Activity 5 - Reflection on Reading and Teaching Practice (optional)

by Marie Baird - Tuesday, 28 January 2014, 05:07 AM

This activity is optional, but is recommended.
1. Listen to or read the extract from English Studies: An Introduction to
the Discipline(s) by Bruce McComiskey. This reading is not meant to
represent the ideas behind curriculum revision in the IB, rather it is a
scholarly position presented for debate.
2. Read the extracts from Blau, Crystal, and / or Morgan.
3. After completing the readings, comment on what you found most
interesting in one or more of these extracts and explain if/how this will
inform your teaching of Language A: Language and Literature classes.
Post your response here.


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Re: Activity 5 - Reflection on Reading and Teaching Practice
(optional)
by May MATAR - Sunday, 2 February 2014, 06:51 PM

I Scanned the excerpts of the resource library and found myself most
interested in Blaus extract add to McComiskys . These two articles pave
the way to wide ranges of discussion regarding the curriculum and its
relation with the future society. Without doubt, educational curriculum is
one of societys foundational components. Thats why schools should
begin revising their instructional programs in an effort to meet societys
demands for a 2lst century staff and to prepare pupils to meet the future
world. Great efforts should be forfeited to determine what these needs are,
how to address them, and how to revise and modify established
curriculum, and content so that classroom instruction would adapt the
needs of the new century. Thats why; attention to some relatively easily
managed details could offer significant improvement in the successful
implementation of effective curriculum that connects the curriculum to lives
of those who experience it.
One of those modified and revised means of instruction is giving the
students the space to explore and discover through group working. Group
working builds cooperation and raises the trust levels. Reading and
sharing the experience with others help to confirm what one has
understood as well as gaining wider perspective that comes from such
sharing. It seals gaps and creates a diverse collaboration. Cooperative
groups exhibit more positive "group think" than groups composed of
members who have individualism in their attitudes. Plainly stated, group
work that produces diverse and creative ideas is a positive addition to the
curriculum. Curriculums-Language and Literature Classes- should be
modified, improved and reformed to meet the goals of international
mindedness and concrete the way of the future society. By group working,
our students would be able to develop a host of skills that are increasingly
important in the professional world_ improve stronger communication skill,
demonstrate ability to tackle more complex problems than they could on
their own, and receive social (peer)support and encouragement to take
risks. All these benefits would prepare our future members to be leaders,
inquirers, risk-takers, communicators, ..ect


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Re: Activity 5 - Reflection on Reading and Teaching Practice
(optional)
by Marie Baird - Thursday, 6 February 2014, 05:28 AM

Re - Group Work. As online learning environments become more and
more common (and available to all) I've enjoyed incorporating these as an
alternative to group work (or rather, a new environment in which to
accomplish group work).
Students working collaboratively on a wiki or other social media can
provide opportunities for previously shy students to really find a "voice" -
and make significantly greater contributions in this alternative forum.
m


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Re: Activity 5 - Reflection on Reading and Teaching Practice
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by Bronwyn WYNGAARD - Monday, 3 February 2014, 12:46 PM

What interested me most on reading the McComiskey extract, was his
criticism of English studies as "mired in colonialising discourses". I
remember that, as a young teenager in South Africa, I believed absolutely
that the only books worth reading were those written by European - or
"white" American - writers. Everything about my own country was
somehow not as relevant, not "Great" Literature. The set works studied at
school were by Dickens, Tennessee Williams, Shakespeare and Barry
Hines. Even "Grammar" lessons, which were taught completely without
any context, in the form of punctuation exercises and conjugation of verbs,
often involved questions about Big Ben or the Tower of London! It was only
when my district library, clearly run by a progressive and interesting
person, suddenly got into stock the complete African Writers series, that I
began to question this. I am now hyper aware of the truth behind what
McComiskey says here, and dedicated to ensuring, in the classroom, that
we are all aware of the value of texts in translation and by "non-English"
writers. Crystal makes a similar sort of point about how varieties of
language need to be understood, valued and not pedantically put aside as
"incorrect". I think that many schools these days contain students for whom
English is NOT Standard English, and the varieties of English used by us
all need to be explored and understood. Again, the teaching of language
and literature needs to be interconnected - I love Crystal's use of Dylan
Thomas's quote: "...languages and literature are not two different
phenomena, but the same phenomenon." This might well go up on my
classroom wall! Definitely, in my classroom, the uses of language will be
explored in all their rainbow variations!
Another point that made me sit up and think some more was something
said by Blau: "Reading is...completed in conversation." For me, reading
has often been an isolated activity, something I did because I am an
introvert and love reading, while others are doing other things around me.
But having taught teenagers for so long now, I am very aware of their deep
need for friendship, of what social beings they really are. And I recall how
to this day, when I read something that particularly interests or amuses
me, I long to be able to run and tell my mother what I have just read, so we
can discuss it! So...yes! In the classroom, my students will not be reading a
text and answering written questions by themselves, without first having
read TOGETHER and TALKED together.


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Re: Activity 5 - Reflection on Reading and Teaching Practice
(optional)
by Helen DUNNING - Tuesday, 4 February 2014, 12:00 PM

I had a similar experience growing up, with the colonialising discourse.
Back home, this disdain for Oceanic texts was known as the 'cultural
cringe', the idea that something home-grown automatically wasn't as good
as something coming from anywhere more established, historically, or
seeming more sophisticated.
Fortunately, this has been changing since I was a kid. It's great that local
texts are embedded in the curriculum, studied and valued far more now
than they were, in part because of local publishing and media industries.
But there are still plenty of people who turn their nose up at local texts -
usually in favour of more popular American texts.


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Re: Activity 5 - Reflection on Reading and Teaching Practice
(optional)
by Bronwyn WYNGAARD - Tuesday, 4 February 2014, 12:45 PM

Helen, I like that expression, "cultural cringe"! In my junior primary days,
which were in the early 1970s, I remember doing exercises in English
class in which we dutifully copied "As green as grass, as white as
snow"...living in an area where our grass was yellow or amber and we
never saw snow!


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Re: Activity 5 - Reflection on Reading and Teaching Practice
(optional)
by Marie Baird - Thursday, 6 February 2014, 05:35 AM

Thanks Bronwyn. I, too, appreciated Blau's observation that reading is
completed in conversation.
Your comments about your early reading experiences made me smile. I've
often noted that my high school and even early uni courses mostly
featured the "dead white guys". I am a Canadian, yet the wonderful works
of Canadian authors were hardly featured in my high school English
classes. I remember the transformative experience of going to Swaziland
and being exposed to Soyinka, Gordimer, Chris Abani, Bessie Head.
Fugard. Achebe ... I still haven't recovered!
M