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Volume 10 Number 18, November 2005 ISSN 1531-7714
Jerrell C. Cassady, Lawrence L. Smith, & Linda K. Huber
Ball State University
Phonological awareness is an early indicator of emergent reading skill that is known to be reliably related to eventual reading performance. This established research based coupled with federal and state requirements to measure phonological awareness as an indicator of early reading program success has heightened the attention toward phonological assessment tools. The purpose of this paper is to identify two central threats to validity that are present in the standard assessment tools and provide a methodological solution to both threats using the Standardized Assessment of Phonological Awareness as an example.
The research on early literacy has provided several clear and articulate examinations of the developmental nature of young children’s acquisition of phonological and phonemic awareness and the connection of those skills to reading proficiency (Ehri, Nunes, Willows, Schuster, Yaghoub-Zadeh, & Shanahan, 2001). In addition, federally-funded reading programs targeting emergent literacy development routinely require clear identification that children in the primary grades have demonstrated success on phonological awareness skills (Gordinier & Foster, 2004). As such, assessment tools targeting phonological and phonemic awareness abilities have become pervasive in educational assessment, evaluation, and program interventions (Lane, Pullen, Eisele, & Jordan, 2002).
The purpose of this paper is to identify what we believe to be two critical threats to validity in assessing phonological awareness that are present in most published phonological awareness measures. The first threat is the tendency in phonological awareness tools to assess broad domains of emergent skills rather than discrete abilities. The second threat is the individual variations in orally presented prompts that are unavoidable without a pre-recorded testing protocol. In addition, we demonstrate sufficient validity and reliability for an alternative method of assessing phonological awareness that eliminates these threats. We believe that the standard presentation of phonological material is a simple and reasonable fix that can be enacted with any existing phonological awareness assessment protocol. Such revisions to existing measures are expected to provide gains in the field by allowing researchers, evaluators, and educators to gain greater confidence in their assessment of children’s phonological processing skills.
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS
Although there is widespread acceptance of the connection between phonological awareness and reading proficiency (e.g., Blachman, 2000: Ehri,
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Nunes, Willows, Schuster, Yaghoub-Zadeh, Shanahan, 2001), the corpus of literature in phonological and phonemic awareness has a consistent problem with operational definitions. For example, in our work we have found that the term “phonemic awareness” is often employed to describe skills and abilities that are beyond the purview of the phoneme, which fragments the literature base on the topic and impedes educators’ understanding for research findings. . To establish clarity in our terminology, we offer the following operational definitions.
Phonological awareness is the awareness of constituent sounds of words and the ability to detect and eventually manipulate auditory units that do not necessarily hold syntactic meaning (Goswami, 2000; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; Sodoro, Allinder, & Rankin-Erickson, 2002; Harris & Hodges, 1995). Phonological awareness encompasses emergent readers’ abilities to detect and manipulate progressively smaller units of sound within spoken words. Four established levels of phonological units are (a) syllables (/CAT/); (b) onset-rimes, which involves breaking the syllable into two parts with the split occurring directly before the vowel (/C/ /AT/); (c) body-coda, which involves breaking the syllable into two parts with the split occurring directly after the vowel (/CA/ /T/); and (d) phoneme, which is breaking the syllable into each distinct component piece (/C/ /A/ /T/; Cassady & Smith, 2004a; Goswami, 2000). Thus, the often-confused term phonemic awareness is a subset of the broader construct phonological awareness (Snow et al.) and involves conscious awareness of the smallest distinguishable auditory units in words (Harris & Hodges, 1995).
The abilities to detect and manipulate phonological units within words (i.e., syllable, onset-rime, body-coda, phoneme) are acquired in progressive fashion by emergent readers. The first step in gaining a phonological processing skill is to detect, or isolate, the component sound within a word. As the learner gains automaticity in these isolation and detection skills, they progress to the ability to manipulate the phonological units. Such tasks include the ability to blend two or more discrete sounds into a complete whole, segment or break apart whole words into component sounds, substitute alternate sounds for specific syllabic units, or report what would be left of a word when removing one identified phonological unit. To help elucidate the various phonological processing tasks, Table 1 presents a set of common phonological awareness tasks and example items. Phonological awareness mastery for a given phonological unit or task is considered mastered when the learner recognizes the alphabetic representations for auditory stimuli, also known as alphabetic insight (see Snow et al., 1998).
Detecting discrete abilities. The various actions of detecting, recognizing, manipulating, and substituting the sounds that make up words dictate specific and isolated phonological processing skills. Although it is clear that there are various degrees of complexity in processing sub-syllabic utterances, there is steady debate regarding the level of specificity necessary in assessment tools designed to measure these abilities. In the 1980’s, two research teams explored phonological awareness with sets of items tapping 10 phonological tasks (Stanovich, Cunningham, & Cramer, 1984; Yopp, 1988). While both groups found validity in those distinct tasks, they reduced the number of levels of phonological awareness through factor analytic procedures (see Table 2 for illustration). This approach to synthesizing a complex body of data surely facilitates the establishment of a more simplified theoretical model, but the simplification in theory simultaneously poses a threat to diagnostic or prescriptive testing intended to highlight areas of deficit or excellence. For instance, combining the beginning and ending sound isolation tasks into one factor (Stanovich et al.) has since been shown to provide imprecise measurement of phonological awareness because children acquire the ability to isolate sounds in words in a progressive fashion; first they master beginning sounds, then the end, and finally the middle (Cassady & Smith, 2003). Also outlined in Table 2 is the representation of a more recent attempt to build an assessment model using IRT designs which provided yet another conceptualization for the steps of phonological awareness development and a new set of subskills to focus on in the assessment process (Schatschneider, Francis, Foorman, Fletcher, & Mehta, 1999).
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Table 1. Phonological Awareness Assessment Task Examples
Phonological Awareness Task
Basic Instructions
Sample Item(s)
Rhyme recognition
Rhymes are words that sound the same at the end... Tell me if these words rhyme.
ape-knee; dip-hip
Rhyme application
Tell me a word that rhymes with:
cap
Oddity tasks: Beginning sounds
Listen to the names of these pictures. Tell me which one has a different beginning sound.
nest, soap, nails
Oddity tasks: Ending sounds
Listen to the names of these pictures. Tell me which one has a different ending sound.
bell, web, crib
Oddity tasks: Middle sounds
Listen to the names of these pictures. Tell me which one has a different middle sound.
beak, cone, heel
Blending body-codas
I will say two parts of a word separately. You tell me the word.
/co/ /p/
Blending onset-rimes
I will say the first sound of a word and then the rest of the word separately. Tell me the whole word
/c/ /op/
Blending phonemes
I’m going to say each sound of a word slowly, then you tell me the word.
/s/ /a/ /ve/ -- “what is the word put together?”
Segmenting onset-rimes
Split the word by saying the first sound and then the rest of the word:
“Split the word coat by saying just the first sound and then the rest of the word.
Segmenting phonemes
Say each sound you hear in the word
job
Phoneme deletion
Listen to the word ____. Take away the first sound, what is left?
Listen to the word book. Take away the /b/ sound, what is left?
Phoneme Substitution: Beginning sounds
If I change the first sound in the word man to /p/, the new word is pan.
Change the first sound in cat to /h/. What is the new word?
Phoneme Substitution:
Ending sounds
If I say the word rat and change the last sound to /g/, the new word is rag.
Change the last sound in cat to /p/. What is the new word?
Phoneme Substitution:
Middle sounds
If I say the word pan, change the middle sound to /i/, the new word is pin.
Change the middle sound in the word cat to /o/, what’s the new word?
Note: The phonological awareness task examples are based on the structure of the SAPA. There are variations across measures on the instructions, types of items, and number of tasks assessed.
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However, the most influential model of phonological awareness to date has been Adams’ (1990) five-stage developmental approach. The first level is described as having “an ear for the sounds of words” (Adams, p. 80), which is primarily measured through children’s knowledge of nursery rhymes or ability to remember rhyming words more easily than non-rhyming words. The second level is the ability to successfully master oddity tasks, where the child can compare and contrast words on the dimensions of rhyme and alliteration. Third in this model is the ability to blend syllables or phonemes, as well as recognize that syllables can be split. The fourth level is characterized by the actual ability to split words into phonemes on demand. Finally, the fifth level is phoneme manipulation, in which the reader can add or delete specified phonemes from target words and produce the new word (or non-word). Despite the popularity in the field held for this model, there are assessment barriers presented through this perspective. For instance, the third level “syllable and phoneme blending and awareness of the ability to segment syllables” examines the full acquisition of an overall blending skill. However, controlled empirical investigations have repeatedly demonstrated that children are able to segment and blend specific sub-syllabic units more readily than others (Cassady & Smith, 2004a; Treiman, 1985; Treiman & Zukowski, 1996).
Contesting the validity of well-established theoretical models of phonological awareness development is beyond the scope of this study. However, a fundamental point on the assessment of phonological awareness makes these points relevant. Specifically, there has been a disquieting trend in the past 15 years to build simplified or broad assessment tools for phonological awareness that are based primarily on these theoretical models. As such, assessment instruments have been losing the specificity needed to get more prescriptive and diagnostic information regarding the development of these discrete phonological awareness tasks. Using a more specific assessment tool, our research team has been able to find developmental trends within the broad theoretical stages offered in the literature. In addition, the subscales that are quite specific to phonological processing skills can be combined to generate combined ability subscores that mimic the more broad assessment tools and can be used to test the theoretical models offered by the various research teams.
Reliability across testing conditions. The second critical error that is common to most measures of phonological awareness is based on the typical mode of assessment. The traditional method of assessing phonological awareness involves individual or group administered tasks in which the test administrator reads an auditory prompt to the child, requesting that the child either identify or manipulate a specified phonological unit in the word (see Table 1 for examples). For items that require comparison of multiple words (e.g., rhyme awareness, oddity tasks) the administration typically involves presenting associated images to limit the burden of working memory during specific phonological processing tasks (Gibbs, 2004; Sodoro, Allinder, & Rankin-Eriskson, 2002).
We argue that this methodology presents a second threat to validity and reliability in assessing phonological awareness skills. Specifically, given that the task is one in which the student is required to identify, manipulate, or substitute meaningful information about auditory units, there is an inherent validity risk posed when multiple test administrators are involved in reading the auditory content to the learner. Variations in administrators’ dialects, speech rate, enunciation, diction, or accent can make each presenter provide a different test stimulus than her or his colleagues. This reality was highlighted in a recent study demonstrating that African American first graders with normal reading skills received disproportionately lower and negatively skewed scores on a popular phonological awareness test (Thomas-Tate, Washington, & Edwards, 2004). The authors concluded that dialectical differences were interfering with the students’ performance levels on the orally presented test and called into question the use of existing tests of phonological awareness given the variations in dialect observed in diverse settings. Given the current availability of technical delivery devices, there is no longer a reasonable rationale for continued presentation of these phonological awareness prompts in a non-standardized fashion.
It is important to document that there are tests and subtests that involve non-auditory assessment
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of phonological awareness (e.g., asking children to tap out the number of syllables in response to picture cards; Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler, 1998). These alternative strategies overcome the concern we have regarding the individual variation in language production driven by multiple test administrators. However, tasks that require participants to tap out the syllables in response to a picture card may require more than phonological processing. Specifically, the individual is being asked to access orthographic information, perceive visual content whilst attempting to develop an auditory representation for the object in working memory, and respond non-verbally. Such a task is complex at best and may not provide a realistic or specific test of phonological detection or manipulation. Even more difficult (and not a test of just phonological awareness in our estimation) are those tasks that require clear alphabetic insight, where the participant is asked to blend sounds represented on a set of letter cards placed in a row.
COMPUTER-SUPPORTED PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS ASSESSMENT
As mentioned earlier, we propose that there are two critical threats to valid assessment of phonological awareness in most existing measures. First, broad measures produce imprecise information that hampers the ability to clearly identify tasks within the emergent readers’ skill sets. Second, when various test administrators are involved in the data collection process, there is an uncontrollable level of inconsistency in the presentation stimuli. In our own work, we have observed variations in pace, spacing, inflection, presence of schwa, and simple pronunciation in popular tests of phonemic awareness and manipulation. Whether the goal of administering the test is to provide diagnostic information relative to a norm group, establish program efficacy in a school-based literacy initiative, or draw upon experts’ suggested curricular materials using a standard assessment protocol linked to instructional content, non-standard assessment procedures call the conclusions into question. In an era of educational research where there is increasing attention to demonstrate with “sound research practices” the impact or efficacy of programs and activities, researchers and practicing educators need to be sensitive to validity threats to make research and programmatic results meet the level of scrutiny exacted upon educational and reading research in particular.
In response to a perceived need to provide more specific and comprehensive reports on the phonological awareness skills mastered by students in a research initiative targeting emergent readers’ development, our research team developed a measure previously referred to as the Phonological Awareness Test (PAT; Cassady, Smith, Bauserman, Jordan, Walker, & Popplewell, 2002; Cassady & Smith, 2004a). Early use of the tool demonstrated it helped to overcome the first critical threat to validity discussed earlier by providing valid and reliable assessment data on 14 distinct dimensions of emergent phonological awareness skills, sensitive to both phoneme position (beginning, middle, end sounds in words) and linguistic complexity (structural components within a syllable; phoneme, onset-rime, body-coda; see Stahl & Murray, 1994). However, we continued to see the potential threat to validity in non-standardized presentation of the test stimuli. To overcome this glaring potential problem in the assessment systems used in so many educational initiatives, we modified our own phonological measure and created the Standardized Assessment of Phonological Awareness (SAPA). Specifically, we now deliver the SAPA to students using a computer that plays pre-recorded digital audio and video test stimuli. Given the age of the standard subject screened for emergent literacy skills and our use of the tool as a measure of program success in the beginning phases of literacy development (i.e., ages 4-7), we have maintained a standard practice of individual administration. However, as some early phonological screening tools are administered to groups of young children (Lane et al., 2002), it is feasible that this process could be used in the field to increase the number of children who can be tested at any one time.
Other than the SAPA, we are aware of only two computerized phonological awareness assessment tools that have been validated in the research community. The first program, Cognitive Profiling System (CoPS), is a broad developmental assessment program that has 27 tasks addressing cognitive functioning in children (including phonological awareness activities; Singleton,
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Thomas, & Horne, 2000). The primary phonological processing activities included in the CoPS suite used by Singleton et al. included detecting or identifiying appropriate examples of rhyme and alliteration awareness as well as simple auditory discrimination by choosing the correct pronunciation of a pictured word (e.g., rock) from a set of auditory presentations (e.g., “wock” and “rock”). The assessment activities in CoPS are delivered through an engaging game format.
The second program, Heps-Kups Land, is a Finnish language program that assesses word-level segment identification, syllable-level segment identification, phonological unit synthesis (blending), and continuation of phonological units where the subject provides the ending sound to a word unit presented in conjuction with a photo depicting the target word (Puolakanaho, Poikkeus, Ahonen, Tolvanen, & Lyytinen, 2003). This program is also an engaging animated environment and is designed for children under the age of 4.
The SAPA differs from the pre-existing programs in 3 primary ways. First, the phonological awareness processing tasks represented by the SAPA’s 14 subscales are far more distinct than the broad scales offered by CoPS or Heps-Kups Land. This is a known unique feature of the SAPA, and was intentionally created to provide more specific and discreet information on isolated phonological awareness tasks. Second, the SAPA is not embedded in a game format. The SAPA is more aligned with traditional tests of phonological processing (e.g., Stanovich et al., 1984; Yopp & Yopp, 2000) or broad emergent reading ability (e.g., DIBELS; Good & Kaminski, 2002). We consider this difference to be important, as the tasks in the SAPA are specific, clear, and unencumbered by the context of characters, animation, or plot as in the animated programs. Third, the SAPA provides complete standardization in the presentation of phonological units. That is, the stimuli on the SAPA are all read by one professional male voice with no obvious dialect and all phonological units are manipulated digitally to ensure that all breaks between phonological units are at 1-sec intervals. This standardization of timing is particularly important in the blending tasks where the children are asked to bring together distinct auditory units to make a coherent word (e.g., blending the three phonemes for /c/ /a/ /t/). Differential pauses between the three sounds can make the task dramatically easier or more difficult for individual test takers.
To illustrate the possibilities of improved psychometric attributes for the assessment of phonological awareness through computer-supported presentation, we present a summary of the validity, reliability, and procedural benefits observed in using the SAPA. While the SAPA is the only measure available to us for this presentation, we affirm that it is the method—not the measure—that provides the proposed advantages. That is, any phonological assessment tool that provides specific assessment of discrete phonological awareness skills through pre-recorded stimuli that have controlled for dialect and timing in the presentation of materials would be expected to overcome the threats we identify.
Validity
Validation of the SAPA was undertaken in waves of analyses, as iterations of the final scale were developed. Driven initially by Adams’ (1990) conception of phonemic awareness development, with influences from other established theories of phonological processing, the initial 13-subscale and current 14-subscale versions of the instrument were tested with emergent readers across four academic years.
Content validity. A non-empirical validation approach is available through content, or face, validity estimation. The subtests in the SAPA were developed to follow the leads of several existing phonological and phonemic awareness tests. Table 2 displays the theoretical orientation of the SAPA with existing proposed models’ explanations for the progressive development of phonological awareness skills. The overlap of the subtests on the SAPA across the existing theoretical and empirical models supports our assertion that the discrete tasks measured by the SAPA are consistent with the models of emergent literacy development that have guided the field for the past 2 decades. In particular, this measure provides discrete assessment of tasks with sensitivity to phonemic position (beginning, middle, ending sounds),
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Table 2. SAPA Subtest Alignment with Established Models.
SAPA Subscales
Adams (1990)
Yopp (1988)
Stanovich et al. (1984)
Schatschneider et al. (1999)a
Stahl & Murray (1994)b
Rhyme recognition
1
1
1
1
Rhyme application
1
1
Oddity: Beginning
3
2
1
Oddity: Ending
2
3
2
Oddity: Middle
3
Blend body-codas
Blend onset-rimes
3
2
2
Segment onset-rimes
4
2
Blend phonemes
3
2
3
3
Segment phonemes
4
4
5
3
Phoneme deletion
5
5
3
4
Phoneme substitute: Beginning Sound
5
Phoneme substitute: Ending Sound
5
Phoneme substitute: Middle Sound
5
Note. This comparison is an illustration of our conceptualization for how the cited models best fit into the 14 subscales of the SAPA and are not endorsed by the theorists cited.
a Schatschneider et al. (1999) include a sixth level that involves blending phonemes into non-words, which is not represented in the SAPA.
b Stahl & Murray’s (1994) model regarding linguistic complexity also includes Level 4-Manipulate Cluster Onsets and Level 5-Manipulate Cluster Codas.
phonological awareness tasks (rhyme, detect oddity, blend, segment, substitute), and linguistic unit (syllable, body-coda, onset-rime, and phoneme).
Concurrent validation with teacher ratings. A second test of construct validity was a comparison of SAPA scores with the simultaneously provided teacher ratings of reading ability for students completing the assessment in the spring of their kindergarten year (see Cassady et al., 2002). Teachers were asked to rate students on a 5-point classification scheme judging their reading skills as compared to “grade level” expectations (well-above grade level to well-below grade level). The teachers making these ratings were well trained in state academic standards that placed premium focus on the acquisition of phonological awareness skills during the kindergarten year. There was a meaningful positive correlation between teacher ratings of student ability and SAPA total score, r = .67, p < .001, n = 121. Significant, positive correlations were repeated for each of the 13 subscales as well.
An alternative method of viewing this relationship between teacher ratings and SAPA
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performance is possible through analyses of differences among teacher-defined groups. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to verify overall differences among the groups on the 13 original subscales. The MANOVA’s omnibus effect was significant, F(52, 428) = 2.70, p < .001, η2 = .25, with statistically significant differences among the 5 groups for 12 of the 13 original subscales. Only the Oddity Tasks-Middle Sounds subtest demonstrated no meaningful differences, apparently due to a combination of two factors. First, there was a small range in the scores among the 5 groups on this subscale, with means progressively growing from 1.67 for the well-below average group to 2.60 for the well-above average group. It is possible that the subscale is merely not sensitive enough to detect the minor differences between the groups on this domain. This low-level of sensitivity appears to be caused by the overall difficulty of the items on this subtest. Students at the end of kindergarten may have not yet mastered detection of phonemic differences for middle units, which is consistent with the state curriculum standards that do not call for mastery of this skill until the end of first grade (see Cassady & Smith, 2004a for related discussion). Second, lack of power provided by small sample sizes in the group cells inhibits detection of weak to moderate effects in these analyses.
Examination of the total score was conducted for a simplified validation of demonstrating separation among identified ability groups. Scheffe’s post-hoc pairwise comparisons demonstrated that the readers identified by their teachers as well-below and below average performed significantly worse on the SAPA than the other three groups (p’s < .001), but did not differ significantly from one another. While the average and above average groups did not differ significantly from one another, the well-above average reading group did outperform these two groups (p’s < .001).
Concurrent validation with standardized reading achievement tests. The availability of standardized test performances for a subset of the sample allowed further validation of the SAPA. For 90 of the 135 spring kindergarten participants discussed in the teacher rating analyses, first-grade CTBS Terra Nova reading, language arts, and total scores were available. Correlational analyses revealed strong, positive correlations among the SAPA total scores and Terra Nova Language (r = .69), Reading (r = .58), and Total composites (r = .73). An exploratory set of correlational analyses on 10 first grade children taking the SAPA and Terra Nova in the spring of their first grade year provided similar supportive outcomes (r’s > .85).
Concurrent validation with popular phonological awareness measures. To provide a more direct and meaningful analysis of validity, we provided a direct test of concurrent validity of the SAPA as compared to the Emergent Literacy Survey (ELS, Pikulski, 1999) and phonological awareness subtests of the Dynamic Indicators of Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS, Good & Kaminski, 2002). Planned correlational analyses were used to explore the level of agreement shared with the SAPA and these established measures (see Table 3). As shown in the table, moderate to strong effects were demonstrated in the comparisons. This is particularly important to the assertion that subscale tasks from the 14 discrete tasks can be derived to mimic the broader reading measures offered in the past (see Cassady & Smith, 2003; 2004a; 2004b).
Reliability
The first issue of reliability we were concerned about was ensuring that the SAPA total score was a reasonable assessment of one broad construct of phonological awareness skill despite the use of 14 subscales. To test this, we first employed Cronbach’s alpha statistic to estimate the internal consistency reliability on the original 13-subscale version. The result demonstrated that the SAPA produced patterns of responses that were highly consistent, α = .93 (Cassady et al., 2002). Further exploration of each individual subscale revealed high levels of internal consistency for each subsequent subscale, as would be expected given the high overlap in skills for each item. In initial exploration of the items, those that were found to detrimentally impact the level of consistency within a particular subscale were removed and replaced with items that did not produce the same psychometric barriers. This revision process was focused primarily on acoustically problematic words such as the often confusing “r-controlled” words that do not follow standard phonic relationships by obscuring the separation between the vowel and the ending sound (e.g., car, purr, whir).
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Table 3. SAPA Subtest Correlations with Associated DIBELS & ELS Subscores
Emergent Literacy Survey
DIBELS
SAPA Subtest
Rhyme
Blending Onset-Rimes
Beginning Sounds
Segmenting Onset-Rimes
Phoneme Blending
Phoneme Segmenting
Initial Sound Fluency
Phoneme Segmenting Fluency
Nonsense Word Fluency
Rhyme recognition
Rhyme application
.51
Oddity tasks: Beginning sounds
.67
.41
Oddity tasks: Ending sounds
Oddity tasks: Middle sounds
Blending body-coda
.72
.70
Blending onset-rimes
.64
.73
Blending phonemes
.71
.73
Segmenting onset-rimes
.
.43
.50
.61
.51
Segmenting phonemes
.52
.53
.78
.64
Phoneme deletion
.48
.76
.65
.51
Phoneme sub: Beginning sounds
.36
.59
Phoneme sub: Ending sounds
Phoneme sub: Middle sounds
Note. All values equal to or less than r = .43 are p < .01; all values greater than r = .43 p < .001
A second test of the structure of the SAPA was an exploratory factor analysis. The results from the principal components analysis demonstrated a dominant first factor that explained 54% of the variance (eigenvalue = 7.14). Maintaining the simple convention of accepting any factor with an eigenvalue exceeding 1.0 would lead to the acceptance of one other factor that explained an additional 10% of the variance (eigenvalue = 1.21). However, examination of the scree plot and eigenvalues in the exploratory factor analysis did not support employing that interpretational strategy. Furthermore, the values obtained in the varimax rotation component matrix revealed that the second factor was merely documenting a level of difficulty in the subscales. That is, the subscales that loaded on the second factor were simply the most difficult ones. This pattern supports two propositions. First, the SAPA meets criteria allowing for use as a reliable single-factor measure of phonological awareness. Despite our theoretical position that educators are best served by the discrete information afforded in examining the subtest performances, state and federal mandates generally
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seek global indicators of performance on phonological awareness, so the composite score is practically significant. Second, the presence of a weak second factor in the exploratory factor analysis supports our proposition that there are developmental gains across the scale (see Cassady et al, 2002).
The primary benefit provided by the SAPA with respect to reliability is the control over the standardization of presentation methods. The standard presentation of pre-recorded digitally-controlled spacing in the phonological stimuli overcomes the problem encountered with both the DIBELS and ELS being administered by multiple individuals. For instance, use of schwa in blending tasks is known to affect the performance of young children in phonological awareness screening measures (Murray, Brabham, Villaume, & Veal, 2002). Relying on each individual administrator to accurately “cut” the schwa (“mmm” – “ix”) or leave it intact (“muh” – “ix”) correctly on each item is risky. Furthermore, we have control over the spacing among all phonemic units with the SAPA. In our assessment, all phonemic units are separated with a 1 second interval. This spacing is controlled and consistent across all administrators, items, and individuals’ experiences. Spacing the three phonemes in a standard C-V-C phoneme blending task at 1 sec intervals evenly ensures that the task measured is truly phoneme blending, as opposed to the errors we have observed in administration of the ELS and other assessments where test administrators present the stimuli with irregular spaces. For example, if one tester provides “CAT” in such a way as to provide an abbreviated pause after the middle sound (a common mistake when working quickly), it is likely that the task becomes more similar to a blending onset-rime activity (/c/ /at/ rather than /c/ /a/ /t/). Clearly, accuracy in measurement and confidence in the validity of data-driven conclusions are lost whenever there are such variations in the assessment materials.
Procedural Benefits
Our attempt to identify the advantages and liabilities to using a computer-assisted phonological awareness tool has presented three themes as central advantages. Test administrators who delivered both the SAPA and at least one other phonological awareness test delivered in a traditional format (including the original version of the SAPA that was delivered orally) provided feedback on the process of testing emergent readers. The test administrators reported advantages in training, pragmatics of testing, and greater confidence in the accuracy of testing procedure.
Training advantages. To directly assess the method of presentation, we interviewed test administrators who delivered the SAPA items orally and those who used the SAPA on the computer. Our discussions revealed that for computer-literate individuals training time for the multimedia version of the SAPA was dramatically shorter than for the oral presentation. Indeed, those individuals who were able to access the testing materials by double-clicking on the SAPA icon were able to be proficient in test administration within 15 minutes. Conversely, training the test administrators the appropriate pronunciation and spacing for over 100 items (all practice and test items for the 14 subtests) generally required 2 1-hour training sessions accompanied by follow-up sessions to verify procedures and answer questions.
An additional benefit of the simplified process of delivering the test content that we have confirmed in our use of the SAPA is that the level of expertise required to confidently deliver the testing materials is lower for the multimedia presentation format employed by the SAPA. Many tests of emergent literacy skills are simply too complex for even teachers or classroom aides to deliver without involved professional development and technical assistance (Caldwell, 2002). The use of technical jargon (however basic or simple) in traditional administration instructions hampers the average user from being able to meet stringent administration policies. However, relaxing the technical precision in test administration inserts several threats to test validity and reliability. All these concerns have been alleviated with the multimedia presentation, as the computer provides consistent presentation of all testing materials every time. To test this prospect, undergraduate pre-service teaching majors were asked to learn to use the SAPA. The junior-level future teachers had no difficulty accessing the items and were successful in learning the rules of administration within the standard 15-minute training period.
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Test administration facilitation. Test administrators reported satisfaction with the SAPA with regard to easing the labor of phonological awareness testing, finding the process to be less “jumbled.” Contrasted with traditional testing procedures, the SAPA requires no ancillary materials (e.g., picture cards or stopwatch) that are common in phonological awareness testing.
Consistent with the proposed advantage of CoPS (Singleton et al., 2000), administrators also claimed they were able to more efficiently move from one student to the next with the multimedia version. As the equivalent of a menu-driven DVD, starting a new student does not require reorganizing materials or turning back through a test booklet to find the correct starting point. All testing commences from the main menu screen which is always active.
Consistency in testing procedures. Without doubt, the single greatest contribution offered by the SAPA’s multimedia presentation format is the consistency gained across individual testing sessions. Our primary concerns with traditional phonological awareness assessment rests in the pronunciation and pacing of the test stimuli. Standardized testing procedures require consistency in order to ensure that comparisons made among students are reasonable. With every additional test administrator that is used to orally deliver phonological awareness test materials, there is an additional level of variation in the test materials. Thus, there is a lower degree of confidence that the data are meaningful and accurate when comparisons are made.
The test administrators using the SAPA reported being more confident that they were “doing it right.” Traditional tests of phonological awareness are often complex and be confusing. Those test administrators using both the SAPA and DIBELS found the DIBELS to be significantly more difficulty to learn and deliver. This difficulty attribution arose primarily from the rules underlying timed administration and how to determine final scores. Our experience with the DIBELS in particular demonstrated that the instructions, manuals, and online materials were all necessary for the administrators to gain confidence and skill in delivery. However, we continued to see instances of inconsistency in administration when looking to issues such as pace, tone, and use of phonemic conventions that are not addressed explicitly on most administration manuals. For instance, the DIBELS materials do not provide clear indication to the administrator whether to provide the blending task items with the schwa sound (e.g., “/muh/ /at/” or “/mmm/ /at/”). This is clearly an important phonological point, as Murray et al. (2002) reported that presenting onset-rime blending stimuli with the schwa was consistently easier for students to complete than when the schwa was removed. Further evidence of the importance of this administrative technique comes from the published scoring criteria for the DIBELS (Good & Kaminski, 2002), which explicitly allows for children to receive credit for responses that have the additional phonemic content in segmentation tasks.
This lack of specificity in the test administration guidelines is by no means exclusive to the DIBELS. In a review of several phonological awareness test protocols, we found none that provided detailed information on the pace of deliver for blending tasks (defined as 1-sec in our materials), explicit directions for use of schwa, and detailed pronunciation guidelines. In fact, users of the DIBELS are provided with a pronunciation guide for the phonemic units to be delivered, but are instructed that regional dialects may dictate deviation from those standard pronunciations. Naturally, dialectic differences can lead to problematic results as children’s performance levels may be suppressed when they are presented with auditory pronunciations that do not match their standard expectation for the target words. However, this threat exists at an exponentially higher level when the dialectical variation is left to each individual administrator.
CONCLUSIONS
The presence of phonological awareness assessment in educational settings is likely to continue to increase, as is the scrutiny of the assessment methods used to demonstrate proficiency in this set of foundational reading skills given the level of federal funding tied to demonstrating successful gains in this domain. It is our assertion that it is necessary that educators, evaluators, and researchers make use of phonological awareness measures that address the
Practical Assessment Research & Evaluation, Vol 10, No 18 12
Cassady, Smith & Huber, Phonological Awareness
two primary threats to validity we have discussed here. That is, phonological awareness measures should focus on discrete tasks to provide more precise measurement of the development of phonological processing skills using a protocol that eliminates variability across testing situations. Again, although we propose that our own assessment tool meets these criteria, the SAPA is provided in this analysis as a mere example. Any existing measure of phonological awareness could be revised to overcome the second threat to validity (standard presentation) offered in our discussion.
REFERENCES
Adams, M. J., Foorman, B. R., Lundberg, I., & Beeler, T. (1998). Phonemic awareness in young children. Baltimore: Brookes.
Bracken, B. A., & McCallum, R. S. (1998). The universal nonverbal intelligence test. Itasca, IL: Riverside Publishing.
Caldwell, J. S. (2002). Reading assessment: A primer for teachers and tutors. New York: Guilford.
Cassady, J. C., Smith, L. L., Bauserman, K., Jordan, F., Walker, C. A., & Popplewell, S. R. (2002). Developmental Models of Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: A Comparison and Reformulation. Paper presented at the National Reading Conference 2002 Annual Meeting, Miami, FL.
Cassady, J. C., & Smith, L. L. (2003). Development of phonological awareness: The trouble with middle sounds. National Reading Conference Yearbook, 52, 139-149.
Cassady, J. C., & Smith, L. L. (2004a). Acquisition of blending skills: Comparisons among body-coda, onset-rime, & phoneme blending tasks. Reading Psychology, 25(4), 261-272.
Cassady, J. C., & Smith, L. L. (2004b). The impact of a reading-focused integrated learning system on phonological awareness in kindergarten. Journal of Literacy Research35, 947-964.
Ehri, L., Nunes, S., Willows, D. Schuster, B. B., Yaghoub-Zadeh, Z. & Shanahan, T. (2001). Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to read: Evidence from the National Reading Panel's meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 36, 250-87.
Gibbs, S. (2003). Do pictures make a difference? A test of the hypothesis that performance in tests of phonological awareness is eased by the presence of pictures. Educational Psychology in Practice, 19, 219-228.
Good, R. H., & Kaminski, R. A. (Eds.) (2002). Dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills (6th Ed.). Eugene, OR: Institute for the Development of Education Achievement. Available http://dibels.uoregon.edu/. Accessed February 6, 2005.
Gordinier, C. L., & Foster, K. (2004). What stick is driving the Reading First hoop? Childhood Education, 81, 940.
Kaminski, R. A., & Good, R. H. III. (1996). Toward a technology for assessing basic early literacy skills. School Psychology Review, 25, 215-227.
Lane, H. B., Pullen, P. C., Eisele, M. R., & Jordan, L. (2002). Preventing reading failure: Phonological awareness assessment and instruction. Preventing School Failure, 46, 101-106.
Murray, B. A., Brabham, E. G., Villaume, S. K., & Veal, M. (2002, December). The effect of three segmentation options on ease of blending for prealphabetic and partial alphabetic readers. Paper presented at the 2002 National Reading Conference, Miami, FL.
Puolakanaho, A., Poikkeus, A., Ahonen, T., Tolvanen, A., & Lyytinen, H. (2003). Assessment of three-and-a-half-year-old children’s emerging phonological awareness in a computer animation context. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 36, 416-423.
Snow, C.E., Burns, M.S., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Sodoro, J., Allinder, R. M., & Rankin-Erickson, J. L. (2002). Assessment of phonological awareness: Review of methods and tools. Educational Psychology Review, 14, 223-260.
Stanovich, K. E., Cunningham, A. E., & Cramer, B. B. (1984). Assessing phonological awareness in kindergarten children: Issues of task comparability. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 38, 175-190.
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Cassady, Smith & Huber, Phonological Awareness
Thomas-Tate, S., Washington, J., & Edwards, J. (2004). Standardized assessment of phonological awareness skills in low-income African-American first graders. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 13, 182-190.
Treiman, R. (1985). Onsets and rimes as units of spoken syllables: Evidence from children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 39, 161-181.
Treiman, R., & Zukowski, A. (1996). Children’s sensitivity to onses, rimes, and phonemes. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 61, 193-215.
Yopp, H.K. & Yopp, R.H. (2000). Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom. The Reading Teacher, 54, 130-143.
Note
The contents of this article were developed under a subgrant from the U.S. Department of Education. However, such contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement of the Federal Government, Project Funding Authority; Part B, IDEA Project Number 14204-001-DY08.
Citation
Cassady, Jerrell C., Smith, Lawrence L. & Huber, Linda K. (2005). Enhancing Validity in Phonological Awareness Assessment through Computer-Supported Testing. Practical Assessment Research & Evaluation, 10(18). Available online: http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=10&n=18
Corresponding Author
Jerrell C. Cassady
Associate Professor of Psychology
Department of Educational Psychology
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
765-285-8522
jccassady@bsu.edu
source: http://pareonline.net/pdf/v10n18.pdf
Kamis, 23 Desember 2010
Ready, Fight: Teaching English Literature
by EuphoricEnnui on December 16, 2010 at 09:27 AM
275 Views
7
This is a pretty long post, but if you're interested in reading how I intend to teach a high school English literature course, please check it out and tell me what you think. I know this is straying from what is usually found on this site, but I'm greatly interested in finding out what high school students specifically think of my approach. Everyone else is also welcomed to share their ideas. But please be constructive in your criticisms. Keep in mind that I'm looking for comments related to how I want to teach the course and not necessarily how I wrote the paper. Enjoy! (And don't worry...I'll put up some gaming related posts later :P)
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE
Picture the scene: There is a battle-scarred land, cluttered with the casualties of a war long since begun and nowhere near finished. A lone warrior stands upon a clearing in the field, his face hardened, bold, and courageous. He can see the goal at the end of the field. But standing before it is a massive army, whose sole purpose is to thwart any of the warrior’s attempts.
As dramatic as this might seem, this illustration perfectly depicts what it is like to be a teacher. Educators need to be strong and brave to constantly have to work with students, their parents, and even fellow faculty. Like the warrior, teachers are trying to reach a very specific goal, that being to enlighten their students and further their growth into upstanding members of society. However, also like the warrior, there are enormous obstacles in the way, and with innovations in technology, sometimes it seems the obstacles are just becoming more and more.
These technological advancements sometimes have proven to be a double-edged sword, especially when it comes to the innovations in communication and entertainment. Teachers today are constantly competing for their students’ attention. They are competing with instant messaging, text messaging, hand- held video games, tweeting, facebook, and numerous other things that vie for the students’ attention. Thankfully, like any warrior, teachers aren’t without their own arsenal which I will get too later. First, it would be appropriate to explain what exactly the goal is.
As an aspiring English teacher, it will be my duty to instruct my students on subjects like grammar, creative writing, and above all, literature. It goes without saying that teaching such things can prove to be difficult in an age when it is the norm to “wryt lyq dis.” Now, as “old-fashioned” as it might seem, I have always felt that the best approach to literature is an active one. Shocking. That sarcasm is not without its justification. My previous experience with English teachers in high-school and below has more-often-than-not been a disheartening one. You cannot encourage a student to be interested in the current class novel if you cannot at least fake interest yourself. You certainly cannot expect that of them either.
First things first, as much as whatever mandatory curriculum I might have to deal with will allow, I intend to choose books that I myself also have an interest in. Of course, given my broad taste for books, that will be the least of my problems. The real problem is actually in choosing a book that will appeal to the students. They need to be able to relate to what is happening.
A perfect example of such a book would be George Orwell’s 1984. I know, I know. I am obsessed with that book. My entire presentation revolved around it. Nevertheless, 1984 is often a staple of high school literature classes and many of the topics discussed students can easily relate to, as long as the teacher takes the time to show them. Oppression versus freedom, individualism versus the whole, and secret romances are but a few of the themes in the novel and each and every one of them are things teenagers often contend with.
So, now I have the book. My goal is to get those students invested in the novel, to really analyze what is going on, to feel how the characters feel. If you will excuse the return to my warrior analogy, what exactly will I be fighting against to get such results? I already touched on the difficulty of teaching in the age of Twitter, but there are also two other enemies. They’re brothers, infamous among the entire field of education (though math teachers know them especially well). And their names are Boredom and Apathy.
Students today are bored with reading and often fail to see the relevance in being taught about books on people who died long before they were born. As one young man from my 11th grade English class claimed “Why the heck are we reading about some dead guy anyway?” As an English teacher, it is especially important to keep the students’ interest and cater your lesson plans to them. They need to be drawn out and placed into the confines of the book being taught. That is the only way to teach a subject such as English. How do I intend to do that?
A warrior is nothing without a well-stocked armory. You need to be prepared for anything. The same goes for teachers. My personal armory consists of three main weapons, carefully crafted so that I might handle any task. First up, inside that small, almost irrelevant plastic casing to your left, you will see my graded assessments. They are essentially composed of basic comprehension questions, designed specifically for those students more inclined on focusing on “getting the grade.” It is not the kind of attitude I particularly want to instill in my students, but it is necessary. They will be given out weekly and focus on what is going on in the story at the moment.
Next to that, in the far grander looking oak trunk, are the essay prompts. These contain both short essay and extended essay questions. They have a very intricate design like the runes of Celtic broadsword, specifically purposed to draw out the students’ own interpretations. For 1984, students are going to be tasked with answering questions that call for personal opinions on character motives and what might they have done differently. Asking for a person’s opinion, regardless of what it is for, is a great way to get that person emotionally invested in the topic. As Vygotsky’s studies suggest, learning is a very social activity, and there is nothing more social than sharing your opinion with others.
Given that the essay prompts call for an opinion, it goes without saying that students will be required to write persuasive papers. But it is hard to sound persuasive when you are not all that interested in the subject-matter, so my students will be more than welcomed to propose their own prompts to me, provided that it is well thought through and not overly simplistic. In fact, I’d actually prefer them to come up with their own essay questions over just using my own. It is perfectly within reason to expect this from high-school students, at least according to Piaget, because it is at this point that their cognitive skills are developing to include reasoning and hypo-deductive thinking.
Moving towards the very end of the armory, you will notice a very large wood cabinet, ornate in design with beautiful, shiny, glass paneling. Here I keep my most prized weapon, always kept razor sharp and well oiled. It will be the backbone of my classroom. It is the class discussions.
Far too often in schools today, English teachers are neglecting the power of class discussions. It was not until entering college that I realized how deprived I had been back in my high school. All the class hours wasted on playing cards during useless Power Points that regurgitated the plot and character profiles in a fashion so mundane, so unappealing, that I was absolutely convinced it had been directly pulled from the teacher’s guide. She certainly did not have time to make her own. Shopping from dresses online is quite time-consuming, after all. First of all, and I think few would argue with me on this (at least I hope), that is NOT how you teach, especially when it comes to English literature.
Therefore, I intend to use a much more Vygotskian approach, which I feel is the absolute best way to handle teaching English literature. Books might have been written to be read in solitude, but they were also written to inspire verbal intercourse with the world after their completion. As a regularly recurring homework assignment, students will be tasked with writing down two or three discussion questions based on the assigned reading for that day. At the beginning of the following class, they will turn them in and I will handpick questions that I feel bring up key points in the literature. These questions will be the basis of that day’s discussion.
Just imagine what this could accomplish! It might seem simple, but just think of how encouraged a student might feel to hear their question asked. Picture how much more engaged the students are likely to be when discussing points that they are personally interested in! And they most certainly will be encouraged to create questions based on what interests them in the first place. It isn’t necessary that they know the exact answer, because oftentimes there might be multiple “right” answers and interpretations, but they will be required to explain why they came up with the question if they are asked.
Of course, not every student is comfortable with speaking out loud. I know I am not comfortable doing that even today (though I would like to think I can hide it well). A student should not be penalized just because they are shy. Doing so would merely result in further discomfort for them. To alleviate such a situation, I will give out extra credit for extra effort to counter their lack of participation in the discussions. Students can receive it by writing a page or two more than required on their papers and by constantly providing more than just three questions.
However, the extra credit is not without its stipulations. Yet another concern present in the classroom is how some teachers often do not even read what their students write. I am sure you have heard how students have written nonsense or nothing at all and still receive high marks for their work, merely due to a teacher’s laziness. There are absolutely no excuses for skimming over your student’s work. If you cannot read their essays all in time to hand them back that Friday, use the weekend and turn it in the Monday. Otherwise, you’re short-changing both yourself and the students. Students will not receive extra credit for tacking “fluff” onto their papers. They will not receive credit for rewording questions or writing superfluous ones in an effort to have more than three. I have often noticed, even among peers, that students can have a tendency to write in circular, repetitive language merely in an effort to take up space and if my students think they will be able to get away with that, they are more likely to lose points than gain any.
With all that said, there is but one last thing that needs to be mentioned. One thing both a warrior and a teacher cannot do without is passion. Passion blocks out everything in its path like a hundred foot shield. It crushes Boredom, makes Apathy cry for mercy, and brings texting to its knees. No student, no matter how much they hate books, students cannot resist when they come across a teacher who is both enthusiastic and inviting. I love literature. I love language. I love discussions. It is my desire to impart that same love into at least some, if not all, of my students.
But I cannot expect that of them if I do not show it myself. These class discussions, papers, everything that my students will be doing in my class I will be doing as well. I will express my enthusiasm, my thoughts, and slip in a few corny jokes when appropriate. I do not think there is a better way of demonstrating my passion than by doing that. At the very least, when I get up in years, it will be a great way to combat my Alzheimer’s. Now there is a fight I am not looking forward to. Oh dear… what were we talking about again?
source: http://www.gameinformer.com/blogs/members/b/euphoricennui_blog/archive/2010/12/16/ready-fight-teaching-english-literature.aspx
275 Views
7
This is a pretty long post, but if you're interested in reading how I intend to teach a high school English literature course, please check it out and tell me what you think. I know this is straying from what is usually found on this site, but I'm greatly interested in finding out what high school students specifically think of my approach. Everyone else is also welcomed to share their ideas. But please be constructive in your criticisms. Keep in mind that I'm looking for comments related to how I want to teach the course and not necessarily how I wrote the paper. Enjoy! (And don't worry...I'll put up some gaming related posts later :P)
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE
Picture the scene: There is a battle-scarred land, cluttered with the casualties of a war long since begun and nowhere near finished. A lone warrior stands upon a clearing in the field, his face hardened, bold, and courageous. He can see the goal at the end of the field. But standing before it is a massive army, whose sole purpose is to thwart any of the warrior’s attempts.
As dramatic as this might seem, this illustration perfectly depicts what it is like to be a teacher. Educators need to be strong and brave to constantly have to work with students, their parents, and even fellow faculty. Like the warrior, teachers are trying to reach a very specific goal, that being to enlighten their students and further their growth into upstanding members of society. However, also like the warrior, there are enormous obstacles in the way, and with innovations in technology, sometimes it seems the obstacles are just becoming more and more.
These technological advancements sometimes have proven to be a double-edged sword, especially when it comes to the innovations in communication and entertainment. Teachers today are constantly competing for their students’ attention. They are competing with instant messaging, text messaging, hand- held video games, tweeting, facebook, and numerous other things that vie for the students’ attention. Thankfully, like any warrior, teachers aren’t without their own arsenal which I will get too later. First, it would be appropriate to explain what exactly the goal is.
As an aspiring English teacher, it will be my duty to instruct my students on subjects like grammar, creative writing, and above all, literature. It goes without saying that teaching such things can prove to be difficult in an age when it is the norm to “wryt lyq dis.” Now, as “old-fashioned” as it might seem, I have always felt that the best approach to literature is an active one. Shocking. That sarcasm is not without its justification. My previous experience with English teachers in high-school and below has more-often-than-not been a disheartening one. You cannot encourage a student to be interested in the current class novel if you cannot at least fake interest yourself. You certainly cannot expect that of them either.
First things first, as much as whatever mandatory curriculum I might have to deal with will allow, I intend to choose books that I myself also have an interest in. Of course, given my broad taste for books, that will be the least of my problems. The real problem is actually in choosing a book that will appeal to the students. They need to be able to relate to what is happening.
A perfect example of such a book would be George Orwell’s 1984. I know, I know. I am obsessed with that book. My entire presentation revolved around it. Nevertheless, 1984 is often a staple of high school literature classes and many of the topics discussed students can easily relate to, as long as the teacher takes the time to show them. Oppression versus freedom, individualism versus the whole, and secret romances are but a few of the themes in the novel and each and every one of them are things teenagers often contend with.
So, now I have the book. My goal is to get those students invested in the novel, to really analyze what is going on, to feel how the characters feel. If you will excuse the return to my warrior analogy, what exactly will I be fighting against to get such results? I already touched on the difficulty of teaching in the age of Twitter, but there are also two other enemies. They’re brothers, infamous among the entire field of education (though math teachers know them especially well). And their names are Boredom and Apathy.
Students today are bored with reading and often fail to see the relevance in being taught about books on people who died long before they were born. As one young man from my 11th grade English class claimed “Why the heck are we reading about some dead guy anyway?” As an English teacher, it is especially important to keep the students’ interest and cater your lesson plans to them. They need to be drawn out and placed into the confines of the book being taught. That is the only way to teach a subject such as English. How do I intend to do that?
A warrior is nothing without a well-stocked armory. You need to be prepared for anything. The same goes for teachers. My personal armory consists of three main weapons, carefully crafted so that I might handle any task. First up, inside that small, almost irrelevant plastic casing to your left, you will see my graded assessments. They are essentially composed of basic comprehension questions, designed specifically for those students more inclined on focusing on “getting the grade.” It is not the kind of attitude I particularly want to instill in my students, but it is necessary. They will be given out weekly and focus on what is going on in the story at the moment.
Next to that, in the far grander looking oak trunk, are the essay prompts. These contain both short essay and extended essay questions. They have a very intricate design like the runes of Celtic broadsword, specifically purposed to draw out the students’ own interpretations. For 1984, students are going to be tasked with answering questions that call for personal opinions on character motives and what might they have done differently. Asking for a person’s opinion, regardless of what it is for, is a great way to get that person emotionally invested in the topic. As Vygotsky’s studies suggest, learning is a very social activity, and there is nothing more social than sharing your opinion with others.
Given that the essay prompts call for an opinion, it goes without saying that students will be required to write persuasive papers. But it is hard to sound persuasive when you are not all that interested in the subject-matter, so my students will be more than welcomed to propose their own prompts to me, provided that it is well thought through and not overly simplistic. In fact, I’d actually prefer them to come up with their own essay questions over just using my own. It is perfectly within reason to expect this from high-school students, at least according to Piaget, because it is at this point that their cognitive skills are developing to include reasoning and hypo-deductive thinking.
Moving towards the very end of the armory, you will notice a very large wood cabinet, ornate in design with beautiful, shiny, glass paneling. Here I keep my most prized weapon, always kept razor sharp and well oiled. It will be the backbone of my classroom. It is the class discussions.
Far too often in schools today, English teachers are neglecting the power of class discussions. It was not until entering college that I realized how deprived I had been back in my high school. All the class hours wasted on playing cards during useless Power Points that regurgitated the plot and character profiles in a fashion so mundane, so unappealing, that I was absolutely convinced it had been directly pulled from the teacher’s guide. She certainly did not have time to make her own. Shopping from dresses online is quite time-consuming, after all. First of all, and I think few would argue with me on this (at least I hope), that is NOT how you teach, especially when it comes to English literature.
Therefore, I intend to use a much more Vygotskian approach, which I feel is the absolute best way to handle teaching English literature. Books might have been written to be read in solitude, but they were also written to inspire verbal intercourse with the world after their completion. As a regularly recurring homework assignment, students will be tasked with writing down two or three discussion questions based on the assigned reading for that day. At the beginning of the following class, they will turn them in and I will handpick questions that I feel bring up key points in the literature. These questions will be the basis of that day’s discussion.
Just imagine what this could accomplish! It might seem simple, but just think of how encouraged a student might feel to hear their question asked. Picture how much more engaged the students are likely to be when discussing points that they are personally interested in! And they most certainly will be encouraged to create questions based on what interests them in the first place. It isn’t necessary that they know the exact answer, because oftentimes there might be multiple “right” answers and interpretations, but they will be required to explain why they came up with the question if they are asked.
Of course, not every student is comfortable with speaking out loud. I know I am not comfortable doing that even today (though I would like to think I can hide it well). A student should not be penalized just because they are shy. Doing so would merely result in further discomfort for them. To alleviate such a situation, I will give out extra credit for extra effort to counter their lack of participation in the discussions. Students can receive it by writing a page or two more than required on their papers and by constantly providing more than just three questions.
However, the extra credit is not without its stipulations. Yet another concern present in the classroom is how some teachers often do not even read what their students write. I am sure you have heard how students have written nonsense or nothing at all and still receive high marks for their work, merely due to a teacher’s laziness. There are absolutely no excuses for skimming over your student’s work. If you cannot read their essays all in time to hand them back that Friday, use the weekend and turn it in the Monday. Otherwise, you’re short-changing both yourself and the students. Students will not receive extra credit for tacking “fluff” onto their papers. They will not receive credit for rewording questions or writing superfluous ones in an effort to have more than three. I have often noticed, even among peers, that students can have a tendency to write in circular, repetitive language merely in an effort to take up space and if my students think they will be able to get away with that, they are more likely to lose points than gain any.
With all that said, there is but one last thing that needs to be mentioned. One thing both a warrior and a teacher cannot do without is passion. Passion blocks out everything in its path like a hundred foot shield. It crushes Boredom, makes Apathy cry for mercy, and brings texting to its knees. No student, no matter how much they hate books, students cannot resist when they come across a teacher who is both enthusiastic and inviting. I love literature. I love language. I love discussions. It is my desire to impart that same love into at least some, if not all, of my students.
But I cannot expect that of them if I do not show it myself. These class discussions, papers, everything that my students will be doing in my class I will be doing as well. I will express my enthusiasm, my thoughts, and slip in a few corny jokes when appropriate. I do not think there is a better way of demonstrating my passion than by doing that. At the very least, when I get up in years, it will be a great way to combat my Alzheimer’s. Now there is a fight I am not looking forward to. Oh dear… what were we talking about again?
source: http://www.gameinformer.com/blogs/members/b/euphoricennui_blog/archive/2010/12/16/ready-fight-teaching-english-literature.aspx
How to Teach Literature to College Students
Literature is a very versatile subject and is generally considered one of the most difficult subjects to teach. There is no right or wrong way to teach a Literature class; however, there is a smart way to teach it. The idea in Literature is not just to get an answer, it is to get an in-depth, provocative and creative answer. The job of the professor is not to teach the student, it is to lead the student.
Steps
1.
1
Get a degree : No community college will let you teach English with less than a BA, and very few will let you teach with less than an MA. If you intend to teach at the university level, you will most likely require a PhD, as well as recent publication in respected journals. Obviously, most English teaching jobs will go to people who have studied in the Humanities, particularly English majors.
2.
2
Do your research: Find out about the various kinds of Literature existing in different periods of time and how it evolved through the ages. If your training in step one didn't prepare you in this way, you are probably not ready to be in front of a college English class.
3.
3
Emulate, but don't copy: If you're about to be teaching college English, you've already spent at least four to ten years in post-high-school classrooms. It would be naive to suggest that you don't know how to teach; You've spent much of your adult life watching other people do it. Use what you know. Take the best examples from your educational past and craft them around your current situation, and within that history, find a voice of your own. If you merely copy your past instructors, or crib lesson plans from a website, you're probably not destined to be much of a teacher.
4.
4
Always read excerpts of material in class: Students often rely upon study guides and predigested responses to texts they have never experienced as living works of art. Remember to allow plenty of time for regular readings and re-readings of a poem, for example, so that its impact as sound can be enjoyed before it is analyzed simply as a complicated kind of prose. This is equally important with many prose writers such as Dickens or Jane Austen for whom some basic impact is in the rhythmic shape and weight of a paragraph as a key part of its "meaning". They may set a slow versus a staccato tempo, to indicate boredom or excitement for instance.
5.
5
Keep the class especially challenging for the first few weeks: Usually you will find a group of students will enroll for a class for no good reason. Because of this you tend to get slackers in class or people who are not intellectually cut out for such a subject. If you make the class extremely challenging and provocative for the first few weeks, it will cause a few of the less interested students to become slightly alarmed and they will drop the class. The ones who stay will become more alert and get more involved. (NOTE: If your school receives state funding based on attendance, you might want to wait until the census date has passed before engaging in actions that will cause students to drop; your dean may cancel the class if a minimum number are not enrolled.)
* Make it a rule from the get go that the pace of the class will be fast. If the student doesn't begin to answer after 20 seconds, just lash out some interpretive exercise. For example, if a student isn't answering, ask something like: "Name three possible interpretations of the phrase: 'Cowards die many times before their deaths'" or "The color Red symbolizes what?" or "Name three mythological creatures that can fly". These do not have to be related to the material, but must be related to Literature in general. If it is something humorous and informative, it will be appreciated by the students and they will be more alert during class.
6.
6
Set new questions. Do not borrow questions from textbooks or any other material. Especially not the Internet. Make sure the questions you set have not been discussed in detail in class. Of course the questions have to be similar but ensure that they are not the same. You are grading the students on their literary analysis not on their note-taking skills.
7.
7
Always ask "why" For any piece of work, the most important question in literature is 'Why?'. Make sure every student knows the importance of this question from the first class. You have to train the class to be opinionated and try to interpret every line according to the reason and the intention behind it. The heart of all Literature is its intention.
8.
8
Add fuel to the fire: There is no room for a unanimous agreement in Literature. Every line is subject to interpretation, levels of importance and hidden meaning. Make sure that your students are not exposed to one view. The best way to do this is to play devil's advocate. When they express a view, disagree. If they agree with you, change your view. This will make for interesting debate and force the students to defend their viewpoint and explain why they are right. Try to be as unreasonable with your stand as you can, this will get the students more 'heated' and force them to think in the abstract manner necessary to write a Literature paper. This is also good for waking up those students at the back who snooze every class. An argument is much more interesting than the face of the desk.
9.
9
Add history to the material: As your students become familiar
"A long farewell to all my greatness"
"A long farewell to all my greatness"
with the material, allow them to become familiar with the face behind the material: the writer. Tell them a little bit about their past and the way they lived their lives and some of the documented inspiration behind their works. A lot of very famous writers lived rather interesting (and somewhat tragic and scandalous) lives, it's always interesting to hear about, and it might provide more meaning to their words.
10.
10
Involve every single student: Each class has students that are not really interested in the material but come to class each day for unidentified reasons. Each class also has students who tend to monopolize the conversation and centre discussions towards their opinions. Avoid that at all costs. Even the lazy students can usually provide some sort of input. Ask a lot of questions and give everyone an equal shot at answering. Don't stand there and wait for an answer (You will be wasting precious minutes while the student goes: "Ummm....well....errr").
* Maintain an interest in each and every student. Students can usually tell if you like them or not or if you prefer one over the other. Avoid this at all costs. Your job is to promote the imagination of all the students and to treat them all equally. Talk to all of them personally at least once.
* Recognize the students' weaknesses and strengths: By giving your students a lot of opportunities to do various kinds of work (speaking, arguing, writing, interpreting, etc.) you can assess the weaknesses and strengths of each one. Praise each student on their strengths and talk to them about their weaknesses. Allow your students the freedom to choose the form they are more comfortable with. For example, if a student is good at verbal discussion and not good at written communication, you can allow for one of their assignments to be verbal. To be fair, however, you must give all students a chance to choose the form they are good at. Talk to the students personally about their weaknesses and how to improve them.
11.
11
Grade the thought, not the content: When marking papers, you need to be aware that Literature is not like most other subjects where the content is what is essential. It is the creativity and thought behind the content that makes a Literature essay stand out. You are also grading the content, obviously. But in Literature, you have to give more marks to the student with a controversial and creative interpretation and a few less to the student with the 'textbook' interpretation. For example, the student who can convince the reader that Frankenstein's monster was actually his alter ego, with support from lines in the book, is a better student than one who treats the monster as just a creature who had the misfortune to be created by man.
12.
12
Give appropriate homework. The students must be treated like adults, the homework should be appropriate and challenging. Be clear about how you like your papers to be written and make sure they follow a certain format. The best kind of homework is a variable kind. Make sure they do a lot of research-based papers but also give them a good amount of unconventional homework like: an essay on the difficulties of a literature student, or writing a poem, or interpreting a fairy tale (there actually is a lot of symbolism in stories like 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'The Pied Piper').
13.
13
Emphasize references. No matter how creative the thought, it has to be backed up by quotes from the material. A student might have a particularly brilliant idea but if it is disproved by the material, the idea is worthless. Stress on the fact that every claim has to be supported by lines, verses and dialogue in the text.
14.
14
Read out the work of other scholars: Expose the students to interpretations by other Literature analysts. You ought to keep the papers submitted by your old classes as well, to read out to the new ones. Challenge the students to respond to those interpretations. Ask them questions like: "In what ways could he/she be correct or incorrect?"
15.
15
Enjoy the experience: If you are heading to class and you are dreading it or feeling like you ought to just turn back and go home, it is time to reschedule the class or postpone it. If you are not giving a class 'your all', the students will notice and it affects the environment of the classroom. Also, the students will probably like you more for the extra couple of hours of time you've given to them.
edit Tips
* If your students have a problem with interpretation or seeking hidden meanings, try this exercise at the beginning of the class. Write a word on the board, any simple word, like 'Dust', as each student to interpret what it could mean. For example, since dust settles in untouched places, it could be a product of abandonment or it could mean something that is worthless or abundant, or remnants of something...etc.
* If the classes seem to be getting monotonous, change the pace. Move to a garden or some place outdoors. Call for a role play, where every student has to be a writer (one student can be Shakespeare, another Shelley) and ask them to do their best imitation of them. Refer to pop culture and modern media and ask them to interpret them (it would be interesting to see how they can compare 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' to 'Fight Club') or you could make it mandatory for all the students to adopt an accent during one class (e.g. a British accent if you are teaching outside of England for example).
* Bring pictures to class. There are many paintings and illustrations of mythical creatures, heroes of literature and writers. In the modern world, there is much more emphasis on the visual as compared to the written word. It would add a bit of interest to the classes and you can use them for comparison. For example, you could ask: "Is this illustration of 'The Inferno' an accurate description of the text?"
*
"What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?
"What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?
Encourage your students to read. Not just the texts, but anything that interests them. They have to get into a habit of reading to truly bring forward their best to a Literature class.
source: http://www.wikihow.com/Teach-Literature-to-College-Students
Steps
1.
1
Get a degree : No community college will let you teach English with less than a BA, and very few will let you teach with less than an MA. If you intend to teach at the university level, you will most likely require a PhD, as well as recent publication in respected journals. Obviously, most English teaching jobs will go to people who have studied in the Humanities, particularly English majors.
2.
2
Do your research: Find out about the various kinds of Literature existing in different periods of time and how it evolved through the ages. If your training in step one didn't prepare you in this way, you are probably not ready to be in front of a college English class.
3.
3
Emulate, but don't copy: If you're about to be teaching college English, you've already spent at least four to ten years in post-high-school classrooms. It would be naive to suggest that you don't know how to teach; You've spent much of your adult life watching other people do it. Use what you know. Take the best examples from your educational past and craft them around your current situation, and within that history, find a voice of your own. If you merely copy your past instructors, or crib lesson plans from a website, you're probably not destined to be much of a teacher.
4.
4
Always read excerpts of material in class: Students often rely upon study guides and predigested responses to texts they have never experienced as living works of art. Remember to allow plenty of time for regular readings and re-readings of a poem, for example, so that its impact as sound can be enjoyed before it is analyzed simply as a complicated kind of prose. This is equally important with many prose writers such as Dickens or Jane Austen for whom some basic impact is in the rhythmic shape and weight of a paragraph as a key part of its "meaning". They may set a slow versus a staccato tempo, to indicate boredom or excitement for instance.
5.
5
Keep the class especially challenging for the first few weeks: Usually you will find a group of students will enroll for a class for no good reason. Because of this you tend to get slackers in class or people who are not intellectually cut out for such a subject. If you make the class extremely challenging and provocative for the first few weeks, it will cause a few of the less interested students to become slightly alarmed and they will drop the class. The ones who stay will become more alert and get more involved. (NOTE: If your school receives state funding based on attendance, you might want to wait until the census date has passed before engaging in actions that will cause students to drop; your dean may cancel the class if a minimum number are not enrolled.)
* Make it a rule from the get go that the pace of the class will be fast. If the student doesn't begin to answer after 20 seconds, just lash out some interpretive exercise. For example, if a student isn't answering, ask something like: "Name three possible interpretations of the phrase: 'Cowards die many times before their deaths'" or "The color Red symbolizes what?" or "Name three mythological creatures that can fly". These do not have to be related to the material, but must be related to Literature in general. If it is something humorous and informative, it will be appreciated by the students and they will be more alert during class.
6.
6
Set new questions. Do not borrow questions from textbooks or any other material. Especially not the Internet. Make sure the questions you set have not been discussed in detail in class. Of course the questions have to be similar but ensure that they are not the same. You are grading the students on their literary analysis not on their note-taking skills.
7.
7
Always ask "why" For any piece of work, the most important question in literature is 'Why?'. Make sure every student knows the importance of this question from the first class. You have to train the class to be opinionated and try to interpret every line according to the reason and the intention behind it. The heart of all Literature is its intention.
8.
8
Add fuel to the fire: There is no room for a unanimous agreement in Literature. Every line is subject to interpretation, levels of importance and hidden meaning. Make sure that your students are not exposed to one view. The best way to do this is to play devil's advocate. When they express a view, disagree. If they agree with you, change your view. This will make for interesting debate and force the students to defend their viewpoint and explain why they are right. Try to be as unreasonable with your stand as you can, this will get the students more 'heated' and force them to think in the abstract manner necessary to write a Literature paper. This is also good for waking up those students at the back who snooze every class. An argument is much more interesting than the face of the desk.
9.
9
Add history to the material: As your students become familiar
"A long farewell to all my greatness"
"A long farewell to all my greatness"
with the material, allow them to become familiar with the face behind the material: the writer. Tell them a little bit about their past and the way they lived their lives and some of the documented inspiration behind their works. A lot of very famous writers lived rather interesting (and somewhat tragic and scandalous) lives, it's always interesting to hear about, and it might provide more meaning to their words.
10.
10
Involve every single student: Each class has students that are not really interested in the material but come to class each day for unidentified reasons. Each class also has students who tend to monopolize the conversation and centre discussions towards their opinions. Avoid that at all costs. Even the lazy students can usually provide some sort of input. Ask a lot of questions and give everyone an equal shot at answering. Don't stand there and wait for an answer (You will be wasting precious minutes while the student goes: "Ummm....well....errr").
* Maintain an interest in each and every student. Students can usually tell if you like them or not or if you prefer one over the other. Avoid this at all costs. Your job is to promote the imagination of all the students and to treat them all equally. Talk to all of them personally at least once.
* Recognize the students' weaknesses and strengths: By giving your students a lot of opportunities to do various kinds of work (speaking, arguing, writing, interpreting, etc.) you can assess the weaknesses and strengths of each one. Praise each student on their strengths and talk to them about their weaknesses. Allow your students the freedom to choose the form they are more comfortable with. For example, if a student is good at verbal discussion and not good at written communication, you can allow for one of their assignments to be verbal. To be fair, however, you must give all students a chance to choose the form they are good at. Talk to the students personally about their weaknesses and how to improve them.
11.
11
Grade the thought, not the content: When marking papers, you need to be aware that Literature is not like most other subjects where the content is what is essential. It is the creativity and thought behind the content that makes a Literature essay stand out. You are also grading the content, obviously. But in Literature, you have to give more marks to the student with a controversial and creative interpretation and a few less to the student with the 'textbook' interpretation. For example, the student who can convince the reader that Frankenstein's monster was actually his alter ego, with support from lines in the book, is a better student than one who treats the monster as just a creature who had the misfortune to be created by man.
12.
12
Give appropriate homework. The students must be treated like adults, the homework should be appropriate and challenging. Be clear about how you like your papers to be written and make sure they follow a certain format. The best kind of homework is a variable kind. Make sure they do a lot of research-based papers but also give them a good amount of unconventional homework like: an essay on the difficulties of a literature student, or writing a poem, or interpreting a fairy tale (there actually is a lot of symbolism in stories like 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'The Pied Piper').
13.
13
Emphasize references. No matter how creative the thought, it has to be backed up by quotes from the material. A student might have a particularly brilliant idea but if it is disproved by the material, the idea is worthless. Stress on the fact that every claim has to be supported by lines, verses and dialogue in the text.
14.
14
Read out the work of other scholars: Expose the students to interpretations by other Literature analysts. You ought to keep the papers submitted by your old classes as well, to read out to the new ones. Challenge the students to respond to those interpretations. Ask them questions like: "In what ways could he/she be correct or incorrect?"
15.
15
Enjoy the experience: If you are heading to class and you are dreading it or feeling like you ought to just turn back and go home, it is time to reschedule the class or postpone it. If you are not giving a class 'your all', the students will notice and it affects the environment of the classroom. Also, the students will probably like you more for the extra couple of hours of time you've given to them.
edit Tips
* If your students have a problem with interpretation or seeking hidden meanings, try this exercise at the beginning of the class. Write a word on the board, any simple word, like 'Dust', as each student to interpret what it could mean. For example, since dust settles in untouched places, it could be a product of abandonment or it could mean something that is worthless or abundant, or remnants of something...etc.
* If the classes seem to be getting monotonous, change the pace. Move to a garden or some place outdoors. Call for a role play, where every student has to be a writer (one student can be Shakespeare, another Shelley) and ask them to do their best imitation of them. Refer to pop culture and modern media and ask them to interpret them (it would be interesting to see how they can compare 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' to 'Fight Club') or you could make it mandatory for all the students to adopt an accent during one class (e.g. a British accent if you are teaching outside of England for example).
* Bring pictures to class. There are many paintings and illustrations of mythical creatures, heroes of literature and writers. In the modern world, there is much more emphasis on the visual as compared to the written word. It would add a bit of interest to the classes and you can use them for comparison. For example, you could ask: "Is this illustration of 'The Inferno' an accurate description of the text?"
*
"What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?
"What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?
Encourage your students to read. Not just the texts, but anything that interests them. They have to get into a habit of reading to truly bring forward their best to a Literature class.
source: http://www.wikihow.com/Teach-Literature-to-College-Students
How to Teach English Literature to Kids
By Robert Vaux, eHow Contributor
English literature is a cornerstone of cultural history, including vital works that constitute the pinnacle of human artistic achievement. But it can be difficult to convey their richness and complexity to children. Many pieces of English literature are simply beyond children's ability to absorb, while others leave them bored and restless. The purpose of teaching English literature to kids is to instill in them a love of the stories and to prepare them for more thorough study as they grow older. The right lesson plan can help you do this.
Instructions
1.
1
Choose the type of literature you wish to teach. In many cases, this should be literature appropriate to the children's age level, but you can find clever ways to include more sophisticated works if you wish. Children's editions of Shakespeare plays (the "Shakespeare Can Be Fun Series," in particular) or stories of Greek myths aimed at younger audiences are a good place to start. Try to look for stories that contain strong hooks for kids: a good adventure, for instance, or fairy tales written for their age group.
2.
2
Read the book aloud in the classroom, either by reading it yourself or having different children take turns reading passages. Older kids also may benefit from periods of silent reading in which they cover a given book on their own. At the end of each reading session, ask the children what they thought of the passage, how they felt the hero acted and what they might do if they were in the same place.
3.
3
Give periodic quizzes after each reading session to test for comprehension and vocabulary. You may wish to assign writing lessons, too, asking the children to write short reviews or thoughts on the piece they have just read.
4.
4
Connect the literature to the children's own lives. One of the biggest difficulties in teaching English literature to kids is showing them how the stories are pertinent to their world. Ask them if they see any traits in the heroes that they themselves share, or have them compare some part of the story to things they may have seen or done in their own lives.
5.
5
Consider putting on a play based on the literature you are reading. It can be as simple or as elaborate as you like and your resources allow. By role-playing the characters in the story, your students can develop a greater affinity for them and further understand how the literature connects to their own lives.
Tips & Warnings
*
Teaching literature to children depends in some part on assessing the particular kids you're teaching. Impoverished children from a working class environment may require a different approach than suburban kids in a gifted students program. In assessing your particular kids, look for literary works that may have some resonance to their circumstances.
source: http://www.ehow.com/how_5114624_teach-english-literature-kids.html
English literature is a cornerstone of cultural history, including vital works that constitute the pinnacle of human artistic achievement. But it can be difficult to convey their richness and complexity to children. Many pieces of English literature are simply beyond children's ability to absorb, while others leave them bored and restless. The purpose of teaching English literature to kids is to instill in them a love of the stories and to prepare them for more thorough study as they grow older. The right lesson plan can help you do this.
Instructions
1.
1
Choose the type of literature you wish to teach. In many cases, this should be literature appropriate to the children's age level, but you can find clever ways to include more sophisticated works if you wish. Children's editions of Shakespeare plays (the "Shakespeare Can Be Fun Series," in particular) or stories of Greek myths aimed at younger audiences are a good place to start. Try to look for stories that contain strong hooks for kids: a good adventure, for instance, or fairy tales written for their age group.
2.
2
Read the book aloud in the classroom, either by reading it yourself or having different children take turns reading passages. Older kids also may benefit from periods of silent reading in which they cover a given book on their own. At the end of each reading session, ask the children what they thought of the passage, how they felt the hero acted and what they might do if they were in the same place.
3.
3
Give periodic quizzes after each reading session to test for comprehension and vocabulary. You may wish to assign writing lessons, too, asking the children to write short reviews or thoughts on the piece they have just read.
4.
4
Connect the literature to the children's own lives. One of the biggest difficulties in teaching English literature to kids is showing them how the stories are pertinent to their world. Ask them if they see any traits in the heroes that they themselves share, or have them compare some part of the story to things they may have seen or done in their own lives.
5.
5
Consider putting on a play based on the literature you are reading. It can be as simple or as elaborate as you like and your resources allow. By role-playing the characters in the story, your students can develop a greater affinity for them and further understand how the literature connects to their own lives.
Tips & Warnings
*
Teaching literature to children depends in some part on assessing the particular kids you're teaching. Impoverished children from a working class environment may require a different approach than suburban kids in a gifted students program. In assessing your particular kids, look for literary works that may have some resonance to their circumstances.
source: http://www.ehow.com/how_5114624_teach-english-literature-kids.html
THE INDIAN ENGLISH LITERATURE TEACHING AT UG LEVEL – AN ELT VIEW*
169
MJAL 1:3 May 2009 ISSN 0974-8741
Mishra
THE INDIAN ENGLISH LITERATURE TEACHING AT UG LEVEL – AN ELT VIEW*
Krushna Chandra Mishra
AUTHOR
Dr.Krushna Chandra Mishra has been involved in teaching English as a second language,
advanced grammar and applied English skills and literature and English language teaching for
more than 20 years. His interests include ELT, Indian writings, translations from Indian
languages, tribal folk literature and human rights and development issues. Besides, he has
authored three books and presented 37 research papers in national and international
conferences, seminars and workshops. He has been involved in educating distance learners in
Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh, and Indira
Gandhi Open University. He edits methods and methodology column in the MJAL.
Correspondence: Dr.Krushna Ch. Mishra, Reader, Dept. of English, Govt. College, Bomdila-790001, Arunachal
Pradesh , krushnasribdl@rediffmail.com,
A B S T R A C T
Literature teaching to facilitate language teaching goals and processes in Indian UG-level ESL classrooms need
to have a different orientation. Specific objectives once having been clearly outlined, it remains for the
enterprising teacher to perfectly plan the teaching progress strategies. The whole literature text needs to be broken
up into useful divisions to conform to the needs of the plan of progress which teaching in the language
achievements already targeted in some purpose-oriented way envisions. The achievement levels of the classroom
having been determined in some notional way worked out on the basis of initial interactions and informal tests
with different achiever-levels(such as LPLs or average or high achievers), the teacher is at advantage to use
literature texts in their tailor-made divisions for time allotments and time-bound coverage of matter such that
language items earmarked could be properly and verifiably taught to the benefit of the various achiever groups in
the ESL classrooms. The correction plan to keep the learner in the assured learning progress continuum has to
move accordingly where learning consolidation makes use of literary texts and highlights language properties to
help achieve the ESL teaching-learning goals as per syllabus-plans already formulated well in advance.
Introduction
This paper tries to read the existing Indian English Literature teaching scenario at collegiate UG teaching levels
in India and the ELT perspective is a basis against which a suggestion has been put forth so as to bring about a
healthy balance between literature-heavy leanings and extreme language-only orientation in our colleges. Two
things have been considered to be very relevant in our proposal - language of a certain desirable standard to be
visibly in use in interactive teaching mode, and literary appreciation skills to be further developed in the students
to lead them to expected levels of sophistication whereby students see cultural values and real life situations with
scope to use the available knowledge to answer problems of life in various complex situations. The Argument is
offered on how for complimentary and not countering purposes both literature and language teaching projects are
to be seen to be stepping-stones for proper literary analysis and thereby for interpretation of the Indian English
Literature. Reading, responding to texts and intentions, explaining ideas in proper logical chain and sequence,
scanning passages for substantiating stands and stances, summing up and again building upon important basic
ideas and issues etc. are things that show up how airy castles in fairy lands could only be built and seen to be
concretely existing once language in its ease and persuasive force grapples with life’s demanding crudities and
the reasoning mind expresses itself to plumb the depths at which the meaning of things lies.
Doing Indian English Literature in the language teaching way could be interesting and effective with UG
classes where students are mature to the degree where story sense in its sharing the ground with pragmatics of a
life in the world of flux shows them that in language only narratives occur and the life’s complexities explain
themselves only in the structured patterns of language behaviours of societies and people across the globe. That
Indian Literature including English works by Indian hands needs to share a cultural understanding primarily and
pertinently predominantly Indian is something that goes well with doing works of English/Western masters with
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MJAL 1:3 May 2009 ISSN 0974-8741
The Indian English Literature Teaching at UG level –An ELT view Krushna Chandra Mishra
much of Western/European Christian thought and we would do well to give our students what verily they have to
get as intimate and not intimidating in the explanation of our UG texts. Breaking up selected parts into planned
smaller parts which could be shown as lying inter-linked in the final and overall integrated frame of things while
following as well as upholding the author’s artistic and aesthetic vision and many messages in compact language
packages is something that the UG ESL teacher may find useful to do while raising and teaching to raise
questions for better comprehension of reading matter in hand and for explanatory skill-based reproduction of
matter for oral and written test purposes
to meet examination and evaluation requirements throughout the country. In sum, we see a distinct need to
integrate language and literature teaching skills to benefit the students the most by removing their handicap in
both the spheres.
The Indian ESL Teaching Scene Using Literature - Problems and Expectations:
ELT in Indian situation is a matter that throws difficult challenges for the teacher of English who in his classroom
has to work for language learning of his students mostly while doing a lot many literary texts. Literary texts from
culturally different locations, namely, British, American or other regions, offer special challenges while
equipping the students with language sense and literary appreciation skills. The learner background at all stages
of education offers special challenges because of large class conditions and heterogeneous groups of learners.
Literature teaching on the new communicative teaching format at post-higher secondary level of ESL learning is
a complex challenge when moving from conventional teacher-centred classroom poses attitudinal and practical
difficulties on part of teachers.
B.N. Patanik evaluates the Indian scene saying: “… One can see that the two extremely important aims
of language planning in our country to-day are (a) the enrichment of Hindi so that it can prove adequate to fulfil
the task of functioning as the sole official language of the country, and (b) the rapid development of the regional
languages so that these can be used in as many domains as possible. Consequently… except for a very small
section of the people, Indians would tend to use English only in a very few situations in day-to-day life. This
must be reflected in the programme of English language teaching in this country…” (Patnaik: 1991) He holds:
The teacher of English in India is in a state of indecision on the issue of the variety of English which should
acquire the status of the educational model. … The decision to advise the learner against the use of colloquial
forms can be justified on the ground that since English in India is to be used in mostly formal and semi-formal
situations, the General English courses intended to teach language to all learners must be designed in such a way
as to teach formal and semi-formal styles. “(ibid.)
Gambhir (1991) in this connection observes: “…The most important thing for second language learners
is to be able to acquire or assimilate rules as to what different structures may mean in different social situations in
a given language…”, and again: “…The format of the classroom and teaching materials has to be as far as
possible close to natural socio-linguistic situations that a person is likely to encounter in the target society. The
classroom should be less of formal academic centre where the teacher is explaining how a language works and
students are taking notes; or, a teacher is making students drill key structures of a language. A language
classroom should emphasize activities which take place in real life communication rather than pattern
rehearsal…”
In continuation of the above, it is worthwhile to note that in the wake of the communicative
teaching strategies, the teacher of English has to take note of how production skills have assumed the highest
significance now. Gumperz (1982) and Green (1989) have laid emphasis on pronunciation, grammar and
discourse patterns’ and Tam (1997) has stressed the importance of ‘repetition’ in oral productions. Wilkins
(1997) has underlined the role of ‘grammar’ and ‘vocabulary’ without which meaningful communication is
impossible. Talagaki (1997) has suggested to make use of the promises held forth by ‘brain-storming, skits and
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The Indian English Literature Teaching at UG level –An ELT view Krushna Chandra Mishra
interviews’ for communicative purposes. Rivers and Temperley (1978) have seen the usefulness of writing and
speaking integration for reinforcement and mutual enrichment suggesting thereby also the importance of the
listening and reading skills in the communication-oriented success. Sheppard (1992) and Leiki (1992) recognize
the value of ‘content feedback’ in writing alongside ‘a limited amount of grammar, punctuation and spelling
feedback’ for effective writing. Ellis (1994) holds that ‘motivation’ is an important factor in student development
programmes and in projects meant to ensure learning. Green (1993) emphasizes on the need for appropriate
teacher work in terms of planning for sustaining motivation at the pre-teaching, while-teaching and post-teaching
phases.
Green (1993) also draws attention to the fact that the teacher must recognise that in “large teachercentred
classes, students have little opportunity to deliver enough output to be judged fairly or receive
constructive feedback to enhance feelings of security and success.” Indian classrooms being especially ‘large
teacher centred’ ones the need is to help/support the emotional state of the learners that is so vital to the language
learning situations. Mishra and Mahapatra (2001) observe: “ …the teacher’s task consist pre-eminently in
strengthening the individual students’ resolution to progress on the basis of their successful learning experiences
which the teacher necessarily critically most sensibly makes use of to stress the fact that confidence–level of the
participating students is boosted and contribution-level later on in terms of involvement and dedicated hard work
is remarkably upgraded on every subsequent teacher-student evaluation-based interaction. Here again, the teacher
creates and fosters a non-threatening learning-ensuring atmosphere using his understanding of the students’
background - cultural, socio-economic and the like - which play important role in determining learning success
and the rate and pace of its consolidation.” Baskturkmen (1994) requires ‘a more natural type of interaction in
the class-room’ with a greater role for the students ‘in controlling the content and the flow of exchange’. Keeping
in view the above observations, it is quite reasonable to expect that a clear idea as to what should be the nature of
the teacher responsibility to make the Indian English second language teaching classroom desirably productive.
The mission-mode approach, the inspired mindset to do good to the learners and to the society as a whole, is
necessary if the ESL teaching project has to be made into a success.
The Indian UG ESL classroom with a literature-based, and literature-biased, syllabus at both
compulsory and Honours/major teaching courses is a complex forum where formality of the systemic discipline
makes learning of English as a language principally meant for use in real life situations difficult. To understand
this difficulty experienced by the learner(s), it is necessary to ask (a)if English language –as language warranted
to be taught - is difficult,(b)if literature given in English language – for course contents at given stages - is
difficult, or (c) if teaching of literature in English in Indian UG classes makes understanding of things -
literary/aesthetic-artistic - difficult. Each of the three questions is important and seeks to be answered if we intend
to bring to our English literature teaching classes some very definite and verifiable learning outcome. The ESL
teacher training courses need to find out if the answer to each of the above questions individually or together does
not contain the key to do away with the difficulty of the classroom English literature teaching at UG level. The
ESL teacher doing literature has to ask if learning suffers due to students’ improper and unwelcoming attitude to
English as a teaching subject, if literature offered in Indian languages and that in English pose difference in
experience and response - with resistance to English language affecting appreciation of literature offered in
English, and if therein the method of presenting literature using English language makes things difficult. In all the
cases, the perceptive teacher realises what is urgently warranted to be done in the situation with the compulsion
for him being to make students learn English as a language which they could very effectively use in all practical
situations of life and to make them appreciate literature on offer as really related to practical situations that life
faces.
172
MJAL 1:3 May 2009 ISSN 0974-8741
The Indian English Literature Teaching at UG level –An ELT view Krushna Chandra Mishra
The general poor response of students in literature classes in English is indicative of the fact that a good
deal needs to be done to make classes interesting, involving and interactive. When literatures is offered, the
teacher has to make the book (textual stuff prescribed ) practically as many times conveniently broken up into
inter-linkable parts as possible .These parts are to be further appropriately planned to be reproduced on a revision
teaching format to ensure that comprehension questions are asked, vocabulary exercises for synonyms, antonyms
and then right words in right situations and expressions, idiomatic expression etc. are given, composition
exercises based on the selected paragraphs or the ideas with which the classes have been conversant are assigned
and work produced by students where they show evidence of what they have learnt, what sequence of events on a
logical chain they have been able to give to the events, and what organisational pattern in terms of cohesion and
coherence they have been able to use is corrected to put matters in proper perspective – remedial lessons as may
be found useful could be conducted to enable less successful students to come up when proper encouragement in
continuous doses is provided to them both individually and ,when groups work, in suitable uniformly progressing
compatible groups.
The Indian ESL classrooms with adequate concentration on language development through literature
ideally stand to gain if the texts from the Indian English literature selected be offered at the UG level with
emerging Indians realities in mind and to hold the attention and interest of the youth to properly make them
responsible participants in the task of national re-construction. The role and responsibility of the English teaching
syllabus has to be arranging for the students their regular bread after the college education and making them
respond to the challenges the country and the world are poised to face due to unforeseen changes that keep on fast
invading the arena of our life and experiences. What Indian English literature classes offered on the language
teaching focus would then have to do may include some of the following:
1. Literature in the Indian sense of ‘sahitya’ has to be offered to show to the students that society-andindividual
linkage on a responsible basis of sympathy and concern is of a vital significance if a world based on
the ideal of vasudhaiva kutumbakam (one world-one family) and on the cherished eternal values of nonviolence,
love, co-operation and mutual respect is to be realised in future;
2. Literature is to be offered under properly planned divisions of the syllabus into units and sub-units to ensure
conscious learning of language structures, and an insight into how the same could be used for producing
connected compositions in oral and written discourses;
3. Testing, evaluation and remedial teaching have to be done to have a proper assessment of learners’
understanding of the Indian situation, the global situation, the emerging order of realities, and the problemsolving
demands on the language learning for handling the questions of human rights and equality.
Towards building up a language-development-oriented literature teaching in Indian ESL teaching
situation consistent careful efforts need to be made where the classroom teaching should equip the young collegegoing
students in India with a growing sense of patriotism that would be open to embrace and appreciate
whatever best could be there in the international experience. Syllabus, examination, evaluation – every aspect of
ELT accordingly would have to be appropriately re-cast to face the challenges of globalisation while in every
way making the best use of the opportunities created by globalisation drives.
REFERENCES:
1. Baskturkmen, H. 1994. Using Leanrers’ Writing for information-Gap Activities. In English
Teaching Forum. January 1994, p 50
2. Bustall, C. 1975. Factors Affecting Foreign Language Learning: A Consideration of Some Current
Research Findings. Language Teaching and Linguistics: Abstract 8.1
173
MJAL 1:3 May 2009 ISSN 0974-8741
The Indian English Literature Teaching at UG level –An ELT view Krushna Chandra Mishra
3. Canale and Swain. 1979. as discussed in K.C Mishra and N.P.Mahapatra, Exploring Class-room
Strategies in the wake of E/IT- ELT Interface (paper jointly authored and presented at National Seminar
held at CIFEL, Regional Centre, Shillong on 16-17 November,2001)
4. Ellis, R.1994. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. New York: Oxford University Press.
5. Gambhir, V. 1991. Language Teaching and Discourse. In O.N. Koul (ed.) Language, Style and
Discourse. New Delhi: Bahri Publications.
6. Green, G. 1989.Pragmatics and natural language understanding. Hillsdale. N.J.: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
7. Green, Christopher F.1993 Learner Drives in Second Language Acquisition .English Teaching
Forum. January 1983.
8. Gumperz, J. (Ed.) 1982.Language and Social Identity. Cambridge University Press.
9. Krashen, S.D.1981. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
10. Mishra, K.C. 1996. English Literature Teaching and the Question of Students Development. NEIFES
proceedings, vol. 1996.
11. Mishra, K.C.1999.English studies in the North East - Defining the Approaches. (UGC
National seminar paper presented at C.I. College, Bishnupur (Manipur) on 1-2 Dec. 1999)
12. Mishra, K.C. 2001.Towards autonomy in the English teaching Classrooms in India (Paper
presented in the Seminar held on 30.8.01 during the 13th U.G.C Sponsored Refresher Course in
English (11/8/01 to 31/8/01) at Dept. of English, Dibrugarh University.
13. Mishra, K.C. 2001. E/IT & ELT: A few possible considerations of interface (Paper presented at the
National Seminar held at C.L.E.F.L. Regional Centre. Shillong on 16 -17 November ,2001)
14. Mishra, K.C. and Mahapatra, N.P., 2001. Exploring Classroom Strategies in the wake of E/IT –ELT
Interface (paper jointly authored and presented at National Seminar held at CIEFL Regional Centre,
Shillong on 16- 17 November,2001)
15. Patnaik, B.N. 1991. Stylistcs and ELT Programme in India, in O.N Koul (ed.) Language, Style and
Discourse. New Delhi: Bahri Publications.
16. Widdowson, H.G. 1983. New starts and different kinds of failure. In I.Pringle and J. Yalden (ed.) Learning
the Firs Language/ Second Language. Longman: Longman
17. Wilkins, D.A. 1977. Linguistics in Language Teaching. London: Edwin Arnold.
(*Paper presented at the 52nd All India English Teachers’ Conference held at RTM NAGPUR University,
Nagpur on 8-10 January 2008)
MJAL 1:3 May 2009 ISSN 0974-8741
Mishra
THE INDIAN ENGLISH LITERATURE TEACHING AT UG LEVEL – AN ELT VIEW*
Krushna Chandra Mishra
AUTHOR
Dr.Krushna Chandra Mishra has been involved in teaching English as a second language,
advanced grammar and applied English skills and literature and English language teaching for
more than 20 years. His interests include ELT, Indian writings, translations from Indian
languages, tribal folk literature and human rights and development issues. Besides, he has
authored three books and presented 37 research papers in national and international
conferences, seminars and workshops. He has been involved in educating distance learners in
Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh, and Indira
Gandhi Open University. He edits methods and methodology column in the MJAL.
Correspondence: Dr.Krushna Ch. Mishra, Reader, Dept. of English, Govt. College, Bomdila-790001, Arunachal
Pradesh , krushnasribdl@rediffmail.com,
A B S T R A C T
Literature teaching to facilitate language teaching goals and processes in Indian UG-level ESL classrooms need
to have a different orientation. Specific objectives once having been clearly outlined, it remains for the
enterprising teacher to perfectly plan the teaching progress strategies. The whole literature text needs to be broken
up into useful divisions to conform to the needs of the plan of progress which teaching in the language
achievements already targeted in some purpose-oriented way envisions. The achievement levels of the classroom
having been determined in some notional way worked out on the basis of initial interactions and informal tests
with different achiever-levels(such as LPLs or average or high achievers), the teacher is at advantage to use
literature texts in their tailor-made divisions for time allotments and time-bound coverage of matter such that
language items earmarked could be properly and verifiably taught to the benefit of the various achiever groups in
the ESL classrooms. The correction plan to keep the learner in the assured learning progress continuum has to
move accordingly where learning consolidation makes use of literary texts and highlights language properties to
help achieve the ESL teaching-learning goals as per syllabus-plans already formulated well in advance.
Introduction
This paper tries to read the existing Indian English Literature teaching scenario at collegiate UG teaching levels
in India and the ELT perspective is a basis against which a suggestion has been put forth so as to bring about a
healthy balance between literature-heavy leanings and extreme language-only orientation in our colleges. Two
things have been considered to be very relevant in our proposal - language of a certain desirable standard to be
visibly in use in interactive teaching mode, and literary appreciation skills to be further developed in the students
to lead them to expected levels of sophistication whereby students see cultural values and real life situations with
scope to use the available knowledge to answer problems of life in various complex situations. The Argument is
offered on how for complimentary and not countering purposes both literature and language teaching projects are
to be seen to be stepping-stones for proper literary analysis and thereby for interpretation of the Indian English
Literature. Reading, responding to texts and intentions, explaining ideas in proper logical chain and sequence,
scanning passages for substantiating stands and stances, summing up and again building upon important basic
ideas and issues etc. are things that show up how airy castles in fairy lands could only be built and seen to be
concretely existing once language in its ease and persuasive force grapples with life’s demanding crudities and
the reasoning mind expresses itself to plumb the depths at which the meaning of things lies.
Doing Indian English Literature in the language teaching way could be interesting and effective with UG
classes where students are mature to the degree where story sense in its sharing the ground with pragmatics of a
life in the world of flux shows them that in language only narratives occur and the life’s complexities explain
themselves only in the structured patterns of language behaviours of societies and people across the globe. That
Indian Literature including English works by Indian hands needs to share a cultural understanding primarily and
pertinently predominantly Indian is something that goes well with doing works of English/Western masters with
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The Indian English Literature Teaching at UG level –An ELT view Krushna Chandra Mishra
much of Western/European Christian thought and we would do well to give our students what verily they have to
get as intimate and not intimidating in the explanation of our UG texts. Breaking up selected parts into planned
smaller parts which could be shown as lying inter-linked in the final and overall integrated frame of things while
following as well as upholding the author’s artistic and aesthetic vision and many messages in compact language
packages is something that the UG ESL teacher may find useful to do while raising and teaching to raise
questions for better comprehension of reading matter in hand and for explanatory skill-based reproduction of
matter for oral and written test purposes
to meet examination and evaluation requirements throughout the country. In sum, we see a distinct need to
integrate language and literature teaching skills to benefit the students the most by removing their handicap in
both the spheres.
The Indian ESL Teaching Scene Using Literature - Problems and Expectations:
ELT in Indian situation is a matter that throws difficult challenges for the teacher of English who in his classroom
has to work for language learning of his students mostly while doing a lot many literary texts. Literary texts from
culturally different locations, namely, British, American or other regions, offer special challenges while
equipping the students with language sense and literary appreciation skills. The learner background at all stages
of education offers special challenges because of large class conditions and heterogeneous groups of learners.
Literature teaching on the new communicative teaching format at post-higher secondary level of ESL learning is
a complex challenge when moving from conventional teacher-centred classroom poses attitudinal and practical
difficulties on part of teachers.
B.N. Patanik evaluates the Indian scene saying: “… One can see that the two extremely important aims
of language planning in our country to-day are (a) the enrichment of Hindi so that it can prove adequate to fulfil
the task of functioning as the sole official language of the country, and (b) the rapid development of the regional
languages so that these can be used in as many domains as possible. Consequently… except for a very small
section of the people, Indians would tend to use English only in a very few situations in day-to-day life. This
must be reflected in the programme of English language teaching in this country…” (Patnaik: 1991) He holds:
The teacher of English in India is in a state of indecision on the issue of the variety of English which should
acquire the status of the educational model. … The decision to advise the learner against the use of colloquial
forms can be justified on the ground that since English in India is to be used in mostly formal and semi-formal
situations, the General English courses intended to teach language to all learners must be designed in such a way
as to teach formal and semi-formal styles. “(ibid.)
Gambhir (1991) in this connection observes: “…The most important thing for second language learners
is to be able to acquire or assimilate rules as to what different structures may mean in different social situations in
a given language…”, and again: “…The format of the classroom and teaching materials has to be as far as
possible close to natural socio-linguistic situations that a person is likely to encounter in the target society. The
classroom should be less of formal academic centre where the teacher is explaining how a language works and
students are taking notes; or, a teacher is making students drill key structures of a language. A language
classroom should emphasize activities which take place in real life communication rather than pattern
rehearsal…”
In continuation of the above, it is worthwhile to note that in the wake of the communicative
teaching strategies, the teacher of English has to take note of how production skills have assumed the highest
significance now. Gumperz (1982) and Green (1989) have laid emphasis on pronunciation, grammar and
discourse patterns’ and Tam (1997) has stressed the importance of ‘repetition’ in oral productions. Wilkins
(1997) has underlined the role of ‘grammar’ and ‘vocabulary’ without which meaningful communication is
impossible. Talagaki (1997) has suggested to make use of the promises held forth by ‘brain-storming, skits and
171
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The Indian English Literature Teaching at UG level –An ELT view Krushna Chandra Mishra
interviews’ for communicative purposes. Rivers and Temperley (1978) have seen the usefulness of writing and
speaking integration for reinforcement and mutual enrichment suggesting thereby also the importance of the
listening and reading skills in the communication-oriented success. Sheppard (1992) and Leiki (1992) recognize
the value of ‘content feedback’ in writing alongside ‘a limited amount of grammar, punctuation and spelling
feedback’ for effective writing. Ellis (1994) holds that ‘motivation’ is an important factor in student development
programmes and in projects meant to ensure learning. Green (1993) emphasizes on the need for appropriate
teacher work in terms of planning for sustaining motivation at the pre-teaching, while-teaching and post-teaching
phases.
Green (1993) also draws attention to the fact that the teacher must recognise that in “large teachercentred
classes, students have little opportunity to deliver enough output to be judged fairly or receive
constructive feedback to enhance feelings of security and success.” Indian classrooms being especially ‘large
teacher centred’ ones the need is to help/support the emotional state of the learners that is so vital to the language
learning situations. Mishra and Mahapatra (2001) observe: “ …the teacher’s task consist pre-eminently in
strengthening the individual students’ resolution to progress on the basis of their successful learning experiences
which the teacher necessarily critically most sensibly makes use of to stress the fact that confidence–level of the
participating students is boosted and contribution-level later on in terms of involvement and dedicated hard work
is remarkably upgraded on every subsequent teacher-student evaluation-based interaction. Here again, the teacher
creates and fosters a non-threatening learning-ensuring atmosphere using his understanding of the students’
background - cultural, socio-economic and the like - which play important role in determining learning success
and the rate and pace of its consolidation.” Baskturkmen (1994) requires ‘a more natural type of interaction in
the class-room’ with a greater role for the students ‘in controlling the content and the flow of exchange’. Keeping
in view the above observations, it is quite reasonable to expect that a clear idea as to what should be the nature of
the teacher responsibility to make the Indian English second language teaching classroom desirably productive.
The mission-mode approach, the inspired mindset to do good to the learners and to the society as a whole, is
necessary if the ESL teaching project has to be made into a success.
The Indian UG ESL classroom with a literature-based, and literature-biased, syllabus at both
compulsory and Honours/major teaching courses is a complex forum where formality of the systemic discipline
makes learning of English as a language principally meant for use in real life situations difficult. To understand
this difficulty experienced by the learner(s), it is necessary to ask (a)if English language –as language warranted
to be taught - is difficult,(b)if literature given in English language – for course contents at given stages - is
difficult, or (c) if teaching of literature in English in Indian UG classes makes understanding of things -
literary/aesthetic-artistic - difficult. Each of the three questions is important and seeks to be answered if we intend
to bring to our English literature teaching classes some very definite and verifiable learning outcome. The ESL
teacher training courses need to find out if the answer to each of the above questions individually or together does
not contain the key to do away with the difficulty of the classroom English literature teaching at UG level. The
ESL teacher doing literature has to ask if learning suffers due to students’ improper and unwelcoming attitude to
English as a teaching subject, if literature offered in Indian languages and that in English pose difference in
experience and response - with resistance to English language affecting appreciation of literature offered in
English, and if therein the method of presenting literature using English language makes things difficult. In all the
cases, the perceptive teacher realises what is urgently warranted to be done in the situation with the compulsion
for him being to make students learn English as a language which they could very effectively use in all practical
situations of life and to make them appreciate literature on offer as really related to practical situations that life
faces.
172
MJAL 1:3 May 2009 ISSN 0974-8741
The Indian English Literature Teaching at UG level –An ELT view Krushna Chandra Mishra
The general poor response of students in literature classes in English is indicative of the fact that a good
deal needs to be done to make classes interesting, involving and interactive. When literatures is offered, the
teacher has to make the book (textual stuff prescribed ) practically as many times conveniently broken up into
inter-linkable parts as possible .These parts are to be further appropriately planned to be reproduced on a revision
teaching format to ensure that comprehension questions are asked, vocabulary exercises for synonyms, antonyms
and then right words in right situations and expressions, idiomatic expression etc. are given, composition
exercises based on the selected paragraphs or the ideas with which the classes have been conversant are assigned
and work produced by students where they show evidence of what they have learnt, what sequence of events on a
logical chain they have been able to give to the events, and what organisational pattern in terms of cohesion and
coherence they have been able to use is corrected to put matters in proper perspective – remedial lessons as may
be found useful could be conducted to enable less successful students to come up when proper encouragement in
continuous doses is provided to them both individually and ,when groups work, in suitable uniformly progressing
compatible groups.
The Indian ESL classrooms with adequate concentration on language development through literature
ideally stand to gain if the texts from the Indian English literature selected be offered at the UG level with
emerging Indians realities in mind and to hold the attention and interest of the youth to properly make them
responsible participants in the task of national re-construction. The role and responsibility of the English teaching
syllabus has to be arranging for the students their regular bread after the college education and making them
respond to the challenges the country and the world are poised to face due to unforeseen changes that keep on fast
invading the arena of our life and experiences. What Indian English literature classes offered on the language
teaching focus would then have to do may include some of the following:
1. Literature in the Indian sense of ‘sahitya’ has to be offered to show to the students that society-andindividual
linkage on a responsible basis of sympathy and concern is of a vital significance if a world based on
the ideal of vasudhaiva kutumbakam (one world-one family) and on the cherished eternal values of nonviolence,
love, co-operation and mutual respect is to be realised in future;
2. Literature is to be offered under properly planned divisions of the syllabus into units and sub-units to ensure
conscious learning of language structures, and an insight into how the same could be used for producing
connected compositions in oral and written discourses;
3. Testing, evaluation and remedial teaching have to be done to have a proper assessment of learners’
understanding of the Indian situation, the global situation, the emerging order of realities, and the problemsolving
demands on the language learning for handling the questions of human rights and equality.
Towards building up a language-development-oriented literature teaching in Indian ESL teaching
situation consistent careful efforts need to be made where the classroom teaching should equip the young collegegoing
students in India with a growing sense of patriotism that would be open to embrace and appreciate
whatever best could be there in the international experience. Syllabus, examination, evaluation – every aspect of
ELT accordingly would have to be appropriately re-cast to face the challenges of globalisation while in every
way making the best use of the opportunities created by globalisation drives.
REFERENCES:
1. Baskturkmen, H. 1994. Using Leanrers’ Writing for information-Gap Activities. In English
Teaching Forum. January 1994, p 50
2. Bustall, C. 1975. Factors Affecting Foreign Language Learning: A Consideration of Some Current
Research Findings. Language Teaching and Linguistics: Abstract 8.1
173
MJAL 1:3 May 2009 ISSN 0974-8741
The Indian English Literature Teaching at UG level –An ELT view Krushna Chandra Mishra
3. Canale and Swain. 1979. as discussed in K.C Mishra and N.P.Mahapatra, Exploring Class-room
Strategies in the wake of E/IT- ELT Interface (paper jointly authored and presented at National Seminar
held at CIFEL, Regional Centre, Shillong on 16-17 November,2001)
4. Ellis, R.1994. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. New York: Oxford University Press.
5. Gambhir, V. 1991. Language Teaching and Discourse. In O.N. Koul (ed.) Language, Style and
Discourse. New Delhi: Bahri Publications.
6. Green, G. 1989.Pragmatics and natural language understanding. Hillsdale. N.J.: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
7. Green, Christopher F.1993 Learner Drives in Second Language Acquisition .English Teaching
Forum. January 1983.
8. Gumperz, J. (Ed.) 1982.Language and Social Identity. Cambridge University Press.
9. Krashen, S.D.1981. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
10. Mishra, K.C. 1996. English Literature Teaching and the Question of Students Development. NEIFES
proceedings, vol. 1996.
11. Mishra, K.C.1999.English studies in the North East - Defining the Approaches. (UGC
National seminar paper presented at C.I. College, Bishnupur (Manipur) on 1-2 Dec. 1999)
12. Mishra, K.C. 2001.Towards autonomy in the English teaching Classrooms in India (Paper
presented in the Seminar held on 30.8.01 during the 13th U.G.C Sponsored Refresher Course in
English (11/8/01 to 31/8/01) at Dept. of English, Dibrugarh University.
13. Mishra, K.C. 2001. E/IT & ELT: A few possible considerations of interface (Paper presented at the
National Seminar held at C.L.E.F.L. Regional Centre. Shillong on 16 -17 November ,2001)
14. Mishra, K.C. and Mahapatra, N.P., 2001. Exploring Classroom Strategies in the wake of E/IT –ELT
Interface (paper jointly authored and presented at National Seminar held at CIEFL Regional Centre,
Shillong on 16- 17 November,2001)
15. Patnaik, B.N. 1991. Stylistcs and ELT Programme in India, in O.N Koul (ed.) Language, Style and
Discourse. New Delhi: Bahri Publications.
16. Widdowson, H.G. 1983. New starts and different kinds of failure. In I.Pringle and J. Yalden (ed.) Learning
the Firs Language/ Second Language. Longman: Longman
17. Wilkins, D.A. 1977. Linguistics in Language Teaching. London: Edwin Arnold.
(*Paper presented at the 52nd All India English Teachers’ Conference held at RTM NAGPUR University,
Nagpur on 8-10 January 2008)
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Scottish Book Trust is a lead member of Literature in Learning, a joint initiative from Scotland's literature organisations to support learning professionals in their use of creative language.
We are collaborating to support learning professionals develop creative uses of language with children, as well as disseminate example of good practice. LiL exists for the benefit of teachers, librarians, writers, storytellers, poets, playwrights, education advisers, cultural co-ordinators, university staff and parents.
Literature in Learning began as a shared project between Scottish Storytelling Centre, the Scottish Poetry Library and Scottish Book Trust. In its first incarnation it focussed on promoting the development of innovative and sustainable projects that explore the creative use of language in classrooms, with teachers, writers, poets and storytellers working alongside children to enrich their experience over an extended period of time.
The initiative aimed to ensure professional development for the adults involved, and looks to celebrate outcomes as well as finding ways of sharing effective practice. Literature in Learning will be investigating the long-term impact of projects on the adults and children involved.
Final report from phase 1 - download:
LIL Final Report- PDF version
LIL Final Report - Word Document version
The new phase of Literature in Learning aims to build on the work from the pilot project, incorporating many more of Scotland's literature organisations who will work together to grow their relationship with the learning sector in a meaningful and impactful way.
Find out more about this network and what it aims to do for learning professionals in the following sections:
* What is Literature in Learning
* Download the Literature in Learning ABC guide to organisations and services across the sector
* LiL News and Events
* Links to all of the literature organisations in Literature in Learning (direct to the relevant areas of their websites)
* Information about Curriculum for Excellence
* Projects which fulfil Curriculum for Excellence
* Advice on how to run your own literature project
* Resources from each of the LiL organisations (under development)
source: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/learning-and-inclusion/lil
We are collaborating to support learning professionals develop creative uses of language with children, as well as disseminate example of good practice. LiL exists for the benefit of teachers, librarians, writers, storytellers, poets, playwrights, education advisers, cultural co-ordinators, university staff and parents.
Literature in Learning began as a shared project between Scottish Storytelling Centre, the Scottish Poetry Library and Scottish Book Trust. In its first incarnation it focussed on promoting the development of innovative and sustainable projects that explore the creative use of language in classrooms, with teachers, writers, poets and storytellers working alongside children to enrich their experience over an extended period of time.
The initiative aimed to ensure professional development for the adults involved, and looks to celebrate outcomes as well as finding ways of sharing effective practice. Literature in Learning will be investigating the long-term impact of projects on the adults and children involved.
Final report from phase 1 - download:
LIL Final Report- PDF version
LIL Final Report - Word Document version
The new phase of Literature in Learning aims to build on the work from the pilot project, incorporating many more of Scotland's literature organisations who will work together to grow their relationship with the learning sector in a meaningful and impactful way.
Find out more about this network and what it aims to do for learning professionals in the following sections:
* What is Literature in Learning
* Download the Literature in Learning ABC guide to organisations and services across the sector
* LiL News and Events
* Links to all of the literature organisations in Literature in Learning (direct to the relevant areas of their websites)
* Information about Curriculum for Excellence
* Projects which fulfil Curriculum for Excellence
* Advice on how to run your own literature project
* Resources from each of the LiL organisations (under development)
source: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/learning-and-inclusion/lil
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