and its descendants continued to evolve through the late 1970s, when interactive text games migrated from academic and corporate mainframes to micro-computers. There the form was married with popular fiction and role-playing games to produce a second generation of text adventures that retained the problem-solving design of the original Adventure. These games were not networks of possibilities to be explored but arrangements of obstacles to be overcome in the progress to a determined goal. Later in the 1980s there emerged a third generation of interactive fiction in which the influence of game scenarios has been less noticeable. The multiple fictions of this third generation are narrative networks capable of differing significantly on every reading.

 

Afternoon, the first hyperfiction

 

Joyce's hyperfiction, Afternoon (1991a), is an intricate web of narratives, places, paths and 'yields', that is, words and phrases whose evocative resonances readers can pursue by using a mouse to highlight them on the computer screen. Afternoon is a fiction that changes every time it is read. It invites the reader to circulate digressively among a matrix of characters and events that are never quite what they seemed on first presentation. 'I want to say I may have seen my son die this morning', an anonymous speaker confides, disclosing a rich field of narrative possibility. However, none of the stories produced by interacting with Afternoon will validate or disprove either the desire or the perception of the speaker.

 

Afternoon is a text scattered with verbal associations. If you select the word 'son' in the first sentence of the story, for example, the text on the screen shifts to a description of the scene in which the narrator, who appears to be male, finds his son's school paper on the 'The Sun King'. The word 'die' in the initial sentence serves as the cue for a different narrative departure. But there is also a third possibility - a default condition. These default transitions, however, do not simply reinstate the fixed page-order of a bound volume. Afternoon is structured in such a way that its elements are assembled in a different order every time you call up a new screen.

 

Hyperfiction fosters both passive and active reading: 'looking at and looking through' the text (Bolter, 1992, p. 40). When reading an episode, you may succeed in looking through the text to an imagined world. Formal structures are both visible and operative in hyperfiction because they are embodied in the links between episodes. At each link the text offers a series of possibilities that you can activate, moving backwards and forwards between the verbal text and the structure as you read. In Afternoon you may get lost in Peter's engaging story of his search for his son. But the need to make choices never lets you forget that you are participating in the making of a fiction.

 

There is no plot as such in Afternoon. Because it is not built on causal sequences, it does not present parallel story-lines. Events are ambiguous, and the story focuses on how the characters might react to such ambiguities. There appears to be a mystery: the narrator's son may or may not have been in an automobile accident. Readers are compelled to follow the father as he tries to establish the fate of his son: in this respect, the father's quest becomes the reader's. The particular episodes you call up will determine the answer you receive. In other words, '[t]he reader's own participation in the story becomes the story' (Bolter, 1992, p. 29).

 

Afternoon differs from printed fiction by not offering any 'single story of which each reading is a version, because each reading determines the story as it goes'; as a result, 'there is no story at all; there are only readings' (Bolter, 1991, p. 124). We could also say that the story of Afternoon is the sum of all its readings, in so far as the story is a structure that can embrace contradictory outcomes. Afternoon is an infinite text which never offers the same page to any reader more than once.

 

Afternoon demonstrates that it is possible to create a text which does not force its readers down one particular route. A corollary is that readers risk becoming lost, partly because the textual landscape is unfamiliar and partly because the narrative is the means by which readers orient themselves. Joyce recognises such difficulties and seeks to overcome them by placing limits on narrative freedom, although in Afternoon he does not provide his readers with a map. In his hyperfiction, WOE, however, Joyce (1991b) includes a map of the text's overall structure and of places still awaiting discovery. It records previous paths and suggests which directions might prove fruitful for exploration.

 

Afternoon is not a random fiction because its author exercises control over the choices his reader can make. Afternoon can be (and sometimes is) a linear story, because occasionally only one path leads from an episode. At other times, it gives its reader dozens of choices, although they are far from random. As a text that changes before our eyes, Afternoon challenges our assumptions about the nature of literature: it represents a new kind of writing. But because it also comes out of a literary tradition, we recognise it as a coherent act of imagination, as a story with characters who interact and conflict.

 

Unlike interactive print fiction, hyperfiction abandons such conventions as chapters and the illusion of a seamless continuity between paragraphs. The virtual text exists only in electronic space or in our memories. As the text re-forms with successive readings, no two readings are alike. By presenting a chameleon text-like surface, hyperfiction is textually subversive. Its structure is 'effectively open to a virtually unlimited range of possible readings, each of which causes the work to acquire new vitality in terms of one particular taste, perspective, or personal performance' (Eco, 1979, p. 63). But hyperfiction also arouses unease if not antagonism in some users. It presents 'an electronic environment alien and inimical to our habitual reading patterns' (Douglas, 1989, p. 94)

 

Extemporising with narrative form

 

We love a good story, told by a skilled narrator, and dictated by the authoritative voice of an accomplished author. Hypertext invites us 'to find an analogue in the electronic medium for narrative line and authorial control in the traditional medium of print' (Bolter, 1993, p. 9). The most effective techniques for achieving a strong story-line in the print medium are linearity, plot, characterisation, textual coherence, resolution and closure. Experiments in hyperfiction, however, diminish these qualities in varying degrees by exploiting the electronic medium's capacity to create open-ended fictions with multiple narrative strands. Any discussion of the changes to narrative form brought about by hyperfiction necessarily involves a consideration of the ways in which writers using hypertext technology have played with these integral elements, and found alternative strategies and techniques for engaging readers' attention.

 

In one sense, each reading of a hyperfiction is a linear experience: confronted with one frame after another, you are still aware of a narrative, however confused it may be. At the same time, a hyperfiction seems to contain more than one voice and to change direction abruptly. Each hyperfiction handles in its own way the conflict between the linearity of the reading experience and the multiplicity of hyperfiction. In Joyce's Afternoon, for instance, some readings represent alternative voices or perspectives on the narrative, with each discrete change kept separate by electronic space. The web of intersecting narrative strands in Moulthrop's (1991) hyperfiction, Victory Garden, offers a mixture of voices and genres: first- and third-person narrative fiction, excerpts from other books, fiction and non-fiction, and quotations from televised broadcasts. Joyce's (1991) WOE is a narrative experiment in which some readings are metafictional commentaries on the narrative and its origins in Joyce's experience.

 

In hyperfictions such as these, a lack of linearity does not destroy the narrative. In fact, since readers always fabricate their own structures, sequences and meanings - and particularly so in hypertext conditions - they have surprisingly little trouble constructing a story as they make their way through the web. Reading hyperfiction, however, can be a very different experience from reading a printed novel or a short story. What hyperfiction forces us to recognise is that an active author-reader fabricates not only meanings but also a text from the kit supplied by the author.

 

Rethinking plot and story

 

Hyperfiction calls into question some of the most basic points about plot and story in the Aristotelian tradition. Hyperfiction interrogates not only Aristotle's notions of beginning and end, but also his assumptions about the sequence of parts and the unity of the finished work (Aristotle, 1959).

 

Hyperfiction apparently dispenses with linear organisation. Although the experience of linearity does not disappear altogether with hyperfiction, narrative chunks do not follow one another in a page-turning, forward direction. Hyperfiction space is multi-dimensional and theoretically infinite: its set of possible network links are fixed, variable or random. Readers can contribute by choosing their own route through the labyrinth; the more active may introduce new elements, open new paths, and interact with the characters or even with the author(s).

 

Many twentieth-century works of fiction explore the tension between linearity and a more spatial sensation of time. Patrick White's Riders in the Chariot (1961) and Janette Turner Hospital's The Last Magician (1992), for example, question the status of sequence in narrative and so too does David Malouf's Fly Away Peter (1982). The protagonists of all three novels are suspicious of chronology and sequence: what they experience is something more akin to simultaneity. The difference between their novels and hyperfictions is that hypertext confers greater freedom and power on the reader. Malouf decides at what point his protagonist's narrative is to branch out; in Joyce's Afternoon, the reader makes that kind of decision.

 

Reconceptualising beginnings and endings

 

The problems posed by hyperfiction for traditional understandings of narrative are particularly apparent in the case of beginning and ending stories. In their brief history, hyperfictions seem to have taken 'an essentially cautious approach' (Landow, 1992, p. 109) to the problem of beginnings by offering the reader a block of text - labelled with something like 'start here' - that combines the functions of title page, introduction and opening paragraph. There are various reasons for this. One is convenience: the disk has to be self-contained so that it can be used on stand-alone machines. Another is the reluctance of some writers to disorient readers at the point of their first contact with the narrative. A further reason is that some believe hyperfiction should change our experiences of the middle but not the beginning of narrative fiction. The rival view is that because hyperfiction uniquely enables us to begin with any one of its parts, we should take advantage of this fact. In order to achieve this end, each chunk of text must be sufficiently independent to generate meanings that can be followed in other chunks of hyperfiction.

 

Although they use familiar narrative strategies to make beginnings easier, hyperfictions challenge readers by avoiding the corresponding devices for achieving closure. It is up to readers to decide how, when and why the narrative finishes. In Afternoon, Joyce makes closure the responsibility of the reader. In a section entitled 'work in progress' we are advised: 'Closure is, as in any fiction, a suspect quality, although here it is made manifest. When the story no longer progresses, or when it cycles, or when you tire of the paths, the experience of reading it ends'. Hyperfictions always end because readings always end - either with a sense of satisfying closure, or from sheer fatigue.

 

Of course, we are not entirely naive about unresolved texts. Print and cinematic narratives provide instances of multiple closure and also a combination of closure linked to new beginnings. Charles Dickens and other nineteenth-century writers whose novels were serialised in periodicals mastered the art of partial closure in each episode. Furthermore, sequences of novels like Durrell's Alexandria Quartet 'suggest that writers of fiction have long encountered problems very similar to those faced by writers of hypertext fiction and have developed an array of formal and thematic solutions to them' (Landow, 1992, p. 112). However, culturally familiar though we are with the absence or denial of closure, we may still find the consequences disturbing.

 

The potential of hyperfiction in English

 

Articles discussing the possibilities for the use of hyperfiction in the English classroom are beginning to appear in the literature. Kaplan and Moulthrop (1991), for example, describe a course in which they used hypertext. They found that the writing of interactive fiction, by raising the possibility of alternative constructions, heightened the sensitivity of their students to narrative features such as point of view, the authority of the narrator and causal sequence. Interactive fiction also seems to help integrate an enriched experience of literature with the practice of writing as a social activity, and enables students to become not merely more perceptive interpreters of fiction, but also creators of it. Interactive hyperfiction, Kaplan and Moulthrop argue (1991, p. 21), has considerable potential for those who teach 'writing through literature, or literature through writing'.

 

The introduction of hypertext into literature classrooms raises a number of pedagogical issues. To treat Afternoon as a literary text, for instance, involves redefining what is meant by the terms 'literature' and 'text'. Such a reconceptualisation entails not only fundamental alterations in the roles of author, reader and text, but also changes in the role of the teacher and in the activities of teaching and learning about literature.

 

The use of hypertext in the English classroom provides another medium for the promotion of collaborative work. The technology offers the option of interactive or collaborative writing. Students can create texts in all manner of collaborative ways: 'trading lines, writing parallel texts that merge, moving independently created sets of characters in and out of communal fictional space' (Birkerts, 1994, p. 160). In his New York Times essay, Coover (1992, p. 24) described how he and his students established a 'hypertext hotel' a place where the writers were free to 'check in, to open new rooms, new corridors, new intrigues, to unlink texts or create new links, to intrude upon or subvert the texts of others, to alter plot trajectories, manipulate time and space, to engage in dialogue through invented characters, then kill off one another's characters or even sabotage the hotel's plumbing'.

 

Working with hyperfiction in the English classroom, however, raises new problems. One identified by many critics is that of getting lost. A hyperfiction can be at one and the same time compelling and confusing. The text is no longer static and stable; the reader may get lost in the maze and not enjoy the experience. All the characteristics of the novel to which we have become accustomed and which we teach our students - 'unity, integrity, coherence, vision, voice, seem to be in danger' (Coover, 1992, p. 24). Further, how do we assess and evaluate and respond to a work that is different every time we read it?

 

There is still an enormous amount that we don't know about hypertext. Hyperfiction's alleged potential to transform the teaching of writing 'whether by supporting familiar goals in fresh ways or by suggesting a whole new approach to reading and writing remains for the most part unexplored' (DiPardo & DiPardo, 1990, p.7). Moreover, early advocates have tempered their initial enthusiasm with some important questions. McDaid (1991), the author of a number of hyperfictions, asks whether hypertext actually facilitates the teaching of writing; whether its effects are good or bad; and whether we can overcome the problem of inequality of access.

 

Recognising the difficulties

 

When hypertext first arrived on the education scene, and with it the possibility of creating hyperfiction, enthusiasts endowed it with utopian promise. They believed that hypertext had replaced linear writing in an evolutionary step towards perfect communication technology. They believed that the mere act of linking multiple interpretations and voices resulted automatically in better communication. Moreover, they believed that hypertext would transform society and education systems, democratise the academy and promote the breakdown of the artificial divisions between the disciplines.

 

By contrast, detractors argued that hypertext portended dark consequences for our culture. They implored people not to submit to a technocratic force and a totalitarian nightmare. They dismissed promoters of hypertext as fetishising novelty. They also argued most vehemently that hypertext offered nothing but confusion and cognitive overload to users. They reminded people that the book was central to culture and consciousness and that they must not give in to the oppression of technology.

 

However, what seems a better alternative to polarised debates about hypertext is to approach the use of this technology in our classrooms, both critically and intelligently.

Eco (1995) reminds us that it's not an 'either/or' situation; we do not have to choose between books and the new electronic technologies. He points out that literacy comprises many media. 'An enlightened policy on literacy must take into account the possibilities of all these media' (p. 91). Eco implores us to not fight against false enemies: 'Even if it were true that today visual communication has overwhelmed written communication, the problem is not one of opposing written to visual communication. The problem is rather how to improve both' (p. 91).

 

Facing an electronic future

 

The historical record shows that many English teachers have tended to resist using the new electronic technologies in their teaching. Of course, there are teachers who have either no, or limited, access to the technology. And even if there are computers available for their students' use, they may not as yet have software such as Storyspace (Bolter, Joyce & Smith, 1990) to make the creation of hyperfiction an option. But there are also English teachers who work in environments that have computer facilities who remain reluctant to use them (Snyder, 1995). They are wary of the use of the technology despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that we face a future dominated by computer culture.

 

However, if the influence of electronic text is to be as pervasive as many are predicting, then English teachers need to think about its consequences for teaching and learning. As Lanham points out, 'it is hard not to conclude that what we are doing now is not preparing our students for the world they will live in, and the lives they will live out, but training them, instead, to be the "clerks of a forgotten mood"' (1993, p. 136). Addressing teachers of writing and literary studies, Lanham poses the question: 'What business are we really in?' (1989, p. 285). His answer is unequivocal:

If our business is general literacy, as some of us think, then electronic instructional systems offer the only hope for the radically leveraged mass instruction the problems of general literacy pose. If we are in any respect to pretend that 'majoring in English,' or any other literature, and all that it implies, teaches our students how to manipulate words in the world of work, then we must accommodate literary study to the electronic word in which that world will increasingly deal. (p. 285)

 

But at the same time, we should remain sceptical of the probably unrealistic early claims made about hyperfiction's radical potential. We must address in systematic ways the difficulties that readers have identified when trying to navigate hypertext or that writers have identified when authoring hyperfictions (Hawisher, LeBlanc, Moran & Selfe, 1996). We should take note of Michael Joyce's (1988, p. 11) concern:

 

It is likely that the potential benefits outweigh nearly all the short run perils, save perhaps the most crucial one. The peril of overpromising threatens not just to sap the resilience of educators, who must wade through the dross and justify the costs. It also threatens the credibility and creativity of innovators, who find themselves having to disaffiliate and differentiate before they can discover.

 

In this article, I have not presented many examples of what teachers are doing with hyperfiction in their classrooms. Although I know that readers of this journal are interested in creative and imaginative ways in which to use the electronic technologies, my aim has been somewhat different. I have set out to chart some of what we know about this new nonlinear narrative form: its origins, literary precursors and characteristics. By considering how hyperfiction differs from the more familiar print literary forms, until now the staple diet of the English curriculum, we may be prompted to re-examine our notions and understandings of narrative. But I also recognise that it's all very well to explore the theoretical potential of hyperfiction, but 'making it work with real readers and writers, in real classrooms taught by real teachers' (Hawisher, LeBlanc, Moran & Selfe, 1996, p. 208) is just as important. However, we'll have to leave the exploration of that task for another article.

 

Bibliography

 

Aristotle (1959) The Poetics trans. L.J. Potts, Aristotle on the Art of Fiction: An English Translation of Aristotle's Poetics with an Introductory Essay and Explanatory Notes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Birkerts, S. (1994) The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Fawcett Columbine

Bolter, J.D. (1991) Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Bolter, J.D. (1992) Literature in the electronic writing space. In M. Tuman (ed.), Literacy Online (pp. 19-42). Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press

Bolter, J.D. (1993) Alone and together in the electronic bazaar. Computers and Composition 10, 2, 5-18

Bolter, J.D., Joyce, M., Smith, J.B. (1990) Storyspace: Hypertext Writing Environment for the Macintosh. Computer software. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Eastgate Systems

Coover, R. (1992) The end of books. New York Times Book Review, June 21, 1, 23-25

DiPardo, A., DiPardo, M. (1990) Towards the metapersonal essay: exploring the potential of hypertext in the composition class. Computers and Composition 7, 3, 7-22

Douglas, J.Y. (1989) Wandering through the labyrinth: encountering interactive fiction. Computers and Composition 6, 3, 93-101

Douglas, J.Y. (1992) What hypertexts can do the print narratives cannot. Reader 28, 1-22

Eco, U. (1979) The Role of the Reader. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press

Eco, U. (1995) Apocalypse postponed. R. Lumley (ed), London: Flamingo, an imprint of Harper Collins

Hawisher, G.E., LeBlanc, P., Moran, C., Selfe, C.L. (1996) Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education, 1979-1994: A History. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex

Joyce, M. (1991a) Afternoon, a Story, Computer disk. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Eastgate Press

Joyce, M. (1991b) WOE, Computer disk. Writing on the Edge 2, 2

Kaplan, N., Moulthrop, S. (1991) Something to imagine: literature, composition, and interactive fiction. Computers and Composition 9, 1, 7-23

Landow, G.P. (1992) Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press

Lanham, R.A. (1989) The electronic word: literary study and the digital revolution. New Literary History 20, 265-90

Lanham, R.A. (1993) The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology and the Arts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

 

McDaid, J. (1991) Toward an ecology of hypermedia. In G.E. Hawisher & C.L. Selfe (eds), Evolving Perspectives on Computers and Composition Studies: Questions for the 1990s (pp. 203-23). Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English.

Moulthrop, S. (1991) Victory Garden, Computer disk. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Eastgate Press

Snyder, I.A. (1995) Toward electronic writing classrooms: the challenge for teachers. Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education 4, 1, 51-65.

Snyder, I. (1996) Hypertext: The Electronic Labyrinth. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Woolley, B. (1992) Virtual Worlds: A Journey in Hype and Hyperreality. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books

© http://www.schools.ash.org.au/litweb/ilana.html

 

Top

By Maria Palmira Massi and Adriana G. Merino

Nobody would deny that we are bombarded by the media and visual images. By the mere click of a finger, we can get access to remote lands and far-away people on our TV set or computer screen. Giving visual messages a place in the foreign language curriculum is an interesting and entertaining way to enhance the learner's command of the target language; and the messages available through film offer a refreshing change of routine in the classroom.

 

Until recently, the use of films in foreign language teaching has been down-played because teachers felt they were time-consuming and too difficult to tackle. Yet, with the spread of video equipment and audiovisual resources into educational institutions, the use of films is becoming more common. Good films can serve as a valuable pedagogical aid, both for classroom use and self-study. The ultimate goal is to arouse sensitivity in the learner and to provide a stimulus to stretch his/her imagination and creativity.

Why bring the cinema into the classroom?

The power of films as a medium is acknowledged by all. It can be exploited in a number of ways. One possible use of film in the language program is to promote new ideas and expand the learner's horizons. In a content-based syllabus, for instance, a particular film can be used to vividly illustrate situations which are unfamiliar or inaccessible and provide the learner with a stimulus which serves as a springboard for further discussion of an issue. Besides, film is an excellent medium for the explicit teaching of syntactic, morphological, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of the foreign language. This goes hand in hand with motivational purposes, since learning objectives are achieved through the performance of different tasks. Another advantage is that language structures and lexical items are used in communicative situations, and propositional messages are fleshed out with quasi-authentic realism. There is also a wealth of non-linguistic and cultural information that can be exploited and focused on with appropriate assignments. Some films can lead into a discussion of psychological and social questions.

There are such obvious advantages in using films that it is easy to forget some possible hindrances. It may be disheartening for the language learner not to understand every single word, but even native speakers may fail in this. The student should be encouraged to get the global idea in the first place, and only in some instances should he/she be asked to concentrate on single chunks of language. From the teacher's perspective, it may be argued that the planning stage is time-consuming and demanding since it requires previewing the film and designing adequate activities. But these pitfalls vanish when we think of the countless possibilities open to us when dealing with films: They allow for constant reinforcement in the acquisition of a foreign language; they provide a good medium for self-study; they offer the learners the possibility of thinking critically as well as using their imaginations. They contribute not only to the development of inferential skills but also to aesthetic appreciation of the storyline and technical aspects of the film such as photography, special effects, electronic tricks, music, direction, production, etc. Apart from being faced with language, the learner is confronted with the socio-cultural environment in which the film is set. In sum, it is obvious that the pendulum swings to the asset side, and the pros outnumber the cons. So, why not give it a try?

Where to start...? Selection

The selection of films is the most important step in the process and constitutes the biggest challenge. It can be based on thematic content to reinforce and consolidate topics treated within the language syllabus, such as discrimination, moral issues, mass media, ecology, education, and work, or to illustrate language functions and grammatical patterns in real use. Furthermore, associative networks can be exemplified and exploited, such as terminology related to filmmaking (in Attenborough's Chaplin ), banking and stockholding (in Stone's Wall Street ), legal terms (in Demme's Philadelphia), education (in Weir's Dead Poets Society ) etc.

Selection should be very careful especially with respect to accent since some problems may arise. Comprehension may be hindered by dialectal varieties of the language used by the characters. For instance, in Gilbert's Educating Rita, staring Michael Caine and Julie Walters, the professor's accent is, from the foreign language learner's standpoint, clear and understandable, but Rita's cockney may be difficult to understand. Yet, the film may be profitable for advanced groups to illustrate that particular speech community.

When choosing a film, decisions on subject matter should be based on well-thought-out criteria since it may go beyond the learner's linguistic and conceptual competence and may not be in keeping with his/her needs and interests. The students' age and psychological maturity must be taken into consideration when making a choice, and care should be taken so as not to offend the learner's sensitivity. If these factors are overlooked, we may run the risk of having the learner get only a superficial interpretation, missing the underlying message. For example, in the films Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, and Disclosure directed by Adrian Lyne, Paul Verhoeven and Barry Levinson respectively, sex is the trigger to unravel deep moral issues and psychological traits. These films seek to depict the deepest vices of human existence, such as unfaithfulness, thirst for power, competitiveness, etc. So the learner should be led to go beyond the sex sequences themselves and to probe into other dimensions. That is why these films are not recommended for immature learners.

The duration of the film is another aspect to be kept in mind. Long films such as Spielberg's Schindler's List or Kostner's Dances with Wolves can be used, but thorough planning is required to divide the film into several viewing sessions with pre-viewing and post viewing questions.

What's next? Exploitation

 Micro-teaching activities should be organized according to thematic issues and linguistic and conceptual complexity in concert with the learner's level of proficiency. Some rules of thumb can be given. The whole film can be brought into discussion to check and promote global understanding of the story, with questions on setting, characters, and explicit and hidden messages. Apart from these traditional viewing activities, freeze-frame techniques can be implemented to highlight some important images. For example, at the onset of the film Chaplin we can see the protagonist portrayed as the mustachioed Little Tramp. This scene can be frozen to elicit answers from the learner as to the way he looks, his physical appearance, and so on. Alternatively, some of the outstanding sequences or key dialogs that constitute the crux of the story can be isolated so as to exploit significant topics. In Philadelphia, we can present some scenes (for example, the dialog between Andrew and the librarian or the exchange between the Counselor and his wife) to illustrate different aspects of discrimination against the leading character, his homosexuality, and his illness. We should foster evaluation of the complete film or parts of it as well as conduct debates on outstanding topics, such as the justice system in Sheridan's In the Name of the Father or technology and mass media in Disclosure.

Another possibility is to select two or three crucial lines from the script and ask the learner to analyze them in the light of the whole plot, For example, in Zemeckis's Forrest Gump we can consider and analyse Mrs. Gump's "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get" or Lieutenant Dan's "We all have a destiny".

All the above activities are focused on thematic issues, but films also give room for exploitation of grammatical and functional aspects of the language. To mention but one instance, Newell's Four Weddings and a Funeral exemplifies a range of functions like expressing opinions, making a pass, expressing condolences, proposing, persuading, discussing, arguing, etc. Likewise, films are a rich source of idiomatic expressions, which, thanks to the context, are easy to grasp and internalize.

In exploiting a film in class, the difficulty does not lie in the film itself but in designing tasks from it. As stated above, the teacher should adapt the films to the learner's level of proficiency and conceptual competence.

And to follow...? Integrative activities

As in all aspects of learning, it is essential for the learner to integrate past knowledge with new information, extrapolating from what he has gained from viewing the film. The learner can be asked to write summaries to reconstruct the macro structure of the story and see it as a whole. Learners can also write movie reviews giving their opinions about the film. One interesting task is to rate several films using objective criteria identified by the students themselves.

Dramatization of a scene from a film can be quite motivating, especially for those learners with histrionic talents and an adventurous spirit. While doing research about the director or leading characters of a film (and writing a biography) can be implemented with low-level learners, research on big issues can be encouraged with more advanced groups. They can investigate matters such as ecology and the environment (Hitchcock's The Birds ) classical music (Foreman's Amadeus and Rose's Immortal Beloved ), mass media (Howard's The Paper and Redford's Quiz Show ), and the changing role of women in society (in Campion's The Piano , Scorsese's The Age of Innocence , and Scott's Thelma and Louise ).

For advanced levels, we suggest discussion of socio-cultural patterns depicted in a particular film to develop awareness of cultural differences such as in Bertolucci's The Sheltering Sky and The Last Emperor , or differences between generations, as depicted in Stiller's Reality Bites , or Hallstrom's What's eating Gilbert Grape ? From our experience, the organization of round table discussions and debates on controversial issues has proved profitable. In our lessons the students have been eager to discuss issues such as euthanasia (in Badham's Whose life is it anyway? ), love versus money (in Lyne's Indecent Proposal ), marriage and divorce (De Vito's The War of the Roses ), or the role of TV in society (in Quiz Show ). Finally, the learner can be required to appraise the aesthetic value of masterpieces such as Hitchcock's suspense thrillers, Ivory's A Room with a View , and Scorsese's The Age of Innocence , and to analyse the film's technical aspects, such as photography, sound tracks, special effects, direction, and the like.

The possibilities for using film in the foreign language class are endless. Films present slices of life, and as such, provide a realistic, authentic and entertaining way of improving the learner's command of the language. They add fun and involvement to the language classroom. But don't take our word for it. Try it and see for yourself!

 

Maria Palmira Massi is an Adjunct lecturer at the Teacher Training College, Escuela Superior de Idiomas, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, General Roca, Rio Negro, Argentina.
Adriana G. Merino is an Associate Lecturer of EFL at the Escuela Superior de Idiomas, Universidad Nacional del Comahue. She is in charge of ESP courses for Communication Studies students.

 

References

• Allan, M. 1985. Teaching English with video. New York: Longman
• Corner, J. and J. Hawthorn, 1988. Communication studies: An introductory reader. Arnold.
• Lonergan, J. 1985. Video in language teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Schrank, J. 1986. Understanding mass media. Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company.

 

APPENDIX: FORREST GUMP

After watching the film, answer the following questions.

About Forrest

1. If you were asked to describe Forrest, which of the following features would you choose as the most important in understanding him. Why? (You can add some others)

• stupid boy
• healthy boy/man
• good lover
• intelligent man
• good father
• disrespectful person
• successful person
• efficient soldier
• agile sportsman
• materialist
• credulous man
• sympathetic person
• faithful friend
• sweet son

About Jenny

1. Jenny was Forrest's first friend. Why did he trust her so deeply? Why did he never forget her in spite of her unexpected departures?
2. On many occasions, Forrest told Jenny that he loved her, in one of them, Jenny said, "You don't know what love is " Do you think she was right? Why? Why not?

 

About Bubba

Compare Forrest to Bubba. Were they both simple-minded men? Evaluate their friendship. Did Forrest keep his promise to Bubba.

About Lieutenant Dan

1. Explain the lieutenant's role in the development of the film.
2. Evaluate Forrest's friendship with him.

About YOU

1. Do you identify with any of the characters of the film? If so, with whom?
2. If you were in a battle, would you come back to rescue other soldiers, risking your life as Forrest did?

About the film as a whole

Consider the questions below and debate them in groups. Providea written report.

1. Forrest was a different boy, who was expected to have a lot of difficulties in "normal" society. However, he managed to succeed and achieve more than many other human beings. Discuss how he survived and triumphed. What is the implication of his success.
2. Certain aspects of the film seem to be unreal and exaggerated, such as the fact that Forrest ran for three years. Do you think that they are pointless or are they symbolizing something essential in life? Justify your answer.
3. "In our society, difference is discriminated against." This seems to be one of the big issues illustrated in the film. Is it true? How do we act towards those who are different from us (less intelligent, handicapped, sick, racially different skin colour, believers of a different religion, members of a different political party, etc. ? Do we respect them? Do we ignore them? Do we make fun of them? Do we reject them?
4. This film reflects part of the history of the USA during the past thirty years. Can the film only be understood by Americans or does it have universal values? Is it a film that makes you think because it hides a simple but important message? All in all, is it worth seeing?
5. Summarize the essence at the film in just one sentence.

Follow-up

Choose and develop one of the following tasks.

1. You are one of Forrest's classmates. Write a short paragraph (10-15 lines) describing your feelings about sharing the same class with a person like him. Do you feel uncomfortable? Do you feel pity for him? Do you feel proud of his achievements? Would you be his friend?
2. Write a review of the film. Include the following: title, director, setting, characters, events, evaluation.

Note: The authors want to acknowledge and give special thanks to second year students from Escuela Superior de Idiomas (Translatorship and Teacher Training Courses), and to Mass Media students at Universidad Nacional del Comahue, who provided the fertile environment for the development of learning activities, some of which are in the Appendix.

© http://forum.state.gov/vols/vol34/no1/p20.htm

© Images:

1)http://www.flickr.com/photos/katzyair/1558741550

2)http://www.flickr.com/photos/laylara/2701410892

 

Top

By Edward Tanguay, M.Ed. TESOL
Berlin, Germany

May 16, 1997

In this article, Edward draws on his experience of English teaching and Internet consulting to discuss the future of English teaching as the world enters an increasingly digital age. This article was written for English teachers who have a growing sense that the Internet is becoming more and more important for their professional careers. It tells them why the Internet is important to their profession, what they can expect in the years to come, and how they can prepare themselves as English teachers in the digital age.

On a spring day in 1992 in Philadelphia, I pressed my Enter key and listened to the familar string of tones from my modem as it logged into the Temple University computer. This was nothing new for someone who had grown up with computers. But this day was one I will never forget: it was first day I ever logged into the Internet.

As an English teacher, my Internet connection back in 1992 meant that I could send a grammar question out to 500 English teachers around the world and have at least 10 replies in my mailbox the next morning. It meant that I could sit at my desk in Philadelphia chatting with a colleague at Purdue, she typing on the top of the screen and I typing on the bottom, at no cost. It meant contacting the Amerika Haus in Berlin via E-Mail which led to a teaching position at Potsdam University. It meant finding information on almost any topic for the courses I was teaching.

Yes, the Internet is good for English teaching. And it is going to get better--exponentially. In this article, I want to tell you why, and make some forcasts on what the digital age holds for English teaching.

My forecasts for the future of English teaching are based on three hypotheses:

1. That which can be digitized, will be digitized.
2. English instruction can be almost fully digitized.
3. English instruction is more efficient when teachers use a digitized medium.

1. That which can be digitized, will be digitized.

Nicholas Negroponte in his book Being Digital draws a distinction between atoms and bits. A book, for instance, is composed of atoms whereas an E-Mail is composed of bits. The difference between atoms and bits is that atoms take a long time to be sent from place to place and are relatively expensive to duplicate. Bits, on the other hand, can be sent around the world in a matter of seconds and cost nothing to duplicate. If you want to send a book from Berlin to New York, it will probably cost you about $10 and will probably take about 7 days. If you want to send a digitized book from Berlin to New York, it will cost you nothing and will get there in 5 seconds. For English teachers, the benefits are enormous. For the business world, the profit margins are unbelievable. This is why everything that can be digitized, will be digitized.

2. English instruction can be almost fully digitized.

What can be digitized and what can not? Text, pictures, voice, and video can all be digitized. Text can be typed in, pictures can be scanned in, and voice and video can be recorded digitally. But this is not all. Interactive conversations can be digitized. Interactive environments, for instance, a classroom, a train station, or a business meeting can be digitized. Since English instruction consists primarily of text, pictures, voice, video, conversation, and interactive environments, English instruction can be almost fully digitized.

3. English instruction is more efficient when teachers use a digitized medium.

Digitalization increases student-centeredness. If a student writes a digitized document and gives it to you to correct, you can add notes to the document just as you can to a regular paper document. The difference is that the student can then click on your digitized notes, e.g. "use present perfect here" which takes him to an interactive, multi-media lesson teaching him about the present perfect tense and when to use it. Connected to this is a grammar chat room with students and tutors who discuss and answer questions about grammar. The student learns what he needs to know when he needs to know it.

Digitalization increases accessiblity. Particularly in English for Specific Purposes, and more particularly in non-English speaking countries, specific material in English is fairly hard to come by. For instance, let us say you are teaching English at a company here in Berlin which produces flags. They need to learn vocabulary which has to do with flag production. You simply need to log into the Internet and type in the key words "flag production." You will get a number of web sites of English-speaking flag production companies with information on their products. Print these out and use them in your class. Write an E-Mail to the company and ask them to send you a catalog. Ask them what else is available on the Internet regarding flag production. Also, send an E-Mail to the 13,000 teachers in the English teachers news group and ask if anyone has experience teaching English at companies involved in flag production.

Digitalization removes geographical barriers and saves time. For those of you who teach business English here in Berlin, how long does it take you to commute to work? How long does it take your students to travel to class? If both you and your students could switch on your PCs and conduct your English lessons via video conference from your homes and offices, how much total time would it save all of you? And if you could do this, why not add students in Japan and Singapore as well? Digitized English teaching removes the geographical barrier which frees up time for both the teacher and the students.

Digitalization brings like minds together. Back in the 17th century, Leibniz and Newton developed Calculus independently of one another. If they had lived today, they would have met by now in a newsgroup and would already be exchanging ideas via E-Mail. The ease which the Internet provides to meet people with similar interests, professions, backgrounds, and experiences is unparalleled in human history. There are people in the world who are teaching the same kinds of classes you teach, have similar students, and are working on similar projects. The Internet makes it possible for you to meet, communicate, and work on projects together with them.

So what is the function of an English teacher in the digital age?

The function of a English teacher in general is to communicate to students the concepts and skills necessary to function well in situations which involve reading, writing, speaking, listening, and social skills. Anyone who has seen virtual reality interactive-CD language programs such as Who is Oscar Lake can imagine that as these products improve, they will soon be able to convey the basics of language instruction quite efficiently to any student who is privileged enough to have access to a well-equipped computer. And with the exponentially increasing speed at which bits can be pumped through the rapidly multiplying fiber optic cables and satellites of the Internet, more and more English students world-wide will be able to interact with language teaching videos and virtual worlds which will bring them to a relatively high level of proficiency, especially since other people will be running around through these virtual worlds as well, talking to each other, getting help from each other, and practicing language functions in contextual situations. These services will be paid for through advertising--students will learn the phrase "I would like a Coke, please" because Coca Cola sponsors the program. This means that high quality computer language instruction will be free for anyone who has a fast enough Internet connection.

When I mention these visions to English teachers, some of them are afraid that computers will someday replace English teachers. This will not be the case. There will always be a human on one side of English teaching and another human on the other, it is just that the computer between us is getting more and more effective, which improves our teaching and improves the students' learning abilities. Humans are powerful and computers are powerful, and together, they are are extremely powerful.

My point in this article is that if you are an English teacher, you need to get more and more involved with computers in order to continue to improve your teaching skills. The following are my suggestions for English teachers in order to prepare themselves for the digital age (ranked in order of importance):

1. Get access to a computer with an Internet connection.
2. Learn how to search for information on the World Wide Web.
3. Learn how to send and receive E-Mail.
4. Learn how to join and participate in news groups, and find colleagues with similar interests.
5. Learn how to attach documents and other files to E-Mail.
6. Learn how to create, publish, and update a home page.
7. Learn how to type with both hands without looking at the keyboard.

Future visions of English teaching:

1997: Instant Interactive Publishing: Publishing an article on English teaching will be a matter of clicking your mouse button, and your readers will be able to respond to and discuss your article immediately. The article you are now reading was originally written for and published in the ELTAB-B Newsletter, a small, paper publication for a local Berlin teachers association. In order to publish it, I had to save it to a diskette, print it out, put both in an envelope, write the address, lick the stamp, take it to the post office, and pay for the postage. After a day it arrived at the editor's office. She had to bring it into the her word processor, reformat it, print it out, send it to the publishers, wait until it was printed, take the newsletters to the post office, and of course, pay the publishers and the post office.

Now, what I also did, was right before I printed this article out and took it to the post office, I uploaded it to the Internet and posted it to various English teaching lists and news groups, which immediately made it available to thousands of teachers around the world (which cost nothing). What this means is that by the time the members of ELTAB-B here in Berlin receive their paper newsletter and are reading this article, the online English teaching community will have been discussing it via E-Mail for two weeks, triggering conversations in teacher's lounges from Japan to Australia, and perhaps encouraging others to write related articles. Many will have written me back, visited my home page, and contacted me regarding other English teaching interests. In addition, this article is always available online--it will never go out of print. Nobody will ever have to "request a reprint" and wait a week and spend money to get it. They simply have to log into the Internet and type in http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~tanguay/english-teachers.htm which will bring this article up on their screen in seconds, ready to read, respond to, print out, or send to other colleagues via E-Mail with comments.

1998: Online Education: Universities will offer full English courses online. Class texts will be available via download, class lectures available via streaming audio and video, students and teachers will interact via E-Mail and online teleconferences. For an example of such a multimedia class, visit the HCCS Technology Center in Houston at http://198.64.57.10/tgcccc/hccs/rb1360.htm.

1998: Custom English Teaching News: Push technology software will provide you with the ability to have an up-to-date custom, interactive news source right from your desktop which will send you English teaching news only on the subjects you want. You simply enter your interests one time and the software will roam the web for you sending you articles which are of interest to you. For an example of push technology, check out http://www.pointcast.com. With this software, I get daily news delivered to my PC everyday from two Internet magazines, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

1999: Instruction on Demand: Anybody with a credit card and an Internet connection will be able to choose from numerous online English tutors and get instant instruction or help via video conference. The database available to them will contain a picture of the teacher, a short video of their teaching style, nationality, teaching background, degrees, areas of expertise, and price per time unit. Video conferencing via personal computer is already a reality and quite affordable. Information about inexpensive video cameras for video conferencing can be found at http://www.connectix.com. Free trial software to run video conferences can be found at http://www.vocaltech.com.

2000: Interactive TESOL Conferences from Your Living Room: English teachers will attend and participate in International TESOL Conferences live from their WebTV in their living rooms. News on the development of WebTVs can be found at http://www.ruel.net/webtv_news.html.

2001: Virtual English Instruction: Streaming Virtual Reality over the Internet will provide English teachers with the ability to simulate any type of teaching environment. The English teacher in Berlin and the English student in Japan will both put on their virtual reality helmets and walk together through a virtual New York, pointing out the sites, buying items, riding the subway, and more. Various functional situations such as being accosted by a stranger, asking for directions, and meeting people can be practiced as much as the student would like. You can visit a virtual New York today at http://www.planet9.com/vrmnhtn.htm.

* * *

The World Wide Web is currently doubling itself every four months and getting faster. This is going to have a tremendous impact on the way we teach English. Prepare yourself for this by developing skills today which will improve your English teaching in the digital age.

© http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~tanguay/english-teachers.htm

	Edward Tanguay Berlin, Germany E-Mail: tanguay@rz.uni-potsdam.de Personal Web Site: http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~tanguay
	Top

By Catherine Morley, Teacher, Teacher trainer, Mexico

In 'real-life' listening, our students will have to use a combination of the two processes, with more emphasis on 'top-down' or 'bottom-up' listening depending on their reasons for listening.

• Top down vs. bottom-up listening

• In the classroom

• Top-down listening activities

• Bottom-up listening activities

• Conclusion

© http://www.flickr.com/photos/53045528@N00/468646950/sizes/s/

Top down vs. bottom-up listening
Imagine the following situations:

Over lunch, your friend tells you a story about a recent holiday, which was a disaster. You listen with interest and interject at appropriate moments, maybe to express surprise or sympathy.

That evening, another friend calls to invite you to a party at her house the following Saturday. As you’ve never been to her house before, she gives you directions. You listen carefully and make notes.

How do you listen in each case? Are there any differences?
With the holiday anecdote, your main concern was probably understanding the general idea and knowing when some response was expected. In contrast, when listening to the directions to a party, understanding the exact words is likely to be more important – if you want to get there without incident, that is!

The way you listened to the holiday anecdote could be characterised as top-down listening. This refers to the use of background knowledge in understanding the meaning of the message. Background knowledge consists of context, that is, the situation and topic, and co-text, in other words, what came before and after. The context of chatting to a friend in a casual environment itself narrows down the range of possible topics. Once the topic of a holiday has been established, our knowledge of the kind of things that can happen on holiday comes into play and helps us to ‘match’ the incoming sound signal against our expectations of what we might hear and to fill out specific details.

In contrast, when listening to directions to a friend’s house, comprehension is achieved by dividing and decoding the sound signal bit by bit. The ability to separate the stream of speech into individual words becomes more important here, if we are to recognise, for example, the name of a street or an instruction to take a particular bus.

In reality, fluent listening normally depends on the use of both processes operating simultaneously. Think about talking to your friends (in your first language) in a noisy bar. It is likely that you ‘guess’ the content of large sections of the conversation, based on your knowledge of the topic and what has already been said. In this way, you rely more on top-down processing to make up for unreliability in the sound signal, which forms an obstacle to bottom-up processing. Similarly, second-language listeners often revert to their knowledge of the topic and situation when faced with unfamiliar vocabulary or structures, so using top-down processing to compensate for difficulties in bottom-up processing. On the other hand, if a listener is unable to understand anything of what she hears, she will not even be able to establish the topic of conversation, so top-down processing will also be very limited.

In the classroom
In real-life listening, our students will have to use a combination of the two processes, with more emphasis on top-down or bottom-up listening depending on their reasons for listening. However, the two types of listening can also be practised separately, as the skills involved are quite different.

Top-down listening activities
Do you ever get your students to predict the content of a listening beforehand, maybe using information about the topic or situation, pictures, or key words? If so, you are already helping them to develop their top-down processing skills, by encouraging them to use their knowledge of the topic to help them understand the content. This is an essential skill given that, in a real-life listening situation, even advanced learners are likely to come across some unknown vocabulary. By using their knowledge of context and co-text, they should either be able to guess the meaning of the unknown word, or understand the general idea without getting distracted by it.
Other examples of common top-down listening activities include putting a series of pictures or sequence of events in order, listening to conversations and identifying where they take place, reading information about a topic then listening to find whether or not the same points are mentioned, or inferring the relationships between the people involved.

Bottom-up listening activities
The emphasis in EFL listening materials in recent years has been on developing top-down listening processes. There are good reasons for this given that learners need to be able to listen effectively even when faced with unfamiliar vocabulary or structures. However, if the learner understands very few words from the incoming signal, even knowledge about the context may not be sufficient for her to understand what is happening, and she can easily get lost. Of course, low level learners may simply not have enough vocabulary or knowledge of the language yet, but most teachers will be familiar with the situation in which higher-level students fail to recognise known words in the stream of fast connected speech. Bottom-up listening activities can help learners to understand enough linguistic elements of what they hear to then be able use their top-down skills to fill in the gaps.

The following procedure for developing bottom-up listening skills draws on dictogloss, and is designed to help learners recognise the divisions between words, an important bottom-up listening skill. The teacher reads out a number of sentences, and asks learners to write down how many words there would be in the written form. While the task might sound easy, for learners the weak forms in normal connected speech can make it problematic, so it is very important for the teacher to say the sentences in a very natural way, rather than dictating them word-by-word.

Some suitable sentences are:

• I’m going to the shop.

• Do you want some chocolate?

• Let’s have a party!

• I’d better go soon.

• You shouldn’t have told him.

• What are you doing?

• There isn’t any coffee.

• What have you got?

• He doesn’t like it.

• It’s quite a long way.

• Why did you think you’d be able to?

• Can you tell him I called?

Learners can be asked to compare their answers in pairs, before listening again to check. While listening a third time, they could write what they hear, before reconstructing the complete sentences in pairs or groups. By comparing their version with the correct sentences, learners will become more aware of the sounds of normal spoken English, and how this is different from the written or carefully-spoken form. This will help them to develop the skill of recognising known words and identifying word divisions in fast connected speech.

Conclusion
Successful listening depends on the ability to combine these two types of processing. Activities which work on each strategy separately should help students to combine top-down and bottom-up processes to become more effective listeners in real-life situations or longer classroom listenings.

Further reading
Anne Anderson and Tony Lynch (1988). Listening. Oxford University Press
Jack Richards, Designing instructional materials for teaching listening comprehension, in ‘The Language Teaching Matrix’, Cambridge, 1990
Mary Underwood (1989). Teaching Listening. Longman
Penny Ur (1984), Teaching Listening Comprehension, Cambridge.
Magnus Wilson. Discovery Listening – improving perceptual processing. ELT Journal Volume 57/4 (October 2003).

 

Top  

Maryna Tsehelska

The importance of teaching EFL students politically correct English is no longer argued. Students who study English as second language today should be aware of the importance of efforts towards inclusiveness and acceptance of diverse lifestyles and ethnicities in English-speaking cultures. This issue is important for those who want to be able to function in English-speaking academic and business settings. Teaching politically correct language in the English classroom not only provides important information for learners but also gives them an opportunity to become aware of important cultural issues.

Historical roots of political correctness

Politically correct speech became a matter of hot debate in the 1980s, when many native speakers of English became sensitive to biased terms and phrases that exist in the language. In the previous decade, activists of the feminist movement made the first attempts to diminish differences between men and women in society. They criticized the existing language and culture as "male-dominated" and "patriarchal." The history of society, as the feminists argued, was written from the male point of view ("it's HIStory, not HERstory").

The English language was also considered to be full of male-dominating patterns. Utterances like Every teacher plans his lessons referred to teachers in general, and words with the stem "man" (e.g. mankind, chairman) were used to denote both sexes. Feminists criticized these items as sexist; all patterns referring to men only were called "sexist, old-fashioned language." Sexist language was opposed by "modern non-sexist or inclusive language" that suggested gender equality and neutrality.

Inclusive language suggested avoiding the use of male pronouns in the cases when the gender of a person is unknown. Utterances like Every student has to pass his exams were replaced by phrases such as All students have to pass their exams or Every student has to pass his or her exams. Today we can even see the phrase Every student has to pass their exams--which violates traditional rules of subject-verb agreement but conforms to new rules of gender neutrality. General terms containing the segment man, such as mankind and man-made, were made inclusive by using synonyms such as humankind and artificial.

Later, the names of jobs and occupations were revised to become sexually neutral. Speakers of English have found new ways to avoid sex markers: flight attendant (since the terms steward and stewardess are no longer used), sales person (salesman and saleswoman have been outlawed), police officer (instead of policeman) and chairperson or chair (instead of chairman) (Zabotkina 1989).

While teaching politically correct language, a teacher should clearly differentiate between sexist language, pejorative language and taboo language. Sexist language is a term that labels the use of male-dominated phrases suggesting that members of one sex are less able, intelligent, and skillful (the examples cited above); pejorative language is the use of words or phrases disapproving or suggesting that something is no good or of no importance (labeling nationalities, aged people, etc.); taboo language includes words or phrases which are likely to offend somebody-certain words referring to sex or sexual organs, excretion, and people's nationality or race can be particularly offensive. (Cambridge International Dictionary of English 1995). Avoiding these words and phrases means using politically correct language.

Aspects of political correctness

In the late 1980s, the rules of political correctness (PC) began to be applied to a broad range of issues-such as race, age, sexual orientation, abilities. As people became sensitive to bias on the basis of race, gender, age, and sexual orientation, they tried to minimize the negative impact of language that reflected these biases.

The tendency toward "deracialization" in English provided new names for nationalities and ethnic groups. The words Negro, colored, and Afro-American were replaced by African American; Oriental or Asiatic became Asian or more specific designations such as Pacific Islander, Chinese American, Korean. Indian, a term that refers to people who live in or come from India, was differentiated from terms used for the native peoples of North America such as American Indian, Native American, or more specific terms like Chinook or Hopi.

Changing attitudes about aging made people aware of words that reinforce stereotypes (decrepit, senile) and the need to avoid mentioning age unless it's relevant. Terms like elderly, aged, old, and geriatric were replaced by older person, senior citizens or seniors (Zabotkina 1989).

New non-pejorative terms began to be used to name people with disabilities or illnesses. Blind people were called visually challenged; the deaf were called people with hearing impairments. The terms challenged, differently abled and special were coined to describe people with clinical diagnoses or mental disabilities. Today these words and word combinations are preferred by some people, but they are often ridiculed and are best avoided (Zabotkina 1989).

Tasks for teaching political correctness

The subject of politically correct English links historical, cultural, social, and linguistic issues. Since it also addresses current language usage, it appeals to language learners and teachers engaged in the study of English as it is actually used by native speakers today. Thus, politically correct English can be an interesting and useful subject of study for the ESL or EFL classroom. The tasks that follow can be used in the ELT classroom to help fairly advanced students explore this topic.

Warm-up activity

1. Ask your students to identify issues that people are especially sensitive to (they may name gender, age, ethnicity or nationality, religion, physical appearance).
2. Show your students pictures of different people and ask them what these people are sensitive to, what language strategies they can use to avoid offending these people. Present examples and suggestions on the board. Identify patterns, e.g. dropping -ess from authoress, manageress, actress, replacing -man/man with person/people, etc.

Task 1

The following phrases use sexist language. Rewrite them to make them inclusive.
1. A teacher should be tolerant with his students.
2. A child needs the love of his parents.
3. An actress is usually nervous before the show.
4. Mary is a camerawoman.
5. The committee elected a chairman.
6. Man is destroying our planet.
7. Today man-made fibers are used for manufacturing stockings.
8. This substance is not known to man.

Task 2

Although well known, the following proverbs are not politically correct. Try to change them.
1. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
2. He who cannot obey cannot command.
3. A man's home is his castle.
4. Every man has his hobbyhorse.
5. He is happy that thinks himself so.

Task 3

Column A represents traditional names for different races and nationalities, and column B gives the politically correct version. Match the names from column A with column B.

A	B
1. Oriental 2. Colored 3. Australian Aborigines 4. Torres Strait islanders 5. Whites	a). Native Australians b). Native Hawaiian c). Asian d). Caucasians e). African Americans

Task 4

Many people are sensitive about their abilities, age, culture, and appearance. Make the following phrases sound inoffensive to the persons being spoken about.
1. She is looking after her insane mother.
2. The program offers long-term care for the elderly and immediate care for the mentally retarded.
3. A new clinic for the care of geriatrics is being proposed.
4. He is as blind as a bat.
5. My neighbor is as deaf as a post.
6. Jane is an emotional cripple.
7. Fat people need to go on diets.

Tasks for further investigation

The movement for political correctness has both supporters and critics. This makes it a good topic for discussions, debates, and other exercises in critical thinking skills. Below are several topics for further investigation or discussion. They may not be familiar or appropriate for all settings, but they may help teachers think of politically correct issues that would be relevant to their students.

1. Terms referring to racial, ethnic, or indigenous groups of people. Sensitivity toward race and ethnicity is also reflected in language changes that have been motivated by political correctness. For example, in most common usage today Asian has replaced Oriental. However, there is not always universal agreement or understanding about which terms are favored, polite, or neutral in a particular setting. For example, some people prefer to use the term Native American while others prefer American Indian, and still others prefer First Americans.

Have your students design and conduct a survey of their classmates, neighbors, and friends who represent various racial and ethnic groups to collect information about this issue. Then, they can report their findings to the class.

2. Terms used to disguise unpleasantness. In an attempt to mask the truth or to hide unpleasant realities, governments or other special interest groups sometimes create euphemisms or expressions to put a more positive light on a situation. If blind sounds offensive, substitute visually challenged. Genocide may be referred to as ethnic cleansing. Sometimes, the new terms seem awkward, funny, or even offensive. Again, there is unlikely to be agreement on whether such terms are good or not. Consider this opinion from Dr. Kenneth Jernigan (1999), a leader for more than 40 years in the National Federation of the Blind in the United States:

The blind have had trouble with euphemisms for as long as anybody can remember…. The form has changed (in fact, everything is very "politically correct"), but the old notions of inferiority and second-class status still remain. The euphemisms and the political correctness don't help. If anything, they make matters worse since they claim modern thought and new enlightenment.

Jernigan (1999) quotes a resolution passed by the National Federation of the Blind that says that using politically correct euphemisms instead of "such straightforward, respectable words as blindness, blind, the blind, blind person, or blind persons…. implies shame instead of true equality, and portrays the blind as touchy and belligerent."

Ask your students: Do you agree or disagree with Dr. Jernigan? Explain why. Have students try to find other similar examples of euphemistic speech.

3. Political correctness in languages other than English. Politically correct changes are also occurring in languages other than English as a reflection of growing tolerance, inclusion, and other changes in modern societies.

Ask your students: What examples of politically correct speech can you identify in the native languages of your classmates or community? Have students create a list of examples.

4. PC point of view. Write the statements below on the blackboard.

a. PC speech is an important issue in modern society and reflects a growing respect for others.
b. PC speech is just a form of conformism and does not represent a meaningful change in attitudes.

Ask your students which of the two points of view most closely reflects their opinions? Ask them to explain, giving examples to support their opinions.

Conclusion

Politically correct changes are occurring in English (and in many other languages) as a reflection of the ideas of tolerance and inclusion. In order to produce competent users of English, we owe it to our students to explore this phenomenon and to give them opportunities to become proficient users of tolerant and inclusive terms in particular situations.

References

Cambridge International Dictionary of English. 1995. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jernigan, K. 1999. The pitfalls of political correctness: Euphemisms excoriated. National Federation of the Blind. http://www.blind.net/bpg00005.htm
Zabotkina V. I. 1989. New lexis of modern English. Moscow: Vysshya Shkola.

Marina Tsehelska has been teaching English at Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University for ten years. During that time she completed a dissertation in Linguistics and became chair of the English Language and Methodology department.

 

APPENDIX: Answer Key For Exercises

Task 1 1. Teachers should be tolerant with their students. 2. A child needs the love of his or her parents. 3. Actors are usually nervous before the show. 4. Mary is a camera operator. 5. The committee elected a chair. 6. Humans are destroying our planet. 7. Today artificial fibers are used for manufacturing stockings. 8. This substance is not known to the human race.

Task 2 1. Early to bed and early to rise makes people healthy, wealthy, and wise. 2. A person who cannot obey cannot command. 3. Humans' homes are their castles. 4. Everyone has his or her hobbyhorse. 5. They are happy that think themselves so.

Task 3 1c, 2e, 3a, 4b, 5d

Task 4 1. She is looking after her mentally challenged mother. 2. The program offers long-term care for senior citizens and immediate care for the developmentally challenged. 3. A new clinic for the care of older people is being proposed. 4. He is visually challenged. 5. My neighbor has hearing impairments. 6. Jane finds it difficult to express her feelings. 7. Overweight people need to go on diets.

© http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/vols/vol44/no1/p20.htm

Top

Charles Kelly, Lawrence Kelly, Mark Offner and Bruce Vorland
http://aitech.ac.jp/~ckelly/ | http://aitech.ac.jp/~lkelly/
http://aitech.ac.jp/~offner/ | http://aitech.ac.jp/~vorland/
Aichi Institute of Technology (Toyota, Japan)

The Authentic Materials

Background

We have been using authentic materials for over 10 years and have found that they complement English classes by enlivening the class and creating a more positive attitude toward learning. We now have an extensive collection of materials that include menus, maps, newspaper inserts, store advertisements, travel brochures, catalogs, phone books, real estate pamphlets, and various pamphlets of sightseeing and tourist information. We have found that using sets of materials are particularly appealing. A set could include a map, a travel guide, a menu, and a store advertisement from the same town -- all of which are interwoven, immersing the student in a multidimensional English experience.

Choosing Authentic Materials

There are several important points to consider when choosing authentic materials. You should make sure that you have enough copies of the materials to be used so that each student or pair of students can have a copy to use. It is best not to use material with too many pages, unless the pages are clearly numbered for easy reference. If you plan to use the same materials in more than one class, it is important that they be hardy enough to withstand a lot of handling and they should be easily refolded and put back together. Materials with multiple pieces or pages that fall out or come apart should be avoided. Also, keep in mind that some materials are more easily dated than others. For example, last season's catalog does not have the same impact as a current one which is filled with items which the student could actually order. A menu, on the other hand, can be used as long as the prices remain contemporary. Students are generally uninterested in special events, for example an Expo, that have already past. Remember to choose material that is appropriate for the students' level. However, a certain amount of adjustment can be made depending on the type and level of questions used in the accompanying question handout.

Using Authentic Materials

When we first began using authentic materials, we handed out materials to each student and had them work individually. However, experience has shown that having students work in pairs is a better approach because they tend to be more enthusiastic and work harder. We give each pair the authentic material and a question handout. Interestingly, the student with the stronger command of English is not necessarily the one who is able to extract the most information from the material. Students of different abilities tend to complement one another and, as a result, do not get bogged down easily. Students tend to contribute individual strengths to the completion of the task. We usually tell students that question handouts will be collected since this keeps them more focused on the completion of the exercise. The teacher's personal anecdotes and other background information should be shared before the students begin concentrating on the material.

After the authentic material has been distributed, we give a brief explanation and point out, for example, the importance of the table of contents in a pamphlet or the legend in a map. We point out small print and other parts of the material that are easily missed. We have found that pointing out Japanese words and products raises the level of interest in the material. This is a good time for the teacher to explain measures, abbreviations, and difficult words and expressions.

While the students are working on the assi