Focusing on EFL Reading: Theory and Practice
Edited by
Rahma Al-Mahrooqi and Adrian Roscoe
This book first published 2014
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
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Copyright © 2014 by Rahma Al-Mahrooqi, Adrian Roscoe and contributors
All rights for this book are reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
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ISBN
Contents
Introduction .................................................................................5-14
Part I Vocabulary and Reading .............................................................15Chapter 1:................................................................................16-43
The Role of Glossing in Vocabulary Learning and Reading Comprehension: A Critical Review of Seminal Studies and ParadigmsAbdelmagid Abdelrahman and Faisal Al-Homoud
Chapter 2:................................................................................44-59Vocabulary Knowledge and its Relationship with EAP Proficiency and Academic Achievement in an English-medium University in Oman.Thomas Roche and Michael Harrington
Chapter 3: ........................................................................................60-84The Development of Word Reading Skill in Secondary Schools in East AsiaDavid Coulson
Chapter 4:..............................................................................85-133Improving Foundation Program Students’ Reading Skills:Needs AnalysisAgnieszka Ptak and Hranush Ginosyan
Part II Extensive and Intensive Reading..................................................134Chapter 1:.............................................................................135-151
Promoting Reading through Self-Access CentresHala Salih Mohammed Nur
Chapter 2:.............................................................................152-164Readerthon: An Intense and Extensive Reading Program
Jayakaran Mukundan and Vahid Nimehchisalem Chapter 3: .....................................................................................165-192
Encouraging Reading and Self-Learning Among ESL Learners via the PBL ApproachNormala Othman and Maimunah Abdul Kadir
Chapter 4:.............................................................................193-219Selecting the Right Literary Texts for Middle Eastern Students: Challenges, Reactions and Possible SolutionsMarielle Risse and Rahma Al-Mahrooqi
Part III Reading Proficiency and Comprehension.......................................220Chapter 1:.............................................................................221-240
Readers’ Theatre: Setting the Stage for Oral Reading FluencyPatrick NG Chin Leong
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Chapter 2:.............................................................................241-269To Read or not to Read?Omar Al-Noursi
Chapter 3: .....................................................................................270-294Enhancing Weak Young Learners’ L2 Reading Proficiency: The Role of Self-Efficacy RaisingSami Dadi
Part IV Reading and Writing Integration.................................................295Chapter 1:.............................................................................296-312
Integrating Reading and Writing in ELTShaker Ali Al-Mohammadi
Chapter 2:.............................................................................313-334Comparing and Contrasting Rhetorical Markers in EFL Reading-Writing Convergences in a Tunisian Context.Soufiane Trabelsi
Part V Critical Reading.....................................................................335Chapter 1:.............................................................................336-348
Beyond Mere Textual Understanding: A Skeptical Approach to ReadingVijay Singh Thakur and Rahma Al-Mahrooqi
Chapter 2:.............................................................................349-392From Dead Page to Multiple Perspectives: The Text and BeyondNayyer Iqbal Ali Chandella
Chapter 3: ............................................................................393-407Teaching Critical Reading StrategiesEsther Boucher-Yip
Chapter 4:.............................................................................408-431Fostering Critical Thinking through Reading within ESL Teaching and LearningManouri Samarasinghe
Part VI Testing Reading....................................................................432Chapter 1:.............................................................................433-467
Testing EFL Reading: Test Development and Japanese University Entrance Examinations: Beliefs of Expatriate English Teaching FacultyMelodie Lorie Cook
Chapter 2:.............................................................................468-494Reading Assessment in South and Southeast AsiaWei Wei
Contributors ............................................................................495-499
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Part II /Chapter 4
Selecting the Right Literary Texts for Middle Eastern Students: Challenges, Reactions and Possible Solutions
Marielle Risse
Dhofar University, Oman
And
Rahma Al-Mahrooqi
Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
Abstract
The benefits of using literature in teaching and learning a foreign language are numerous. It not only embodies contextualized language, but also portrays human experience in breadth and depth and hence, through it, learners can be exposed to different cultures, with shared or unique beliefs, traditions and life styles. Given these advantages, and if used appropriately, literature can be a rich source of communicative language as it depicts actual language use in real situations. It can also be an ideal forum in which to develop cross-cultural understanding and critical thinking (Al-Mahrooqi, 2011a, Al-Mahrooqi, 2012). This paper, however, asks if all literature is fit to be used in EFL contexts. In particular, it addresses the questions “What criteria can be used to select appropriate literature for Omani EFL students?” and “What literary texts are considered best by these students?” Further, the paper reports on an exercise in which Omani students reacted to some texts they had studied.
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The paper concludes by recommending fiction and non-fiction texts that have worked with students who are majoring in English at Dhofar University, Oman.
Key words: literary texts, selection criteria, student reactions, Middle Eastern students, Omani students
Introduction
Literary language can be distinguished from non-literary language by its artistic quality and its emotional effect on readers as it appeals to their affective, cognitive, intellectual and psychological domains (Al-Mahrooqi, 2011a). These characteristics have persuaded many researchers and theorists to advocate literature for language learning and acquisition purposes. According to Vygotsky’s (1978, 1986) social interaction theory, literature can foster social interaction among language learners through the creation of a relaxed classroom. Through dialogue and negotiation of meaning, it can also increase personal involvement and enhance knowledge retention. Floris (2004) agrees. Literature offers natural language in natural settings and this language is not contrived since its authors write about matters of concern to them (Maley, 1989; cited in Floris, 2004). In addition, literature discusses important ethical, emotional and intellectual issues that touch the lives of people around the world. It unifies humanity by showing common struggles and challenges. In Floris’ words, “Literary texts so often touch on common themes and values which range from individual concerns to social issues such as death, love, pollution, ethnic conflicts.” Because it focuses on topics of critical importance to humanity, literature teaching can develop learners’ critical thinking skills. In Al-Mahrooqi’s (2012, p.172) view, “With its endless capturing of diverse viewpoints, literature can also teach learners critical independence – how to discern the true from the false, how to examine one’s own values and beliefs alongside those of others”. Literature, then, is a good source for experiencing and juxtaposing different perspectives and attitudes, different beliefs and practices (Parkinson & Thomas, 2000), which might take learners out of their comfort zones to examine the other and discover shared human qualities and concerns.
Khatib, Rezaei and Derakhshan (2011) not only claim that literature is
authentic, but also that it provides a source of motivation for students, fosters cultural and intercultural awareness, provides intensive and
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extensive reading practice, equips learners with pragmatic knowledge, teaches vocabulary, grammar and the four language skills, and boosts their emotional intelligence and critical thinking.
Since language and culture (Hall, 1999, 2002; Hinkel, 1999; Kachru, 1999) are intertwined, teaching literature means exposing learners to new cultural contexts (Obeidat, 1997) which will broaden their perspective and increase their tolerance of difference and an acceptance of norms and values which are not completely in line with their own. This is important for FL learners as acceptance of the foreign language culture means less negative attitudes towards its native speakers and hence more positive attitudes towards the language itself, which will definitely lead to enhanced language learning skills. According to Karmani (2005, as cited in Tabakow, 2012), negative attitudes towards English in the Gulf can impede language learning, a comment echoing other researchers’ and theorists’ beliefs and findings.
However, not all literature is appropriate for use in the EFL classroom.
As Al-Mahrooqi (2011a, p. 75) states, “The learners’ level of language proficiency, their interests, and the objectives of the course should help the teacher to determine the appropriate literature type to be used in the FL classroom”. Further, she suggests that “For beginners, literature with familiar contexts will work better as it will free the learners from contextual nuances and complications which could hinder comprehension. After learners have developed linguistic competence, and in order to develop their critical thinking, varying options can be considered” (p. 75).
However, context familiarity is not easily determined, especially by foreign teachers who are not intimately familiar with their students’ social backgrounds, beliefs and practices. In addition, foreign literature can depict experiences that are valid for all humanity, so foreignness in terms of nationality or text origin is not a clear-cut indication that it is inappropriate for a given audience. Sometimes authors who share the same nationality as student readers write on topics unacceptable in their societies and thus their work is actually banned. A good example is the proscription of work by such Arab women as Nawaal al-Saadawi and Hanan al-Sheikh, who talk explicitly about sex and expose situations that are taboo in their societies. Also to assume the relevance of literary work from an ethnic group to people in the same group might not be accurate. Omani and Bahraini university students “showed uneasiness about Arab American poetry’s relevance to their own experience in their studies of English language literature” (Tabakow, 2012, p. 97). It seems that
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teachers must pay attention to the themes of the literary texts to ensure that they are not at odds with accepted societal norms in the local setting. Tabakow (2012, p. 100) cites Alkire and Alkire’s (2002, para. 2) words about Western literary themes that are “viewed negatively by authority figures as well as…some professors and students”. In addition, Youssef (2010) states, “Reading a text that is removed in time, space and culture from its audience represents a contradiction to the students’ world of immediate gratification, because the text does not yield immediate meanings or relay instant messages” (p. 28). Al-Mahrooqi (2011b) agrees:
Given problems around culture and background, therefore, it is not only a text’s linguistic features that can prevent comprehension but content-related factors too. Research has found that when textual information matches a reader’s background knowledge, greater comprehension and recall take place … By contrast, mismatch between textual input and a reader’s background knowledge creates difficulties, which also happens if incoming textual data is totally new (p. 1561).
Hence, it is important that EFL teachers look for appropriate texts to teach literature both effectively and with sensitivity to the local culture.
The above discussion suggests that selecting appropriate literary texts is of paramount importance for language learners, but it is, unfortunately, not an easy task (Kurkjian & Livingstan, 2005) as one text might not fit all readers under all situations. For example, in the Middle East, literature teachers are often faced with a problem when teaching reading - how to find authentic, appropriate and interesting texts? Many texts exist for younger students and graded readers for lower-level students, but it is sometimes difficult to find good texts for older learners at the upper intermediate level who cannot yet read fluently but have moved beyond short essays with lots of vocabulary scaffolding. Our experience also demonstrates that it is not easy to find texts that are totally appropriate for Middle Eastern students, Omanis in this case.
Most education studies we encountered were focused on younger students. For example, Galda and Beach’s (2001) “Response to Literature as a Cultural Activity” focuses almost exclusively on middle and high school students. (See also Nystrand and Gamoran 1991, Beach 1997, Boyd
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2002, Pike 2002, Brooks 2006, Nobles 2009.) When we found university-based research it involved either a small set, for example, 10 students (Hung 2009) or university-level education students (Singer and Smith 2003).
Thus, the available research does not fit our situation. For example, Valdes’ (1986) “Culture in Literature” is about her teaching a course called “American Life Through Literature” to sophomore non-native speakers of English at the University of Houston (p. 139). She has an interesting choice of texts, but her focus is on explaining American culture to Americans and thus would not be appropriate for our situation. For example, “A & P”, about a boy who supports a girl’s right to wear a bathing suit in the store, would not be a cultural fit. The Scarlet Letter is too difficult and one would need to be cautious when teaching “Home Burial” as it is very emotional. In one literature class, Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-term Break” was taught and a student collapsed weeping over what must have been a remembered event. The class simply shut down in sympathy with her and the teacher vowed never to teach a poem about the death of a child again.
In a similar manner, Kramsch (1993) focuses on literature in the foreign language classroom from a Western point of view. She suggests that when reading Lord of the Flies teachers should encourage students to imagine the impact of the story on different audiences: “a feminist, an officer in the British navy, a priest, a schoolboy, an avid reader of adventure stories, a Marxist, a boy scout” (p. 151). Of the seven choices, only ‘schoolboy’ would be understandable within our students’ framework.
In Kramsch’s discussion of teaching poetry, she emphasizes increasing class participation by creating a “performance” (p. 158). This would be useful in Western classrooms; however, in the Middle East, female students usually will not ‘act’ in front of male students. Teachers can prod students to ‘recite’ in mixed-gender classrooms, but even trying to have three female students read the female character and three male students read the male character was seen by Dr. Risse’s students as too much like a ‘conversation’. Students will read lines of poems or plays if we simply go around the room, each student reading a line in turn, but students do not want to participate in more developed readings, i.e. a girl reading Juliet and a boy reading Romeo for a page of text. Similarly, Kramsch’s ideas for using several translations of the same poem are useful only in a classroom with higher-level language ability.
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Most research article authors felt that multi-cultural literature was a good idea (Ahearn & Weinstein, 1995; Lionnet, 1995), working out from either the notion that white, middle-class students should have exposure to other cultures or that students from culture X (perhaps a minority in the United States but often the majority in their school/ neighborhood) should be able to read about culture X in the classroom, i.e. African-American, Hispanic, Caribbean, Asian, etc.
In Oman, the situation is quite different. Omanis have a highly evolved oral culture which emphasizes and honors poetics but a small body of written literature, very little of which is taught in the classroom. In an article about teacher-education students at the university level, Singer and Smith (2003) state “for white and heterosexual readers, who are more used to finding themselves in books, multicultural literature introduces opportunities for seeing the world through other people’s eyes” (p. 17). Omani students have seldom seen themselves in books outside broad cultural markers such as “Muslims” or “Arabs”. Therefore, it is essential to explore their reactions to various literary texts to determine their preferences and then decide what texts will present meaningful experiences to them and will be conducive to their learning.
Purpose of the StudyAfter examining student reactions to texts read in their literature
classes, this paper will recommend a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts which have been effective in getting Middle Eastern students interested in reading and starting class discussions. Our basic rubric is that a text can be used if either the language or theme is difficult, but never if both are. We also think that teachers should not feel compelled to teach all of any given short piece. We believe it is more important for readers to start having ‘authentic’ reading experiences, e.g. be given an essay with no vocabulary support. Yet to study a long essay might be frustrating, so teachers should feel free to choose just one or two pages. If students are interested in their topic, they can finish essays on their own.
We will first discuss the study and then provide a list of texts which students have enjoyed and an in-depth discussion of two authors whose work fits well in a Middle Eastern classroom. We hope that by presenting a wide selection, teachers will be encouraged to use a variety of reading texts.
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Context of the Study: Challenges and ReactionsIn the Middle East, there have been many economic social and
educational changes in the last fifty years. The modernization of the Arabian Peninsula’s population is occurring at varying speeds. Oman, an Arabian Gulf country, has been transformed under the wise leadership of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos, who has carefully attempted to steer a ‘middle course’, resulting in steady forward progress while ensuring the retention of the country’s cultural identity and heritage. Despite this ‘middle course’ policy, some people may feel uncomfortable that the pace of change is too fast or even too slow. These people’s perceptions are sometimes dependent on the geographical locations of their regions within Oman, with people from Muscat, the capital, more accepting of change and modernity. However, conservative and liberal Omanis are found everywhere in varying degrees, with the type of education they received being a determining factor.
Dhofar, Oman’s southernmost region (called a Governorate), where this study took place, is a case in point. Within one class a teacher can have students who would like to study only Arabic texts which reflect a conservative Muslim life-style, students who want only Western texts showing a Western lifestyle, and students who would like a mix. To explain the situation in another manner, no female student has ever expressed a wish not to wear an abayah (the black cloak some Muslim women wear) and a head scarf, but some feel that all women should wear face veils (with only the eyes showing). Some women are happy with the present situation (abayahs, headscarves which cover all or most of the hair); some, however, prefer to wear open/ more colorful abayahs and have the headscarf either draped loosely over their head or around their shoulders. While Salalah, Dhofar’s biggest city, is quite modern, one can still see camels straining their necks to browse on trees overhanging garden walls. To the local population this is normal, but to a foreign teacher coming to Oman from a western country this might seem eccentric. Omani students, though, are amazed by a bizarre and unusual animal they have seen only in movies: the squirrel. In the same way, they find stories about a man with several wives normal but do not understand why American women don’t kiss when they greet each other.
In addition to students’ distinctive context and the limitations it plays on choosing suitable literary texts, there are additional challenges related to English levels. In the lower level classes, canonical authors such as Jane
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Austen require a large amount of explicit scaffolding. For example, when reading Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence, a teacher might manage to get through only half of the book in a semester, reading 3 or 4 pages per day and skipping several sections.
Themes that are too foreign frustrate students. For example, we found that students hated William Hazlitt’s “On Going on a Journey” because he argued the need to travel alone, which seemed weird to students. Who would want to travel alone? was the general response. On the other hand, students were discouraged by Robert Louis Stevenson’s “An Apology for Idlers” and “The Lantern-Bearers” as the language was too difficult. Eudora Welty’s “The Little Store” was pronounced too boring as “nothing happens”. When students tune out, learning suffers. Of course, teachers should not only choose texts which will amuse students but, given the large amount of available choices, it is not difficult to find works which are pedagogically sound as well as attractive.
Literary texts, especially canonical ones, have different timeframes, places and cultures from the students’, which might alienate them (Youssef, 2010). However, in addition to time, space, culture and language dislocations, the present study shows that Omani students have a further level of alienation in terms of religion.
When teaching The Middle Ages, this collection of poems included a version of the “Cherry Tree Carol” in which Mary asks Joseph for some cherries. He responds, “Let him pluck thee a cherry that brought thee now with child.” Jesus, unborn, then commands the tree to bow down. A non-Omani teacher might think that since Jesus is included and honored in the Holy Qur’an, this would be an easy poem to discuss. However, there are many differences between the Muslim and Christian versions of the virgin birth. In the Muslim version, Joseph is not included. There is no stable, no star and no husband figure. Mary gives birth to Jesus entirely alone, then brings him back to her village. Her people questioned her as to how she got pregnant and asked, ‘How did you come with this baby, you are from a good family with good parents?’ Jesus, as a newborn, speaks and defends her. There is, however, one surprising similarity with the “Cherry Tree Carol”. In the Muslim version, Jesus asks Mary to shake the date palm tree to give her fresh dates. This was not discussed as a ‘variant’ or ‘difference’. Students simply felt that the cherry poem was wrong – it was a date palm tree and Mary did not ask for the fruit etc. The sense, in the poem, that God is just and ever-present, agreed with the students’ religious
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beliefs, as well as with the importance given to religion in their own society.
Sometimes the difference in perspective is amazing and a text may shift radically in terms of its geography. For example, Beowulf changes completely. As a colleague explained:
Students seemed to grasp almost immediately the concept of a society which cohered around collective values rather than individualism. They understood that everyone had a role in the society, a role which was defined by family relationships. Conflict between tribes, and alliances between tribes, were familiar to them. They understood how the epic hero held the tribal society together, and how Beowulf's death could signal social disorder and disintegration.Most students were convinced that the action of Beowulf represented a struggle between good and evil, with Beowulf as an uncomplicated ideal man, and Grendel as pure evil. They had difficulties with a reading of the action in psychoanalytic terms, with Grendel’s attacks at night on the sleeping warriors read as a dramatization of the chaos of the sub-conscious mind. They more readily comprehended Grendel as the threat of social disorder, with the hall representing the center of order for the tribal society.
In addition to issues of religion and geography, a literature teacher might face the issues of choosing texts that are age-appropriate, suitable (i.e. no explicit sex, no drugs, no politics) and “defensible depictions of everyday ethnic group practice” (Brooks, 2006, p. 375). The texts also have to have a fairly low level of English. In teaching Shakespeare’s plays, Dr. Risse, one of the present authors, used about one third of the text, explaining and acting out the rest as the language was too daunting. In the prose class, she would deliberately alternate an easier text, such as a Kipling short story, with a more difficult piece, such as a Deborah Tannen
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article. In poetry classes she would alternate, for example Robert Burns’ “A Red, Red Rose” with Herrick’s “A Ring Presented to Julia” and Pope’s “Ode on Solitude” with Keats’ “When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be”.
The last requirement, harder to qualify, was that texts, as seen within Omani culture, had to teach a positive moral lesson. Some students were uncomfortable, for instance, if there was any mocking of an authority figure. As Galda and Beach (2001) found, “Students would draw on their own expectations for appropriate lived-world language practices to interpret characters’ social practices, expectations that were shaped by the cultures in which they live and work” (p. 68). Dr. Risse used Peter Pan in an “Introduction to Literature” classroom, but a few students complained that Wendy, Michael and John were not respectful to their parents. In addition, she taught The Importance of Being Earnest, which was enjoyed by more students, though a few complained that Algernon lied and thus was not a good person and that Dr. Risse should have chosen a “better” text.
According to Beach (1997, p. 70), “students are socialized or positioned to adopt stances associated with their membership or status in certain communities” This is true of Omani students. Some teachers believe it is the responsibility of teachers to challenge these stances, but as foreign teachers do not have membership in their students’ communities (family, tribe, religion, or nationality), we believe teachers should present the way literature reflects the opinions of authors as shown through characters and narrators, but not force students to adopt those same beliefs. Literature professors can teach The Importance of Being Earnest as a text worthy of study and explain that Algernon was created and now interpreted as a positive, comic character. But they must allow students to differentiate between ‘received’ opinion on Algernon (positive) and personal opinion (negative).
Galda and Beach (2001) argue that students should face texts and classroom discussions that confront their beliefs, “the fact that they are bothered or disturbed by these concerns, issues, or dilemmas operating in worlds or systems enhances their engagement with inquiry about these worlds or systems” (p. 70). Yet their example is a teacher who is part of the student’s micro- (school) and macro- (nation) society. The question is how much should a foreign teacher push a foreign agenda? In Oman, there is no possible public negative conception of family or religion; “traditions” are coded as positive and should be upheld. Characters in
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some texts might question the ability or mandate of a parent or authority figure, but this must be handled with care. For example, when a colleague taught Joyce’s short story “Eveline,” the majority of the Omani students believed the protagonist should stay to take care of her father. When Dr. Risse taught “To Shoot an Elephant” by Orwell, the students commented that it was rude of the Burmese to spit on Orwell and, of course, he should have shot the elephant.
In talking about Lord of the Flies, Omanis in their 30s and 40s told Dr. Risse that it would be an interesting book to teach. However, students were very sensitive to any negative actions by characters in a story. For example, they complained about Mohammed Alwan’s “Love and Rain” (1988) because it depicted a mother who hit her son, and because it was “not good” to show such a negative event in a story.
The question we return to is what does it mean to teach English
literature in an ESL setting in a post-modern, post-colonial world? We should not, of course, teach imperialist or colonial texts; yet, while Kipling is surely a ‘colonial’ author, his Jungle Book stories have long been many Omani students’ favorite texts. Further, because students are already facing some foreign instructors, a foreign language, foreign concepts, foreign metaphors and foreign literary terms, teachers should try to balance the new and the familiar. For example, at the beginning of the semester, Dr. Risse gave students the simple amusing poem “The Plaint of the Camel” by Charles Edward Carryl, which would seem “exotic” in a Western classroom though quite normal here.
From Arab poetry, students enjoy most “Mu’allaqat”, seven famous Arabic poems by seven different authors composed in the 500s and 600s and which center on tribal desert life. Although it is hard to imagine Western undergraduates freely quoting from Bede, “The Song of Roland”, or “The Dream of the Rood,” the “Mu’allaqat” poems have a continued relevance for Omani students’ lives.
On the other hand, many Western texts are impenetrable, not simply from a linguistic point of view, but because they show themes and ideas so alien to standard Omani ways of life that the result is confusion and rejection, as discussed earlier. When given Hazlitt’s “On Going on a Journey”, students did not like it, although one would expect that the idea of walking in nature might appeal to them as many students drive to the mountains on weekends with their families to have picnics and walks. But
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Hazlitt stresses going alone, which led to comments such as: “I didn’t like the ‘On Going on a Journey’ story because it’s boring. Another thing, the idea of being alone is crazy… The story is unuseful” and “The idea of loneliness which the writer is talking about is stupid I think. I didn’t like it because life is beautiful with people and family.” Another student wrote “I don’t agree with this point to be alone and not make any relationship with others. He only wants to be alone. Also I think this essay is not interesting.”
Some literature teachers believe that they must “push on” against these negative reactions. But while we would never advise creating syllabi simply to please students, we know first-hand that it is important to listen to students’ reactions and to take into consideration their confusion and disapproval.
The StudyIn spring, 2010, we decided to directly give students in the English
program a series of simple surveys about the texts they had studied in order to discover which texts they remembered and their opinion of them.
Drawing on the ideas and findings of our reflections, the surveys, and the relevant literature, including Al Harthi (2005), Pike (2002), Singer and Smith (2003), and Youssef (2010), the study aimed to examine and address issues of concern that literature teachers face in terms of the choice of appropriate literary texts to be selected for teaching.
The main objective was to answer a basic pedagogical question: Is it better for students to be given texts aligned with their native culture or foreign texts which reflect the foreign language they are studying? We were especially interested in their impression of the plays, given the wide disparity of texts taught and our main question was ‘what kind of text was best?’
The department had approximately 25% Western teachers, 25% Indian teachers and 50% Arab teachers. There were 96 students registered for a diploma (a 2-year qualification) and 83 registered for bachelors’ degrees in the Department of Language and Translation. Females were a substantial majority.
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In an attempt to ascertain students’ views, three questionnaires were prepared. The first asked about the required course, English 160 - Introduction to Literature - which briefly covers poems, fiction and drama and is usually taken in the first or second semester as it is a pre-requisite for all literature courses. The syllabus usually includes 5-6 poems, 1-3 short stories and scenes from a play.
English 290 is the required poetry course, usually taken in the second or third year. It is not meant to be a chronological survey of Western literature, but rather an overview of how poetry works in English. The same vocabulary from English 160 is used, with additional poetry-specific words. In practical terms, about 10 to 25 poems are covered in one semester. The third survey focuses on the issue of teaching English-only or English and Arabic-in-translation poetry.
The English 160 survey (on the introduction to literature) was answered by 103 students, the survey for English 290 (poetry) by 58 students and that on the texts by 52 students. Given that there were 179 students in the department, that more than half of the English majors took only the two-year degree, and that non-majors rarely took the literature classes, there were, naturally, far fewer who had taken the upper-level English 290 class. These were given the survey on texts which was designed only for upper-level students.
The surveys were administered at the beginning or end of regular classes and mainly contrasted English literature with texts “written in Arabic”.
Results103 students answered the survey about English 160. We were most
interested in their impressions of the plays, given the wide disparity of texts taught. Would an easy play elicit a more positive reaction than a more difficult one? Dr. Risse had taught Peter Pan twice (the first two acts in one class, the last two acts in another), and the opening acts of Cyrano once (with all mention of alcohol removed). Another instructor had taught Doll’s House for several semesters. We were interested to learn which kind of text was thought best. The answer was that students had a positive response to all three. Of the 30 students who indicated that they had read Doll’s House, 26 (86%) liked it and 4 did not. Of the 21 students who indicated that they had studied Peter Pan, 19 (90%) reacted positively and
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2 negatively. Of the 13 students who said they had read Cyrano, all gave a positive response.
Details of the positive reaction were similar for all three plays on the issue of their characters, with nine positive mentions for Doll’s House (DH) and Peter Pan (PP). All thirteen students who had read Cyrano (C) cited its characters as a positive element. “Interesting” was mentioned 9 times for DH, 8 times for PP and 4 times for C. The phrase “liking the plot/ events” was mentioned 4 times for DH and PP and 6 times for C. The “Lesson it taught me” was chosen 4 times for DH and PP and 3 times for C. The differences were predictable: PP was described as “fun/ enjoyable” 6 times, but only twice for DH. However, DH was described as “showing issues in the society” 3 times, a comment that did not show up in regard to PP or C. Lastly, DH was described as “improving vocabulary” 6 times, with only 3 times for C and not mentioned at all for PP.
Of the 58 students who answered the survey on English 290, 49 (84.5%) remembered the names of the poems studied, 27.6% (16 students) the names of those in Arabic, and 82% (40 students) those in English. Of the pieces chosen as “favorite”, 6 Arabic poems (total of 12 mentions) and 21 English poems (total of 27 mentions) poems were mentioned. Eleven poems were included which could not be identified.
Of the total of 9 negative comments, 2 were about Paradise Lost. Those 2 were also the only comments which were specific about 1 text (“about a devil” and “long and about a devil”) while the other remarks simply comprised the words “boring, “long,” and “didn’t understand.” Under the ‘other remarks’ section there were an additional 2 negative comments: “about Satan,” and “the poem talking about Satan not good and very long.” We think the observation “One poem about Silton not good” might also be a reference to Milton’s poem. Other negative comments were “scary” and “talking about another’s thinking and beliefs” and “about war, fighting, death and sadness”, all of which could be references to Paradise Lost.
In answer to the question on whether only English texts or translated
Arabic and English texts should be taught, 32 students (55.2%) thought only English texts should be included and 26 (44.8%) wanted both kinds.
Of the 52 students who answered the survey on texts, in which we asked them to remember if they were taught any poems or stories translated from Arabic, 10 (79.2%) remembered the names of specific
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poems and 25 (48.1%) remembered the name of a story. The question of greatest interest (student opinion on the original language/ culture of the texts) was evenly divided. Twenty-five students (48%) thought that both English and translated Arabic texts should be taught, 27 (52%) opted for English only texts, while 1 student wrote, rather succinctly, “English poems in English, Arabic poems in Arabic.”
In some of the other surveys, the comments were confusing: “I want to read English story and poems because I’m Arabic woman!” We think this means that the student felt sufficiently grounded in her own culture and so wants English texts in class. Another perplexing quote was “We are Arabs so we have to know our poems and short stories and there is no harm if we study English.” Again, we believe the students was asserting that a knowledge of local/ Arabic texts was either already established or would be by the local culture/ family and thus university classes should reflect the foreign culture. A fine distinction was drawn by one student who wrote, “Arabic lit is useful, English lit is interesting.”
This study is a useful reminder that taking students outside their comfort zones will have positive results, although texts with foreign themes and very difficult language, such as Paradise Lost, might perhaps be too demanding. Of course, the goal of teaching is not merely to provide students with texts they enjoy, but, given that College of Arts and Applied Sciences students will probably become language teachers or continue their studies in such fields as education and social work, we think that giving them appropriate texts is a key factor in teaching not only ‘literature’ but life-long reading habits.
The aim of this study was to answer a basic pedagogic question: Is it better for students to be given texts which are aligned with their native culture or foreign texts which reflect the foreign language they are studying? The result clearly shows that both types of literature should be used. We hope that the study will stimulate many others as this topic needs further exploration. We also hope teachers who repeat the process will do so in a more methodical and measured manner and thus begin to build up an accurate picture of the views of Middle Eastern students on their college reading experiences. There needs to be more data on what texts to teach, and how to teach them, which could then be worked into practical guidelines for sample syllabi, class planning, text selection, teaching workshops and materials production.
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Recommendations for Choosing Texts and Sample Syllabi
Our watchwords for choosing texts are authenticity, appropriateness, and interest. Authenticity suggests that students should be given unaltered English essays as they were first published, without explicit scaffolding. Appropriateness suggests that the work should not violate cultural norms, e.g. exclude explicit sexual references, graphic violence and/ or celebration of alcohol or drugs. Interest suggests that the topic should be appealing to college students and/or be presented in a manner that will motivate them to read.
Below is a list of texts for “Prose and Fiction,” a mid-level reading course which students usually take in the first semester of their second year. The prerequisite is “Introduction to Literature”, a course which briefly covers the genres of poetry, short stories and drama. After the Introduction course, students are then required to take two more narrowly focused courses - one on poetry and the other on prose. The overall course focuses on reading, but students are also expected to deliver two recitations - the first in which they read a paragraph aloud in front of the class and the second in which they must memorize a paragraph and also recite it to the class.
• Jahiz – “What is a Book?”• Mustapha Kamal – Juha (excerpt)• David Crystal, The Little Book of Language, chapters: “Texting”, “Language and Feeling”, “Language Style”• Mohammed al Murr – “Dinner by Candlelight”• Hamza Bogary – The Sheltered Quarter (except)• Deborah Tanner – “The Power of Talk”• Chief Seattle – “Thoughts”• O. Henry – “The Last Leaf”
This syllabus includes fiction and non-fiction, as is required for the course, as well as a mixture of Middle Eastern and Western texts. Jahiz, a canonical Arab author, is used to introduce the topic of reading. His piece is a tapestry of metaphors about reading - for example, “a book is a companion that does not flatter you, a friend that does not irritate you, a crony that does not weary you.” Most students are familiar with Jahiz, so reading a short piece from him allows them to use such vocabulary items such as author, narrator, didactic, diction, metaphor, and exposition as
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seen in a familiar text. Also, since the text contains so many metaphors and similes, students can easily start to create their own. Some of the more vivid examples actually produced include the following: • She is anxious as an ambulance.• She is like a house that protects you from the weather conditions.• She never harms anyone like a goat.• She is like a lion. She does not allow anyone that tramples on the tip of her.• Her heart is like a house that includes all people.• When my little flower cries, the walls run away from her sound.
When the pink flower runs in the garden, the trees smile at her.
The second piece is an excerpt from Kamel’s version of Juha. Students from this learn more literary vocabulary (setting, character, dilemma, dialog, plot, turning point) but feel poised between the alien (English language) and the familiar (a well-known Arabic character). In this class, several students chose this piece as their favorite work as it is amusing and they wanted to know what would happen - a good example of the idea that if you get the students interested in the text, they will forget that reading in English is ‘work.’
After this introduction, students then moved to several chapters from the Crystal book, which will be discussed below. The next texts were stories which the students really enjoyed as they depicted “real” situations. “Dinner by Candlelight” is about an Emirati husband who consistently refuses to grant his wife’s request to have dinner together at a nice restaurant. When he finally changes his mind they, despite his initial misgivings, have a wonderful conversation. Students liked the actual depiction of an unhappy marriage in which husband and wife, by the end of the story, learn to communicate with each other.
Tannen’s article was thought to be difficult, but it also produced much conversation and good writing as students debated gender differences in communication styles. “Thoughts” is a metaphor-rich piece about the connection between people and landscapes. “The Last Leaf” is a typical trick-ending O. Henry story which, though the language was a little difficult for some students, the class enjoyed as everyone wanted to know if Johnsy would die. This syllabus is rather a hodgepodge, as the class is supposed to present a selection of short texts in order to improve their reading ability as preparation for classes with longer texts such as novels and plays.
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We will now discuss other texts which could be added to intermediate-level reading classes. Dr. Risse found that starting with a familiar text or author was a good way to ease students into public reading, as with Jahiz’s “What is a Book?” Khalil Gibran’s “The Arabic Language” is also an excellent essay. The beginning of A Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih has a wonderful two-page description of a small village which students could use as a model for writing their own account of their neighborhood.
Starting a class with a familiar text such as Hamza Bogary’s The Sheltered Quarter [Saqifat al-Safa] allows students to relate to the text and gain confidence in their ability to read and express themselves in English. For example, one student wrote, “I agree with Muhaisin’s mother when she said, “If you insist of going, I shall go with you the first time.” All mothers in the world care about their children and they protect them.” Other interesting autobiographical essays which help students to think and write about their childhood include “Once More to the Lake” by E. B. White, M.F.K. Fisher’s “The Gastronomical Me” (excerpts) about cooking with the author’s mother, and essays from Naomi Shibab Nye’s Never in a Hurry. A very exciting piece is “He was a Good Lion,” from West with the Night by Beryl Markham, in which the author is attacked by a lion. Students could take that essay as an example of writing about a scary event in childhood.
More academic themes can be found in Linda Hogan’s “For Life’s Sake,” about this Native American author learning to become a writer and celebrating her affinity with the natural world, and Martin Luther King’s canonical piece “The Purpose of Education.” Richard Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire” is also useful for starting classroom discussions as Rodriguez discusses how his academic achievement separated him from his family, culture and community.
Students also liked Kenko’s Essays in Idleness (10, 22, 29, 139). The confusion caused by reading about a different culture was mitigated because the essays are quite short and focused on the idea of appreciating the past. One student wrote:
I love Kenko. It’s a great essay. I like it... because it talks about the things remain after a person dies. The sentence that I like the most in Kenko is when the narrator says, “What a moving experience that is! It is sad
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to think that a man’s familiar possessions are indifferent to his death.”
Classic essays found in most Western composition classes, for example, George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” and “A Room of One's Own” by Virginia Woolf, also worked well. “Shooting an Elephant” led to good discussions about the effects of peer/ societal pressure and excerpts from “A Room of One's Own” led to exchanges about women’s education and the benefits/ drawbacks of single-sex educational settings.
With a more difficult text such as “A Room of One’s Own,” Dr. Risse
asked her students to find one sentence and write out why they agreed or disagreed with it. Tackling one small part of the text helped students to see that an essay is both an argument and a conversation in that the author is setting forth a point of view which the reader must first understand and then accept or dispute. For example, a statement like “For masterpieces are not single and solitary births” can be confusing. When Dr. Risse asked, “What does this mean?” at first students said they did not understand, but by discussing the matter together, they were able to not only get the sentence’s meaning but also to approve the idea it contained.
As a last point, we would like to strongly suggest that even teachers whose departments mandate a reading textbook will use these, or similar texts, in the classroom and thus expand their syllabi. Using the same collection of readings over and over is easy but boring for teachers and allows/ encourages students to simply take notes and ideas from previous students. Using new texts, or at least one new text, each semester helps to keep an atmosphere of attention and curiosity.
David Crystal and Deborah Tannen
We would now like to highlight two authors - David Crystal and Deborah Tannen. Both have written about language and culture for decades, including a wide variety of essays and books of interest to language learners. Further, both have well-designed websites carrying copies of their essays, which means teachers have easy access to them. We will highlight only a few works by each author and encourage teachers to visit their websites and choose texts suitable for their classes. Teachers can also use their books as supplementary texts, using a few chapters in one semester and different chapters in another.
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From Crystal we would like to recommend The Little Language Book. Each chapter addresses a different aspect of language learning or use, e.g. how babies acquire language, the morphology and grammar of text messages, comparisons of languages, fonts, and how people learn to read. Although Crystal is discussing difficult topics, he uses simple diction and many specific examples. Unlike authors of dry/ turgid grammar books, he explains in an accessible manner, which students found interesting. For example, he uses quotes from his own children when discussing how children learn language. He also has a chapter on texting which students thought good fun. Reading about texting abbreviations, such as ‘lol’ for ‘laugh out loud’ and ‘brb’ for ‘be right back’, students could see an immediate connection between an academic work and their own lives.
One student wrote about the chapter “Comparing Language”:I like “Comparing Language” because it discusses many different things in grammar, speaking and connects between culture and language. It teaches me how I can deal when I meet any foreign people. For example, the narrator said people in America say ‘please’when they want anything.
The Little Book of Language is only one of many books Crystal has written. Txting: the gr8 db8 (Texting: The Great Debate) talks about how the ‘new language’ of texting does not ruin a person’s communication skills. It is a great text for starting conversations about “Englishes,” i.e. the differences between informal writing and the conventions of academic writing. Another text is The Story of English in 100 Words, which explains the origins and changes within the language using 100 words as examples of important turning points.
Tanner in a well-known social linguist from the United States who has written many articles and books about how people communicate. Her works are written in clear, straightforward prose, with many examples and sample conversations. Her writing style is more academic than Crystal’s, but her overarching theme is quite simple - people misunderstand each other because of differences in speaking styles and cultures.
One essay that students were fond of is “The Pragmatics of Cross-Cultural Communication” in which Tanner sets out how differences in speaking styles (i.e. talking slowly or quickly, pausing frequently or not at
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all) can be interpreted negatively or positively, depending on the audience. Her argument that there is not one ‘correct’ style or pace for speaking but a style/ pace that is more appropriate for a given culture started several classroom debates. Students were eager to talk and write about trying to analyze their own speaking style and that of people they knew who spoke too much/ too little/ too fast/ too slow. Intercultural differences, such as Americans speaking louder and more quickly than Omanis, were also discussed to great laughter.
Students had a similar reaction to “Communication Mix and Mixup, or How Linguistics Can Ruin a Marriage”, about the difference between how men and women communicate. “Managing Confrontations: Lessons from Abroad” also elicited a positive response as Tannen discusses the use of intermediaries to help solve community disputes and students could compare Omani and other culture’s attempts to arbitrate problems. One student wrote:
The Fiji and Omani communities use intermediaries to solve the problems...I think the Omani community is better than the Fiji community because in the Omani community nobody knows the problem which happens between the people but in Fiji all the people know the problem that happens between people.
Another student wrote about the same essay:I like the essay “Managing Confrontation” because it is interesting. It tells us about other cultures, how they manage conflict... Tannen said, “For one thing intermediaries provide a motivation to settle the conflict: to save face.” This is the thing I liked most because a person can send anyone to solve his problem or to talk to the person that he has a problem with so he will not lose face and will not be embarrassed.”
Student interest in these themes gave them the motivation to work through sometimes difficult vocabulary. Of course, as with Crystal, teachers will need to read through the essays to see which texts might work best with their students.
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Some texts, such as “Indirectness in Discourse: Ethnicity as Conversational Style,” are quite dense and the use of statistics in this particular essay makes it accessible only to upper-level students. “Talking the Dog: Framing Pets as Interactional Resources in Family Discourse” might not be of interest to Middle Eastern student who are not used to having pet dogs seen as family members. And “The Commingling of Orality and Literacy in Giving a Paper at a Scholarly Conference” has no relevance for most undergraduate student lives.
ConclusionWe hope the above discussion will give teachers both the motivation
and tools to introduce a variety of non-fiction texts into their intermediate-level reading classes. We also hope that it has shown that choosing interesting and relevant texts can help students to gain confidence in writing and expressing their opinions by giving them accessible ideas and opinions they will want to discuss.
List of non-fiction, fiction sources
This bibliography is divided into non-fiction and fiction sources. It also includes material by David Crystal and Deborah Tannen.
Non-fiction Bogary, Hamza .The Sheltered Quarter [Saqifat al-Safa]Fisher, M.F. K. The Gastronomical Me Gibran, Khalil “The Arabic Language” Jahiz “What is a Book?” in Irwin, Robert, ed. (2002). Night and Horses and the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature. New York: Anchor.Hogan, Linda “For Life’s Sake”Kenko, Essays in Idleness (10, 22, 29, 139)King, Martin Luther, “The Purpose of Education”Markham, Beryl, West with the Night Orwell George, “Shooting an Elephant” Nye, Naomi Shibab (1996). Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.Rodriguez Richard, “The Achievement of Desire”Seattle, “Thoughts”White, E.B. (1999) “Once More to the Lake.” Essays of E.B. White. New York: Harper Perennial, 246-256.
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Woolf, Virginia, A Room of One’s Own
Fiction texts
Al Murr, Mohammed, “Dinner by Candlelight” (2008) Dubai Tales. Trans Peter Clark and Jack Briggs. Dubai: Motivate. Henry, O,“The Last Leaf”Kamal, M. (1999). Juha: Last of the Errant Knights. (J. Briggs, Trans.). Dubai: Motivate Publishing. Salih, Tayeb, Season of Migration to the NorthDavid Crystal website: http://www.davidcrystal.com/David_Crystal/biography.htmwebsite of articles: http://www.davidcrystal.com/David_Crystal/articles.htmselected bibliography2004(With Ben Crystal) Shakespeare’s Words (London: Penguin)The Stories of English. London: Penguin. US h/b edition, New York: Overlook Press, 2006How Language Works. London: Penguin. US edition New York: Overlook Press,2007By Hook or by Crook: A Journey in Search of English. London: HarperCollins,2008Think on My Words: An Introduction to Shakespeare’s Language. Cambridge: CUPTxting: the gr8 db8. Oxford: OUP, 2009Just a Phrase I’m Going Through: My Life in Language. London: RoutledgeThe Future of Language. London: Routledge, 2010A Little Book of Language. London: Yale Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices: An Illustrated History of the English Language. London: British Library, 2011Internet Linguistics: A Student Guide. London: Routledge The Story of English in 100 Words. London: Profile
Deborah Tannenwebsite: https://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/
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website with copies of her articles: https://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/scholarly_articles.htmlSelected bibliography:"Communication Mix and Mixup, or How Linguistics Can Ruin a Marriage." San Jose State Occasional Papers in Linguistics, 1975, 205-211. "The Pragmatics of Cross-Cultural Communication." Applied Linguistics 5(1984):3.189-95. "Implications of the Oral/Literate Continuum for Cross-cultural Communication." Current Issues in Bilingualism, Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1980, ed. by James E. Alatis, 326-347. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1980. Reprinted in Perspectives on Bilinguaism and Bilingual Education (eds. James E. Alatis and John Staczek,). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1985. "Managing Confrontations: Lessons from Abroad." The Responsive Community 8:2 (Spring 1998), 33-40. (Reprinted from The Argument Culture).
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