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Culture and Creativity: Literature and Intercultural Language Education

7/29/2016

BRAZ-TESOL INTERCULTURAL LANGUAGE EDUCATION
PRE-CONFERENCE INSTITUTE (PCI)

Culture and Creativity: Literature and Intercultural Language Education

The following activities were presented by John Corbett, Malu Sciamarelli and Nella De La Fuente at the International Conference in Brasilia on 14th July 2016:

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IELTS Practical Tips - Iffaf Khan

7/29/2016

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The C Group member, Iffaf Khan, who is an experienced facilitator in English for Academic Purposes and Exam Preparation for Stafford House School of English London in the Cambridge Education Group, is writing a series of creative IELTS Practical Tips for the OneStopEnglish website.

The first article of the series, Encouraging Different Types of Reading, can be found here:

www.onestopenglish.com/exams/ielts/ielts-practical-tips/ielts-practical-tips-encouraging-different-types-of-reading/555320.article

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BRAZ-TESOL INTERCULTURAL LANGUAGE EDUCATION SIG: Pre-PCI activities

7/22/2016

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BRAZ-TESOL INTERCULTURAL LANGUAGE EDUCATION
PRE-CONFERENCE INSTITUTE (PCI)

Culture and Creativity: Literature and Intercultural Language Education

John Corbett, Malu Sciamarelli, Nella De La Fuente

Pre- Activities

The Braz-TESOL Intercultural Language Education SIG presented a session on exploring creativity and culture at the International Conference in Brasilia on 14th July 2016. The following activities were shared before the event.

1. Focusing on the here and now

Among the key skills for both cultural exploration and creativity is observation. The following activity invites learners to look up from their smartphones and observe what is happening ‘here and now’.

A: Pre-reading activity

What is the here and now?
• The five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, hearing...
• Memories of sensations just gone...
• Feelings (of happiness, restlessness, boredom, frustration)

How can these be organised into a poem that contrasts and surprises?

B: Reading activity

Read this poem and complete it by adding a final line:

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
By James Wright 1927–1980

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.

To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.

C: After Reading

Listen to the teacher read the story and compare your final line with the original:

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.

To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.

How has James Wright’s final line changed your understanding of the poem? Why do you think he believes he ‘has wasted his life’? Should he have spent more or less time in a hammock, observing the here and now?

D: Follow-up activity

Write your own poem of the ‘here and now’. Close your eyes and think of a place you know well. Imagine being there. Then write down answers to the following questions:

What can you see?
What can you hear?
What can you feel?
What can you smell?
What can you taste?
What can you sense?
Is there something you notice or suspect?

2. Found language

Cultural exploration involves bringing what is outside the classroom inside. The following activity invites learners to observe what is happening in their environment and turn it into poetry.

Send your learners to a public place where people are coming and going, and write down the first 100 words or phrases you hear said. Translate them into English.

Look around you and note down any signs or notices in English.

Bring the list to class, and, in groups, select some words and phrases, and turn them into a poem, song, or story.

3. Points of view

Among the key skills for developing cultural awareness is the ability to see things from different points of view. This creative activity encourages learners to do just that.

Look at these photos:

Writing activity

In groups, half the class describes the scene in a 10-line poem from the point of view of the juggler.

In groups, the other half of the class describes the scene a 10-line poem, from the point of view of the driver.

Remember to think about all the five senses and what each person is feeling.

Think about what has just happened...and what will happen next.

From writing to performance

Each group selects someone to perform the 10-line poem by saying it out loud.

Rehearse.

Then two people (juggler & driver), one from each half of the class, come to the front and perform by reciting one line from each poem, turn by turn.

4. Back-translating cultures

Translation has been neglected and even stigmatized over the past few decades – but anyone engaged in cultural exploration is always in the process of translating the unknown with reference to the known. The following activity invites learners to ‘back translate’ a poem and its cultural reference – and compare the results.

Look at the following image and describe the man and his occupation:

A poem was written in Portuguese about a man like this. Look at the translation into English below, and write down what you think the original Portuguese was. Then the teacher will read aloud both versions.

The Rickshaw Man

He came
from the other side of the river
in the tide’s flow
held in waters of hope
night without stars
pockets of nothing
pedal on the hungry lanes
sip bowls of rain
sleep under the cold awning
go in the wind’s wings
lives alone
the rickshaw man
sits in night’s shadow
neither would gods comfort him
rot in the heart
of the life without hope
nothing in pockets
with holes
the rickshaw man
lives alone

Kit Kelen and Lili Han (translation)

Veio da outra margem do rio
na corrente da maré
abraçado às águas da esperança
noite sem estrelas
bolsos repletos de nada.
Pedala nas vielas da fome
sorve malgas de chuva
dorme nas arcadas do frio
viaja nas asas do vento.
Vive só
sem ninguém
o homem do riquechó.
Sentado nas sombras da noite
nem os deuses o confortam,
no peito carcomido
a vida
sem esperança
nos bolsos furados
o vazio de nada
Vive só
sem ninguém
o homem do riquechó.

José Silveira Machado

5. Utopian dreams

This creative activity encourages learners to think about the negatives in their own culture and transform them into positives in the culture of tomorrow.

First step

In groups, write down 4 statements about the world that are not to your liking, e.g., In my apartment, the rooms are too small and the walls are made of paper.

Then cross them out and replace them with positive statements you wish were true, e.g., I wish I lived in a mansion with a long blue swimming pool.

Second step

Think of a beautiful name for an ideal country, e.g., Utopia or Lamorna. Arrange your dislikes and wishes into a poem with the following form:

In my apartment the rooms are too small and the walls are made of paper,
But, in Lamorna, everyone lives in mansions with long blue swimming pools.

Rehearse reading the poem in your groups.

6. Every picture tells a story

A distinction is often made between ‘high culture with a capital C’ and ‘everyday culture with a small c’. Once of the challenges is to bring these cultures together. The activity below invites learners to explore the high culture arts for imaginative – sometimes metaphorical – insights into everyday life. The paintings here touch on doomed ambition and romantic dreams.

Look at the picture below. Do you recognize the story it tells?

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, by Peter Breughel

A good question to ask is why the painter chose this particular moment from the story of the rise and fall of Icarus, and why he painted it from this perspective. If you have an advanced level class, you might ask them to read WH Auden’s poem about this painting and reflect on Auden’s answer to this question:

Musée des Beaux Arts
by WH Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Brueghel's Icarus for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Follow up activity:

Ask the learners to visit a real or an online gallery of paintings - e.g. http://artuk.org/ - and choose a picture to tell a story about. For example, look at the painting below and discuss the following questions:

Who are these people? What is their relationship?
How did they meet? How did they find themselves on this boat?
Where did they depart? Where are they going? What are their hopes and dreams?

On the sailing boat, by Caspar David Friedrich

7. National poets

The activity below invites learners to consider the role literary culture plays in representing a nation.

Does Brazil have a ‘national poet’ – that is, someone whose work represents the nation? Can you name him or her? Can you give a quotation from their work? Can you translate it into English?

Ask learners to use their general knowledge (and the Internet!) to find out the national poets of the following countries:

England Albania
Scotland Nicaragua
Chile Vietnam
Nigeria Portugal

Groups of learners choose a poet and – using online research – find out something about their life and work. Choose two or three good quotations.

Then select three learners to play the role of national poets in a ‘balloon debate’. The class is invited to imagine that the three national poets are flying in a hot-air balloon which is sinking and that one of the poets must be thrown out if all three are not to die. The learners must persuade the class that his or her life is worth saving on the basis of the value of their life and work.

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Interview with Dr. Chris Lima

7/12/2016

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Dr. Christina Lima, a Lecturer in Literature and Language at the University of Leicester, UK, will give a plenary at the 15th BRAZ-TESOL International Conference about Shakespeare and his influence and impact on the English language and how the greatest British playwright can help English language learners and teachers develop language awareness, critical thinking, and their appreciation of literature in general.

Chris has won the 2015 British Council/Macmillan Education Award for Innovative Writing and we are very happy to share her interview here.

How did your passion for Shakespeare begin?

When I was about 13 years old and stumbled upon Macbeth in translation. I still remember the beautiful blue leather-effect hardback cover edition with golden title letters and drawings. I had never read anything like that before; I was astounded. I read it in a day and started looking for similar editions of the other plays. I think my following one was Romeo and Juliet. I was less impressed though because I think if you come first to Macbeth, the other tragedies are likely to pale in intensity; perhaps with the exception of Hamlet and Othello. I think my experience tells us that we should not dismiss the importance of literature in translation as it may serve as a first contact and a portal that may lead readers to later exploration of texts in their original versions.

Why is Shakespeare’s English still relevant today?

Because it is part of the language we speak and use every day. It is a gross misconception that Shakespeare’s English is outdated. There are certainly parts of the texts that can be obscure and certain words and expressions that we don’t use any longer, but this can also be said of other more recent writers. Shakespeare’s language is part of the DNA of the English language. At a more superficial level, it shows in his extensive contribution to the English vocabulary and in the idioms and expressions that we frequently use. At a deeper level, it shows in the ways we sound when we speak, construct our sentences, and organize our thoughts when we write and speak. This very paragraph is an example of that.

How can teachers use Shakespeare in the ELT classroom?

It depends on what kind of classroom we are talking about: the age group, students’ level of language proficiency, the educational context (primary, secondary, Higher Education) and also the resources teachers have access to. Generally speaking, I would say it is important to approach Shakespeare in a way that lets students experience it as both text and performance. With children and young learners it is particularly important that we use drama techniques in the classroom. And, if you have the technology resources, use film adaptations and video recordings of stage performances. You will see that students engage much more with the plays than if you only used the texts. When I came to Shakespeare, there was no Internet and access to film was basically restricted to going to the cinema. This has all changed now. There are fantastic resources and teaching materials available online for a wide range of learners and teaching contexts; teachers just need to explore them.

What can participants of BRAZ-TESOL expect from your presentation?

I will explore the aspects I mention above about how Shakespeare’s English is still relevant today. However, I will also go beyond the language aspect to look at how much I think we do need Shakespeare in education, as a whole. I will end my talk sharing some resources teachers can use to bring Shakespeare to their learners.

Chris Lima’s plenary will be on the 15th of July, at 2:25pm

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Culture and Creativity: Literature and Intercultural Language Education

IELTS Practical Tips - Iffaf Khan

BRAZ-TESOL INTERCULTURAL LANGUAGE EDUCATION SIG: Pre-PCI activities

Interview with Dr. Chris Lima

THE C Group Blog

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