276 10 3494 https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/90f34e941eab23b1fc9b15373d5d39c8.pdf e97364ed5a3bcbf1c8bc78d5f31d60be PDF Text Text 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo The tragedy and the human being in Arthur Miller‘s play Death of a Salesman Marsela Turku Faculty of Education Aleksandër Moisiu University, Albania marselaturku@yahoo.com Abstract: So far a number of articles have dealt with the American dream and how it is developed in Arthur Miller‘s plays, especially in The Death of a Salesman. However, not enough attention has been paid to the tragedy and the human tragedy in these plays. In the essay ‗The Tragedy of the Common Man‘ Miller expressed his attitudes and beliefs about the nature of literary tragedy, its principles, the social status of the protagonist, what he understands as a human tragedy etc. This paper examines how this play could be interpreted and reread with a primary focus that of ―tragedy and the human being‖, it tries to answer to the question whether the protagonist‘s fall is a consequence of hamartia (a flaw in the character of the protagonist of a literary tragedy that brings about his or her downfall and a key element in tragedy) or whether he is a victim of the values of his community (the main theme of the social drama); which is the role of the American society‘s values and the conflict between the American dream and the idealization of this dream within the main protagonist; it will also answer the question if his plays are merely ‗social dramas‘ or ‗they challenge the tradition of tragedy from its first description in Aristotle‘s Poetics and the conventions of Shakespearian tragedy. Key words: tragedy, tragic hero, American Dream, archetype etc. Introduction American Drama was slower in reaching maturity than either fiction or poetry. A number of critics and literary historians criticized drama for its lacked quality, national originality and integrity when compared with other types of American literature. The gulf between drama and serious literature was not bridged until the beginning of the modern American Drama in 1920, the year of O‘Neill‘s Beyond the Horizon. (Heiney 1958, 324) Along with Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller represents the culmination of the process of evolution in American Theatre and his play Death of a Salesman (1949) is often considered as one of the crucial American plays. The press wrote positive reviews about the drama premiere in 1949: Arthur Miller has written a superb drama. From every point of view ―Death of a Salesman,‖ which was acted at the Morosco last evening, is rich and memorable drama. It is so simple in style and so inevitable in theme that it scarcely seems like a thing that has been written and acted. For Miller has looked for compassion into the hearts of some ordinary Americans and quietly transferred their hope and anguish to the theatre. (Atkinson 1979, 21) ―But the theatre is an impure craft, and Death of Salesman organizes its impurities with an emotional effect unrivalled in postwar drama.‖ (Kenneth Tynan, 1933) Other critics praised Miller for the use of intermixed time-frames, the important themes; the subject focused controversial attitudes, for ‗the flow and spontaneity of a suburban epic that may not be intended as poetry but becomes poetry in spite of itself‘ (1976, 21), some went further by suggesting that this play would even open new direction for the evolution of American drama. Almost after sixty years, Kenneth Tynan observations still seem true ―[. . .] the theatre is an impure craft…‖ and it has been for this ‗impurities‘ that this drama has also been criticized a lot. The most persistent criticism concerns the issue of genre and its constituents: to what extends is it a tragedy? Miller himself considered the play to be the tragedy of the common man, but for a group of critics ―It is not a tragedy; nor is it rightly speaking, about any man, common or uncommon. It is, however pure Broadway . . .‖ (Morgan 1976, 32). This paper briefly examines the evolution of the tragedy concept from Aristotle to modern theories and stands on what are tragedy and a tragic hero. It examines and explores the continuing disagreements among academics and by what criteria this play is a tragedy. 821 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Classical tragedy ―The spirit of inquiry meets the spirit of poetry and tragedy is born‖ (Dixon, 51) Tragedy is an achievement peculiarly Greek. They were the first to perceive and gave it the splendor and the highness that we all know, throw the tragedies of Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides. The philosophy of the human nature is implicit in the human speech, consequently these tragedies, the result of inquiries done to the human nature which is bound up with evil and dark ―gods,‘ try to present the human being as it really is. The Greek tragedies were characterized by a sincere need to perceive the beauty the reality offered through clarity, calmness and serenity. Their positive attitude towards the gloomy aspects of life somehow creates a magic atmosphere and illumining visions where beauty is transmitted only through truth and vice versa truth implies beauty. ‗A tragedy shows us pain and gives us pleasure thereby. The greater the suffering depicted, the more terrible the events, the more intense our pleasure. The most monstrous and appealing deeds life can show are those the tragedian chooses, and by the spectacle he thus offers us, we are moved to a very passion of enjoyment.‘ (Hamilton 1930, 229) The reader is unable to explain this tragic pleasure. A number of scholars through the centuries have considered this conflicting feeling as the substructure of tragedy and fundamental element in the continuing of the genre. Just to mention, Aristotle called it ―Pity and awe,‖ ―and a sense of emotions purified thereby.‖ For Hegel it is the reconciliation between life‘s temporary dissonances resolved into eternal harmony. For Schopenhauer it is the acceptance in the fulfillment of the will, ―Thy will be done.‖ For Nietzsche it is the ―the reaffirmation of the will to live in the face of death,‖ ―and the joy of its inexhaustibility when so reaffirmed.‖(Hamilton 1930, 230) It is obvious that ―the idea on tragedy‘ has escaped its Classical generic determination in Aristotle‘s Poetics and had expanded into the role of an intellectual concept of astonishing amplitude and the culmination came in Nietzsche‘s Birth of tragedy (1872). He claimed that ―tragedy arose as artistic energies which burst forth from nature herself, without the meditation of the human artists‖ (1872, 38). For Nietzsche the incarnation of the tragic is the mythic figure of Dionysus who personifies the eternal and original artistic power that first calls the whole world of phenomena into existence . . .‖ (1872, 143). Nietzsche‘s work presents the tragedy as a battle of creative energy against the world of reason and the human beings that inhibit these tragedies are left alone with a feeling of alienation and despair in facing death. In contrary to Nietzsche‘s attitude, Miguel de Unamuno, in his Tragic Sense of Life (1913) did not refer to tragedy as a literary genre, but rather he sees it as a complexity of things which springs from the conflict between human nature and social reality. He believes that changes in science and technology are reflected into human reasoning, and in addition these developments manifest themselves in consciousness. He claims that consciousness depends on memory and memory is the bridging gap between the past and the present, between the present and the future, between what we have lost and what we actually have; and these memories do not necessarily have to be happy or joyful ones: ―noone has ever proved that man must necessarily be joyful by nature‖ (1913, 22). He strongly believes that tragedy and tragic are inseparable comrades to the human being and to his identity: ―man, because he is man, because he possesses consciousness, is already, in comparison to the jackass or the crab, a sick animal. Consciousness is a disease.‖ (1913, 22) Arthur Miller‘s ―The tragedy and the common man‖ In this age a few tragedies are written. It has often been held that the lack is due to a paucity of heroes among us . . . for one reason or another, we are often held to be below tragedy or tragedy above us. (Miller 1949, 3) Arthur Miller propounded his ideas on tragedy on the essay ―Tragedy and the Common man‖ immediately after the success of his play ―Death of a Salesman‖ in 1949. In his essay he explains his reasons for writing Death of a Salesman and what he considers a ―traditional tragedy.‖ Miller claims that he has imbued his character with a mixture of experiences and emotions like grief, sufferings, struggles and ‗small acts of heroism‘ and a sole aim, to represent the typical American man and his struggles to accomplish his American Dream which somehow becomes the source of the tragedy. Miller believes that: ―the common man is as apt a subject for tragedies in its highest sense of kings were. On the face of it this ought to be obvious in the light of modern psychiatry, which bases its analysis on classical formulations, such as the Oedipus and Orestes complexes, for instance, which were enacted by royal beings, but which apply to everyone in similar emotional situations‖ (1949, 3). Therefore, Miller tries to adapt the concept of the tragedy and its protagonist in a contemporary 822 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo setting. Probably the sentence taken from Miller‘s drama that best points the universal poignancy is Linda‘s comment: ―A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man.‖ Thomas E. Porter claims that: ―Willy‘s status in society, his family background is typical; even more of a type is Willy‘s identity as a Salesman. He is a product of a producer-consumer society in which the go-between is a pivotal figure. Society has labeled him, and Willy has accepted the label; society has offered Willy a set of values and an objective, and Willy has committed themselves to those values and that objective [. . . ] He has been shaped by a society that believed steadily and optimistically in the myth of success, and he has become the agent and the representative of that society.‖ (Martine 1976, 29) Nevertheless, Miller‘s hero fails to grasp a communal sense of success; it seems that instabilities and the flaws of his character bring about his premeditated doom. The first and the main line of this play focuses precisely on the protagonist‘s failure, but an underground line focuses on the failure of all the ordinary Americans as they respond to this new urban world and their adopting difficulties. It is often thought that its success lays precisely on the personification of the audience with the play‘s main theme ‗the pain of a life passing without recognition or acknowledgement.‘ Miller‘s concept on the tragedy of the common man is almost similar with Unamuno‘s. Therefore, loneliness, sufferings, anonymity, failure, consciousness and the struggle for success are embodied in the tragic sense of life in any urban society. Modern Theories on Tragedy Modern Tragedy and Steinberg‘s Theory The transformation of the society and the human being influenced even the theatre, consequently in the 20th century the stage was no longer a realm of the melodrama or Classical theatre, neither presented it a glorious time and period. Instead it intends to exhibit or reflect the realism of the world, the individual and the society. In his study ―Arthur Miller and the Idea of Tragedy,‖ M. W. Steinberg presents this modern role for the tragedy and Miller‘s play within the perspective of F. L Lucas: ―Serious drama is a serious representation by speech and action of some phrase of human life. [. . . ] If there is an unhappy ending, we may call it tragedy; but if the play is a serious attempt to represent life it makes no great differences whether or not good fortune intervenes in the last scene‖ (Steinberg 1969, 81). A decisive factor in Miller‘s modern work is the realism of his character, as real as they ‗could easily walk off the stage and onto the streets.‘ Steinberg claims that Miller writes in ‗post-Ibsen‘ fashion and so their ‗tragic modern hero‘ is the embodiment of his society and world. This tragic hero is ‗crushed by forces outside himself and by illusions, false ideas spawned by those forces …‘ (Steinberg 1969, 82) for instance Nora and Torvald from A Doll‘s House, Lowman from Death of a Salesman, etc. Steinberg considers these forces imposed by the society to the human as the only way to evaluate the hero‘s action, but he does not consider the society as the only cause for the hero‘s downfall. Steinberg believes that the modern drama of the 20th century should expose the common man and compare it to the tragic figures of the past. He also supports Miller‘s idea that the classical tragic archetypes should be brought in a modern context: ―As the twentieth century approached, various sources were making for realism in drama with its emphasis on people and situations drawn from ordinary life‖ (Steinberg 1969, 81) because realism breeds proximity and the closer to the real world the more will the public sympathize with the characters and affect them, as it is described in the Aristotelian sense, by invoking both ‗panic‘ and ‗empathy‘ (in original ―phobos‘ and ―eleos‖) when characters are brought into utter despair. Furthermore the setting is really familiar to the audience, the Lowman family lives in any East coast suburban neighborhood, the neighborhood once bloomed with lilac, wisteria, peonies and daffodils, but now it is ―bricks and windows, windows and bricks‖ and over population and the reminiscence sequences are marked by this scenic change: ―The apartment houses are fading out and the entire house and surroundings become covered with leaves.‖(Salesman, 27) The audience reaction is: ―I know a man like that,‖ ―He is my neighbor.‖ Consequently, Willy presents the failures, disillusionments, and disappointments of all those Americans caught up in the trap of the myth and the moral pressure it generates. Miller‘s achievement in this play consists on the elaboration of the character that imbues the passion and pain of a classical tragic hero situated in a contemporary setting and is so real that it can be hard to separate him from the real world. Frye‘s Theory on the tragic hero Academic approach to drama and tragedy has changed over the years and the contemporary philosopher, Stanly Cavell, perfectly describes this evolution: 823 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo What else have we had, in major art of the past hundred years, but indirectness: irony, theatricality, yearning, broken form, denial of art, anti-heroes, withdrawals from nature, from man, from the future, and from the past. . . We are not Tragic heroes: our sacrifices will not save the state. Yet we are sacrificed, and we sacrifice. (2002, 178-179) This evolution in literature and drama has influenced even the formulation and idea of what a tragic hero is. In his study ―The Anatomy of Criticism‖ Northrop Frye provides a definition of what can be a tragic hero: ….the typical tragic hero is somewhere between the divine and the ‗all too human.‘ This must be true even of dying gods: Prometheus, being a god, cannot die, but he suffers for his sympathy for the ‗dying ones‘ (brotoi) or mortal men, and even suffering has something subdivine about it. The tragic hero is very great as compared with us, but there is something else, something on the side of him opposite the audience, compared to which he is small. This something else may be called God, gods, fate, accident, fortune necessity, circumstance, or any combination of these, but whatever it is the tragic hero is the mediator with it. (Frye 1957, 207) Frye states that the hero may be ‗the divine or all to human‘ implying that even a normal human being, a common man without ‗superpower‘ or godlike behavior can as well be a tragic hero as a divine one. Another important point in Frye‘s definition is the ―suffering‖ which he considers as ‗subdivine‘ and sees them as the only way for the human emotions to arise. Miller‘s hero Willy Lowman seem to imbue both the elements, he is mortal, is a common man and the audience follow him in his odyssey of sufferings. Prometheus, the suffering god, seems to have a lot in common with Willy. Although Willy is not fettered to a rock enduring endless physical tortures, he still suffers greatly as he is entrapped in his own dreams, in his fantasy world unable to separate the real from the fabricated; he is utterly unable to bear the plight in the real world. Miller is very careful in the description of Willy as a ―brotoi‖ or ―dying man.‖ He prepares the audience in an escalation of situation describing Willy‘s attempt and unconscious desire to kill himself, for instance the hose found by Biff, Willy‘s ‗strange thoughts‘ and his continuous attempts to crash his car, till the final crash at the end of the play. Through Willy‘s death Miller not only demonstrates the inescapable fate of all the human beings which is ‗death,‘ but also the tragedy of a life build upon the commitment to the success ideology, based on Alger myth, the rages to the rags-to-riches romances of the American Dream. Porter claims that ―Miller‘s hero is not simply an individual who has determined an objective and who strives desperately to attain it; he is also representative of an American type, the Salesman, who has accepted an ideal shaped for him and pressed on him by forces in his culture‖ (Martine 1976, 24), and his tragic ending prods the audience to examine their own existence. At this point seems almost compulsory the question what caused Willy‘s downfall? Is caused by ‗hamartia‘ or it is the society‘s pressure and his alienation from the real world? Aristotle in Poetics 13 uses the word ―hamartia‖ to designate the cause of a good‘s man falling, but it has been often translated as a ―tragic flaw‖ and it has been the subject of much debate over the centuries. E. R. Dodds in his ―On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex‖ (1966), one of the most influential articles on Aristotle Poetics, demonstrates that Aristotle did not consider the ―flaw‖ as the source of tragedy but by citing everyone of Aristotle‘s other uses of the term, came to the conclusion that he used the term ―to mean an offense committed in ignorance of some material fact and therefore free from . . . wickedness‖ (Dodds 1966, 19-20). Consequently, for Aristotle, tragedy surfaced from lack of omniscience, from ―our common fate of ignorance in face of crucial facts.‖ But which is Willy‘s ‗hamartia‘? At the beginning of Act I we notice that Willy is tired of his job routine, and then we notice his difficulty separating the past from the present, his continuous lies to his wife and to himself and his continuous search in the past for the turning point when everything went irremediably wrong, although he could not find it. Harold Bloom claims that: ―Yet Willy is not destroyed by his sense of failure. [. . .] Willy is destroyed by love, by his sudden awareness that his son Biff truly loves him. Miller beautifully comments that Willy resolves to die when he is given his existence . . . his fatherhood, for which he has always striven and which until now he could not achieve‖ (Bloom 2007, 5). Although Willy still remains misunderstood and left apart from the society and at a dramatic level he could not achieve the epiphany that leads to insights, to the moment of revelation when the hero sees himself and his situation clearly, understands what he has lost and finds the path to regenerate. His sufferings are in vain. At the very end Miller provides Biff with the insight of which Willy was incapable of: ―He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong. [. . .] He never knew who he was.‖ (Salesman, 103) Concluding remarks The play Death of Salesman has raised a lot of debates and criticism through the years for its themes, the place it occupies in the American Drama, its ‗pathos‘ and impurities etc., but what has been one of the most 824 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo discussed issues of the play is its genre, some critics claim that it is a tragedy, others classify it as a ‗social drama,‘ others consider it neither as a tragedy, nor as a social drama, but a pure Broadway production. Death of a Salesman is not highly original in technique; it nevertheless contains free-verse passages, a narrator who speaks directly to the audience, fantastic and unrealistic shifts in time and an underlying web of psychological pathology. Miller devices are conventional enough to be easily grasped by the average audience, the common American man. This drama embodies the tragic archetypes and elements of a tragedy and Miller‘s main achievement is carving a realist character, a tragic hero, setting him in a contemporary urban society and building his play around the American Dream, he strikes deeply the consciences of the audience. Miller claims that loneliness, sufferings, anonymity, failure, consciousness and the struggle for success are embodied in the tragic sense of life in any urban society. References Adler, Thomas P. American Dream, 1940-1960: A Critical History. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994. 825 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Atkinson, Brooks. ―Death of a Salesman, A New Drama by Arthur Miller, Has Premiere at the Morosoco.‖ Ed. James J. Martine. Critical Essays on Arthur Miller. Boston. G. K. Hall & Co. 1979. 21-22. Bloom, Harold. ―Introduction.‖ Ed. Harold Bloom. Arthur Miller‘s Death of a Salesman. New York. Chelsea House. 2007. 1- 5. Cavell, Stanley. Must We Mean What We Say? 1969. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Dodds, E. R. ―On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex.‖ Twentieth Century Interpretations of Oedipus Rex. Ed. Michael J. O‘Brien. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1968. 17- 29. Hamilton, Edith. The Greek Way. New York. W. W. Norton & Company. Inc. 1942. Henley, Donald. Recent American Literature. New York. Barron‘s Educational Series, Inc. 1958. Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Viking Press Inc., 1949. ---, ―The Tragedy of the Common Man.‖ New York Times. 27 February, 1949: 3. Morgan, Frederick. ―Review of Death of a Salesman.‖ Ed. James J. Martine. Critical Essays on Arthur Miller. Boston. G. K. Hall & Co. 1979. 23. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Trans and ed. Walter Kaufman. New York: Random House Inc., 1992. Porter, E. Thomas. ―Acres of Diamonds: Death of a Salesman.‖ Ed. James J. Martine. Critical Essays on Arthur Miller. Boston. G. K. Hall & Co. 1979. 24- 43. Shattuck, Roger. Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography. New York: St. Martin‘s Press, 1996. Steinberg, M. W. ―Arthur Miller and the Idea of tragedy.‖ Ed. Robert W. Corrigan. Arthur Miller: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1969. 81-94. Unamuno, Miguel de. The tragic sense of life in Men and Nations. Trans. Anthony Kerrigan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972. Whitehead, Alfred North. Adventures and Ideas. London: Cambridge University Press, 1935. Williams, Raymond. ―From Hero to Victim: The making of Liberal Tragedy, to Ibsen and Miller.‖ Modern Tragedy. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. 87-105. ---.‖The Realism of Arthur Miller.‖ Critical Quarterly. 55 (1959): 40-49. 826 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 120 Title A name given to the resource The tragedy and the human being in Arthur Miller‘s play Death of a Salesman Author Author Turku, Marsela Abstract A summary of the resource. So far a number of articles have dealt with the American dream and how it is developed in Arthur Miller‘s plays, especially in The Death of a Salesman. However, not enough attention has been paid to the tragedy and the human tragedy in these plays. In the essay ‗The Tragedy of the Common Man‘ Miller expressed his attitudes and beliefs about the nature of literary tragedy, its principles, the social status of the protagonist, what he understands as a human tragedy etc. This paper examines how this play could be interpreted and reread with a primary focus that of ―tragedy and the human being‖, it tries to answer to the question whether the protagonist‘s fall is a consequence of hamartia (a flaw in the character of the protagonist of a literary tragedy that brings about his or her downfall and a key element in tragedy) or whether he is a victim of the values of his community (the main theme of the social drama); which is the role of the American society‘s values and the conflict between the American dream and the idealization of this dream within the main protagonist; it will also answer the question if his plays are merely ‗social dramas‘ or ‗they challenge the tradition of tragedy from its first description in Aristotle‘s Poetics and the conventions of Shakespearian tragedy. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/80cc2d37df1ac754f1f6a6f16de5518a.pdf 357c782510b6e618bacd2cba358b74da PDF Text Text 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Integration of Critical Thinking Skills into Grammar Curricula Mustafa Ugur Turkyilmaz International Burch University, Bosnia and Herzegovina Department of English Language and Literature uturkyilmaz@ibu.edu.ba Abstract:High standards are intended in all curriculum guidelines and it is not different in most of the guidelines. In this paper, the language arts curriculum is put under the spotlight and an in-depth analysis is provided on most benchmarks. Many suggestions are made to further improve the curriculum and particular focus is placed on implementation. The problems is in teaching grammar is highlighted and remedies are offered. How to integrate the critical thinking skills in a grammar course is clearly outlined and offered to teachers who look for answers to the problems in almost every classroom. Introduction: The objectives of this paper are to provide insights to develop a powerful linguistic command of the English language grammar on the intermediate level. Successful learners construct meaning through the interactive multi-media presentations, peer and group projects. It is our mission that students not memorize grammar formulas but try to see and comprehend the frameworks of grammar in context. Recognizing the interrelatedness of the language skills, simultaneous development of two selected basic skills (speaking, and writing) would be promoted. If you have ever taught ESL Grammar, appropriate methods of teaching grammar cannot be overemphasized! ESL students are actually the victims of wrong techniques and strategies if they cannot understand, learn and internalize grammar. ―No other aspect of the English language has suffered from incorrect assumptions as the teaching of grammar.‖ (Last, 2001) particularly in today‘s highly technological world of learning, you are doomed to fail if you are not using the right tools that would attract the students‘ attention to your subject matter. Bored students never appreciate your hard work and never go home with something they are eager to review. Literature Review: In this model classroom, the Language Arts teacher is actively using multi-media to present the grammar units. The objectives of the course are to get the students to think the grammar subjects a part of their daily lives, to visualize the abstract concepts in context and to make the complicated grammar points easier by means of visual aids. According to the Wisconsin Language Arts standards, thinking skills targeted in this course are: ―gathering information, organizing information, analyzing information, generating information, integrating information, and evaluating information.‖ (Last, 2001) Different teaching strategies and techniques would be developed to incorporate those skills into the learning process such as: ―Effective interpersonal communication skills, including active listening and sensitive feedback…"(Farquharson, 1995) I think most of the grammar teachers fail to teach grammar effectively because of wrong methodology. ―No other aspect of the English language has suffered from incorrect assumptions as the teaching of grammar.‖ (Last, 2001) They fall into the pitfall of explaining theory with another theory. Abstract terms cannot be explained with abstract methods. Like all other abstract sciences, the ultimate result of teaching abstract subjects is having a bored audience. They do not think what is taught but why they need to learn this. Moreover, all of us speak; read, listen and we never think or care about the grammar. But if you are a foreigner, you need a framework to build other language skills on. ―Unlike native speakers, ESL students do not have intuitions about how English works, thus affecting their ability to construct and reconstruct the language.‖ (Last, 2001) In that case we certainly need to know grammar. Students in a typical ESL classroom would be ten to twelve. Pair and group work are most encouraged, for students are learning more from each other in efficient ways. All students have a minimum of pre- 1219 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo intermediate Grammar level. Their spoken proficiency is ranging from pre-intermediate to upperintermediate. An intermediate level of Grammar instruction is intended to instruct. There are two native languages spoken: Spanish and Chinese. Most of the students have been in the States for more than four or five years. Two third of them are graduated from an elementary school. Almost all of the students‘ families are helpful at home with the assignments. Homework assignment topics are particularly selected from daily life to increase the cooperation at home. ―Successful teaching must be embedded in community contexts and connected to students‘ lives.‖ (Hammond, 1997) The problem, as I mentioned above, is how to make it worthy to spend time on it in the eyes of learners. How do you have them visualize the topic? How do you get them to ponder about the unit later on in their daily lives? ―The brain friendly classroom helps all the students to make connections between what they already know and what they yet to learn‖ (Moffet, J, 1968) How do you get them to be self-productive? What are the possible ways to have them to internalize the terms, concepts and intricate grammar points inductively and effectively? How do you have them care about it, like it and use it? In the meantime, Grammar is somehow isolated with the values of society. The contexts that the problems addressed are far from being experienced out there. So here comes the critical question: How do you connect what you teach with what is going on in the society? Obviously, you cannot cut it if you cannot show the ways to the students how your teachings are valued by society. ―Education is a value based activity, engaging individuals in experiencing or accepting what is valued by society‖ (Ornstein, Hunkins, 1998) The dilemma could be resolved with a well-prepared curriculum that gives the teacher to make the class attractive and useful. ―For a century, with few exceptions, the all but exclusive focus of this (language) has been the structure of the English, most usually traditional usage and grammar.‖ (Andrews, 1997) It is not possible to be creative at all times. Therefore a detailed curriculum offering solutions to overcome the nature of teaching grammar would be the ideal solution to meet the high standards. Method of Evaluation for Student Learning: Holistic approach would be used to assess the student progress. Assuming that each student would have different weak and strong points, no rubric or a certain percentage would be predetermined as the evaluation criteria. Some of significant methods of evaluating students in Grammar course are to observe the following performances:  Evaluating what thinking skills they are able to use.  How effectively are they used to understand the grammar points in writing and when they speak?  In class participation of classroom discussions, peer and group work  Written essays  Self assessment Extension and Enrichment Suggestions: Students should read at home on a regular basis and try to talk about the topic with the family members. While they are speaking, the student should see what grammar points are used in the daily life situations. Procedures to Use to Implement the Curriculum Here are some ideas that could be easily implemented as the curriculum implementation procedure: Need and the relevance of the new program would be fully explained to the faculty in inservice seminars and at the department workshops. Clarity of the plan would be demonstrated by presentations and head teachers who will do model classes for the faculty. Realistic goals set by the new curriculum would help to overcome the complexity of the program. The quality of the program would be assured with the computer programs and multimedia presentations. Parents should be informed in advance about their roles that their participation is vital to work the program. Video cameras used in the classes would be used to evaluate the in-class performances of the teachers. This will also be used to give feedback to the department about what works and what does not. 1220 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo The Curriculum Development Process: Nontechnical-nonscientific approach would be appropriate to use as the model for curriculum development. As each student‘s evaluation based on individual criteria, subjective, personal, aesthetic aspects of curriculum development should come forward. As all language skills should be regarded as ―one‖, holistic, ever evolving, method of nontechnical-nonscientific approach should fit best to develop a child-centered grammar curriculum. Some of the more concrete steps of the development process might be as follows: Having implemented the curriculum for one quarter, the branch teachers start immediate modifications on the curriculum. The feedback from the students is regarded as critical. Surveys and teachers observations might be the tools to diagnose the problem areas. The drawbacks of the curriculum should be discussed in depth in the department meetings and remedies should be suggested based on first hand observation. Instructional stuff and methods are scrutinized to make sure they are all backing up the accepted aims and goals. The learning activities should be readjusted and reorganized if their contents are not deep enough to saturate the frameworks of the topics. Students who fall behind should be marked and more after school activities should be conducted with those to make up the first quarter units. Program Evaluation and Conclusion: Program evaluation will be based on the yearly student gain. Initial level of the students will be recorded at the beginning of the year and compared with the year-end performances. A pre-test and a Post-test would be useful to have statistical data. The intended skills, listening and writing, will be monitored and assessed with the teachers and the program will be revised based on their evaluations. External and internal assessment tools, such as teacher observations, student participations during the classes, and surveys, would set the criteria for the success of the program. If the intended goals specified in the concept and the standards are met, the program would be regarded successful. REFERENCES: Andrews, L. (1997). Language exploration and awareness (2nd Ed) Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Associates. Farquharson, A. (1995). Teaching in Practice (1st Ed) California: Jossey- Bass Moffett, J. (1968). Teaching the universe of discourse (1st Ed) Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Last, E. (2001). Planning curriculum in language arts. Madison: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Ornstein,C. A., Hunkins P. F. (1998) Curriculum Foundations, Principles, And Issues (3rd Ed). Needahm Heights MA: Allyn and Bacon Hammond, D. L. (1998). The Right to Learn (1st Ed). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 1221 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 670 Title A name given to the resource Integration of Critical Thinking Skills into Grammar Curricula Author Author Turkyilmaz, Mustafa Ugur Abstract A summary of the resource. High standards are intended in all curriculum guidelines and it is not different in most of the guidelines. In this paper, the language arts curriculum is put under the spotlight and an in-depth analysis is provided on most benchmarks. Many suggestions are made to further improve the curriculum and particular focus is placed on implementation. The problems is in teaching grammar is highlighted and remedies are offered. How to integrate the critical thinking skills in a grammar course is clearly outlined and offered to teachers who look for answers to the problems in almost every classroom. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/b320c24b8fcd766e01c70fd679567b23.pdf 2b82bde87b65e7ad775829d312ad9c98 PDF Text Text 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Assessment – Albanian educational system reality and challenges. Laureta Vavla Department of English and German Languages Aleksander Xhuvani University, Albania loridimashi@hotmail.com Abstract: This paper stresses the importance of assessment in second language class today in the Albanian educational institutions, and in particular the advantages of using assessment in improving teaching and learning. Assessment is generally seen as something done to students by teachers. Many students may feel panicked and confused. Tests descend upon them from time to time and have to be ‗got through‘. This paper discusses the reality of the Albanian teaching and learning institutions in regard to assessment and tests and the challenges encountered. The study goes on and makes a modest attempt to give some practical solutions to these challenges and problems. Key Words: Assessment, testing, teaching, learning Introduction Teaching, learning, assessment and testing – choices in the EFL classrooms Teachers should not only be considered as lifelong learners but they should also be considered as lifelong assessors. These three components: learning, teaching and assessment are and should be considered as interrelated. Without learning there could be no teaching, and vice versa. It is through assessment and testing that we can guide and improve our teaching and learning. And it is teaching and learning that we assess while assessing and testing. Ultimately, without assessment there would be no improved teaching and no improved learning. So as teachers and students could understand what they have fully accomplished and what they still lack they definitely need to make some type of assessment. But what is the position that assessment actually has in our classrooms? Mid term and end term tests are the traditional and typical tools used to assess the students´ knowledge in Albania. These two tools have been inherited from the past generations and teachers and they still hold a key role in today‘s teaching environment. But other types of assessment are also being embraced and applied more and more: discrete point, integrative, formal, informal, formative, summative, etc. This means that the choices have become many in number which leads to much more complicated choices on the part of the teachers. It is the purpose, reason and the goals of testing and assessing that need to become the leading guide for choosing the right tool when assessing. Formative assessment is the typical type of assessment I personally use more frequently. In my opinion the major advantage of this type of assessment lays on the fact that it helps in ―evaluating students in the process of forming their competencies and skills with the goal of helping them to continue that growth process‖ (Brown, 2004, p.6). This means that by applying this type of assessment we follow the same track pursued by our students. Whenever a group presentation is made or whenever a class debate is organized, feedback plays the crucial role – it is not only the teacher that makes the comments and the evaluation but it is also and most importantly the other students who think critically over the presentations or debates made and express their opinions freely. Alternative assessment is a fairly new approach in the Albanian teaching environment and as such more and more stress should be placed on the importance of the usage of various types of testing and assessment. The latest trends are those of the usage of oral presentations, journal writings, portfolios, debates etc. One of the reasons why these tools have not been largely accepted is because teachers have not become sensible of the outmost important role that assessment plays in teaching and learning. It is from here that teacher trainers should start and elaborate this issue further on by informing and training teachers about the various assessment tools at their disposal. On the other hand, even students should withdraw from their old mentality that is the grade that matters and not the knowledge gained. Reflection on assessment processes followed in our institutions Education is undergoing tremendous changes each year and more. Simply by reflecting on the kind of tests and examinations we have taken as students and those we are currently offering to our students, we can easily notice 735 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo that the differences are immense. Some of these differences are positive (or at least that has been the objective) but yet, there is a lot of work waiting to be done and carried on by students and teachers altogether. Unfortunately, in Albanian educational system, the final written exam gets most of the credits for the ultimate evaluation of the student. What teachers and students are mainly interested in is what the students produce at the final examination. Even though this type of assessment of the students´ knowledge has been widely used it can still be improved by carefully defining the scoring criteria. ´We should also inform students of at least the basic outlines of our assessment, so that not only is our assessment reliable, but it is seen to be reliable and fair by our students´(Harris and McCann, 1994). What could be done to achieve this is:  Provide an answer key to the questions included in the test  Provide a table at the end of the test that clarifies the corresponding grade and characteristics of each of the points achieved by the students. What is more, administration reliability is also a concerning issue in Albanian educational institutions. During exam periods, freezing or melting temperatures highly affect the students‘ concentration and final scores. Better physical teaching, learning and testing (assessing) conditions/environments should be created so as to achieve administration reliability. In addition to this, noise is also a problematic topic. While some students take exams, some others continue their normal studies/activities and as such interrupt the students who are taking their exams. One way of solving this problem is by setting fixed hours, days or classrooms for exams that do not match with the teaching and learning timetables of the other students who are not taking an exam. Another important element to be taken into consideration is authenticity – which is intermingled with the fundamental reasons why we learn and take tests. If a student is learning English because he or she needs it in his international organization or business it is logical that the focus of the English he or she learns will be on this sphere of communication. So as to provide authenticity, teachers should always try to match the real life situations to their tests and exams. As an illustration I could bring my experience in teaching lexicology. Throughout the entire course I offer to my students many examples that illustrate the issues we cover such as synonyms, euphemisms, proverbs etc. I always try to take examples from real life situations and it would be illogical not to include these practical examples into the final exam. The same should be applied even in other subjects/courses the students learn. In regard to washback, we have all witnessed, in the role of the student or even of the teacher, that the type of final test or exam the students are going to take usually guides the method the teachers use in the classroom. `If all these exams were forward-thinking and communicative this would be positive. Unfortunately this is not always the case (Harris and McCann, 1994). As such, teachers should organize their lessons not (only) lead by the final exams the students will take, but most importantly by what the students will effectively learn of the language and in the language. The fields of improvements in the Albanian educational institutions are many. Some of them are related to administrative issues, some others with reasons why we assess or with what we really assess. Some of the issues that we can easily improve are mainly related with practicality and accountability. Practicality can be achieved by shifting the goal of teaching English from a theoretical one and test-oriented into a more practical one and real –life oriented. This will lead into the building of practical tests and assessment activities throughout the whole teaching and learning process. Assessment should be considered an on-going process, going alongside with teaching and learning. In relation to accountability what we should try to do is to provide our students, parents and colleagues with continuous feedback on what the students have achieved or have not achieved. As Harris and McCann have put it `we should be able to explain the rationale behind the way assessment takes place and how conclusions are drawn, rather than hiding behind a smoke screen of professional secrecy (Harris and McCann, 1994).` What are some of the strengths and weaknesses of the assessment process used in Albania? The final grade a student receives at the end of a course is the result of putting together the different pieces of the puzzle comprised by various types of assessments and tests. Since that grade determines (although not always) a student‘s academic and professional life, assessments and tests should carefully analyze, test and grade the new knowledge and information the student has received in the classroom. What should be improved in my country‘s education system is the mentality teachers and students have about teaching and assessing. They should understand and apply an assessment process that is parallel to the teaching and learning process. Teachers, students and parents need to understand the important role that continuous assessment plays in education. ―As teachers, when we carry out assessment, we have to measure the performance of our students and the progress they make. We also need to diagnose the problems they have and provide our learners with useful feedback. (Harris and McCann, 1994).‖ This definition given by Harris and McCann clearly defines assessment as a measuring tool not only of the student‘s progress but also of the instructor‘s teaching. By diagnosing our student‘s problems, we can appropriately adapt our teaching methods and techniques to our learners. Many of the summative tests we prepare lack student – related reliability. In a survey done with students of the third and fourth year at the University of Elbasan, I noticed that many students did better in the final test 736 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo compared to their overall preparation. The main reason for this is that many students study hard for the final exams since they have one week time to prepare for that particular exam and as such they fully use this time to study that subject. They do not prepare regularly but since the traditional importance of the final test is strongly rooted in their minds they save all their energies till the end of the course – and study hard during that one week, exam preparation period. This leads to poor student – related reliability summative tests because the knowledge the student has received within one single week cannot be lasting knowledge and if the student is faced with the same test, let‘s say a month later, he will not score the same. Apart from the weak points mentioned above, the same tests I have taken into account have their own strengths. In my university, these final tests and many other similar ones are planned to have their written phase and a couple of days later their oral phase. This leaves enough space to the teacher to check the students´ comprehension not only in a written form but also orally which complicates the situation for the students and leaves room to the teacher to make a more mature decision. In this way, the teacher is able to judge not only the students abilities in grammar, spelling and content but also in speaking which is crucial to our students who are going to become English teachers. Too much importance is usually given to grammar and vocabulary but the final goal of learning English is that of communicating in English and as such the speaking part of the test is and has to be considered as very valuable. What changes could be implemented? The actual situation of the students in the Albanian universities is rather depressing and pessimistic. The students spend less and less time studying or even reading the lectures or books assigned and ultimately this leads to poor exam results as well as to poor performance of the students. One of the components that plays a major role in this reality is assessment. As students throughout all these years have been evaluated mainly based on their final exam for which they had one week to prepare, they still continue to not prepare throughout all the academic semester or year. This leads to a poor performance of the students during seminar hours and to a passive participation during lectures. Only through ongoing assessment could students become aware of the importance of continuously building new knowledge and of positively linking the new information received with their background information. By adapting various types of assessments and tests and by fulfilling all the requirements and principles needed, throughout all the academic year, students will be obliged to study and why not they will also be motivated to learn more and more. Some of the changes to be applied are: a) the wrong mentality that assessment is just the same as testing should not exist anymore b) assessment should focus on all the four language skills altogether and not only on one or two c) students should be well informed about what they will be tested on and on the kind of assessment they will undergo since from the start of the course and before every test or assessment done throughout the entire course. d) assessment should be seen as an on-going process By applying these changes in the teaching and learning environment of the school, students will first of all understand that ―testing or formal assessment, where test or exam conditions are established, is certainly an important way of assessing learners. However, it is not the only one and both informal assessment and selfassessment are vital (Harris and McCann, 1994).‖ This will probably lead to less stressful and painful exams and tests as they will not anymore be seen as the only tool used by the teachers to set a grade to students. They will also get used this way to the fact that they themselves have the ability to assess the knowledge they have received independently from the instructor. In regard to the second change that needs to be brought, it should be noted that its implementation is profitable not only for the students who will no more be taught only grammar or single vocabulary items but also for the teacher who will be able to successfully achieve his or her final goal of preparing the learners for the real life foreign language practice. ―An over-reliance on grammar tests gives students the clear message that they have been wasting their time trying to communicate in class. What matters is grammar (Harris and McCann, 1994).‖ This reality must be changed and these changes will have drastic effects on the methodology used by the teacher while teaching, as well as while testing and assessing. The last change to be applied (yet not the very last one because the changes are a lot more than these), is closely related to both teachers and students. ―Learners feel alienated by assessment because they have no role in it, apart from as passive participants (Harris and McCann, 1994).‖ This is the picture one can get in the Albanian universities (and I guess not only) and this should definitely change. Learners should become active in their learning, teaching and assessing processes because without their participation and their voice in our decision making, no real and effective progress can be made. As the saying goes – Change starts from oneself! 737 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo References Brown, H. D. (2004).Language assessment: Principles and classroom practices. White Plains, NY: Longman Case, R. (1992, winter). On the need to assess authentically. Holistic Education Review, Garden City, NY: Adelphi University. 738 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo EPOSTL (2007), European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages, Council of Europe. Farr, R. (1991). Formal methods of evaluation. In J.Flood, J. Jensen, D. Lapp, & J. Squire (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts. Neë York: Macmillan. Farr, R., & Tone, B. (1994). Portfolio performance assessmentL Helping students evaluate their progress as readers and ëriters. Fort Ëorth, TX: Harcourt Brace College. Gace, P. (1998), Të mësuarit e sotëm dhe psikologjia pedagogjike, Tiranë, SHBLSH Goodman, Y. (1991) Informal methods of evaluation. In J. Flood, J. Jensen, D. Lapp & J. Squire (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching the Englisht language arts. Neë York : Macmillan. Harp, B. (1996). The handbook of literacy assessment and evaluation. Norëood, MA: Christopher-Gordon. Harris Michael, McCann Paul, (1994). Assessment. Macmillan Publishers Ltd., Oxford Këshilli i bashkëpunimit kulturor (2006), ―Kuadri i përbashkët evropian i referencave për gjuhët‖, Filara. Musai, B. (1994), Ndërtimi i testeve me zgjedhje. Elbasan, Onufri Musai, B. (1995). Probleme psikopedagogjike të mësimit të individualizuar. Musai, B. (1996). Mjeshtëritë themelore të mësimdhënies. Tiranë, Eurorilindja. Tamo, A. (1995). Testimi i diturisë. Tiranë. ShBLU The University of the state of New York (2004). Learning standards for English as a second language. Albany, New York Tierney, R. J. Carter, M.A., & Desai, L. E. (1991). Portfolio assessment in the reading-writing classroom. Norwood, MA: Christopher – Gordon. Wolf, D. P. (1993). Assessment as a mode of learning, In R.E. Bennett & W.C. Ward (Eds), Construction vs. Choice in cognitive measurement. New Yersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. 739 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 109 Title A name given to the resource Assessment – Albanian educational system reality and challenges. Author Author Vavla, Laureta Abstract A summary of the resource. This paper stresses the importance of assessment in second language class today in the Albanian educational institutions, and in particular the advantages of using assessment in improving teaching and learning. Assessment is generally seen as something done to students by teachers. Many students may feel panicked and confused. Tests descend upon them from time to time and have to be ‗got through‘. This paper discusses the reality of the Albanian teaching and learning institutions in regard to assessment and tests and the challenges encountered. The study goes on and makes a modest attempt to give some practical solutions to these challenges and problems Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/737cdf331ada2d5d7c51455339efc823.pdf 49c8ac31814bddf90aafdb0124db3022 PDF Text Text 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Literature and Colonialism: Tracing the Haitian Theme in the Literary Works of Kleist, Seghers and Mueller Mercy Vungthianmuang Centre of German Studies School of Language, Literature and Cultural Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India mercymuang@gmail.com Abstract: The entire history of the "Entdeckungsreisen' in the 15th and the 16th Century is a history of the conquered and the conquerer. With historical evidences of the various European nations ruling over the 'other' nations, comes a corpus of texts which legitimates and hence establishes an outline of colonization in literary texts. This discourse on colonialism in the various disciplines of the social sciences especially in the literary texts helps us to analyze the links between power and authority and apparently which also manifests itself in the language of the text. The Haitian Revolution i.e. the Slave Revolt against the French Rule is a theme which has been discussed in various historical time -periods over the centuries. In German literature, this historical event has also been established in a series of works of Heinrich von Kleist: Die Verlobung in St. Domingo, Anna Seghers: Die karibische Geschichten and Heiner Mueller‘s Play: Der Auftrag. It is interesting to know how the three texts establishes an intertextuality not only in its form and structure, but also how in different dimensions of literary representations it attributes the various trends of colonial discourse. Orientalising the other, representing the ‗other‘ and the emergence of ‗stabilization through Power‘ can be observed in these literary works. Introduction: Colonialism and Literature have had a close relationship since the discovery of the Americas by Vasco Da Gama. Colonialism has its origins in the whole history of expeditions starting from the 15th Century till the recent decades and literature, on the other hand, being a mediator between the ‗real‘ and the ‗imaginary‘ becomes a written and representational tool in which a cluster of complex language and symbols are considered to be exemplifying this ‗Difference‘282 between the ‗discoverer‘ and the ‗discovered‘ or the ‗conqueror‘ and the ‗conquered‘, the ‗oppressor‘ and the ‗oppressed‘. The literature of colonialism constitutes a corpus of texts, in which, the dominance of different European nations over the various ‗other‘ parts of the world is legitimised and perceived as ‗acceptable‘ and hence, creates a problematic debate on the quintessential issue of representation by the colonising power. This outlining of various colonial representations in literature then forms a prerequisite not only for the ‗colonial discourse‘ but also for the postcolonial discourse since it involves imperialising or ‗subordinating‘ of the colonised. 283 European representation of colonial contentions and themes forms the basis of the postcolonial argument. It becomes crucial for a globalised world, to reflect and to observe how various literary texts on colonialism are representational texts and how they metamorphose into an export of European ideas and Europe‘s search for its own identity. Scope and Objective of the research: The research aimed to study German literary texts representing the Haitian- Theme and attempt to trace various colonial connotations by challenging them and problematising them with a postcolonial perspective. The Slave revolt in Haiti in the year 1803 against the French regime has been, to a large extent, discussed and written extensively by many writers. Parallel to this, the aim of the research was to study the literary works of three German authors who have written broadly about the Haitian-theme in different time periods. The tradition of the Haitiantheme in German literature saw its onset with the work of Heinrich von Kleist‘s novella ‗Die Verlobung von St. Domingo‘ published in the year 1811, followed by Theodor Koerner‘s novel titled ―Toni‖ published in the year 1812 and several decades later , in the year 1840, Theodor Muegge‘s novel ‗Toussaint‘. A century later the Haitian – theme is taken up again by Anna Seghers in the ‗Karibische Geschichten‘ published in the year 1962. The third story in her ‗Karibische Geschichten‘ ‗ Das Licht auf dem Galgen‘ finds its affiliation in Heiner Mueller‘s play ‗Der 282 Osterhammel, Juergen: Geschichtswissenschaft jenseits des Nationalstaates. Studien zu Beziehungsgeschichte und Zivilizationsvergleich. Gottingen 2003. 283 Loomba, Ania: Colonialism/Postcolonialism. Routledge 1988. p. 12 902 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Auftrag‘ which was published a decade later in the year 1979 contemplating not only the colonial contentions of the Haitian-theme but also discussing the idea of revolution. Heiner Mueller wrote: ―I wanted to do ‗Auftrag‘ after I had read Anna Seghers work ‗Das Licht auf dem Galgen‘. Das Licht auf dem Galgen is her contention with Stalinism: Napoleon / Stalin, the liquidators of revolution.‖284 The three German literary texts by Heinrich von Kleist, Anna Seghers and Heiner Mueller will form the basis for this research by displaying various dimensions of literary representations in the colonial and postcolonial context. In this research, the main aim was in studying and analysing the historical backgrounds during the time when the three authors Heinrich von Kleist, Anna Seghers and Heiner Mueller wrote their respective texts and also comparing and contrasting the various factors which influenced each individual author‘s usage of different motifs in their texts. The different genres of the three authors, was also one of the main focus of this research. Heinrich von Kleist and Anna Seghers novels share a similar genre but differ in their focus thematically. Heinrich von Kleist discusses extensively the relationship between the ‗coloniser‘ and the ‗colonised‘ and the contingencies of ―Blackness‘ and ―Whiteness‖ outlining his text into an issue of ‗race‘ and ‗class‘ and Seghers ‗stories‘ establish a different perspective of the Haitian-theme into a theme on revolution while acknowledging the factors of ‗race‘ and ‗class‘. Heiner Mueller‘s play being a ‗didactic play‘ with its subtitle ―Memories of a revolution‖ 285attempts to take the focus of his predecessor‘s texts onto a higher analysis of the various political, social and cultural issues, which were prevalent during the time the play was written and also now, in the postcolonial age, and hence, it becomes important for one to understand the intertextuality within the three literary texts sharing the Haitian-theme and analyse all the interwoven factors of literary and cultural importance. Another major objective of the research was to analyse how such literary texts on the Haitian-Theme, become representational texts of colonialism and to what extent does it mirror Germany‘s stand on colonialism. It becomes substantial for one, as a student of German Studies in India, to be able to examine and deal with the intercultural aspects in the three German literary texts. The different approaches of the individual authors in discussing the concept of ‗Blackness‘ or ‗Otherness‘ becomes crucial for this research and it becomes important also to understand how this discussion leads one to problematise the issue of ‗representation of the colonised‘. ―The social gulf built into the depersonalised official relationship between White ruler and non-White ruled is one which peculiarly facilitates thinking of the Other as incentive ‗sub men‘ by the rulers, and as heartless gods by the ruled. Fanon has remarked that the colon is right in his familiar claim to ‗know‘ the colonised people better than others, precisely because he has created his personality.‖286 In studying such literary texts and the categories of colonialism, it becomes all the more necessary to determine how this question of ‗Blackness‘ gets incorporated in the recent discourse of Postcolonialism and makes it essential to research and know how one deals with this idea of ‗Eurocentrism‘ in the post-colonial world. Fanon argues that Europe deployed an imperialist semiotics that made whiteness the signifier of reason, virtue, and beauty and blackness the signifier of irrational intuition and raw sensuality in order to legitimate its domination of the ‗third world‘. According to Fanon, racial value coding imposes a sense of inferiority on colonial subjects, alienating them from themselves and sometimes making them want to become white. But since the codes of blackness and whiteness are arbitrary fictions imposed by imperialism, it remains possible to claim a subject position outside them. 287 For example: the concept of ‗Morality‘ ‗Good‘ and ‗Civilised‘ as oppose to ‗Immorality‘ ‗Evil‘ and ‗Uncivilised‘. The representation of ‗Verlobung‘ or ‗Betrothal‘ of the main characters Gustav –a Swiss soldier and Toni- a black woman in Kleist‘s novel corresponds into a representation of an interlocking of two different cultures. The ‗love‘ between Gustav and Toni is depicted as an antithesis to a political engagement between the two cultures and love as a symbol which defines allegiances as in the case of revolutions‘.288 In many aspects, we can also observe that the texts by Heinrich von Kleist ‗Die Verlobung von St. Domingo‘ and Anna Seghers‘ ‗Die Hochzeit von Haiti‘, are a reflection on the coming together of two different cultures, as in the case of the ‗first world‘ and the so called ‗third world‘ civilizations. This engagement and marriage of two opposing civilizations, consequently, becomes an important theme for the research, since it involves the objectifications of the ‗colonized‘ ―...objectification is not best understood as denying the freedom of the objectified, but as denying and concealing the joint projects that underlie human relationships. [...] The 284 Cf. Heiner Mueller: Krieg ohne Schlacht-Leben in zwei Diktaturen. Koeln 1992. p. 297 Heiner, Mueller: Der Auftrag: Errinerung an eine Revolution. Frankfurt a. M. 1988 286 Worsley, Peter: Colonialism and Categories In Race and Social Difference (Ed.) Paul Baxter & Basel Sansom 1972. p. 98. 287 Cf. Fanon, Frantz: Black Skin, White Masks. Pluto Press. UK 1986. 285 903 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo objectification of racism, by contrast are more severe-such as a large pseudo-scientific literature claiming to prove the genetic inferiority of blacks to whites.‖289 The unsuccessful outcome of the relationship, projected as one‘s ‗moral‘ decision or that of total commitment to a ‗revolutionary‘ cause and the depiction of Toni‘s betrayal as a betrayal of the ‗Black‘ cause in Kleist‘s text and Heiner Mueller‘s emphasis on the revolution of the ‗whites‘ coming to an end, is thereby, another level of representation of the colonised section of the world. The research on such literary texts in a postcolonial context helps us to ponder upon several issues of representations which are more often or not, consciously and unconsciously, projected by the European writers as trivial. In the three primary literary works, the portrayal of the main characters, the need of ‗European‘ revolutionaries to oversee the revolution in the ‗non-western‘ part of the world and attributing the failure of the main characters and also the unsuccessful human relationships to cultural aberrations is, in many ways, a contention of ‗representation‘ which culminates into a ‗representation/substitution‘ for the oppressed. ―Two senses of representation are being run together: representation as ‗speaking for‘ as in politics and representation as‗re-presentation‘ as in art or philosophy.‖290 The research also looks into various other factors such as; the issue of ‗power‘ and ‗knowledge‘ of the colonial discourse and attempt to problematise it through the literary texts. The stereotyping of the characters and events in the literary texts illustrates an uneasy representation of the non-western world and the research finds such illustrations as an association between ‗power‘ and ‗knowledge‘ as opposed to ‗weakness‘ and ‗ignorance‘. ―Stereotyping involves reduction of images and ideas to simple and manageable forms; rather than simple ignorance or lack of ‗real‘ knowledge, it is a method of processing information. The function of stereotypes is to perpetuate an artificial sense of difference between ‗self‘ and ‗other‘‖.291 The research also makes an attempt to look into the depiction of women in the literary texts and also finds a concrete argument for such portrayals which in turn lead us again to the discussion of the ‗representation‘ of the oppressed society. The representation of ‗Toni‘ as the victim in Kleist‘s ‗Die Verlobung von St. Domingo‘ whose misunderstood allegiances leads to the death of Gustav and herself, ‗Die erste Liebe‘ in Mueller‘s play ‗Der Auftrag‘, who succeeds in seducing Debuisson to give into the moment of betrayal represented as love for his ‗Heimat‘ which is Jamaika –a ‗third world‘ country, are traces of representations of women which construct cultural differences. This objectivising of ‗black‘ or ‗non-European women‘ as ‗evil‘, desirable‘ and ‗passive‘ needs to be carefully analyzed and problematised. Another very important factor to take into account in this research is whether or not, these literary texts are a ‗cultural memory‘ for the three authors and to try to determine the various aspects of cultural differences produced by the ‗cultural memory‘ in their writings, since memory involves recollecting of an event and the process of recollection involves reconstruction of the past and association with the past. With this reconstruction of the past, it then becomes crucial for one to examine the various cultural differences taken as an accepted fact, as in the case of ‗Die Verlobung von St. Domingo‘ in Kleist‘s text when the he produces a European cultural memory at the very beginning of his novella ―[...] when the blacks killed the whites...‖292 which then reduces the characters of literary texts into objects i.e. the ‗non-european‘ subject as an object, an object which is ‗evil‘ for the ‗west‘ which consecutively leads to the conception of ‗Difference‘. This ‗Difference‘ is created, not on the basis of geographical boundaries, but on metaphorical differences into the ‗slave‘ and the ‗non-slave‘ worlds and forms a very essential and crucial point of discussion. Jan Assman in his book- Das kulturelle Gedaechtnis mentions that ‗The cultural memory is aimed at fixed points in the past. [...] Past refers here to many symbolic figures, which the memory is attached to.‘293 The research also looks at the literary texts as productions of ‗enlightened‘ texts according to Kantian theories of ‗Enlightenment‘, which establishes reason being the pre-requisite of differences between two cultures. Hence, it enables one to evaluate the basic ‗European‘ theories of culture which more often than not, postulate the cultural differences between ‗us‘ and ‗them‘, also observed in the three literary texts, and it shall further enable us to examine whether such literary texts on the ‗colonized‘ and the ‗oppressed‘, becomes examples of the European author‘s or Europe‗s own search for identity in the postcolonial world. ―Attempts to interpret the role of race in Kleist‘s novella often founder on the attempt to establish the author‘s views concerning colonialism and Enlightenment thought. This is obvious reaction to the concerns of the text and the important, real-world context of race with our contemporary global culture.‖ 294 289 Schmitt, Richard: Racism and Objectification –Reflections on Themes from Fanon. In Lewis R. Gordon, T. Denean SharpleyWhiting and Renee T. White (Ed.), Fanon: A critical Reader, Oxford 1996. p. 46. 290 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty: Can the subaltern speak? 1988 p. 70 291 Loomba, Ania: Colonialism/Postcolonialism. Routledge 1988. p. 60 292 Cf.Kleist, Heinrich von : Die Verlobung in St. Domingo. Hamburger Lesehefte 1977 293 Cf. Assman, Jan: Das kulturelle Gedaechtnis. Schrift, Errinerung und politische Identitate in fruehen Hochkulturen, Muenchen 2007. p. 52 294 Martin, James P: Reading Race in Kleist‘s ―Die Verlobung von St. Domingo‖. Monatshefte , Volume 100, number 1, Spring 2008 p. 63. 904 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Methodology: 1. Orientalism: I would like to propose the critical discourse on ‗Orientalism‘ which was articulated by Edward Said in his 1971 published book titled ‗Orientalism‘and which originated as a point of reference for all postcolonial writers in the 20th century, in order to examine the colonial and the postcolonial criticisms in European literatures. In his introduction, Said proposes to analyse Orientalism with the Foucauldian notion of ‗discourse‘. In writing on Orientalism, Said emphasises that the construction of the East was always possible for the west since the relationship shared between the ‗Occident‘ and the ‗orient‘ corresponded to a relationship of power and knowledge and ―...of varying degrees of a complex hegemony‖. 295 ―My contention is that without examining Orientalism as a discourse one cannot possibly understand the enormously systematic discipline by which European culture was able to manage –and even produce-the orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically and imaginatively during the Post-Enlightenment period.‖296 From the above statement one can come to several conclusions that: a) The Orient would have to be created as an opposite of the west and which in turn means that the entire conception of the ‗Orient‘ or the ‗East‘ becomes a repository or projection of those aspects of themselves which Westerners do not choose to acknowledge and b) That the relationship between the ‗west‘ and the ‗Orient‘ has always been that of power structures wherein the superiority of the European identity has consistently been a dominating factor. Hence, it becomes important for this research, in analysing the concept of representation which has been postulated by the discourse on ‗Orientalism‘ in which the main focus remains, problematising the European representations of ‗other‘ cultures. In doing so, the central objective is not only to analyse or ascertain the passive participation of German authors in the ‗representation‘ of other cultures in their literary texts but also to study how these representations in literary texts have been a validation for representing the ‗orient‘ as an object throughout centuries. Representations wherein the east or the ‗orient has been taken as an ‗object‘ and features in the ‗western‘ mind ―...as sort of surrogate and even underground self.‖297 ―Thus all of Orientalism stands forth and away from the Orient: that Orientalism makes sense at all depends on the west than on the Orient, and this sense directly indebted to various Western techniques of representation that make the Orient visible, clear, ‗there‘ in discourse about it‖298 Said‘s theories of colonialism have been strongly contested and it would therefore also be important to look at the critical discourse on these positions. Especially in the German context it has been posited that since Germany was not a colonial power till the end of the 19 th Century, Said‘s theories are untenable in this framework 299. The work examines this aspect of the theoretical framework. 2. Colonialism/Postcolonialism As mentioned earlier, after European expeditions of the early 15 th/16th century, history saw the commencement of the various European colonisations; hence, it becomes inevitable for this research to understand the colonial and postcolonial discourse in literature. In the German context, although colonisation was never felt in the ‗real‘ sense of colonising a territory other than that of Europe, it however, was a silent partner in the colonial representations of the ‗colonised‘ through literary texts. If we take for example, the various travelogues of the German authors, or the reports and the letters written by German missionaries, it becomes evident that literary representations of a culture other than that of one‘s own becomes a crucial concept in the colonial discourse. If we take for instance, Alexander von Humboldt‘s expeditions, where he travels to ‗observe‘ and ‗study‘ the Native Americans, he gives a detailed scientific analysis of slavery and colonialism and writes his observations on the flora and fauna of the other parts of the continent, is nothing but a representation of a culture unknown to the European world. Hence, it becomes interesting for this research to analyse how these representations of people and cultures translate into ‗objectification‘ of the people who were observed and studied and how these reports or travelogues or literary works form Europe‘s way of understanding the ‗other‘ by reading it and constructing it. Such establishments of ‗other‘ parts of the continent as ‗delayed‘ and ‗inferior‘, is what interests us to question and to analyse literary texts in colonial discourse. As also in the case of the three works by Heinrich von Kleist, Anna Seghers and Heiner Mueller, namely, Die Verlobung von St. Domingo, Karibische Geschichten and ‗Der Auftrag‘ respectively, traces of colonial prejudices can be read and observed and therefore, it forms an essential factor for this research to examine the 295 Said, Edward: Orientalism. p.5 Ebid p. 23 297 Said, Edward. 1971. 298 Ebid p. 22 299 Cf. Polaschegg, Andrea: Der andere Orientalismus. Regeln deutsch-morgenlaendischer Imagination im 19. Jahrhundert. Berlin/New York 2005 296 905 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo ‗representational ‗forms in such literary texts because literary and cultural practices also embody cultural interactions and involve cultural prejudices against the colonised. ― The colonial contact is not just ‗reflected‘ in the language or imagery of literary texts, it is not just a backdrop or ‗context‘ against which human dramas are enacted, but a central aspect of what these texts have to say about identity, relationships and culture.‖300 Another major theoretical aspect of the research is the postcolonial discourse. Analysing literary texts on the basis of colonial discourse , undoubtedly, gives us a fair understanding of the concept of ‗representational texts‘. Although the ‗representation‘ of the French colonies in Haiti in the literary texts may make us aware of ‗what had happened‘ and how the ‗colonised‘ were projected and depicted in the texts, consecutively, opening up a certain kind of awareness of how the representations of the non-European characters such as Toni, Margot, Sasportas and Congo Hoango in the three texts as ‗exotic‘ desirable‘ ‗evil‘ or ‗immoral‘, it also becomes critical for the postcolonial literary theory, to construct a future, wherein the differences are understood, apprehended and criticised. The postcolonial discourse helps us to understand and comprehend much more effectively, how such literary texts on historical events are considered to be an accepted form of historicising the past in the eyes of the European writer and it shall try to discuss the how such illustrations or depictions of the past in literature, if written by a ‗third world‘ author would have to undergo various degrees of experimentations and testing. ―That Europe works as a silent referent in historical knowledge becomes obvious in a very ordinary way. There are at least two everyday symptoms of the subalterity of non-western, third –world histories. Third world historians feel a need to refer to works in European history; historians of Europe do not feel any need to reciprocate‖301 4. The Category of the ‗Other‘ Reflecting on the theoretical aspects of Orientalism by Edward Said, it introduces us to another very important theoretical aspect which is the category of the ‗Other‘. Since several decades, theoreticians, culture historians and literary writers have tried to critically analyse and problematise this theoretical construct and epistemological category of the ‗Other‘ in the ongoing racial discourse. Thus, it was important for this research to study, how and when did the term ‗culture‘ begin to connote the differences between two societies or two cultures or better described as the difference between ‗Us‘ and ‗Them‘ and how such categorisations became an accepted norm in the literary works of the European writer. Another very important input on the categorisation of the non-European world as the ‗other‘ is in the book written by Todorov, titled ‗Entkolonisierung‘, in which he writes about the conquest of the Americas. Todorov does not embark on the historical conquests of the Americas in order to establish the European identity but he is rather concerned about the legitimising of the ‗moral‘ intentions by the Europeans, as also in the case of Edward Said, and appropriating this ‗need‘ to colonise. The category of the ‗other‘ exists within a society and also within several societies, hence, the theoretical construction of the ‗Other‘ creates on one hand, boundaries between two poles as eminently different, and on the other hand becomes an establishment of identities. 302 When critically analysed, it is observed that this category of the ‗Other‘ is always parallel to the degradation of the power structure, often evolving at the height of a political Imperialism and thus, becomes only evident in the various expressions of stereotypes or as forms of cultural hegemony. The presupposition of one culture being superior to the other leads to a prejudiced representation as in the case of the literary texts and also in the case of historical writings about the ‗third world‘. This process of articulating and organising the ‗Other‘ by the Europeans in the literary texts forms an essential part of the research. In what way is this research different? The research attempts to take the Haitian –theme in the German literary texts as a unit or a thematic composition between three texts, which has not been established before. Although many articles have been written on the texts dealing with various concepts, the thematic composition of the Haitian Theme has not been attempted. The research establishes an interdisciplinary approach of analysing the literary texts. Through the analysis of the texts, it becomes imperative to critically study the various established discussions about the ‗Representation‘ of the oppressed Class, People, and Group in tandem with the discourse of Postcolonialism. The research also traces the different developments of revolution from the historical aspects of the texts and makes an attempt to establish how the European model of a revolution then becomes a projection of delimiting the ‗black‘ revolution or the ‗third world‘ revolution into a category of the ‗other‘. The research is a distinctive and relevant in analysing the developing tendencies of German Studies in India and institutionalising this theme becomes interesting for a globalised world. 300 Loomba, Ania: Colonialism/Postcolonialism. 1998. p. 72-73. Althusser, Louis: Postcoloniality and the artiface of History In, Dipesh Chakrabarty: Provincialising Europe 2000. p.28. 302 Osterhammel, Juergen: Kulturelle Grenzen in der Expansion Europas, in: Geschichtswissenschaft jenseits des Nationalstaats. Goettingen 2003. p. 36. 301 906 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo The object of my inquiry is the representation of the ‗oppressed‘ in the three primary German literary works. The research is a comparative study of the three German literary texts by Heinrich von Kleist, Anna Seghers and Heiner Mueller and proposes to find traces of colonial and postcolonial discourse in the literary texts which are used as primary texts segregating them under different categories of ‗race‘ , ‗class‘, and ‗gender‘. Another very important aspect of this research was in finding a theoretical approach to the various theories of culture and try to find relevance in the texts taken into account and how it would then lead into the establishing a concrete argument on the European identity in literature in the postcolonial perspective. Conclusion and Recommendations: The research determines and brings in new observations on the relationships between Europe and the nonEuropean worlds through these literary texts. The research accentuates the theoretical aspects by finding relevance of the theories in the textual analysis of the literary texts and makes an attempt to find its application in the concerned texts. Another major attempt of the research was to find and analyse the theories of ‗representation of the ‗other‘‘ in each of the texts ‗Die Verlobung von St. Domingo‘, Karibische Geschichten‘ and ‗Der Auftrag‘ which then lead us to establish a concrete argument in the postcolonial perspective. The Haitian-Theme has been for centuries, extensively discussed in the German literature from the 18th Century till date and forms the primary source for this research. The first German author to bring forth this particular theme was Heinrich von Kleist in his Novella ‗Die Verlobung in St. Domingo‘ published in the year 1811, which is the first primary source for the research. It was the time when Europe was establishing imperial and colonial power within and outside the European boundaries. The Napoleonic wars, the French revolution, colonisation, slavery and ‗Fremdheit‘ were the historical themes prevalent during this period. It was also the period of enlightenment when not only Germany, but the various other European countries were trying to provide a distinctive identity of its own. The Haitian theme was revived again, centuries after Kleist‘s novelle, by another German author Anna Seghers in her ‗Karibische Geschichten‘ in the year 1962 , wherein the previous documentations of slavery and revolution were taken into a more complicated level of discussion. It was the period after the Second World War and a tumultuous time for German socialist authors in trying to come to terms with their reality of ‗geteilte Welt‘. It was also a period of the civil war and the student‘s movement in Germany and hence, the Haitian theme was considered to be a basis for further contemplation of the ongoing autrocities in the karibische Geschichten, constituting the second primary source to be used in the research. A decade after Anna Seghers wrote her last story in her ‗Karibische Geschichten‘- ‗Das Licht auf dem Galgen‘, Heiner Mueller‘s play ‗Der Auftrag‘ was published in the year1979. In addition to the colonial and representational contentions, Mueller displays a whole new concept on the idea of a revolution, therein, providing an open-ended situation to enhance the contemporary contentions, and therefore, forms the third primary concern of the research. References: Kleist, Heinrich von: Die Verlobung von St. Domingo. Hamburger Lesehefte 1977 Mueller, Heiner: Der Auftrag. Quartett. Frankfurt a. M. 1988. Seghers, Anna: Erzӓhlungen 1952-1962 Aufbau Verlag. Berlin 1981. Althusser, Louis: Postcoloniality and the artiface of History, In: Dipesh Chakrabarty: Provincialising Europe, Princeton University Press 2000 Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth and Tiffin, Helen:The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London and New York: Routledge, 2002 Assmann, Jan: Das kulturlle Gedӓchtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identitӓten in frùhren Hochkulturen. Mùnchen 2007 Assmann, Aleida: Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit-Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik Schriftenreihe Band 633 Barthes, Roland: Mythen des Alltags[1964], ùbers. von Helmut Scheffel. Frankfurt/ Main 1981 Baxter, P. and B. Samson (Ed.) Race and Social Difference London 1972 Bhatti, Anil: Unser Wissen ùbereinander. In: Verstand zur Verstӓndigung. Festschrift fùr Heinrich Pfeiffer. Hrsg.v. Thomas Berberich u. JanClauss. Berlin u.a. 1987 907 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Bery, Ashok, and Patricia Murray, eds. Comparing Postcolonial Literatures. London: Macmillan, 2000. Bhabha, Homi: The Location of Culture. [1994] London Routledge 2008 Bitterli, Urs: Die ‗Wilden‘ und die ‗Zivilisierten‘. Mùnchen 1976 Boehmer, Elleke: Colonial and Postcolonial Literature. Oxford 1995 Burke, Edmund: Vom Erhabenen und Schoenen. (1756) Berlin 1956 Conrad, Sebastian , Randeria, Shalini (Hg.): Jenseits des Eurozentrismus- Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts-und Kulturwissenschaften. Frankfurt / Main 2002 Daus, Ronald: Die Erfindung des Kolonialismus. Wuppertal 1983 Duara, Prasenjit (Ed.): Decolonization-Perspectives from Now and Then, London Routledge 2004 Davidson, B.: Vom Sklavenhandel zur Kolonialisierung. Hamburg 1966 Bericht von der Verwùstung der westindischen Lӓnder. Frankfurt / Main 1981 Fanon, Frantz: Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press 1973 Friedman, Dan: The Cultural Politics of Heiner Mùller. Cambridge 2007 Gilman, Sander: On Blackness without Blacks: Essays on the Image of the Black in Germany. Boston 1982 Grimm, Reinhold and Jost Hermand (Ed.) Blacks and German Culture Wisconsin 1986 Hall, Stuart: Neue Ethnizitӓten, In: Uwe Wirth (Hg.) Kulturwissenschaften- Eine Auswahl grundlegender Texte. Frankfurt/ Main 2008 Hӧrnigk, Frank: Erinnerungen an Revolutionen: Zu Entwicklungstendenzen in der Dramatik Heiner Mùllers, Peter Hacks‘ und Volker Brauns am Ende der 70er Jahre. In: Tendenzen und Beispiele. Hrsg. Von Hans Kaufmann. Leipzig 1981 Horn, Peter: Heinrich von Kleists Erzӓhlungen. Eine Einfùhrung. Kӧnigstein/Ts. 1978 Huntington, Samuel P.: The Clash of Civilizations and the remaking of World Order. New York 1996 Inauen , Yasmine: Dramaturgie der Erinnerung – Geschichte, Gedӓchtnis, Kӧrper bei Heiner Mueller. Staufenburg Verlag James, C.L.R.: Schwarze Jakobiner. Kӧln 1984 Kaufmann, Hans: Aufsӓtze ùber Anna Seghers und ihr Werk. Berlin 1960 Kant, Immanuel: Was ist Aufklaerung?Thesen und Definitionen, hrsgv. Erhard Bahr, Stuttgart 1974 Labroisse, Gerd: Heiner Mùller-Problemen und Perspektiven. Rodopi 2000. Lahaye , Birgit: Pirating history- die Darstellung des haitianischen Unabhängigkeitskampfes in der Erzählliteratur. Mùnster 2003 Lazarus, Neil (Ed.): Postcolonial Literary Studies. Cambridge 2004 Lehmann, Hans-Thies: Dramatische Form und Revolution in Georg Bùchners ‗Dantons Tod‘ und Heiner Mllers ‗Der Auftrag‘. In: Georg Bùchner: Dantons Tod: Die Trauerarbeit im Schnen. Hrsg. v. peter von Becker. Frankfurt 1980 Loomba, Ania: Colonialism/ Postcolonialism. Routledge 1998 Maurer, Emil H.: Der schwarze Revolutionӓr: Touissant Louverture. Meisenheim/ Glan 1950 Mùller-Seidel, Walter (Hg.): Versehen und Erkennen. Eine Studie ùber Heinrich von Kleist. 3. Auflage. Kӧln 1961 Onana, Marie Biloa: Der Sklavenaufstand von Haiti: Ethnische Differenz und Humanitätsideale in der Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts. Kӧln/ Weimar 2010 Osterhammel, Juergen: Kulturelle Grenzen in der Expansion Europas, In: Geschichtswissenschaft jenseits des Nationalstaats. Goettingen 2003 Sareika, Rdriger: Die dritte Welt in der westdeutschen Literatur der 60er Jahre. Frankfurt 1980 Said, Edward W.: Orientalism. 1978 Sauer, Klaus: Anna Seghers. Mùnchen 1978 Schmitt, Richard: Racism and Objectification –Reflections on Themes from Fanon. In Lewis R. Gordon, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting and Renee T. White (Ed.), Fanon : A critical Reader, Oxford 1996 Schuppenhauer, Nadja: Die veränderte Rezeption der Haitianischen Revolution im Zuge des postcolonial turn: Eine Bestandsaufnahme. GRIN Verlag 2003. Stoddard, T.L.: The French Revolution in San Domingo. New York 1914 Todorov, Tzvetan; Die Eroberung Amerikas. Das Problem des Anderen. Frankfurt/ Main 1985 Wichmann, Thomas: Heinrich von Kleist. Stuttgart 1988 Williams, Patrick: Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory. New York 1994 Witsch & Kiepenheuer: Heiner Mueller: Krieg ohne Schlacht-Leben in zwei Diktaturen. Koeln 1992 Angress, Ruth. K: Kleist‘s Treatment of Imperialism: ‗Die Hermannschlacht‘ and ‗Die Verlobung von St. Domingo‘. In: Monatshefte. Vol 69, No. 1, 1977. S. 17-33 Barnett, David: Literature versus Theatre. Textual Problems and Theatrical Realization in the Later Plays of Heiner Mùller. German Studies Review. Vol. 24, No. 3 (Oct., 2001), pp. 666-668 908 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Berding, H.: Die Ӓchtung des Sklavenhandels auf dem Wiener Kongreβ 1814/15. In: Historische Zeitschrift (1974) Bernd, Fischer: Zur politischen Dimension der Ethik in Kleists ‗Die Verlobung von St. Domingo‘. In: Dirk Grathoff(Hrsg): Heinrich von Kleist. Studien zu Werk u. Wirkung. Opladen 1988. S.248-262 Bertram, Christian: Im Auftrag ohne Auftrag. In: Theatre heute 3/1980 S. 43 Carl-Hermann, Middelanis: Blending with Motifs and Colors: Haitian History Interpreted by Edouard Duval Carrie. Journal of Germanic Studies. Small Axe - Number 18 (Volume 9, Number 2), September 2005, pp. 109-123 Cultural Critique, No. 6 Spring 1987.‖ The Nature and Context of minority Discourse‖.Ed. by Abdel Jan Mohammed& David Lloyd Enzensberger, Hans Magnus: Europӓische Peripherie. In: Kursbuch 2 August 1965. S. 154-173 Enzensberger, Hans Magnus: Peter Weiss und andere. In: Kursbuch 6 Juli 1966. S.175 Fehervary, Helen (1998): Landscapes of an "Auftrag". In: New German Critique. Winter (1998) S.115-132. Gilman, Sander: The Aesthetics of Blackness in Heinrich v. Kleist‘s ‗Die Verlobung in St. Domingo‘. In: MLN 90, 1975 S. 661-672 Gugelberger, George. M.: ―Cric?‖-―Crac‖! Vier literarische Versuche, mit dem Kolonialismus umzugehen. Monatshefte. Vol. 85. No.2 ( Summer 1993) S. 234-236 Gùnther, K,: Die Konzeption von Kleists‘ Die Verlobung von St. Domingo‘. In: Euphorion 17, 1910. S.313-323 Hahne, O.: Die Entstehung von Kleist‘s ‗Die Verlobung von St. Domingo‘. In: Euphorion 33, 1921. S. 233-254 Irele, Abiola: Negritude-Literature and Ideology. Journal of Modern African Studies. Vol 3. No. 4. 1965. S. 499-526 Martin, James P: Reading Race in Kleist‘s ―Die Verlobung von St. Domingo‖. Monatshefte , Volume 100, number 1, Spring 2008 S. 63. Martini, Fritz:Heinrich von Kleist und die geschichtliche Welt. In: Germanische Studien. Heft 225. 1940 McCloy, S.T.: The Race Question in Late 18th Century France. In: Atlantic Quarterly (1961) Mùller-Salget, Klaus: Das Doppeldeutigkeit in Kleists Erzӓhlungen. In: Mùller-Seidel, Walter(Hrsg.): Kleists Aktualitӓt. Neue Aufsӓtze u. Essays. 1966-1978. Darmstadt 1981. S. 167-199 Musgrave, Marian E.: Anna Seghers‘ ‗Karibische Geschichten‘ and the tradition of Slavery Literature. In: American Association of Teachers of German: Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting. Edited By Reinhold Grimm et.al. Philadelphia1975 Quartey, Seth : Africa in German Literature 1880 and After; Representation of Africa and Politics of German Colonialism in Africa 1810 and After, In: Developement and Colonialism. February 28, 2005 Reinhardt, Thomas: 200 Years of Forgettin g: Hushing up the Haitian Revolution. Journal of Black Studies. 2005. S. 246-261 Said, Edward W.: Orientalism Reconsidered. In: Race and Class. Autmn 1985 No. 2 P. 1-17 Teraoka, Arlene A.: Der Auftrag und Die Massnahme-Models of Revolution in Heiner Mùller and Bertolt Brecht. The German Quarterly, Vol. 59. No. 1 (Winter 1986) S. 65-84 29. Wende, Waltraud (1998): "Überfahrt" von Anna Seghers. Liebesgeschichte, Zeitporträt und Erzählung ùber das Erzählen. In: Euphorion 1 (1998), S.25-46. 30. Witkowski, Wolfgang: Justice and Loyalty-Kleist‘s Die Verlobung von St. Domingo. Journal of Black Studies. Vol 23, No. 2, Special Issue: The image of Africa in German Society 31. Worsley, Peter: Colonialism and Categories. Excerpts from P. Worsley, The third World, Wedenfeld and Nicolson, 1964 S.25-28 909 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 555 Title A name given to the resource Literature and Colonialism: Tracing the Haitian Theme in the Literary Works of Kleist, Seghers and Mueller Author Author Vungthianmuang, Mercy Abstract A summary of the resource. The entire history of the "Entdeckungsreisen' in the 15th and the 16th Century is a history of the conquered and the conquerer. With historical evidences of the various European nations ruling over the 'other' nations, comes a corpus of texts which legitimates and hence establishes an outline of colonization in literary texts. This discourse on colonialism in the various disciplines of the social sciences especially in the literary texts helps us to analyze the links between power and authority and apparently which also manifests itself in the language of the text. The Haitian Revolution i.e. the Slave Revolt against the French Rule is a theme which has been discussed in various historical time -periods over the centuries. In German literature, this historical event has also been established in a series of works of Heinrich von Kleist: Die Verlobung in St. Domingo, Anna Seghers: Die karibische Geschichten and Heiner Mueller‘s Play: Der Auftrag. It is interesting to know how the three texts establishes an intertextuality not only in its form and structure, but also how in different dimensions of literary representations it attributes the various trends of colonial discourse. Orientalising the other, represent ing the ‗other‘ and the emergence of ‗stabilization through Power‘ can be observed in these literary works. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/32e4d640f81059683de42c30c0ad893a.pdf edd59913de49e54e66a0245f85fa906c PDF Text Text 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Bilingual education: the road to multilingualism Julijana VuĦo University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology julivuco@gmail.com Katarina Zavišin University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology katarina.zavisin@gmail.com Globalisation emphasizes the importance of foreign languages by influencing the development of national strategies for learning languages, thus contributing to conservation or harmonization of language ecological balance in the world. The increasing attention given to language issues in Europe resulted from the intention to overcome numerous problems related to language, communication, interaction and multilayered international cooperation and understanding in the context of ethnic, religious and cultural differences on global level, but also to promote the integration processes enhanced by various forms of mobility. What also contributes to this is an overall democratization of public life and raising awareness in different minority groups, as well as parallel processes of globalization, localization and glocalization: comparison, permeation, survival and adaptation of local environment to global context. At the same time, there are concerns based on the prejudice that globalization trends could endanger citizens' needs at individual and local level of identification with their people, country, religion, cultural specificities and so on. In the area of foreign language teaching policy there have been inappropriate reactions to the "danger" threatening the dominant language and culture that are allegedly jeopardized by the presence of other cultures and languages in a formal education system and environment. Bilingual education (in Serbia since 2004) promotes multilingualism, with the belief that it contributes to overcoming linguistic, cultural and communication barriers and develops tolerance. This paper, as an appendix to the introduction of bilingual teaching, interprets the results of research on the importance of learning foreign languages, cultural and linguistic bias in students of bilingual and regular classes. The aim of the paper is to identify similarities and differences in the attitudes of bilingual and regular students . Key Words: Bilingual education, multilingualism, multiculturalism, foreign languages, attitudes, bilingual and regular students. Introduction To speak more than one language is a rule rather than an exception because two thirds of the world's population are bilingual. During the eighties and nineties attention began to be paid at national levels in Europe to formative possibilities offered by bilingual education seen as a unique curriculum in two vehicular languages, one of which is not native. By publishing the White Paper (1996) titled Teaching and Learning: Towards the Learning Society, the European Commission emphasized the need to improve the quality of foreign language learning. One of the proposals in the document is about the possibility that several high school subjects can be taught in the first foreign language. Tendencies which are related to the foreign language learning policy in Europe are presented in detail in the Common European Framework of Reference for learning, teaching and assessment of the languages of the Council of Europe. They also contain a proposal of possible scenarios of the curricula presented to the Ministerial Council of the Council of Europe in 1998. New impetus to such education was the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, Article 126, which opened the borders of Europe to the effect of large movements, shifts, increased mobility of people and business relationships between countries. Contemporary attitudes and trends of foreign language learning policy in Europe include multilingualism as a basic principle of the European unity policy, defining it as an individual's ability to take part in intercultural interaction in two, three or more languages, at different levels. Such knowledge of a language offers the possibility of learning about multiple cultural communities, exchange of experiences and wider opportunities for work and 713 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo contacts within the European Union. Advantages of the implementation of the multilingualism principle in school systems lead to expansion of students‘ linguistic competence in a foreign language, development of creativity and sense of communication, greater abilities of analysis and problem solving, dissemination of knowledge in the foreign language as a vehicular language and in the mother tongue, development of self-confidence in the person who speaks the languages, greater respect for themselves, flexibility and adaptability, confidence in social interactions, developed capacity for interpersonal relations, closer ties with some environments and with the European social and cultural environment in general, and the creation of a multicultural attitude, possession of "the experience of two language worlds" (Baker, 2000). In pragmatic terms, education in two languages in a multilingual environment enables easier mobility and exchange of information in the broadest sense, including family, community, employment and international contacts in European and world context, permeation of educational systems of countries participating in bilingual education, transfer of academic knowledge from one language to another, the spirit of mutual cooperation in learning, education of a ready, open citizen of Europe with expressed tolerance and need for social harmony (VuĦo, 2006). Bilingual instruction uses two languages as a tool in teaching process, it is one of the aspects of bilingual education and ways to develop students' bilingualism. In bilingual classes in monolingual environments there is a risk that the second language might threaten the first one and replace it, which is known as subtractive bilingualism, a common phenomenon in language heterogeneous environment, where students whose first language is socially less important in their community, are taught some subjects in the language that is socially more relevant, thus endangering the development of the mother (family) tongue. The use of family language is limited only to home, school, and it is not used in the environment. This phenomenon occurs with immigrants, particularly those from socially less developed areas. When it comes to the bilingual education in Serbia227, its nature is additive, because it produces the mentioned positive effects (FilipoviĤ, VuĦo, ĐuriĤ, 2007). Europe and multiculturalism - from a political desire to political reality The views on multilingualism and intercultural relations on which the European Union bases its policy of equality among member states, encouraging foreign language learning and condemning any kind of linguistic and other discrimination in the areas of formal and informal education are well known. Active political support sends a clear message that there is a need to strengthen the knowledge of foreign languages and define specific language needs by maintaining the diversity of languages as a factor of strengthening European unity. Expressing fear or conciliation with the so-called imperialism of the English language, or with English as a language with the power of lingua franca of the modern world (Seidlhofer, 2005: 340), a valid recommendation (European Commission, 2008) is that a European citizen should speak at least three languages 228. The idea of European multiculturalism is experiencing longer and longer moments of crisis, a social environment is increasingly hostile to the challenges of integrating poor immigrant population into the European context. This is clearly expressed by the statements of the British 229 and German230 Prime Minister, affirming that "the attempts of creating a multicultural society in Germany have completely failed." Up to a few years ago clear messages contained unbelievably politically incorrect opinions addressed to immigrants, "those who don‘t speak the German language are not welcome," despite the fact that "in Frankfurt am Main, two out of three children under the age of 5 years are of immigrant origin" . Multiculturalism and multilingualism were the main pillars on which Europe rested. The threat that these pillars might collapse, for example in Germany and Britain, where as an alternative to unsuccessful multicultural utopia a clear expression of national identity that would contribute to preventing various extremism is evoked, speaks about the danger that hangs over the entire European Union and idea of European equality of nations and languages. 227 Bilingual education in Serbia, started in 2004-2005 in French and Italian, and since 2006 it is held in English and German in some primary schools. The model of bilingual education can be regarded as original and modified according to the CLIL procedure. In contrast to this model, where a sole requirement is not the knowledge of a language, and due to Serbian legal regulations a teacher must be both proficient in the language and have a university degree of the non-linguistic subject he teaches. An anticipated level of language proficiency for teachers is C1 of the CEF. Depending on the availability of teachers, bilingual education is held for a number of subjects: history, geography, art, sociology, biology, philosophy, computer science, etc.. as a percentage of 30 to 45% of the total number of classes. 228 Language for identification, native; language of global/continental communication (English or French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, or other language), and a personal acquired language that should be developed to the full potential as a second language (represented in the education system at all levels) (European Union, 2008). 229 http://www.vesti-online.com/Vesti/Svet/115356/Nacionalizam-zamena-za-multikulturalnost-u-Britaniji, the site was accessed on February 10 at 00.15h 230 http://www.vesti-online.com/Vesti/Svet/90060/Merkel-Multikulturna-Nemacka-je-propala the site was accessed on February 10 at 00.14h 714 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Interculturalism and foreign language teaching Modern foreign language teaching means that the view of indivisibility of learning, acquisition and teaching of a language and culture of a country, nation, area of the language is accepted and adopted. The awareness of another‘s culture and knowledge about it was a popular concept in the anglophone educational systems of the eighties and nineties. This is brought in connection with foreign languages and with a broader perspective of the cultural turn in other social sciences of the post-modern society (Byram, 2004:159). This issue, which, among other things deals with cultural differences and relationship to "others," regardless of their national, ethnic, social, regional, institutional or other differences, was dealt with in the works of various authors, including Tomalin & Stempelski, (1993) , Byram, (1997), (2004), Kramish, (1993), Spolsky & Hult (2008), Spolsky (2009). Based on cultural differences, but also involving the development of thought in the direction away from ethnocentrism towards relativity, as Byram says (2004:159), this concept is widely used not only in relation to foreign languages but also to other school subjects, geography, history and social sciences and mother tongue. However, it is the most obvious in foreign language learning 231 and can be monitored at all ages. Knowledge of another‘s culture is considered very important in communicative teaching since it is understood that topics of culture and civilization are the frame and the content about which you need to communicate and around which communication is being developed. Attitudes of young people The attitudes of young people who are just going through the educational system in the contemporary social moment in Serbia are vividly expressed by the results of the research conducted by the Center for Children's Rights232 and surveys of 2007233 depicting the attitude of young people in Serbia to their mother tongue, foreign languages, cultures and speakers (VuĦo, 2007). The vast majority of respondents agree with the affirmative attitude in relation to the knowledge of another culture, without seeking for two-way cooperation as a condition for learning about the culture. There are divided opinions on the impact of other cultures on their own: 38% of the boys are concerned about the impact of other nations believing they significantly threaten national identity of their nation, as much as 35% has a very negative opinion and 25% was undecided in these estimates. Girls are slightly less xenophobic: 29% fears foreign influence, the same number was undecided and 41% does not consider the influences of other nations as a threat to national identity. The fact that nearly half of high school students in Serbia feel bigger or less distrust towards foreign cultural influences is a cause for concern. Clear animosity towards foreign language in general, used even in the field of entertainment is shown by the following disturbing information: 17% of the girls and boys as much as 28% are not sure how patriotic it is to listen to music in a foreign language, or are even convinced that it is very unpatriotic behavior. The fact that the concept of ethnically clean country is opposed only by a little more than half of respondents is a cause for concern, 59% of the boys and 57% of the girls, while 21% of the girls and 22% of the boys believe that every nation should live alone in its state, which is one in five young citizen. Others have no clear view on this issue, which makes space for the development of intolerance. Intolerance in relation to other nations (for example, the Chinese) is shown by 31% of the boys and 30% of the girls, who would deny them hospitality in our country even if they fully obeyed our laws, and only 46% of the girls and 43% of the boys would accept them. 231 Foreign language appears as an instrument of learning different types of content, the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) not only focuses on the acquisition but it also deals with the problem of the relation between vehicular language and non-language subject. It is necessary to promote integrated, simultaneous learning of language and content, one through another. CLIL teacher implements a number of methodological and didactic methods such as strategies of functional understanding of the text, functional memorising and activation of vocabulary, which are already in the possession of foreign language teachers and for which the measurement with the linguistic problems is a daily challenge. 232 During September and October of 2005, Youth Network "Living Together", made up of youth clubs from Belgrade, Nis, Kraljevo, Uzice, Zajecar, Novi Pazar, Vrbas and Subotica, with the support of the Pestalozzi Foundation from Switzerland, conducted a survey on youth attitudes towards minorities and cultural diversity in their environment. The study included 468 high school students of both sexes aged 16-17. 233 The survey was conducted with the students of the Faculty of Philology of Belgrade University and the Third Belgrade High School students aged 16 to 20 years. The selected sample is not representative for Serbia, because it involved students of foreign philologies, and students of the Belgrade elite school, who were believed to have expressed views on the importance of languages in the contemporary world. 715 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo In a research conducted with Belgrade high school students and first year university students (VuĦo, 2008) which aimed to obtain information about the attitude of the respondents to their mother tongue and foreign languages in their own and global environment, the young people felt not only patriotic enthusiasm about the knowledge and use of their mother tongue, but they also brought it in connection with the economic development of the country, while they linked a foreign language to the importance of language as a universal category, but also awareness of the limited use of Serbian as a small language. This shows raised awareness of the necessity of the knowledgde of foreign languages for a prosperous life in the modern world. Survey: sample and instruments The specificity of bilingual teaching leads to an assumption about the usefulness and benefits of bilingual education in school, social environment and the wider environment, and in this respect the research was conducted on the views of final year students of bilingual classes and those who attend conventional (regular) classes in the Third Belgrade High School. The research is primarily concerned with students' attitudes towards foreign languages and cultures in order to gain insight on possible differences between the two classes. The research was carried out during February of academic year 2010-2011. The research includes the following dependent variables: social-cultural elements of foreign language learning, attitude to native language and attitude towards foreign languages and cultures, while the independent variables are gender and age. The aim and hypothesis of the research The aim of the research is to determine the similarities and differences in the views of bilingual and regular students of the importance of learning foreign languages and the existence of some cultural and linguistic bias. Our hypothesis was that bilingual students are more open to foreign cultures and languages and have a more tolerant attitude towards ethnic minorities in their country, and are more interested and willing to learn about other cultures. Description of the survey The conducted survey was anonymous. The survey includes general information about the students‘ sex and mother tongue, records of foreign languages that the student has learned during school as well as institutions where the student attended classes of foreign languages. This is followed by questions about respondents‘ interest for learning foreign languages and specific circumstances that would encourage students to learn foreign languages, the importance of foreign cultures for student personality development and its impact on the enrichment or impoverishment of the student's personality. The survey ends with questions about the views of students of the inclusion of national minorities in the environment where they live, the attitude towards foreigners and foreign residence. Most of the questions are a combination of open and closed questions. Statistical analysis of the data included a descriptive analysis of the results. Results of the research The research included two fourth-grade234 classes in the Third Belgrade High School: a regular class of science and mathematics course and a bilingual class that has certain subjects in Italian and French. In connection with the sex distribution of the respondents we can see that in the bilingual class there are more female than male students (18 female students vs. 12 male students, while in the regular class 12 female students compared to 15 male students). Most students in both classes marked Serbian as their mother tongue, while the low percentage of students marked another language (one student per regular class listed Macedonian, Russian and German, and one student per bilingual class listed English and French). The students of both classes have mostly been taught the same foreign language as part of formal education (English and French). The difference, however, is reflected in the learning of German and Italian for the benefit of bilingual classes. As with the experience of learning foreign languages that are not present in the Serbian school system, students from bilingual classes have more diverse experience in relation to their peers in regular classes: they mentioned languages such as Romanian, Portuguese, Greek, Latin and Hungarian. 234 The fourth grade is the final year in the secondary school system in Serbia. Students graduate from secondary school with 18 years of age, which corresponds to the age when majority is attained. 716 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Besides, bilingual students are interested in learning more languages in comparison to students of regular classes (Figure 1). Figure 1. Languages that students would learn, and are not offered in the survey. The need for openness and language tolerance, communication and the desire for cultural integration is shown by the answer given by all the students (of both classes) that if they lived in a foreign country, they would try to learn the language of that country. The students expressed their opinion on the advantages of knowledge of mother tongue in the modern world (Figure 2). Most bilingual students see the benefits of knowing their own mother tongue, while most students of regular classes do not recognize this advantage in the modern world. Figure 2. Students‘ answers about the usefulness of their mother tongue in the modern world. In connection with an assessment of how knowledge of the culture of other nations enriches personality, students of both classes mostly recognized positive effect on personality development, although the bilingual students' had a more positive attitude (Figure 3). 717 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Figure 3. Students‘ answers on the impact of the knowledge of other nations‘ culture on the personality enrichment. Namely, all bilingual students said that knowledge of other cultures enriches a person to a large extent (except for a student who had no position on this issue). Also, we note that bilingual students made greater and more detailed feedback than the regular students in which one recognizes the willingness to intercultural exchange and clearly expressed awareness of how beneficial it is for building your own personality: "knowledge of other cultures has a profound effect on my personality, has forced me to challenge attitudes and has enriched me"; "each culture brings its wealth, history, significance, and each new language opens up more chances for a successful life", "knowledge of others' viewpoints and opinions help us to build a proper personality"; "when you learn about how others live you can easier see advantages and disadvantages of your own way of life"; and that "a man with more knowledge is richer in every sense of the word." The students‘ responses on the degree of their interest to learn about the culture of other nations are shown in Figure 4 where we can see that all bilingual students, but one, are very much interested to learn about the culture of other nations, while the regular students show greater reluctance. Figure 4. Students‘ views on how interested they are to learn about other nations‘ culture. The answers on the negative impact of other cultures on their own are shown in Figure 5 718 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Figure 5. Students‘ views on the negative impact of other cultures on their own. We can see that more regular than bilingual students believe that culture of other nations may have a negative impact on their own culture. Regular students often explain their negative attitude towards other cultures, relating them to the current political context as, for example: "Kosovo is an illustration", "our country is in a mess and it accepts and gradually incorporates into its tradition the negative things from others", or "because the elements of other cultures can replace the elements of our culture and thus we lose our identity." Unlike them, bilingual students are much more tolerant as indicated by the comments like: "if you adjust to other cultures, it does not mean you forget your own culture", "if we properly understand our identity, we will learn to live peacefully with other cultures"; "it can not affect, it can only be positive, because it enriches our culture" or "absolutely not, everyone chooses their way, knowledge of something can only be beneficial." On the other hand, bilingual students show greater caution about the negative impact of modern technologies (listening to foreign music, surfing the Internet, etc.) on their identity, which is somewhat in conflict with their tolerant attitude to foreign cultures (Figure 6). However, this attitude can be explained by their frequent contact with foreign culture resources, and therefore greater capacity for critical attitude towards them. 719 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Figure 6. Students‘ views on the negative impact of foreign music, films and the Internet on their identitety. The answers of bilingual students indicate to a great extent a more tolerant attitude regarding the equal inclusion of ethnic minorities in their environment (Figure 7). In this regard, we highlight some feedback of the bilingual students, "national minorities were disadvantaged under the regime of the nineties and this needs to be to put in order", "everything should be done to enable every citizen of our country feels the same and equal, regardless of the nationality"; "each national minority is entitled to their culture and right for this culture to be recognized (legally accepted)"; "in a democratic country people should be the most important and minorities are part of the people"; "because they are all equal regardless of their race or national origin." Figure 7. Students' views on the degree of justification of equal inclusion of ethnic minorities In this regard, we would like to emphasize the fact that in the survey of bilingual classes there were no negative comments on this issue, while some students of regular classes, explaining their opinion that only to a small extent do they justify the concern for the equitable inclusion of ethnic minorities, expressed the following opinions showing clearly their animosity and xenophobia: "because there are too many of them already, and the minority becomes the majority, as already seen in Serbia (Kosovo)"; "I do not want them to be involved if they do damage to my country"; "as if they sought to have more rights than Serbs"; "I am worried because people are volatile, you give them a finger, they want the whole arm", "there are fewer and fewer Serbs in Serbia, and therefore Serbian culture is weaker, the culture of minorities has a greater impact on the Serbs" and the like. However, among students of regular classes there is a positive attitude towards this issue such as: "Serbia is a beautiful country, and others should enjoy its beauty", "It is vital that everyone has equal rights" and the like. 720 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Figure 8. Students' views of how justified is openness of the country towards foreigners. In relation to the increasing openness of the domestic environment towards strangers, (Figure 8), it is possible to see a more open attitude of bilingual students to foreigners as expressed in the following comments: "yes, and I hope to become more open because it can only have a positive effect" , "the world should learn about our culture and try to correct the opinion people have about us, which is mostly negative"; "the more open we are, the closer we are to European qualities, ie. better quality of life, and it is beneficial for the economy, too" and the like. Besides, the students of regular classes mainly gave positive comments about this question that we should be open to other countries for tourism, and they would like to see more foreigners in Belgrade as it is the case with other capitals and the like. However, some students of regular classes believe that this openness to foreigners is not mutual: "I think our country has always been open to foreigners, only they were not very open to us"; while others justify an open attitude towards foreigners solely for economic reasons: "only for foreign investment"; "for investment, capital, trade, and making the rest of the world aware that we exist on the map" and the like. In connection with going abroad, all students of both classes say they gladly travel and learn about other cultures. It is still possible to see the bilingual students give more diverse reasons such as: "I like to travel, it allows me to look at the world from multiple perspectives and to hear of new experiences"; "It is my pleasure to get to know other people, cultures and countries, and it fulfills me as a person ", or" when you get to know how other people live you will more easily notice the advantages and disadvantages of your way of life and more easily change yourself.― Conclusion The results of the research whose aim was to establish similarities and differences in the attitudes of bilingual and regular students on the importance of learning foreign languages and the existence of some cultural and linguistic bias, have confirmed the hypothesis that bilingual students are more open to foreign cultures and languages, and have a more tolerant attitude towards ethnic minorities in their country, and are more interested and willing to learn about other cultures. Attitudes of regular and bilingual students are substantially similar in terms of students' attitudes towards learning foreign languages and the importance of mother tongue, but the difference in their views is clearly evident in relation to tolerance towards ethnic minorities, equality of all citizens of Serbia and openness to foreigners. A more tolerant attitude toward foreign cultures is associated with greater exposure and contact with second cultures and languages, which is a direct result of bilingual education, teaching and extracurricular content, greater opportunities to travel abroad and beyond the narrow environment. In particular, as proof of openness, we highlight a positive attitude toward the equal inclusion of ethnic minorities in the region, in contrast to the negative attitudes and fear of the impact of foreign culture on the Serbian culture. Bilingual students explain their positive attitude towards foreigners mostly by opportunities to gain knowledge of cultures, while regular students often look at it from the perspective of economic, lucrative interests and prosperity. Culturally mature and motivated attitude is expressed by bilingual students who see time spent abroad as a gain related to the enrichment of their personality, a more rational understanding "of their life" as well as awareness of a possible change in their own attitudes. Bilingual teaching brings major novelties and a number of advantages in the school systems of countries applying it. In addition to new strategies and new spirit of modular teaching, expressed teamwork, modern methods that involve active teaching adapted to specific students needs, bilingual education provides many benefits to students, teachers, school and community as a whole. 721 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Establishment of bilingual classes in Serbia is in line with modern European attitudes toward the principles of multilingualism, mobility, and with contemporary trends in language learning, and includes a number of advantages: the expansion of language competence of students in a foreign language, development of creativity and sense of communication, the greater ability of analyzing and solving problems, expanding other forms of knowledge equally in foreign language as vehicular and Serbian language; developing self-confidence of a person who speaks languages, greater respect for themselves, flexibility and adaptability, confidence in social interactions, more developed capacity for interpersonal relations; establishing closer ties with the Italian, French and European social and cultural environment in general, and the creation of a multicultural attitude, possessing "the experience of two language worlds" (Baker, 2000); facilitated mobility and exchange of information in the broadest sense, from family, community, employment and international contacts in European and world context; permeation of education systems of participating countries, transfer of academic knowledge from one language to another, the spirit of mutual cooperation and cooperation at all levels of human activities; education of a ready, open citizen of Europe with expressed tolerance and the need for social harmony. The project of bilingual education brings globally an undoubted benefit as a road to multilingualism and multiculturalism. Bibliography Baker, Philip, Eversley, John. (2000) Multilingual Capital, Battlebridge Publications, London. 722 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Byram, Michael (1997) Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Byram, Michael, (2004) Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning, Routldge, London, New York European Commission, (1996) Teaching and Learning--Towards the Learning Society. White Paper on Education and Training, Brussels. European Commission, (2008) A Rewarding Challenge How the Multiplicity of Languages Could Strengthen Europe, Bruxelles, http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/pdf/doc1646_en.pdf, the site was accessed on April 30, 2009 FilipoviĤ, J. ,VuĦo, J. and DjuriĤ, Lj. (2007) Critical Review of Language Education Policies in Compulsory Primary and Secondary Education in Serbia. Current Issues in Language Planning, Vol. 8:2, str.: 222-242. VuĦo Julijana (2006): U potrazi za sopstvenim modelom dvojeziĦne nastave , Inovacije u nastavi stranih jezika, UĦiteljski fakultet, Beograd. VuĦo, Julijana (2008) Srpski meħu stranim jezicima, Zbornik radova sa meħunarodnog nauĦnog skupa, Srpski jezik u (kon)tekstu, Filium, Kragujevac, str.45 – 53. Kramish, C. (1993) Context and culture in language teaching, Oxford: Oxford University Pres Seidlhofer, Barbara, Key concepts in elt. English as a lingua franca, ELT Journal, Volume 59/4 October 2005; doi:10.1093/elt/cci064, Oxford University Press. Spolsky, Bernard (2009) Language Management, Cambridge University Press. Spolsky, Bernard, Hult, Francis M. (2008) The Handbook of Educational Linguistics, Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics. Tomalin, B. and Stempelski, S. (1993) Cultural awareness, Oxford: Oxford University press. 723 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 106 Title A name given to the resource Bilingual education: the road to multilingualism Author Author Vučo, Julijana Zavišin, Katarina Abstract A summary of the resource. Globalisation emphasizes the importance of foreign languages by influencing the development of national strategies for learning languages, thus contributing to conservation or harmonization of language ecological balance in the world. The increasing attention given to language issues in Europe resulted from the intention to overcome numerous problems related to language, communication, interaction and multilayered international cooperation and understanding in the context of ethnic, religious and cultural differences on global level, but also to promote the integration processes enhanced by various forms of mobility. What also contributes to this is an overall democratization of public life and raising awareness in different minority groups, as well as parallel processes of globalization, localization and glocalization: comparison, permeation, survival and adaptation of local environment to global context. At the same time, there are concerns based on the prejudice that globalization trends could endanger citizens' needs at individual and local level of identification with their people, country, religion, cultural specificities and so on. In the area of foreign language teaching policy there have been inappropriate reactions to the "danger" threatening the dominant language and culture that are allegedly jeopardized by the presence of other cultures and languages in a formal education system and environment. Bilingual education (in Serbia since 2004) promotes multilingualism, with the belief that it contributes to overcoming linguistic, cultural and communication barriers and develops tolerance. This paper, as an appendix to the introduction of bilingual teaching, interprets the results of research on the importance of learning foreign languages, cultural and linguistic bias in students of bilingual and regular classes. The aim of the paper is to identify similarities and differences in the attitudes of bilingual and regular students. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/26bfbfaa5fc92cad1b14a7d151d04719.pdf 18e96d04196f3fb518754372e97ae754 PDF Text Text 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Politics of English in the Arabian Gulf Alan S. Weber Pre-medical Department Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Doha, Qatar alw2010@qatar-med.cornell.edu Abstract: The number of American, English and Australian branch campuses in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region almost doubled between 2000–2007 from 140 to 260, and Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) alone have established over 40 branch campuses during this period. The language of instruction at these institutions is primarily English, which is creating some tensions in the region related also to the rapid influx of other expatriate language groups including Urdu, Nepali, and Tagalog. Not only do native Arabic speakers fear the loss of cultural and linguistic heritage, as Gulf governments begin heavily investing in biotechnology, ITC capacity and research output (patents and peer-reviewed scientific papers) educated elites in the GCC countries are confronting the widespread use of English on the internet and the international science community. Policy makers, particularly in Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, are responding to the growing use of English by sponsoring cultural heritage museums and libraries, programs in digitization of Arabic heritage books, and funding research into real-time Arabic-English and English-Arabic machine translation. This contribution outlines the debates found both in scholarly journals as well as popular regional newspapers in English and Arabic on the use of the English language, and analyzes the cultural, political, and social context of these arguments. Key Words: English language–political dimensions, English instruction–Arabian Gulf (GCC) Introduction Although surpassed by Chinese and Spanish in numbers of native speakers, English may be one of the most influential languages both today and historically since the mid-19th century, primarily due to the industrial and military power of Great Britain and the United States and their Diaspora. The issues of world English and linguistic imperialism have been discussed extensively recently, no less so in the Arabian Gulf where Arabic is still the official and dominant language, even though in some Gulf Cooperation Country (GCC) countries with large southeast Asian expatriate labor forces, it may be becoming a minority language in terms of numbers of users. English has become a symbol of the westernization and modernization that has resulted from hydrocarbon revenues that fuel most of the Gulf economies. As these nations strive to diversify their economies, lower the rates of brain drain, and equip their citizens for participation in the global economy, English has taken center stage in many debates about religion, politics, and culture and the language has frequently been blamed directly for the erosion of Islamic values. In spite of the visible negative impacts that English may have on local cultures, many younger students entering the workforce appear to recognize the economic benefits of English and are resigned to its use in international business, law, and science. In response to the phenomena of expatriates supplanting Gulf nationals in the private sector workforce, primarily because expatriates command lower wages, GCC governments have launched national preferential hiring programs called variously Qatarization, Emiratization, Omanization and Saudization. Ironically the acquisition of English may be beneficial in these programs in helping to shift the national Arabic-speaking workforce out of the large public sector which is sometimes blamed for economic and developmental stagnation (over-inflated wages; rentier state model). Two studies on Emiratization, for example, by Al-Ali in 2006 and 2008 reported that low levels of English fluency present barriers to private sector workforce growth in the Emirates (Al-Ali, 2006, 2008; Mashood, 2009). Historical Background The linguistic and political influence of English on the Middle East region can be roughly divided into 3 broad historical periods: 1) Colonial period – beginning in the early 19th century, the United Kingdom cemented its power over India and many regions of the East, including Egypt, and direct contact with English speakers occurred through military, legal, and social linkages (colonization); after WWI and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, England and France divided the Levant into mandates such as Transjordan, Palestine and Mesopotamia where English continued as an administrative language; 2) the rise of World English as a lingua franca – by the 60 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo mid-20th century, the United States had emerged as a dominant world power as Europe lay in ruins from two world wars; this rise paralleled the growing use of English in science, technology, and professional discourse. Sporadic attempts to establish English secondary schools and universities in the region also began in the 19th century, with the establishment such institutions as the American University of Beirut (founded 1866) and the American University in Cairo (founded 1919). As oil wealth increased dramatically in the Gulf nations circa 1960-80, countries increasingly sent nationals abroad for higher education degrees as they themselves began to acquire higher education infrastructure; 3) knowledge economy era (mid-1990s): based on a series of UNDP, IMF, and World Bank reports citing low knowledge production in the region, an explosive growth in western branch campuses and western-style educational models occurred in which the language of instruction is primarily English; after 9/11, student visas to western higher education institutes were increasingly difficult to obtain for Muslims, particularly from regions of suspected Al-Qaeda activity (Al-Zubaidi, 2010: 109). Specifically in the Arabian / Persian Gulf, England became involved in this region in the 19 th century due to its interest in protecting trade routes originating in British India and controlling piracy, as well as checking Ottoman Empire influence in the region. Trucial agreements were signed with Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar between 1820 and 1916 and during this period these Sheikhdoms with loosely defined borders and tribal structures were known as the Trucial States or the Trucial Coast. There was only a small Christian missionary presence in the region and even after the discovery of oil in the 1930s and 1940s, there were no overt attempts to supplant the religion, culture, or language of Arabic-speaking peoples, and local Emirs ran their governments in a traditional manner, albeit with British advisors (Political Resident) and restrictions on alienating lands without British approval. However, during the early oil era when large transnational AngloAmerican corporations almost completely controlled the exploitation of petroleum reservoirs and simply paid out royalties to the ruling families, the power differential between English and Arabic can be seen clearly in this oil concession contract signed in 1934: ―This Agreement is written in English and translated into Arabic. If there should at any time be disagreement as to the meaning or interpretation of any clause in this Agreement the English text shall prevail (Oil Concession Agreement 1934)‖ (Frade, 2007:55). Cultural linguistics is important because historical language influences can powerfully impact the current attitudinal orientation of a society towards a former linguistic group, especially in the case of colonization. For example, Farrell, drawing on the study of El-Sayed, explains why the British model of education, now being rivaled by American institutions in the Gulf, has been so prevalent in Qatar. Farrell points out that ―El-Sayed (1991) maintains that British Standard English may be an appropriate choice for the target of instruction in some schools in Western Asia, such as the Doha English Speaking School (DESS) in Doha, Qatar. This school follows the British curriculum and hires teachers with UK-recognized qualifications. Furthermore, due to a history of British colonization, Qataris value British Standard English and are exposed to it through British media. They have greater access to British books and materials, and are probably more likely to visit the United Kingdom than other English speaking countries. Thus, teaching British Standard English would be the optimal choice for a teacher at DESS‖ (Farrell, 1991: 4). Interestingly, all of the institutions in Qatar Foundation‘s (founded 1995) newly established Education City are based in the United States, since the government now has stronger political links to that country, as Qatar hosts several U.S. CENTCOM bases. Qatar also makes use of the U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas technology which has led to the current economic boom in that country. In a perceptive and controversial article entitled ―Petro-Linguistics: The Emerging Nexus Between Oil, English, and Islam,‖ based on his Doctor of Education thesis on English-medium education in the UAE, Sohail Karmani has posited an oil-language-power nexus which he sees operating in the Arabian Gulf (Karmani, 2005, 2010). His general thesis argues that ―the decisions to initiate and facilitate the expansion of English [in the Gulf] were ultimately politically driven and wholly caught up in the global and regional struggle for greater control of the region‘s vital energy reserves‖ (Karmani, 2005:9-10). Karmani‘s work has charted the influx of the English language learning industry, as both an economic and cultural force, into Arabic speaking nations. He further argues that these forces, arising from the 1950s to 70s, are enmeshed in the political sphere and are mutually reinforcing: ―In their brief historical introduction on the origins of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Hutchinson and Waters (1987) note that the oil crises of the 1970s vastly accelerated the development of the ELT profession and helped usher in a new unchartered era in the teaching of English as an international language. English, they observe, suddenly became big business and commercial pressures began to exert an extraordinary influence (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987). No longer simply a foreign language for casual study or a pastime to satisfy a personal linguistic curiosity, English was now destined to become a highly lucrative international commodity with an annual turnover of over $9.6 billion (Language Travel Magazine, 2004)‖ (Karmani, 2005:6). Another long quote from Karmani is introduced here since he has cogently summarized a phenomenon (the tremendous growth of English language teaching in the Gulf following the oil boom) that can be readily witnessed at conferences, book fairs, bookstores, career fairs, and secondary and tertiary institutions in most of the GCC countries: ―Predictably, an extraordinary influx of ESL instructors, teacher trainers, ELT textbook publishers, and language course providers shortly followed while also thousands of Gulf Arab students were 61 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo awarded lavish scholarships to study English in Britain, Australia, and the United States. And as the phenomenal expansion of English translated into huge windfalls for the ELT industry, it all of a sudden became evident to the key players (e.g., British Council, AMIDEAST, Longman, Cambridge University Press, Heinle & Heinle, etc.) that ―English‖ had now truly usurped an unwittingly powerful stake in the future development of the entire region‖ (Karmani, 2005:7). Critics have disagreed with Karmani‘s analysis of the motivations and impact of this development, but his approach is valuable in looking frankly at the economics of educational trends which are too often couched in terms of idealistic and misleading rhetoric. In response and contradistinction to Karmani‘s work, in particular his article entitled ‗English, ―terror‖ and Islam‘, Moroccan scholar Ahmed Kabel drew attention to the productive power of post-colonial English as a discourse of creativity, resistance and appropriativity: ―instead of considering English and its putative hegemonic discourses as an inhibitive and imposed encumbrance, we need to take into account how the language is constantly and unpredictably appropriated and creatively reshaped and expropriated to give voice to emerging agencies and subjectivities…. I suggest that appropriation, far from being drenched in a confrontational idiom, is a move towards new sites of collaboration and contestation, towards much wider human possibilities‖ (Kabel, 2007: 136). The English Language as Symbolic of Western Culture: Linguistic Imperialism and the ―Less Islam and More English‖ Debate Discussed at length by Robert Phillipson in 1992 in his influential monograph Linguistic Imperialism, Phillipson has demonstrated how English Language Teaching (ELT) has been implicated in ‗neocolonialist reconstruction‘ and imperialist aims. Numerous arguments for English as the best of all possible languages have been advanced in recent years in a wide variety of contexts – pragmatic arguments look at the sheer number of speakers, therefore laud English as the greatest facilitator of linguistic exchange. In addition, the internet was originally developed from United States networked military computers (ARPANET) and the structures of English and its semantic logic are embedded in computer codes and protocols; thus English has expanded its milieu to the international online ecosystem. A related Functionalist viewpoint argues that facility with English allows greater access to employment and the international business community. The arguments that English is ‗simpler‘, ‗more transparent,‘ ‗more logical,‘ or ‗lacks complicated grammar,‘ (the opposite is probably true due to numerous idiosyncratic variations and exceptions to rules) would be met with incredulity by anyone who has studied it as a foreign language. As Crystal points out about the rise in prominence of English in the 20th century, and global languages in general: ―A language has traditionally become an international language for one chief reason: the power of its people – especially their political and military power. The explanation is the same throughout history. Why did Greek become a language of international communication in the Middle East over 2,000 years ago? Not because of the intellects of Plato and Aristotle: the answer lies in the swords and spears wielded by the armies of Alexander the Great. Why did Latin become known throughout Europe? Ask the legions of the Roman Empire‖ (Crystal, 2003: 9). Imperialism can take numerous forms, such as cultural and linguistic, and both academic and popular discussions have arisen in the Gulf that English in the region has an underlying proselytizing, missionary and value laden subtext that may be at variance with or even contrary to Islamic values. As Ahmed notes, ―in the UAE, for example, the language issue has caused heated debates and controversies in the academic and political arenas. It is believed that the Arabic language and ‗national identities‘ are being ‗sidelined‘ (Hellyer, 2008). English is beginning to be seen as a threat, dominating all aspects of life in these countries‖ (Ahmed, 2010: 13). Elyas believes that Karmani, for example, has been explicitly arguing that English language dissemination has an ultimate goal of de-Islamization: ―As a consequence, Karmani believes that the teaching of English in this modern DNA age, as it has been practised in British Empire, serves as a tool for linguistic imperialism, cultural alienation, and in the case of Muslim countries a de-Islamization of a targeted nation‖ (Elyas, 2008: 36). The British Council (founded 1934), which has been heavily involved in the teaching, testing, and awareness of English language and culture internationally, has been active in the Gulf (since 1959, a British Council office has opened an office in each of the GGC countries). The Council itself admits that the ―cultural propaganda‘ issued by it is designed to promote English values and achievements, not excluding parliamentary democracy. One of the first areas targeted by the Council was the Middle East (Charise, 2007; Pennycook, 1994). Pennycook has examined the role that governments played in supporting EFL and ELT groups such as the British Council. One conservative Sheikh in Saudi Arabia has gone as far as to equate English with the language of the devil, etymologically linking the English word ―blease‖ [‗please,‘ Arabic has only one bilabial plosive] with ―Iblis,‖ the Arabic word for Satan. However, a study by Elyas in 2008 at King Abdul Aziz University found that studying another language does not necessarily diminish one‘s heritage and concluded that ―Saudi students agree (for the most part) that both the study of the English language and its culture are necessary in order to develop 62 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo their English comprehension. Thus, for these students, English does not appear to be an indication of an imperialistic purpose of Westernization of their Arabic identity‖ (Elyas, 2008: 45). The Rentier state model (a state which derives a large proportion of its GDP from renting resources to foreign companies) has created a situation in which oil-rich Gulf nations feel compelled by the pressures of modernity and the not so subtle hints from the IMF and UNDP reports to modernize, resulting in the belief that foreign expertise must be imported to solve these problems of development – but this results in underdevelopment of local resources, local talent and local problem solving skills. Thus Moody, drawing on the work of Coffman, believes that the growth and interest in English language teaching (ELT) in the region as well as the American model of education is part of a larger pattern endemic to consumption-based rentier economies: ―Similarly, Coffman (2003) places ELT in the context of a general tendency of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to ‗import … foreign experts to perform the necessary technical and managerial functions‘ rather than to focus on issues and problems from a local perspective; this fact in his view accounts for the misguided assumption that ‗any quality university program of study must be as thoroughly American as possible‘ and the resulting ‗headlong rush toward adoption of the American education model‘‖ (Moody, 2009:100). On February 2, 2003, the Washington Post published Susan B. Glasser‘s article ―Qatar Reshapes Its Schools, Putting English Over Islam: Conservatives See Reform as Extension of U.S. Influence in Gulf‖ (Glasser, 2003:A20). The article, which described Qatar‘s K-12 educational reform entitled ―Education for a New Era,‖ sparked a number of debates. After the 9/11 attacks, both western countries, Gulf educators and intellectuals and reformers throughout the Gulf began to scrutinize Arabic-language textbooks and teaching methods, particularly in Saudi Arabia. The nations themselves viewed this interest and the subsequent suggestions for reform as intrusions into their cultural sovereignty. As Glasser writes, ―Elsewhere in the Middle East, the role of the United States in promoting such change has at times overshadowed the post-Sept. 11 education debate. ‗American occupation,‘ complained a Jordanian writer last week of a State Department initiative to promote education and other reforms. ‗American interference,‘ declared a Kuwaiti religious leader, Abdul Razak Shuyji, referring to curriculum-reform efforts. ‗A curriculum should present our own identity, our own history, our own religion,‘ Shuyji declared. ‗It's not for others to come and try to change it‘" (Glasser, 2003:A20). This article sparked critiques by Karmani and others, partially due to the superficial analysis of complex issues which is typical of journalistic writing. The uneasy tension between indigenous culture and expatriate workforces has been exacerbated by the recent building boom in the Gulf from high oil prices, especially in the Emirates where Emiratis now only make up approximately 15% of the entire population. As early as 2004, the GCC general secretariat (GCCGS) noted in the report The Comprehensive Development of Education at the GCC States that a growing educational concern was the ―Absence of cultural dimension in the educational process‖ (Abouammoh, 2009: 8). Gulf leaders have clearly recognized the role that education can play in maintaining cultural and linguistic heritage. Accomodationism and Bilingualism Many laborers in the Gulf hail from former English colonies (Pakistan and India) where English still exists as an important language. English therefore acts as a key lingua franca among different expatriate nationalities and between Arabs and expatriates (in particular Sino-Tibetan, Hindustani, and Austronesian language family speakers). In some Gulf countries, the expatriate population makes up over 81% (CIA, 2011). A common fear throughout the Gulf is the loss and degradation of Arabic as a written and spoken language: ―There are many within the Emirati and Arabic communities who are deeply concerned with the effect that such a language shift [to English] is having on the quality of the Arabic language used in the UAE. There is a lively debate in the press at the national level about the necessity to preserve and improve the Arabic language. It is a prime goal of the government in the UAE to preserve and protect Arabic culture and language and the federal government makes every effort through legislation to do so…. in Dubai, the National Strategic Plan for 2016 specifically emphasizes the need to enhance Arabic language and local culture in society. 2008 was named as the year of national identity by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, President of the UAE, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE, organized a national identity conference, the major theme of which was the degradation of the Arabic language‖ (Randall, 2010: 45). As Syed notes, many instructors from Western English-speaking countries who come to work in the Gulf do indeed lack the requisite cultural and linguistic knowledge necessary to bridge the sometimes wide gap in the teacher-student relationship. Cultural sensitivity training is rarely, if ever, provided by educational institutions in the region. When the author, a non-Arabic speaker who has since gained a functional proficiency in the language, began working in the Gulf six years ago at an American medical college branch campus, he was handed a one-page photocopied sheet of ‗do‘s and don‘ts‘ and was also pulled aside in the hallway by colleagues and given some informal advice on local Islamic sensitivities. This was the extent of cultural training that the institution offered. Syed writes: ―most teachers at the tertiary level [in the Gulf] are North Americans, Britons, 63 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo and Australians, with some Arab nationals. Although foreign teachers bring diversity into the classroom, and although some use contextually situated pedagogy, there are wide gaps in the expatriate educators' (especially non-Arabs') knowledge of local sociocultural communities and languages. Linguistic and cultural distance between learners and teachers is a serious factor in the Gulf EFL classroom. Reliance on foreign teachers has also limited the necessary work of training and developing local teachers. Only Saudi Arabia has made any significant inroads in training nationals as teachers‖ (Syed, 2003:338). Karmani has further alerted us to the power structure of English language training in the Gulf, and some of the disadvantages of using pedagogical materials produced in another country, even though English is a world language with well developed regional dialects that could encompass the lived experience of their populations in locally produced educational media. Large multi-national educational publishers, in a bid to make their products as flexible and neutral as possible for use in diverse language markets have been reluctant to make ELT materials as culturally specific as they should be. Karmani writes: ―The use, for instance, of culturally alienating and Islamically inappropriate instructional materials, methods, and approaches is still very much the order of the day [in the Arabian Gulf]. The other factor, and closely linked, is the sombre fact that the upper echelons of major regional ELT bodies like TESOL Arabia (www.tesolarabia.org) continue to be conspicuously filled by an exclusive corps of Anglo-Western TESOL practitioners, most of whom—to be fair—lack the most rudimentary knowledge about ―Islam‖ or even say a smattering of the most basic structures of the Arabic language.....‖ (Karmani, 2005:9). The often repeated notion that English is supplanting Arabic and carrying embedded hegemonic and imperialist messages, however, has been challenged in a number of studies. Charise in her 2007 survey of Gulf education writes: ―Despite the endorsement of English and its utilization in several functions in the Gulf, for the most part, English is not perceived as a threat to the prominence of Arabic. In these Islamic nations, political and cultural practices are based upon varying degrees of Shari'a law drawn from the teachings of the Qur'an. Because the sacred text of the Qur‘an is only formally recognized via the Arabic language, the influence of Qur‘anic teachings on political policy-making practically ensures the primacy of Arabic language in Muslim societies‖ (Charise, 2007). Likewise, Schaub in an article on the status of English in Egypt strongly doubts that English will ever replace Arabic as the everyday language of interaction among Egyptians (Schaub, 2000). A cross-sectional study of 1,176 Saudis by Al Haq in 1996 showed that using English did not make them more Westernized nor interfere with either their religious commitment or patriotism. In fact, learning English was viewed as a national duty in order to serve the state better and teach Islam internationally to nonArabic speakers (Al Haq, 1996:307). This language dualism – English as a functional global language necessary for modernization and Arabic as a sacred language, the language of the Qur‘an, which embodies Islamic identity, social values and spiritual commitment – has been noted in other Gulf nations also, such as the UAE. Clark observes, for example: ―The UAE has accommodated globalization by embracing global English within a policy of linguistic dualism whereby English is associated with business, modernity, and internationalism, and Arabic is associated with religion, tradition, and localism‖ (Clarke, 2007:584). A small number of Muslim educators believe that an "Islamic English" should be developed with its own rules and adaptations, such as spellings and religious terms. These same educators, according to Dhabi, ―are warning against the harmful consequences of exposing young minds to ‗English as a cultural language,‘ and some are working on eliminating all sorts of ‗offensive‘ cultural material from English Language Teaching textbooks…..‖ (Dhabi, 2004: 629). In a study of Pakistani English, Mahboob believes that this form of English does not implicitly transmit underlying messages of non-Western peoples‘ inferiority, and Pakistani English can evolve and adapt to the Pakistani worldview: ―while the Core varieties of English may indeed be intertwined with such messages, the new Englishes (of which Pakistani English is a good example) are rich new varieties which reflect and incorporate local – and in this case Islamic – philosophies, idioms, and cultures‖ (Mahboob, 2009:181). Another reasonable solution for balancing Arabic and English language needs is simply bilingualism. However, in some regions Arabic language education and education in general is underdeveloped, particularly in North Africa where the general public has been burdened by corrupt government, and educational development has been grossly neglected except for the elite. The authors of the United Nations Human Development Reports (such as Building a Knowledge Society, 2003), although of primarily Arabic heritage, have criticized current Arabic language teaching methods and aims, calling for a focus on a more practical functionalist Arabic for use in science, technology and business. However, many Gulf educators would strongly disagree with this approach, pointing to the role that Arabic plays in developing individuals who appreciate the richness of Arabic art, literature, poetry and the beauties of the Qur‘an. According to Dhabi, ―The United Nations Development Program reports on human development in the Arab world for 2002 and 2003 have pointed out with great emphasis the handicap that the Arabic language constitutes for Arab development. Important reforms are needed to make Arabic language pedagogy more function-oriented, more focused on the language arts, and on the skills 64 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo of reading and writing, rather than on aspects of formal aesthetics and on the rhetoric of display‖ (Dhabi, 2004:31). What the UNDP authors have not explained is why Arabic was flexible enough during the golden age of Islamic science to capture scientific ideas, including almost the entire body of Greek learning, and transmit it to a global scholarly audience stretching from Al Andalus to Cairo to Damascus to Baghdad. The answer probably has little to do with the Arabic language per se or how it is taught, but various political, economic and social factors (for example, modern Arabic states‘ low investment in knowledge producing activities and the negative impact of colonial forces on local knowledge production). What has developed in some Gulf nations can be best described as a bifurcated, rather than a bilingual, model of education and medium of instruction. The term bilingual implies some sort of exchange and accommodation between L1 and L2. Findlow‘s studies in the UAE revealed the existence of two parallel educational systems in the UAE. At one end stands the Egyptian-based UAEU, founded in 1976, in which a religious foundation was preserved, and at the other end the US-Canadian style Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) founded 12 years later. ―The system became broadly bifurcated, until the exponential growth in numbers of [Higher Education Institutes] in the 1990s: UAEU (1977) following a traditional Egyptian model in which the link between religious and academic authority was to some extent preserved, and the Higher Colleges of Technology (1988) following a North American one‖ (Findlow, 2008: 9). Mouhanna has examined the issue of bilingualism extensively in his study of Math and IT courses at UAEU. Since science and math topics are increasingly only being offered in English across the Gulf, instead of Arabic, this development may limit student options and erode the ideal of producing bilingual graduates fully fluent in two languages: ―The university language policy based on the drive to produce bilingual graduates often means that students find it challenging to complete their degrees in a non-native language. To further exacerbate their difficulties, the tertiary institution‘s policy requires that courses be taught in the medium of English to the exclusion of the L1‖ (Mouhanna, 2010: 2). Conclusion Every aspect of the rise and dissemination of the English language in the Arabian Gulf has many more facets and subtleties than can be delineated in this short contribution. The issues are not academic or trivial – questions of national identity, heritage, knowledge production and culture are at stake. Both English speaking and Arabic speaking intellectuals are fully cognizant of the implications of English in the Gulf: some of the recent developments in this area may be unstoppable global forces that have been set in motion by historical circumstance. However, continuing debate and exchange may arrive at equitable and satisfying solutions for both native Arabic speakers and English and non-English speaking expatriates. References Abouammoh, A.M. (2009). The Role of Education: Trends of Reforms and EU-GCC Understanding. Riyadh: Center for Higher Education Research and Studies (CHERS). Ahmed, K. (2010). English in the Arab Gulf. Asian Journal of University Education, 6.1, 1-12. Al-Ali, J. (2006). 'Emiratisation in the local labor force of the UAE: a review of the obstacles and identification of potential strategies', Proceedings of the 20th ANZAM (Australian New Zealand Academy of Management) Conference on "Management: Pragmatism, Philosophy, Priorities", 6-9 December 2006, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton. Al-Ali, J. (2008). Emiratisation: drawing UAE nationals into their surging economy, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 28.9/10, 365-379. Al Haq, F.A., Smadi, O. Spread of English and Westernization in Saudi Arabia, World Englishes, 15.3, 307-17. Al-Zubaidi, O. (2010). Arab Postgraduate Students in Malaysia: Identifying and overcoming the cultural and language barriers, Arab World English Journal, 1.1, 107-129. Charise, A. (2007). More English, Less Islam? An Overview of English Language Functions in the Arabian/Persian Gulf. 15 April 2011. Web. http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/eng6365charise.htm. 65 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo CIA Factbook. (2011). United Arab Emirates. 6 April. Web. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/geos/ae.html Clarke, M. (2007). Language Policy and Language Teacher Education in the United Arab Emirates, TESOL Quarterly, 41.3, 583-91. Crystal, D. (2003). English as a Global Language. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Dahbi, M. (2004). English and Arabic after 9/11, The Modern Language Journal, 88.4, 628-631. Elyas, T. (2008). The Attitude and the Impact of the American English as a Global Language Within the Saudi Education System. Novitas-ROYAL, 2.1, 28-48. Farrell, T.S.C., Martin, S. (2009). To Teach Standard English or World Englishes? A Balanced Approach to Instruction, World Englishes, 2, 2-7. Findlow, S. (2006). Higher Education and Linguistic Dualism in the Arab Gulf, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 27.1, 19-36. Findlow, S. (2008). Islam, modernity and education in the Arab States, Intercultural Education, 19.4, 337-52. Frade, C. (2007). Power dynamics and legal English, World Englishes, 26.1, 48-61. Glasser, S.B. (2003, February 2). Qatar reshapes its schools, putting English over Islam, Washington Post, A20. Kabel, A. (2005). The Discourses of Appropriation: A Response to Karmani (2005), Applied Linguistics, 28.1, 136-142. Karmani, S. (2005). Petro-Linguistics: The Emerging Nexus Between Oil, English, and Islam. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 4.2, 87-102. Karmani, S. (2010). On Perceptions of the Socialising Effects of English-Medium Education on Students at a Gulf Arab University with Particular Reference to the United Arab Emirates. D.Ed Thesis. University of Exeter. Mahboob, A. (2009). English as an Islamic language: a case study of Pakistani English, World Englishes, 28.2, 175–189. Moody, J. (2009). A Neglected Aspect of ELT in the Arabian Gulf: Who Is Communication between? In Zhang, L. J., R. Rubdy, & Alsagoff, L. (Eds.). (2009). Englishes and Literatures-in-English in a Globalised World: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on English in Southeast Asia, 99-119. Mouhanna, M. (2010). The Medium of Instruction Debate in Foundation Math and IT: What‘s the Role of L1?, UGRU Journal, Fall, 1-15. Mashood, N., Verhoeven, H., Chansarker, B. (2009). Emiratisation, Omanisation, Saudisation: common causes common solutions? The 10th International Business Research Conference, Dubai, U.A.E, 16th-17th April. Pennycook, A. (1994). The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. Harlow, Essex, UK: Longman Group Limited. Phillipson, R.H.L. (1992). Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford UP. Randall, M., Samimi, M.A. (2010). The status of English in Dubai, English Today, 26.1, 43-50. Schaub, M. (2000). English in the Arab Republic of Egypt, World Englishes, 19.2, 225-238. Syed, Z. (2003). The Sociocultural Context of English Language Teaching in the Gulf, TESOL Quarterly, 37.2, 337-341. Watson, D.T. (2004). The Role of English in the Provision of High Quality Education in the United Arab Emirates. M.A. Thesis. University of South Africa. 66 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 13 Title A name given to the resource Politics of English in the Arabian Gulf Author Author Weber, Alan S. Abstract A summary of the resource. The number of American, English and Australian branch campuses in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region almost doubled between 2000–2007 from 140 to 260, and Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) alone have established over 40 branch campuses during this period. The language of instruction at these institutions is primarily English, which is creating some tensions in the region related also to the rapid influx of other expatriate language groups including Urdu, Nepali, and Tagalog. Not only do native Arabic speakers fear the loss of cultural and linguistic heritage, as Gulf governments begin heavily investing in biotechnology, ITC capacity and research output (patents and peer-reviewed scientific papers) educated elites in the GCC countries are confronting the widespread use of English on the internet and the international science community. Policy makers, particularly in Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, are responding to the growing use of English by sponsoring cultural heritage museums and libraries, programs in digitization of Arabic heritage books, and funding research into real-time Arabic-English and English-Arabic machine translation. This contribution outlines the debates found both in scholarly journals as well as popular regional newspapers in English and Arabic on the use of the English language, and analyzes the cultural, political, and social context of these arguments. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/06b0dcc4ca58f8821c49fa82adad8550.pdf 48a52b9fdaf8dd6790b59ba951389318 PDF Text Text 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Revision books in ESP: Myths and Reality Halina Wisniewska Kozminski University, Warsaw e-mail: halinannawu@gmail.com The term LSP is commonly used when referring to teaching and research of language in relation to the communicative needs of speakers of a second or foreign language used in a particular workplace, academic, or professional context thus LSP courses usually focus on the specific language needs of relatively homogeneous groups of learners. They may be addressed to students at, most often, tertiary level of education or to people who already completed formal education but need to use a foreign language to communicate in professional target situations. The starting point of every ESP course design is a detailed needs analysis which allows to define linguistic requirements of learners, competence gaps in relevant areas, set the required level of knowledge and specify the ways of achieving it. Therefore courses of languages for specific purposes may vary in the choice of language skills, functions and topics taught. The need for individualization of the teaching process requires also decisions regarding teaching materials to be used. McGrath (2002:4) notices that ‗ when experienced teachers teach using a course book that they know well, they will have a sense of what to use and what not to use, what to adapt and where to supplement‘. But how important for such decisions are the preferences of learners? The aim of the article is to present revision books - didactic material highly valued by learners but not so much by teachers - and to outline some of the reasons for this discrepancy. 1. Needs analysis in ESP There are various definitions of ESP in literature as the term covers various aspects of ELT and there is still some disagreement over the criteria for classification. Barnard and Zemach (2003:306) argue that ―English for Specific Purposes is an umbrella term that refers to teaching of English to students who are learning the language for a particular work or study-related reason and therefore attempts to position ESP on ‗by implication, superior position in EFL are groundless. According to them ― ESP is not an approach, a method or a technique (although simulation and role-play activities are often identified with business ESP courses). The only feature common to all types of ESP course is a selection of the content and teaching approach according to the perceived needs of the learner‖. Dudley-Evans and St John (1988:i), however, claim that the teaching of English for Specific Purposes has generally been regarded as a separate activity within ELT which the main concerns ―have always been, and remain, with needs analysis, text analysis, and preparing learners to communicate effectively in the tasks prescribed by their study or work situation‖. Every ESP course, aiming at satisfying learners‘ real-world professional demands as effectively as possible, must be based on specific situations which the learner will be involved in. The starting point of every ESP course design is a detailed needs analysis which allows to define competence gaps in relevant areas, set the required level of knowledge and specify the ways of achieving it. Therefore courses of languages for specific purposes may vary in the choice of language skills, functions and topics taught. As the dynamics of the labour market make it impossible to predict the future linguistic needs of the learner, a very important part of EFL methodology is developing learners‘ skill of self- directed learning. The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR, 2001:6) defines self-directed learning as a process including: • raising the learner‘s awareness of his or her present state of knowledge; • self-setting of feasible and worthwhile objectives; • selection of materials; • self-assessment. Self-directing learning is becoming more and more common among adult learners as it gives a lot of freedom in choosing the time of learning, learning style, strategies and materials. Yet, needs-oriented, learnercentred education requires a new approach to the problem of evaluation. It has become obvious that more autonomous learners should take responsibility for the final result of the learning process. To be able to do so they must have a possibility of unassisted self-evaluation of either their general language knowledge or particular language skills. Not all learners need formal assessment. 541 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Very often adult learners decide to either start learning a language or improve foreign language competence for a particular reason e.g. a new job opportunity, their own satisfaction. Not all of them attend language courses because they need an official proof of their language skills. They may just want to ensure that they are making progress and / or pursuing their language learning goals. They do not intend to enter for any more or less formal examination. In a traditional teacher-directed process it is the responsibility of the teacher to choose the most appropriate form of assessment. In self-directed learning the learner chooses what needs to be checked depending on the purpose of assessment. There may be a need to assess the progress made over a certain period of time or the present level of language fluency. CEFR (2001) distinguishes two types of assessment: • Achievement assessment - assessment of the achievement of specific objectives. It is oriented to the course – what has been taught. • Proficiency assessment - assessment of what someone can do / knows in relation to the application of the subject in the real world. Achievement assessment is usually used by teachers who need to get feedback on teaching while employers, educational administrators and adult learners are more interested in what the person can now do, therefore they find proficiency assessment as more useful. ― A proficiency test aims to measure how well the students will perform in their target language task and so fits within the ESP principles‖ (DudleyEvans and St John, 1998: 213). There are some readily available assessment tools though only very few are suitable for self-evaluation. Self-assessment in self-directed learning process requires tools designed in such a way that the learner can use them and review the achieved results himself/herself without help of e.g. a teacher. An option for self-directed learners is to use didactic materials suitable for language skills assessment which main goal is to facilitate ● revision and/or consolidation of learner‘s knowledge in a certain discipline or area; ● identification of gaps in learner‘s knowledge and filling them in; ● expansion of the learner‘s existing knowledge ● testing particular language knowledge or skills. 2. Revision books in ESP One of the main assumptions of English for Specific Purposes is that teaching materials should enable learners to acquire the variety of language and skills they will need in typical situations met in their professional life. There is specific vocabulary and language situations which are likely to appear in occupational contexts, therefore much greater emphasis must be put on developing lexical repertoire. Subject specialists need these lexical items that will enable them to communicate freely within the discipline represent. Checking this very specific vocabulary knowledge requires special tools. Unfortunately, readily available materials used for such a purpose are scarce. Most of commonly known and used vocabulary tests cover general language lexical items chosen on the basis of their position on frequency lists. They are not an effective tool for checking specific vocabulary needed by e.g. a stockbroker. Neither are ESP textbooks. The primary role of a textbook, designed mainly for teacher - directed learning, is to develop language competences. ESP textbooks do not provide enough opportunities to revise professional vocabulary or job related language skills learnt from other materials, at various stages of language education . New vocabulary is often introduced in clearly written explanatory texts or exercises in which key terms are bolded. Exercises and revision units cover only the lexical items that appear in the units. Checking knowledge gained at earlier stages requires a different tool. Additionally, some professionals need to have very clearly defined skills. Not always developing all language skills is necessary. ESP learners, particularly autonomous ones, should be given an opportunity not only to gain but also to evaluate the language knowledge according to their needs. Language revision books can be one of the instruments serving this purpose. According to Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1996) “to revise‖ means: 1. To look at again for the detection of errors; to re["e]xamine; to review; to look over with care for correction; as, to revise a writing; to revise a translation. 2. (Print.) To compare (a proof) with a previous proof of the same matter, and mark again such errors as have not been corrected in the type. 3. To review, alter, and amend; as, to revise statutes; to revise an agreement; to revise a dictionary. Drawing on this definition it can be said that a revision guide is a type of didactic material which, on the one hand, allows identification of gaps in learner‘s knowledge and, on the other hand, creates an opportunity for the learner to practise the possessed knowledge. Most such books concentrate on vocabulary, professional skills or grammar. Yet, the need for this type of material among learners does not raise enough interest among publishers, textbook writers and teachers. 542 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo 3.Empirical research results In 2008 an empirical research was undertaken in order to describe the role of revision books in the didactic process of ESP. As didactic materials can be evaluated from both learner‘s and teacher‘s point of view the research was carried in two stages. The first stage was a questionnaire run among learners. A group of 150 respondents included undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students of business. They represented various levels of language fluency - from intermediate to advanced. The lowest level (B2) was predominant among undergraduates, advanced (C2) was mainly among postgraduate students. The purpose of such a composition of the group was to get as wide perspective on the issue as possible. The next stage was to get opinions from experienced ESP teachers. The answers varied in length and scope. Due to the length constraints of this article only the most relevant (for this paper) conclusions will be addressed. 3.1. Popularity of revision books among learners The results of the research show that revision books are popular among learners. As Fig. 1` shows almost ¾ of the respondents have used this type of material in language learning process. It is worth mentioning that difference between the scores of the three groups of respondents was statistically non-significant what may suggest that the popularity of revision books does not depend on the general language proficiency. Figure 1. Popularity of revision books When asked about usefulness of this type of learning material over 60% of those surveyed state that revision books are very useful. For 30% it is useful and only 1 respondent finds it not useful. Those who used this type of material used it for various reasons- from gaining new knowledge, consolidating the knowledge they possess or assessing their knowledge relating to a particular language skill. Figure 2. Reasons for using revision books 3.2. Popularity of revision books among teachers Revision books are designed primarily for learners who develop their language skills in form of selfstudy. However, some authors and publishers recommend them also for use in teacher-directed learning. In such cases revision books can be used for textbooks supplementation. To evaluate the popularity and usefulness of revision books as teaching material the second stage of research was carried among teachers. 75 experienced ESP teachers were selected to give their opinions on this type of didactic material. This stage of the research was carried by means of a personal interview. The respondents were asked two questions: - Do you think revision books are useful in ESP teaching? - Why yes?/no? 543 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo The answers given by the respondents can be divided into two groups: positive opinions and negative opinions. There was not even one respondent who would have any doubts about which answer to choose. This allows to draw a conclusion that teachers have a very clear opinion on the usefulness of this type of material. It was interesting to notice that more of them are sceptical about the potentials of revision books. Figure 3. Teachers‘ opinions on usefulness of revision books . The main arguments in support of the negative opinions are: • topics in revision guides are not correlated with topics in textbooks, • coursebook packages offer enough teaching material, • revision books offer exercises on too few levels of difficulty, • exercises in revision books are too mechanical, do not involve cognitive skills of learners, • revision books make the learning process very easy what demotivates learners. Figure 4. Teachers‘ arguments against On the other hand, teachers who use revision books notice that: • revision books help learners revise for exams, • revision books allow to consolidate the material taught ; as a result all students have the same material to learn, • revision books make teacher‘s work easier as they can be used as an additional source of exercises. 4. Conclusion Didactic materials should be evaluated for their potential to engage both the learners‘ and teacher‘s attention and effort (Rubdy, 2003:38). ‗By asking the students to assess their own learning, the teacher promotes autonomy by training them to become aware of their learning processes. This helps the students internalise the required criteria for acceptable performance both with regard to the curriculum and real life situations, and leads to a more realistic view of their actual skills‘. In fact, formal or traditional language testing is seldom used outside the educational bodies as the only tool to measure the level of particular skill or language competence. In case of revision books learners‘ and teachers‘ preferences regarding teaching/learning materials do not match. The analysis of the research results indicates that revision books are found as useful and effective in the process of learning but only by learners. Language teachers do not regard them as a valuable tool. 544 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Quantative and qualitative analysis of this type of didactic material (conducted in another empirical research on self-assessment tools) confirms some of the arguments given by teachers, mainly that the choice of topics is random or based on the author‘s intuition rather than learners‘ needs and that mechanical exercises are cognitively unchallenging for learners. If revision books are to be really valuable in language learning/teaching they must be designed with special attention paid to the content and structure. In some cases, however, the teachers‘ perceptions of the value of revision books represent more their preferred teaching style than reflect the potential value of this type of material. As Tomlinson (2003:18) notices ‗ language teachers tend to teach most successfully if they enjoy their role and if they can gain some enjoyment themselves from the materials they are using‘. The popularity of revision books among learners seems to be big enough to challenge another Tomlinson‘s reflections that ‗learning materials lose credibility for learners if they suspect that the teacher does not value them. References: Barnard, R., Zemach, D., 2003, Materials for Specific Purposes, [w:] Tomlinson, B., Developing Materials for Language Teaching, Continuum, New York. Block, D. 1991, Some thoughts on DIY materials design , ―ELT Journal‖ 45.3, s. 211-217. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR), 2001, ec.europa.eu/education/languages). Dudley-Evans T., St John M.,1998,Developments in English for Specific Purposes. A Multi-disciplinary approach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. McGrath, I., 2002, Materials Evaluation and design for Language Teaching, Edinburgh University press, Edinburgh. Rubdy, R., 2003, Selection of materials, in B. Tomlinson (ed) Developing Materials for Language Teaching, Cromwell Press Trowbridge. Tomlinson, B., 2003, Developing Materials for Language Teaching, Continuum, New York. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1996, Random House. 545 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 82 Title A name given to the resource Revision books in ESP: Myths and Reality Author Author Wisniewska, Halina Abstract A summary of the resource. The term LSP is commonly used when referring to teaching and research of language in relation to the communicative needs of speakers of a second or foreign language used in a particular workplace, academic, or professional context thus LSP courses usually focus on the specific language needs of relatively homogeneous groups of learners. They may be addressed to students at, most often, tertiary level of education or to people who already completed formal education but need to use a foreign language to communicate in professional target situations. The starting point of every ESP course design is a detailed needs analysis which allows to define linguistic requirements of learners, competence gaps in relevant areas, set the required level of knowledge and specify the ways of achieving it. Therefore courses of languages for specific purposes may vary in the choice of language skills, functions and topics taught. The need for individualization of the teaching process requires also decisions regarding teaching materials to be used. McGrath (2002:4) notices that ‗ when experienced teachers teach using a course book that they know well, they will have a sense of what to use and what not to use, what to adapt and where to supplement‘. But how important for such decisions are the preferences of learners? The aim of the article is to present revision books - didactic material highly valued by learners but not so much by teachers - and to outline some of the reasons for this discrepancy. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/a53dc16dd59dbf835a08e6d8a9a79571.pdf 515b7d41cfceae466884fbb9c4fc4172 PDF Text Text 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING THROUGH CONTENT Alice Ying Nie New York City Teaching Fellows 2008 Fordham University alice.nie@gmail.com Abstract:Most linguists will agree that the natural process of language development does not happen in isolation but through a process of understanding the socio-cultural surroundings. Traditionally, second language education is taught in isolation where the focus was on grammar. Research has since found that language is learned most effectively for communication and purposeful social interactions. The merging of purposeful meaning with language allows for the student grasp onto a tangible topic not only helping to further language development but also cognitive development. Cummins discusses this idea of content language learning by separating language tasks as either context reduced or context embedded. Context reduced tasks lacks meaning for communication and is not cognitively challenging. On the other hand, context embedded tasks provides meaning for communication and requires in depth analysis. Merging content with language education requires students to not only learn the content information but to develop Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). The academic application of the language being learned makes the language useful and applicable allowing for greater retention of the language. Past research has also shown that English Language Learners lack native like proficiencies due to the over emphases on grammar. In order for content language education to work, content cannot supersede language goals. Language functions such as grammar, vocabulary, and writing are taught alongside content in a way that makes sense for that topic. Introduction What we do with language varies context-to-context and task-to-task because language is largely a socio-cultural phenomenon. However, current English language instruction, both at the national as well as international realm, focuses mainly grammar using repetitive grammar exercises as means of instruction. Current curricula in English as a Second Language classroom are designed to teach English as a separate subject focusing on grammar. Most English language classrooms are designed in such a way where there is no link between English and the authentic language used in content classes or for academic purposes. Because of this, academic language is a serious problem for many international students when they begin college (Shi and Beckett, 2002). Many students graduate from secondary school having completed their English language exam yet possess little knowledge of the English language aside from what is required of them from repetitive grammar drills. As with the case in Hungary, many English Language students pass their English language exams but still lack the ability to accomplish English language tasks required for university courses. The teaching methodology employed in Hungary, focuses on teaching English grammar and students are seldom given the opportunity to practice conversation nor are they exposed to authentic English language. Past research have shown that ―teaching ESL students advanced literacy and discipline appropriate language is better done through authentic subject matter content rather than ‗dry run‘ practice‖ (164). Repetitive grammar reviews lacks authentic application and often, students will memorize grammar tenses without really understanding them and without practical application, the retention rate is much lower. There is also a lack of exposure to advanced literature in most English language classrooms causing a rift between what students are taught and what they are expected to know on an university level. When students participate in English courses at the university level, the content dramatically differs from what they were exposed to on the secondary educational level. As in the case of Hungary, English language exams at the secondary educational level consists mainly of grammatical multiple-choice questions. On the contrary, at the university level, students are immediately required to read, analyze and translate advanced university level text. Most students feel inadequately prepared and overwhelmed. Students are never taught cognitive language skills so instead of being able to decode and break down the text for comprehension, students look up individual words in the dictionary, which often gives them the incorrect definition of the word, and they are left with incoherent, isolated words. 84 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo This discrepancy between what is taught in the classrooms and the practical application of the English language is what will be addressed in this paper. The content integrated approach to English language education has its roots in Systemic Functional Grammar first made popular in the 1960s by Michael Holliday. Contentbased language teaching was afterwards introduced in 1986 by Bernard Mohan‘s ―Language and Content.‖ While content integrated language education is slowly finding roots in the United States, using content to teach English is still a very foreign concept in most of the rest of the world. Language is a social phenomenon and is influenced largely by our environment and because of this, language should be taught pragmatically for social functions through content integrated curriculum. The goal of content integrated language education is to make meaning available to all students and it is key to both develop academic language as well as valuing the prior knowledge students bring with them into the classrooms. As Halliday (1989) points out, Language is a political institution: those who are wise in its ways, capable of using it to shape and serve important personal and social goals, will be the ones who are ―empowered‖ (to use a fashionable word): able, that is, not merely to participate effectively in the world, but able also to act upon it, in the sense that they can strive for significant social change (p. x). Content integrated English language education is the means to which students can be empowered. When instructors utilize prior knowledge, they are able to facilitate language comprehension by helping students derive meaning through the process of placing text within a framework of what the students are familiar with. The integration of content into English language lessons allows for students to connect language to its practical applications in their subject classes, which helps to both infuse meaning into language as well as provide scaffolding for their other classes. Theoretical Framework: Content integrated English language developed from Functional linguistics as opposed to rational linguistics, which governs much of Chomsky‘s theories on innate language knowledge. For the purpose of this paper, we will focus on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) or Systemic Functional Grammar, which was first introduced by JR Firth, a British Linguists and then later developed by Michael Holliday in ―An Introduction to Functional Grammar‖ in the 1960s. The SFL approach to language education focuses on the practical uses of language rather than the analysis of grammatical language and is mainly concerned with how meaning is construed through spoken conversations and written texts. SFL sees language in a social context where the function of language is central to language development and calls for insightful analysis of text and discourse from a social perspective. Method of Studying: The method of study employed for this paper is a qualitative study. The qualitative study allows me to explore in depth the responses of the participants to provide an analytical perspective on the issue. This study does not provide any general quantitative results, only to gain a deeper understanding of the educational system in Hungary from the perspectives of university students in the country. Sampling: This study first started with two groups of English language students in a high school in Queens, New York. There were 20 students in one class and 24 students in the other class and both classes functioned under the newly developed, content integrated curriculum. The second half of this study focuses on twenty English language students at the University level in Hungary. Data Analysis Processes: The first half of the study focuses on the content integrated English language approach as a new method of instruction at Grover Cleveland High School in Queens, New York. Three different classes of students in the ninth and tenth grade participated in this program. Twenty to twenty five students were assigned to each class with two teachers per class, a content specialist and an English language specialist. The study follows the progress of these students for two years. The idea of the content integrated method is that ESL specialists work in collaboration with the content teacher. While the content teacher focuses on the specific academic objectives that need to be met, the ESL teacher identifies the language support needed in order for the students to comprehend the content information. At Grover Cleveland, the program was modeled after theories developed by Lilly Wong Filmore in which ESL teachers teach with Social Studies teacher in a small classroom setting of no more than twenty students during a two period block. In this classroom setting, students are encouraged to work in small groups. This allows for differentiation of instruction where students are grouped in accordance to their language ability. At the end of the two years, the students take the Social Studies High School Regents 85 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo exam and results of the ESL students in the content integrated classes were compared with results from students in regular ESL classrooms. There was a sixty percent increase in the regents passing rate for these students. The second half of this study analyses the survey results of twenty English language students living in Hungary. While the students surveyed are all University level students, participants all attended different middle and high school and the survey results include both private and public schools in Hungary. For the first half of the survey, students were asked to give a rating, from strongly disagree to strongly agree, to statements. When asked if students had opportunities to practice speaking in class, 80 percent of the students disagreed and the same was true for the statement: ―I felt that my English classes in high school prepared me for University level English reading and writing.‖ For the statement: ―Grammar was the main focus in my English classes in school,‖ 100 percent of the students agreed. When asked if teachers used history, science, and math to teach English, 100 percent of the students answered no. Two of the twenty students answered yes to the questions: ―Did teachers use real life situations to teach English?‖ and ―Did teachers teach using real literature or real newspaper stories?‖ The same two students who answered yes to these two questions also had an overall positive experience in their English classes and felt that they were prepared for University level English. For the second half of the survey, students were asked opened ended questions for a more in depth qualitative analysis. Students were asked questions such as: 1. What usually was the focus of each class? 2. Do you feel that your English language education prepared you for University level courses in English or for applying for jobs in the United States? 3. What do you feel are the strengths and weaknesses of English language education in Hungary? 4. In your English classes, what did you feel you always wanted more practice in? For question number 1, most students answered that grammar was the primary focus of their English classes and students also agreed that their English classes did not provide them with many opportunities to speak and ask questions. Students also agreed that the English they learned was not too useful because there was ―too much weight on grammar.‖ For question number 2, one student‘s response was: ―Not much. Ive learned English in the Hungarian School system for 8 years, from which I had 4 years of intensive course in High School. But my 80% of my English knowledge arouse from the Internet, jobs, films and series etc. Only 20% of it came from the school system.‖ Another student reflected on their overall language education while in secondary school and wrote: ―Practical and useful language knowledge can't be taught and learnt based on purely (or mostly purely) memorizing scientific grammar rules. Human cognitive behavior doesn't work that way. Expression and practice based learning is much more effective than this. On the other hand it‘s also a bad habit in Hungary that everything is about the paper. In this case, no one really cares about the real English knowledge, only about passing the state language exam. And the education is based around this only goal.‖ Students all felt that while grammar was taught strongly, the rest of English language education was weak. As for the question; ―In your English classes, what did you feel you always wanted more practice in?‖ Most students answered speaking and independent thinking. After ten years of English language education, one student wrote, ―When we were children and young, we were so shy and it was so easy just learning grammar and reading. But after, at university, when you meet with for example Erasmus student and you want speak with them…you can‘t, because your speaking skill is so low, end you feel you need more speaking practice.‖ The overemphasis on grammar in the Hungarian Language system has for the most part, inadequately prepared students for high level, academic English language tasks. Some students had answered that they had been learning English for over ten years but felt overwhelmed and inadequately prepared for university level English courses; ―At university the level is higher and more specific, the text are so difficult.‖ The discrepancy between what is taught at the secondary level and what is expected of students at the University level is a major problem in the Hungarian English language education. Students are not exposed to authentic English language while in secondary school and feel unprepared when they enter university classes where they are suddenly expected to read, analyze, and translate university level text. A Socio-Psycholinguistic Approach: The meaning within text is the creation of both the reader and the writer. Letters and words on a blank page itself do not hold any meaning, rather, it is the reader‘s interaction with the test that gives it meaning. In the transactional socio-psycholinguistic approach proposed by Goodman, he write; ―texts are constructed by authors to be comprehended by readers. The meaning is in the author and the reader. The text has a potential to evoke meaning but has no meaning in itself‖ (Goodman, 1994). The reader plays a highly active role in the process of comprehending text where the significance that the reader brings to the text is as important as the text itself. The cultural backgrounds that each student brings into the text aids in his or her comprehension of the text. Acknowledgement of this prior knowledge not only helps facilitate the comprehension of the text but also empowers students by valuing what they are able to contribute. 86 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo With a focus on the holistic approach to teaching English as a second language, the transitional sociopsycholinguistic approach encourages students to find meaning in text rather than solely focusing on what each individual word means within a text. In other words, it‘s a top-down and whole-to-part approach, rather than a bottom-up, part-to-whole approach. According to Constance Weaver, author of Reading Process and Practice, this approach enables meaning to emerge ―as readers transact with a text in a specific situational context‖ (Weaver, 2002). Students are able to derive meaning from text by placing words, phrases, or sentences, within a particular context that they are already familiar with. This context, however, needs to be activated prior to the reading of the text as well as during the reading of the text by the educator. The activation of prior knowledge is necessary in order for students to make personal connections with the text to ensure comprehension. If there is no prior knowledge or schemas in place, it must be built. Once the schemas are in place, meaning will become a transaction between the reader and the words in the text (Weaver, 2002). Along with developing schemas, students need to be explicitly taught how to extrapolate meaning from text via context clues, how to make predictions and inferences about and within the text, and how to make text-to-self connections. Within the curriculum and the transactional socio-psycholinguistic approach to literacy, a comprehensive literacy program must be developed. Drawing from Constance Weaver‘s thoughts on literacy, the socio-psycholinguistic approach encourages a curriculum that incorporates a number of different reading and writing strategies that would aid in literacy development such as: read/write aloud, shared reading/writing, the guided reading/writing, sustained readings, and writing workshop. The reading and writing segments would incorporate the more holistic approach to literacy that Weaver argues for and would enable students to become more motivated, independent readers. Under the principles of the socio-psycholinguistic approach, students are taught to learn the parts of a language while immersed in the whole. Students are able to learn skills such as phonics and decoding while reading in context. In the article: ―Quality of Children‘s Recall under Two Classroom Testing Tasks: Towards a SocioPsycholinguistic Model of Reading Comprehension‖ by Mosenthal, research testing was done on various groups of students to understand the involvement of the socio-psycholinguistic model in reading comprehension. Children use four types of meaning while decoding reading material. One type is referential meaning, which is the literal interpretation of an external discourse. The second type of meaning is a text-structured meaning, which includes both logical inferences and enabling inferences. The text-structured meaning of reading comprehension states that students draw meaning from readings through logical inferences and reasoning to make the literature coherent. The third type of meaning is pragmatic inference meaning, which is based on understanding of the literature through world knowledge and not necessarily from the interpretation of the actual text. The last type of meaning is social meaning, which involves the comprehension of the text through the process of communication. Students will use different meanings within the classroom when decoding the reading material because children understand social meaning differently. The first reason why children understand social meaning differently is because of the different expectations placed on the students by the teachers. The second reason is due to the fact that students themselves have different expectations for themselves. Testing results in informal situations shows that; ―in informal testing tasks, the manner in which children relate new knowledge and schema knowledge depends upon how children comprehend social meaning and interact with their teacher.‖ (Mosenthal, 1980) Language, therefore, rather than being something that can be taught in isolation, is instead something that is interdependent upon the society, culture and educational contexts. In the article, the World Outside and Inside Schools: Language and Immigrant Children, Guadalupe Valdes argues that the social context in which language is taught plays a critical role. At Garden School where Valdes‘ conducted her study, students were given very little time to practice their oral communication skills and were not taught basic expressions for functioning in the classroom (Valdés, 1998). They were also given tasks inappropriate for their age, dumbed-down material and activities void of any academic language and content. For example, ―students would examine a picture, fill in the blank in each sentence, and color the picture of the boy‖ (Valdés, 1998). Students were also given worksheets to complete but were not given explicit instruction. The teachers at Garden School did not provide native language support or acknowledgement of the students‘ cultural background in their curriculum. As a result, students became frustrated, unmotivated and restless. If Garden School had a curriculum in place that acknowledged the cultural and linguistic background of the students, that incorporated meaningful activities and engaging literature and texts, gave ample instruction time for teaching the specific skills needed for academic growth, and had sufficient non-standard assessments in place; the students would thrive, would develop the necessary literacy and academic skills to succeed in school, and would be more motivated. In addition, there also needs to be open communication between ESL teachers and the content-area teachers so that the ESL teachers can provide the necessary instructional support to keep students academically up-to-par with their contemporaries. 87 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Most linguists will agree that the natural process of language development does not happen in isolation but through a process of understanding the socio-cultural surroundings. Traditionally, second language education is taught in isolation where the focus was on grammar. Research has since found that language is learned most effectively for communication and purposeful social interactions. The merging of purposeful meaning with language allows for the student to grasp onto a tangible topic not only helping to further language development but also cognitive development. Cummins discusses this idea of content language learning by separating language tasks as either context reduced or context embedded. Context reduced tasks lacks meaning for communication and are not cognitively challenging. On the other hand, context embedded tasks provides meaning for communication and requires in depth analysis. Merging content with language education requires students to not only learn the content information but simultaneously develops the students‘ Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). The academic application of the language being learned makes the language useful allowing for greater retention of the language. Classroom Applications and the Role of the ESL teacher: Critical pedagogy that empowers rather than disable students utilizes the transactional sociopsycholinguistic literacy approaches through comprehensive reading programs and engaging curriculum to create a better educational environment for students. Assessing prior knowledge and choosing text connected to content are two essential elements to foster an empowering environment for comprehension of reading assignments. To access prior knowledge, teachers can utilize a range of activities. A quick activity can be writing down a question related to the text on the board and asking students to think about and respond to it. As the students are writing down their answers, the teacher should walk around the class reading the responses and selecting students to share allowed. Students are given the opportunity to first think about the topic and write down their thoughts before having to speak out loud allowing for the quiet and shy students to participate. The teacher is given the chance to select the answers to be shared out loud, guiding the students to the text. Another way that teachers can help access prior knowledge is with a more involved activity such as a KWL (what do you Know, what do you Want to know, and what have you Learned) chart. Students are asked to complete the first two parts, what do you know and what do you want to know, prior to the reading. Students will share their answers and then complete the last part, what have you learned, after reading the text. In the process of accessing prior knowledge, the teacher is first of all, validating the student‘s knowledge and cultural background. Students not only become invested and engaged in the lesson but also empowered to voice their thoughts and opinions. Motivating students to tap into prior knowledge also enables students to better understand the text. Students make connection between what they know and what they are expected to learn filling the text with meaning. Questions and vocabulary will often arise during this phase providing instructors the opportunity to further scaffold the text. The second crucial classroom practice is selecting content infused text to teach literacy skills. Content rich lessons provide students with meaningful text to exposure academic language that is applicable in their other subject classes. Past research also show that English Language Learners lack native like proficiencies due to the over emphases on grammar and struggle in mainstream classes because the academic language is too challenging. This is why ESL teachers must expose students to academic language in ESL classrooms so that the students can excel when they are in mainstream classes. However, in order for content language education to work, content cannot supersede language goals. Language functions such as grammar, vocabulary, and writing must be taught alongside content in a way that makes sense for that topic. Well-developed ESL-content lessons must incorporate both English language goals, as well as content goals. Each lesson must have a content objective and a language objective that matches the content objective. For example, if the content objective is teaching the role of Gandhi in India, then the language objective can be the use of cause and effect phrases to write complex sentences. It would not be effective to teach the future tense during a history lesson on what happened in World War II. Taking the example: ―The dog walks down the street,‖ if the language objective is to teach the simple present tense, then a better means of achieving this objective could be through a social studies lesson on the current political parties in the United States. The grammar objective of the simple present tense would be taught through sentences such as: ―Even though the current president is from the Democratic party, the Republicans holds the majority of the seats in the congress.‖ A content focused English language lesson serves to meet three purposes. First of all, students are able to access prior knowledge to better understand the text. In the example above on political parties, if the student has any prior knowledge about politics and political parties, then they are able to use that knowledge and apply it to the lesson. Secondly, students are taught academic language helping them succeed in their content classes. English language classes can provide the vocabulary to help scaffold comprehension in their regular social studies or science classes. Lastly, content focused English language lessons utilize age appropriate material to teach the language. Rather than dumbing-down the material, which makes students feel stupid, content focused lessons 88 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo uses grade appropriate material using the same text and vocabulary as their peers in regular, mainstream classrooms. In developing content related ESL lessons, it is essential for ESL teachers to work alongside content area teachers to define the content objectives and figure out how language can be used to help achieve the content objective. The ideal arrangement for a Content English Language classroom would be a co-teaching environment where the content teacher and the English language teacher are both in the classroom teaching together. Curriculum, lesson plans, assessments and evaluation of the students‘ progress are all discussed and planned together so that both content objectives and language objectives are being met. Conclusion: It is through education and knowledge that a person can be empowered and it is the job of the teacher to empower our students to think critically on their own, to understand, analyze and evaluate the world they live in. To be effective teachers, one must first learn to understand where our students are coming from, their culture and backgrounds. Teachers must first learn about the students, to appreciate and value the knowledge that each student brings to class in order to effectively utilize our students‘ knowledge to teach them. Too often, students are not given the chance to access their prior knowledge. The knowledge that students hold in their experiences in life are not valued nor utilized in classrooms. Instead, we teach them to study and memorize obscure facts that are not related to their understanding of the world. Without making the connection between what they know and what they are learning, students are not able to see the importance and the value of the lesson. Learning is a process of understanding and interpreting the information presented to us, which cannot happen if students are taught to just regurgitate the information teachers give them. The process of knowledge acquisition therefore requires tremendous scaffolding so that students are not receiving the information superficially but understanding it in depth. Students must see the relevance of the information to their personal lives, which happens when teachers access prior knowledge to help students connect the lesson with what they already know. Bridging the gap between language acquisition and content information allows students to see the relevance of the language in practice. As ESL teachers, it is our duty to both value our students‘ diverse backgrounds as well as guide them towards success in their subject area classes. References Cummins, J. (1995). Empowering Minority Students: A Framework for Intervention. In O. Garcia & C. Baker (Eds). Policy and Practice in Bilingual Education: Extending the Foundations. Great Britain: Multilingual Matters. Goodman, Y., & K. (1990). Vygotsky in a whole language perspective. In L. Moll (Ed.), Vygotsky and education (pp. 223-250). London: Cambridge University Press. Goodman, Y., & K. (1994). To err is human: Learning about language processes by analyzing miscues. In R. Ruddell, M. Ruddell, & H. Singer (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (4th vol, pp. 104-23). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Mosenthal, P. (1980). Quality of Children‘s Recall under Two Classroom Testing Tasks: Towards a Socio-Psycholinguistic Model of Reading Comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 4, 504528. Shi, L., & Beckett, G. H. (2002). Japanese exchange students‘ writing experiences in a Canadian university. TESL Canada Journal, 20(1), 38-56. Valdés, G., (1998). The World Outside and Inside Schools: Language and Immigrant Children. Educational Researcher, Vol. 27, No.6, 4-18. Wang, S. (2006). A socio-psycholinguistic study on L2 Chinese readers‘ behavior while reading orally. Dissertation Abstracts International, A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 67, 01. 89 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Weaver, Constance. (1994). Reading Process and Practice: From SocioPsycholinguistics to Whole Language. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Weaver, C. (2002). Reading Process and Practice: From SocioPsycholinguistics to Whole Language (3rd ed). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 90 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 16 Title A name given to the resource ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING THROUGH CONTENT Author Author Ying Nie, Alice Abstract A summary of the resource. :Most linguists will agree that the natural process of language development does not happen in isolation but through a process of understanding the socio-cultural surroundings. Traditionally, second language education is taught in isolation where the focus was on grammar. Research has since found that language is learned most effectively for communication and purposeful social interactions. The merging of purposeful meaning with language allows for the student grasp onto a tangible topic not only helping to further language development but also cognitive development. Cummins discusses this idea of content language learning by separating language tasks as either context reduced or context embedded. Context reduced tasks lacks meaning for communication and is not cognitively challenging. On the other hand, context embedded tasks provides meaning for communication and requires in depth analysis. Merging content with language education requires students to not only learn the content information but to develop Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). The academic application of the language being learned makes the language useful and applicable allowing for greater retention of the language. Past research has also shown that English Language Learners lack native like proficiencies due to the over emphases on grammar. In order for content language education to work, content cannot supersede language goals. Language functions such as grammar, vocabulary, and writing are taught alongside content in a way that makes sense for that topic. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/46444f0d99b3b0edc254c86d077586c4.pdf ebe0d1338b872e5639356df58fa86990 PDF Text Text 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Two-Level Description of Kazakh Morphology Harun ReĢit Zafer Department of Computer Eng. Fatih University hrzafer@fatih.edu.tr Birol Tilki Department of Computer Programming Vocational School, Fatih University birolt@fatih.edu.tr Atakan Kurt Department of Computer Eng. Fatih University akurt@fatih.edu.tr Mehmet Kara Deparment of Contemporary Turkic Lang. Istanbul University mehkara@yahoo.com Abstract: Koskemnieni‘s two-level model has received a lot attention in modeling morphology. In this paper we present an ongoing study on a comprehensive two-level description of Kazakh morphology. Our description is implemented using the morphological parser in the Dilmaç Machine Translation Framework. A lexicon containing the root words of contemporary Kazakh is used in the testing. Phonological and morphological special cases and exceptions have been considered in nominal, and verbal conjugations. To out knowledge this is the first time Kazakh phonological rules and morphotactics are computationally described which makes it possible to implement other linguistics applications such as machine translation systems. Keywords: Kazakh, two-level morphology, orthographic rules, finite state machines. Introduction Two-level morphology [ 182] has been applied to many languages. Tools to implement two-level morphology such as PC-KIMMO [183] is publicly available. It was originally applied to describe finite state Finnish morphology by Koskenniemi. A detailed description with an application to English is given by Antwort [ 184]. Two-level or finite state models later were applied to many languages such as Japanese [185], Korean [186], Turkish [187], Arabic [188], and Mongolian [189]. All these languages except Arabic are related linguistically. They are Altaic languages. Like Ural languages of Finnish and Hungarian they are agglutinative. There is a group of languages called Turkic Languages including Turkish, Turkmen, Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Azerbaijani. There are more than 20 languages in this group. These languages share a lot in common from phonological, morphological and syntactic aspects. However they are not intelligible for the most part. 182 Koskenniemi, K., 1983, Two-Level Morphology: A General Computational Model of word-form recognition and production, Tech. Rep. Publication No. 11, Department of General Linguistics, University of Helsinky. 183 Karttunen L, 1983, PC-KIMMO: A General Morphological Processor. In Texas Linguistics Forum 22, pp.165-186. 184 Antworth, E.L., 1990, PC-KIMMO: A Two-level Processor of Morphological Analysis, Summer Instıtute of Linguistics, Dallas, TX. 185 Alam, Y.S., 1983, Two-level Morphological Analysis of Japanese, Texas Linguistics Forum 22, pp. 229-252. 186 Kim, D. B., Lee S. J., Choi, K.S., and Kim, G.C., 1994. A two-level morphological analysis of Korean. In Proceedings of the 15th conference on Computational linguistics - Volume 1 (COLING '94), pp. 535-539. 187 Oflazer, K. 1994, Two-level description of Turkish morphology, Literary and Linguistic Computing, Literary and Linguistic Computing Volume9, Issue2 pp. 137-148. 188 Arabic Finite State Morphological Analysis and Generation, In COLING-96, Cophenagen, pp. 89-94. 189 Jaimai, P., Zundui, T., Chagnaa, A., and Ock, C.Y., PC-KIMMO-based Description of Mongolian Morphology, International Journal of Information Processing Systems Vol.1, No.1, 2005 pp. 41-48. 560 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo They are mostly spoken in Turkey, Turkic states, in Central Asia and in various parts of Russia and other parts of the world. These languages are except Turkish are usually resource poor from computational linguistics point of view. Although recently there are some work on the Turkmen [190 191], Azerbaijani, Uyghur and others. It can be said that we are only at the beginning of research considering the many languages in this group. Kazakh is one of the important languages in this group considering the number of people speaking this language. Kazakh (also Qazaq) language is a Turkic language and belongs to Kypchak branch. It is the official language of Kazakhstan. It is spoken about 12 million people all over the world. Like other Turkic Languages Kazakh is also agglutinative and employs vowel harmony [ 192]. This paper is organized as follows: In Section 2 Kazakh orthography is described using two-level rules of Koskenniemi. Kazakh alphabet and phonological rules are defined here. In Section 3 we briefly discuss Kazakh morphotactics using Finite State Machines with a few examples. Conclusions and future work is given in the last section. Kazakh Orthography Kazakh is officially written in the Cyrillic alphabet. We will use a latin transcription of Cyrill version for convenience. There is a transliteration system converting from Kazakh Cyrill to Latin [193]. Kazakh alphabet is given in Table 1 shows current Kazakh Alphabet and its transliteration to Latin Alphabet. Cyrillic Аа Әə Бб Вв Гг Ғғ Дд Ее Ёѐ Жж Зз Ии Й Кк Table 1: Cyrillic Kazakh alphabet and its transliteration to Latin alphabet. Latin Cyrillic Latin Cyrillic Latin Aa Ққ Qq Фф Ff ä Лл Ll Һ H Bb Мм Mm Хх Xx Vv Нн Nn Цц Tsts Gg ң Ñ Чч Çç Ğğ Оо Oo Шш ġĢ Dd Өө Öô Щщ ġçĢç Eye Пп Pp Ыы Iı Yoyo Рр Rr Іі Ġi Jj Сс Ss Ээ Ee Zz Тт Tt Юю Yuyu Ġyiy Уу Uwuw Яя Yaya Y Ҧҧ Uw Kk Ҥҥ Üù Two-level morphology is a language-independent method to model morphologic rules of natural languages. In this model words are represented in two forms; lexical and surface. Two-level rules define transformation between the two forms. Phonological rules in this model can be expressed in one the following formulations: a:b => LC__RC This rule states that a lexical a, corresponds to a surface b only if it follows the left context (LC) and/or precedes the right context (RC). This correspondence only occurs under this condition but not always. a:b <= LC__RC This rule states that a lexical a, always corresponds to a surface b if it follows the left context (LC) and/or precedes the right context (RC). This correspondence always occurs with this condition but can also occur with different conditions. 190 M. Shylov, ―Dilmaç: Turkish and Turkmen Morphological Analyzer and Machine Translation Program,‖ Master‘s thesis, Fatih University, Ġstanbul Turkey, 2008. 191 Tantuğ, A. Cùneyd and Adalı, EĢref and Oflazer, Kemal (2006) Computer analysis of the Turkmen language morphology. Advances in natural language processing, proceedings (Lecture notes in artificial intelligence), 4139 . pp. 186193. 192 Dzhubanov, A., Khasanov, B.. 1973. Computational description of the Kazakh language. In Proceedings of the 5th conference on Computational linguistics - Volume 2(COLING '73), Vol. 2. Stroudsburg, PA, USA, 75-77. 193 Buran, A., Alkaya, E. (in Turkish) ―ÇağdaĢ Tùrk lehçeleri,‖ ANKARA: Akçağ, 2009, pp. 273-312. 561 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo a:b <=> LC__RC This states that a lexical a, corresponds to a surface b always and only if it follows the left context (LC) and/or precedes the right context (RC). This correspondence never occurs with any other condition. a:b \<= LC__RC This rule states that a lexical a, never corresponds to a surface b in given the environment of left context (LC) and right context (RC). This correspondence never occurs under this condition. Below we present a set of meta-phonems used in expressing rules. The Latin Kazakh alphabet consists of 30 letters. There are 9 vowels and 21 consonants in this alphabet. The letter groups that used in rules are defined below: Consonants: C= {b, g, ğ, d, j, z, y, k, q, l, m, n, ð, p, r, s, t, w, x, h, Ģ } Vowels: V= {a, ä, e, ı, i, o, ô, u, ù} Back Vowels: Vb = {a, ı, o, u } Front Vowels: Vf = {e, ä, i, ô, ù} I = {ı, i} A = {a, e} L = {l, d, t} Q = {ğ, q} G = {k, g} K = {k, q} M = {m, b, p} N = {n, d, t} D = {d, t} S = {s}. There are two different lexical s in Kazakh. The S is used for the one that is never deleted on the surface form. And letter s is used for the one that can be deleted on the surface form under some conditions. 2.2 Two Level Orthographic Rules Kazakh has the most strong vowel harmony among Turkic languages [ 194]. Vowels in a suffix have to agree with the preceding morpheme‘s vowels. Consonant harmony or assimilation is also strong in Kazakh. [ 195] Voiced consonants are converted into voiceless ones or vice versa. Consonants can be assimilated by preceding consonants or vowels. Under certain circumstances sound dissimilation can occur. When concatenating a morpheme to a stem, consonants or vowels can be deleted. The deleted letters can belong to either stem or suffix. Below are some of the two-level morphologic rules of Kazakh language. We consulted the following language resources on morphology [194, 195, 193] in creating these rules. We give only a portion of the rules because of space limitation. 1. k:g <=> V __ +:0 (@:0)V 2. q:ğ <=> V __ +:0 (@:0)V 3. p:b <=> V __ +:0 (@:0)V The consonants k, q and p at the end of stem are converted to g, ğ and b respectively when the preceding letter and the first letter of affixed morpheme are vowels. 194 195 Lexical: jùrek+sI Surface: jùreg0i N(heart)+Poss3PS jùregi (his heart) Lexical: ayaq+sI+nDA Surface: ayağ0ında N(foot)+Poss3PS+Loc ayağında (on his leg) Tamir, F., (in Turkish) "Kazak Tùrkçesi," Tùrk Lehçeleri Grameri, ANKARA: 2007, pp. 430-480. Koç, K., Doğan, O., (in Turkish) Kazak Tùrkçesi Grameri, ANKARA: Gazi Kitabevi, 2004. 562 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Lexical: kitap+sI Surface: kitab0ı N(book)+Poss3PS kitabı (his book) 4. L:d <=> [l | m | n | ð | z | j] +:0__ The lexical L at the beginning of affixed morpheme is converted to d when the last letter of stem is one of consonants l, m, n, ð, z and j. Lexical: jol+LAr Surface: jol0dar N(road)+PLU joldar (roads) Lexical: beyne+LA Surface: beyne0le Lexical: sôz+Lik Surface: sôz0dik N(shape)+NtoV beynele V(shape) N(word)+NtoN sôzdik (dictionary) 5. L:t <=> [k | q | p | s | t | Ģ | ç] +:0 __ The lexical L at the beginning of affixed morpheme is converted to t when the last letter of stem is one of voiceless consonants k, q, p, s, t, Ģ, ç. Otherwise L is converted to l by default. Lexical: ädep+LI Surface: ädep0ti N(manners)+NtoADJ ädepti (well-mannered) Lexical: tas+LAr Surface: tas0tar N(stone)+PLU tastar (stones) Lexical: Qazaq+LAr Surface: Qazaq0tar N(Qazaq)+PLU Qazaqtar (Qazaqs) 7. V:0 => V+:0__ If both last letter of the word and first letter of the suffix are vowels then the first letter of suffix is deleted. Lexical: bala + Im Surface: bala0m Lexical: caqında + Ip Surface: caqında0p N(çocuk) + Poss1PS balam (my child) V(get closer) + VtoADJ caqındap (by getting closer) 8. s:0 <=> C +:0__ An s at the beginning of the suffix is deleted when the word end with a consonant. Lexical: jùrek+sI Surface: jùreg0i N(heart)+Poss3PS jùregi (his/her/its heard) Finite State Morphotactics In agglutinative languages morphemes are affixed to the root successively. This affixation is dependent on the morphotactic rules of the language. Morphotactic rules define the suffixes that can be added to a word in a certain state. Each suffix changes the state of word that it is affixed. Morphotactic rules can be represented by a finite state machine. A finite state machine, which in principal is a directed graph, consists of a set of states and a set of transitions among these states. Transitions are the edges of graph labeled with inflectional or derivational morphemes defining in what order those morphemes can be affixed to a word. The immediate states, in a way, represent partial words and their part of speech tagging. The initial states represent the roots words from a lexicon and their part of speech such as noun, verb, adverb, adjective, etc. The final states represent full words 563 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo created by starting with a root word in an initial state and affixing morphemes on the transitions to the partial words in each intermediate state. We define the nominal, verbal and adverbial morphotactics of the language using this FSM model. The initial states such as noun or verb are represented by rectangles. Each state is shown by rounded rectangles. The end states are defined by double bordered circles. The states represented by dotted rounded rectangles can not be a solution for words. But all other states can be a solution. Here is an example inflection of the noun üy (house). house +N +PL +P3Sg +LOC +REL üy +0 +LAr +sI +ndA +Gi üy +0 +ler +i +nde +gi ùylerindeginið (of the thing in their house - evlerindekinin) +GEN +NIñ +niñ In this nominal analysis the following nodes are visited in FSA: Noun, Plural, Possesive 3rd Person Single, Locative case, Relative,Genitive. Here is a verbal inflection example in Kazakh: bar +Ma +Qan +Min arrive +NEG +PAST +P1s bar +ma +ğan +mın barmağanmın ((I was told) I hadn‘t arrive) The following nodes in FSA are visited in this analysis: Verb, Negative, Indefinite Past, 1 st Person Single. bar +AtIn +0 MA +0 edi +m arrive +FUTR +QUE +PAST +P1s bar +atın +0 ba +0 edi +m baratın ba edim (Was I going to arrive) The following nodes in FSA are visited in this analysis: Verb, Future tense, Question, Past Continuous, 1 st person single. bar +UwIm kerek +0 emes +0 bolsa arrive +NECS P1s +NEG +COND bar +uwım kerek +0 emes +0 bolsa baruwım kerek emes bolsa (If I shouldn‘t arrive) The following nodes in FSA are visited in this analysis: Verb, Necessity for 1 st person, Negative, Condition. Conclusions A comprehensive description of Kazakh Language is given using Koskemnieni two level morphology for the first time. We described the Kazakh phonological system using 27 two level rules which describes the mapping between lexical level and surface level of a word. Then we use the finite state machines to define nominal and verbal morphotactics. We implemented both orthographic rules and the finite state morphotactics on Dilmaç Machine Translation Framework [190]. Dilmaç is a language independent framework. Language specifications are represented in XML files in Dilmaç. No programming is required. System is web based and our implementation can be found on the Internet. Currently we are implementing a Kazakh-Turkish Machine Translation System on Dilmac. Since both languages in the same language family, they have a lot in common from phonological, morphological and syntactic aspect. Phonological and syntactic differences generally do not pose any significant problems and can be handled easily. However two languages have different morpheme sets and lexicons. A morphological word by word translation requires a morphological parsing in source language (Kazakh), a bilingual translation dictionary to translate word stems into target language (Turkish), and a morphological generator to generate the translation by affixing the morphemes the word stem in the proper order. Acknowledgement We are grateful to Dr. Kalmamat Kulamshaev for his valuable insight in this study. 564 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 85 Title A name given to the resource Two-Level Description of Kazakh Morphology Author Author Zafer, Harun Rešit Tilki, Birol Kurt, Atakan Kara, Mehmet Abstract A summary of the resource. Koskemnieni‘s two-level model has received a lot attention in modeling morphology. In this paper we present an ongoing study on a comprehensive two-level description of Kazakh morphology. Our description is implemented using the morphological parser in the Dilmaç Machine Translation Framework. A lexicon containing the root words of contemporary Kazakh is used in the testing. Phonological and morphological special cases and exceptions have been considered in nominal, and verbal conjugations. To out knowledge this is the first time Kazakh phonological rules and morphotactics are computationally described which makes it possible to implement other linguistics applications such as machine translation systems. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/b91839d3b8d30174b521127fc5f4b0a4.pdf 23facdf2ee03c4d08bdf5a1f382c4cae PDF Text Text 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Improving Reading Comprehension Skills in ESL Classes through Newspaper Articles Abdülhamit ÇAKIR Selçuk University, Turkey Faculty of Education abdulhamitcakir@yahoo.com.tr Abstract: Newspapers offer good chances of reading practice for ESL learners of different proficiency levels.Since newspaper articles are authentic in terms of language they use,experiences they report,and culture they reflect they may attract ESL learners‘ attention with their headlines,content areas,and pictures.On the other hand, they are difficult to handle for exactly the same reasons. To start with, we had beter take a close look into the nature of reading comprehension. Traditionally, in the study of second language comprehension, it has been the text (language to be comprehended)to blame for failures to comprehend not the reader or listener.Failures to comprehend a well-formed text passage have been attributed to some unknown language elements like words and gramatical rules.But today it is believed that it is not the text but the previously acquired knowledge that makes the comprehension possible.Immenual Kant claimed as long ago as 1781 that ‘new information,new concepts,new ideas can have meaning only when they can be related to something the individual already knows‘(Rumelhart:1980). One of the obvious reasons why a reader fails to understand a text is that the schema involved is culturally specific and does not exist for the reader.If the implicit culture content knowledge presupposed by a text interacts with the reader‘s own background knowledge of content, that text is easier to read and understand than rhetorically and syntactically equivalent text based on a less familiar and more distant culture (Anderson: 1979). Key Words: Newspaper, reading comprehension skills Introduction Newspapers offer good chances of reading practice for ESL learners of different proficiency levels.Since newspaper articles are authentic in terms of language they use,experiences they report,and culture they reflect they may attract ESL learners‘ attention with their headlines,content areas,and pictures.On the other hand,they are difficult to handle for exactly the same reasons. To start with, we had beter take a close look into the nature of reading comprehension. Traditionally, in the study of second language comprehension, it has been the text(language to be comprehended)to blame for failures to comprehend not the reader or listener.Failures to comprehend a well-formed text passage have been attributed to some unknown language elements like words and gramatical rules.But today it is believed that it is not the text but the previously acquired knowledge that makes the comprehension possible.Immenual Kant claimed as long ago as 1781 that ‘new information,new concepts,new ideas can have meaning only when they can be related to something the individual already knows‘(Rumelhart:1980). This previously acquired world knowledge is often called background knowledge ,and knowledge structures as schemata.Comprehending a text involves and interactive process between the text and the reader‘s background knowledge about that topic.When we read we try to map the information input in the text against our existing schema or schemata concerning that piece of information.If there is a missmatch the reader is forced to revise his/her interpretation to make this new information compatible with the previous information to make the whole text cohere (Carell:1983). The background knowledge involved in reading comprehension is of 2 types: a) Formal schema b) Content schema Formal schema is genre knowledge, background knowledge of the formal, textual organizational structures of various discourse types such as, differences in genre, structure of recepie, tales, arbituaries etc. Content schema 1 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo is the background knowledge of content area of a text such as history of needle making, nuclear centers in Iran, Turkey‘s Cyprus policy etc. (Widdowson: 2007). A succesful reader is usually equipped with both of these knowledge sturctures and thus can constitute and efficient interaction between linguistic knowledge and worl knowledge.One of the obvious reasons why a reader fails to understand a text is taht the schema involved is culturally specific and does not exist for the reader.If the implicit culture content knowledge presupposed by a text interacts with the reader‘s own background knowledge of content, that text is easier to read and understand than rhetorically and syntactically equivalent text based on a less familiar and more distant culture(Anderson:1999). Examples: Would you please have a quick look at these four articles. The Tylenol Tragedy The Tylenol tragedy has touched off a wave of renewed concern this October about pint-size Smurfs, E.T‗s, and Wonder women accepting candy from strangers. As the 31st approaches, city officiasl in dozens of towns across the country have banned trick-or-treating altogether, or restircted it to daylight hours. -Can you put these four articles in order from the easiest to the most difficult? It is clear that Turkish readers lack the neccessary background knowledge to be able to understand the Tylenol Tragedy. What background information do we need to be able to understand this article?Halloween is celebrated on the night of October 31.On that night ghosts and witches walk the earth.Children dressed in costumes may do the spirits‘ ―tricks‖ for them.To protect their homes,neighbors must give the chilren ―treats‖ of cookies or candy. From these examples we can draw this conclusion:Some background knowledge about British and American Culture in general and their newspapers and magazines in particular will be of great help to understand and appriciate what we read.First off all, our students should know that there are two types of newspapers, i.e., quality and tabloid.Quality newspapers are also known as broadsheets or heavies and they are considered to be informative and objective.They present the reader with serious news with details and comment on political and economic issues and social and world events.Tabloids, on the other hand, are considered to be more entertaining than informative and they contain many photographs,attention grabbing headlines, sensational stories and scandals(Sanderson:1999). Here is a list of British and American newspapers British newspapers The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, The Guardian and newspapers,appealing mainly to the upper and middle classes. The Times are known as the quality The Daily Telegraph is right-of-centre in its views and contains reports on national and international news. Financial Times contains a comprehensive coverage of industry, commerce and public affairs and is read mainly by proffecional and bussiness people. The Guardian is the only ‗quality‘ newspaper with liberal/left -of-centre politics.As well as a wide coverage of news events, it also reports on social issues, the arts education etc. The times takes a middle-of-the-road-view, claiming to represent the views of the establishment and is especially well-known for its correspondence column. Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Star and The Sun are popular,tabloid newspapers-they are smaller in size and contain more photographs and appeal mainly to the working and middle classes. Daily Mail and Daily Express take a right-of-centre viewpoint on most issues. Daily Mirror usually supports the Labour party. 2 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo The Sun and Daily Star are well-known for their pin-ups.The Sun has a larger circulation than any other daily newspaper. The Observer is a serious national Sunday newspaper and is read mainly by the professional middle classes. American Newspapers The Newyork Times is a serious daily newspaper read on a national scale covering national and international news. The Wall Street Journal is a business/investment daily newspaper but it also carries news of national importance. The Washington Post is a serious daily newspaper with full coverage of Congress. International Herald Tribune is a daily newspaper produced in Paris and sold in most countries of the world.It covers American and international news and contains advertisements and reviews. Magazines Newsweek is a weekly American news magazine which covers American and international news and a wide range of topics.There is also an international addition. Punch is a weekly British satirical magazine which is well-known for its cartoons. Time is sold all over the world and contains articles on US and world news as well as general articles on culture, medicene etc. Newspapers especially tabloids use some tabloidese/journalese e.i. some short sensational and often exaggerated and ambiguous words in their headlines.Here is a list of words of this kind. A) The Vocabulary of Tabloids Headline word ACCORD AID AXE BACK BAN BAR BID BLAST BLASE BLOW BOOST CLASH COUP CURB CUT DEAL DRIVE ENVOY EXIT GEMS GO-AHEAD GUNMAN Meaning agreement help cut, destroy, take away support prohibition exclude, prohibit attempt explosion fire injury help, incentive dispute revolution restraint, limit reduction aggreement campaign, effort diplomat leave jewels approval man with gun 3 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo HALT HAUL HEAD HELD HIT JET JOBLESS KEY LINK MAN NET ORDEAL OUST OUTPUT PACT PAY PIT PLEA PLEDGE PLUNGE POLL PRESS FOR PROBE QUIT RAID RIDDLE ROW SCARE SPLIT SQUEEZE STORM STRIFE SWITCH SWOOP TALK TOP VOW WALKOUT WED stop large quantity first stolen and later discovered lead, direct retained, kept in custody affect badly aeroplane unemployed essential, vital connection representative total painful experience, drama push out, drive out, replace production agreement, treaty wages, salary coal mine request for help promise step fall election, public opinion survey demand, ask for investigate leave, resign attack, robbery mystery argument, dispute public alarm divide shortage, scarcity angry reaction, dispute conflict change, deviation sudden attact or raid discussion exceed promise strike marry Newspaper headlines also use different grammaticl structures. B) The structure of headlines 1-Articles and verb ‗to be‘ are frequently omitted, e.g. PET PLAN APPROVED, MAN HELD. 2-Simple Present Tense is used for present and past events,e.g.WOMEN DRIVE BETTER THAN MEN CLAIMS REPORT; DYNAMITE KILLS 52(meaning killed),US VISIT TESTS THE POPE AS POTENTIAL WORLD LEADER. 3-Present Continuous Tense is used to describe something that is developing, e.g. RAIL CHAOS GETTING WORSE. 4-The infinitive is used to refer to future, e.g. POPE TO VISIT US. 5-In passive sentences the auxiliary is omitted and past participle is used,e.g. HIJACKER ARRESTED. 6-A series of nouns are blocked together and used as adjectives, e.g. SOCCER BOY RAIL VICTIM. 4 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo How to Use them in the Classroom. Teachers can use headlines and articles in several different ways: abcde- matching the articles and headlines Finding the synonyms of some headline words in the article. Making appropriate headlines for articles. Putting sentences into headline forms. Finding out different meanings in the ambiguous headlines, etc. A- Explain two different meanings of the following ambiguous headlines. 1-Kids make nutritious snacks 2-Squad helps dog bite victim 3- Miners refuse to work after death 4- Hospitals are used by 7 foot doctors 5- Panda mating fails; veterinarian takes over 6- Lung cancer in women mushrooms 7- Eye drops off shelf 8- Teacher strikes idle kids 9- Juvenile court to try shooting defendant 10- Stolen painting found by tree 11- Drunken drivers paid $1000 12- Local high school dropouts cut in half. 13- Include your chilren when baking cookies. B- Find the word(s) in the article which have the same meaning as the underlined word in the headline. C- Match the following headlines and articles. 1-Actress weds 2-Mother‘s plea for son fails 3-Job row may hit chilren‘s hospital 4- Bush ban on pupils after attack on crew 5- £1 million heroin haul 6- Crime profit tops £166m 7-Young wife‘s bid to beat fear 5 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo Newspaper articles As for articles, newswpapers make use of various articles in different genres such as News in Brief,Home News,Business News,Technology and Science,Comment, Editorials,Letters to the Editor, Motoring News, Televisition, The Arts, Sport, Advertisements,Features, Travel Plitics, Movies, Theatre, Arbituaries, Health, Books, Education, Home-Garden, Real Estate, Fashion-Style, Automobiles Magazine, etc. Teachers may bring these genres in to the clssroom for the students to develop various reading strategies, for different genres require different strategies. For small adds, for instance, students can be asked to match the headlines and the adds or to answer some skimming and scanning questions. For comments and editorials they may be asked to make inferences or to discuss the writer‘s view, etc.( Sharma: 2007, Bakhshandah: 2009). Now, let‘s do a sample reading lesson using a newspaper article. Could you please take a look at the article in yor hands? A12345- Which newspaper is it taken from? What kind of article is it? What is its genre? How are editorals differrent from other types of articles? Are all priests men? Do you know any women priests? In Turkey, do we have any women imams? B- 6- What is the passage about? Look very quickly through the article. Do not worry about the detail or vocabulary you don‘t know.You only need to get a very general idea of the contents C- Now read these questions and find the answers 7- According to the editorial why did some women demand for priesthood? What was the real incentive? 8- How would ordination of women put off Christian re-unification? D- A follow up activity 9- Could this article be published in a left-of-center nespaper? In Turkey? If so would meaning change? --- Questions in (A) are pre-reading questions and aim to activate students‘background knowledge about this topic and thus help them make predictions about the content of the text. --- By the question in (B) it is intended to develop readers‘ skimming skills by finding the gist of the article. --- Questions in (D) aim to make the students comment on the topic and may be used as a follow-up activity. --- Furthermore questions in (B) and (C) have been used to spesify a purpose for reading. 6 �1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo References: Anderson, N. (1999). Exploring Second Language Learning:Issues and Strategies. Boston: Heinle&Heinle. Bakhshandch, E. and et all. (2009). Listening, Vocabulary and Translation Skills through News and Media. Tahran: Rahmana Press. Carrell, P. L. (1983a). Background Knowledge in Second Language Comprehension. Language Learning and Communication 2. Carrell, P. L. (1983b). Some issues in studying the role of schemata, or background knowledge, in second language comprehension. Paper presented at the 17th Annual TESOL Convention, Toronto Canada, March, 1983. Grabe, W. and F. Stoller. (2002). Teaching and Researching Reading. New York: Longman Rumelhart, David E. (1980). Schemata: The building blocks of cognition in theoretical issues in reading comprehension, Rand J. Spiro, Bertram C. Bruce, and William E. Brewer (Eds.) Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrance Erlbaum Associates. Sanderson, P. (1999). Using Newspapers in the Classroom. Cambridge University Press. Sharma, P. (2007). Reading the news.Thomson ELT. Swales, B and John M. (2007). Genre Analysis English in Academic and Research Setting. Cambridge University Press. Widdowson, H.G. (2007). Discourse Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. 7 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 541 Title A name given to the resource Improving Reading Comprehension Skills in ESL Classes through Newspaper Articles Author Author ÇAKIR, Abdülhamit Abstract A summary of the resource. Newspapers offer good chances of reading practice for ESL learners of different proficiency levels.Since newspaper articles are authentic in terms of language they use,experiences they report,and culture they reflect they may attract ESL learners‘ attention with their headlines,content areas,and pictures.On the other hand, they are difficult to handle for exactly the same reasons. To start with, we had beter take a close look into the nature of reading comprehension. Traditionally, in the study of second language comprehension, it has been the text (language to be comprehended)to blame for failures to comprehend not the reader or listener.Failures to comprehend a well-formed text passage have been attributed to some unknown language elements like words and gramatical rules.But today it is believed that it is not the text but the previously acquired knowledge that makes the comprehension possible.Immenual Kant claimed as long ago as 1781 that ‘new information,new concepts,new ideas can have meaning only when they can be related to something the individual already knows‘(Rumelhart:1980). One of the obvious reasons why a reader fails to understand a text is that the schema involved is culturally specific and does not exist for the reader.If the implicit culture content knowledge presupposed by a text interacts with the reader‘s own background knowledge of content, that text is easier to read and understand than rhetorically and syntactically equivalent text based on a less familiar and more distant culture (Anderson: 1979). Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05 Keywords Keywords. Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics