Learning English and Understanding Literature

SMTUANA NAMNar6 KovAa

CRonln andUnderstandingLiterature

The advanlages of introducing authentic picture books into an EFL classroom havebeen widely .r.ecognised, especially in teaching English to you ng learners. The pointis supported by the existence not only of systematic methodological work (Ellis andBrewster 199 t is an example) but also of an abundan ce of teachers' positive expe-riences (Machura L995; Kovai 1999; U5nik 1999). Authentic picture books areusually praised for their versatile educational potential, and are recommended "toencourage general comprehension which can trigger a wealth of purposeful lan-guage-learning activities" (Ellis and Brewster: l-2-L3).There is, however, another invaluable quali| achieved due to employing unadaptedliterature in language learning: an authentic linguistic and cultural contextfortheFL usage. The situation is further reinforced by stressing the need to deal with aliterarytexLfor its own sake (ct Narandii Kovai 1999: 262-26+).Theforeignlan-guage is then employed as a means of developing learners' literary competence (theunderstanding of literary conventions) and aimed at understanding a story or apoem as such. Communication is lherefore performed at the purposeful level ofdiscussing a 'real' book, which, in turn, offers various opportunities for the applica-tion of multiple intelligences theory in EFL teaching (Gardner 1983; Christison1998). Thus, an intellectual response in children is welcome, as well as crealivereading. While children develop into competent readers, their linguistic com?e-tence also improves in the process.

In the given example, two interrelated, piclure books by Ron Maris (1983, 198q)are used in a class ofsecond graders (8-year-olds), who have been learning Englishfor approximately twoyears. Critical thinking is stimulated to tackle advanced llter-ary conventions, such as first-person narrative, intertextualip, elc. The learners'linguistic comp etence, on lhe other hand, is reinforced through such language pointsas prepositions of position and movement.

THE BOOKS

Both the picture books involved are appropriate to the aimed age group with re-spect to their linguistic, thematic, cultural, visual and other aspects. The illustra-tions actively develop the story and exchange with very simple text. Crucial mes-sages relevant to the story are conveyed visually, which makes it much eas\er forchildren to reconstruct the literary structure.Are you there, Bear? (198+) shows what a person sees while looking for a teddybear in a dark room using a torch. Different toys and a dog are foundind they joinin the search. Finally, the bear is discovered, reading a book. Everybody wants him

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to tell them a stofy. Interestingly, the bear's book is in fad My book (I983). In it,a person is coming home, the reader again in his/her shoes, enterir,rg lhe yard, thehouse, the bathroom, etc. The movemetit is cleverly suggested by parlly cut pages.The person is a child, who in the end takes a book from lhe very same cupboard inlhe very same room as in the former picture book, and reads it before fallingasleep. The book is My book again.

The stories thus represent first-person narrative which is largely achieved throughillustration, so that the readers look through the narrator's eyes. Only by lhe endof the latter book is there a shift of perspective, and third person narrative takesover: the child is in the pictures. Intertextuality is also achieved mainly throughillustration: lhe scenery is the same in both books, as well as a multitude of details.The concept is developed further in My book auto-reference is very strongly stressed,especially when the child reads in bed looking al exadly the page the reader is

looking at.

READING THE BOOKS

The preparationfor reading Are you there, Bear?wasvery simple: children broughttheir own toys to take part in the reading and 'help' us look for the bear in thebook. Having agreed lo read logether we imagined our markers were torches, be-cause it is 'dark' in the book. We'turned them on'and proceeded withReading. It was slow and careful; we took time to pay attention to details and tostudy the illustrations. Children were prompted to repeal the title question, whilethe text itself provided answers, so that a dialogue was developed between the bookand the readers. We closely studied the bear's book: we established what we saw andtried to guess what the book might be about. We decided we, also, would like lo readthe bear's book. In this way, the pupils experienced the first person narrative anddemonstrated creative reading building upon the stimulus the book provided.

Post-reading activities were at the same time the preparation for reading My book.Pictures of differenl toys from the two books were laid face down on a desk. Thechildren were invited to take a card or two each and see if the bear was hidingamong other toys. The children used the previously acquired vocabulary to namethe toys on the cards they had pulled, helping each other readily. There was no bearamong them, so the search proceeded into the classroom. There had to be a bearsomewhere. Evenlually they found him, cosily seated in a box, and read\ng an openbook. The children recognised the book immediately as the same that teddy wasreading to the toys in Are you there, Bear? Thus the children experiencedintertextuality using their logical intellectual skill of comparing things.Now we left the bear from the box lo read a book to children's toys and turned toMy book ourselves. Each child got a copy of the tronl page of the book to simulatethe situation in which the book is really the child's book, i.e. the reader's book,'mybook. Thus the idea of first-person narrative became clearer.Reading was again careful, attentive, and interrupted by activities. For example,when we saw a cat walking on the wall, we pretended, to be cats, moving slowly andsifently on tiptoe. We discussed the situations in the book and made inferencesbased upon what we saw. Whenever we spotted a toy in the book that was on one of

SMLAM N^naNCd Kovaa

our cards, we stuck it on the blackboard. (We ended up with a small exhibition oftoy-portraits.) We tried to imagine what, or rather who, the dog in the book waslooking at (a child? a.boy? a girl? us?), and whether the dog wasingry or friendly,etc. We tried to conclude how many people lived in the house counting the tooth-brushes in the bathroom, and whether the child was a boy or a giri., We madepredictions based on illustration: running water meant somebod/ was going tohave a bath. Who?

we pa.id. special .attention to the book the child in the book was reading: we con-cluded that, at the same time, (1) the child, the 't' of the narrative, (Z) thi bear and(3) we, the class were readingthe same book. comparing the situations we estab-lished the differences: the rea?ing took place in the bookfin the other book, and inrealily, respedively. Hence, it could be said that the book was either the narratoy's,or the bear's, or ours (mine).

Post-reading activities were aimed at looking at the story as a whole. Some lan-guage points were also practised in the process.

First we ade! the.story: some children were the gate and doors, others repealedthe stage-s of the 'plot' moving through the classioom. We opened the gate, wentinto the fronl yard, then we were in the yard, opened,the front door, weit intolhehouse, were in the house, etc. We imitated noises we 'could' hear: screech (thegate), knock knock, (the front door), splash splash (having a bath) etc.Then we sat down to do a writing activi!: using the offered words on a sheet ofp.aper, lhe book itself and colours as guides, the- pupils completed a list of thingsthat we lpen in the book (the gate, the doors, the cupboard, the book) as disti-n-guished from what is turned off (the light) (Fig. I).After that, the children were given a diagram, a plan of the house, each (Fig_ Z).Wer.epe.ated, .the -slory once again and they drew a line representing the nirratoy's(and reader's) movement during the story. Thus, information th;t had originallybeen both spatial and temporal, diachronic, was transformed into a synclironii,two-dimensional medium.Next, the answer to the question 'What is the story about? provided us with a shorts.ummary of the story: a child coming home, having a bath and going to bed. Adiscussion followed concerning the questions the story had left open, and thus lentitself to the children's creative additions. What is the child's name? Where has she/hebeen? Who was she/he with? Why does helshehave nothing to ealbefore goingto bed? Did they eat out today? The children developed, the story furth er andTnadiit more relevant to themselves. They could also compare their own experienceswith the child's in the book.The reading session was finished by retelling the creatively expanded version ofthestory.

THE ATMS OFTI{E WORKSTIOP

What the workshop tried to achieve can be summarised in several points, which alsodemonstrates how different intelligences were used and stimulated in individualpupils during the session:

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LEARNING ENGLISH AND UNDERSIANDING LITERATURE

l. Llnderstanding literature. The task, obviously, relies upon several intelligences. Itcomprises developing literary awareness of the difference between the primary,real, and lhe secondary, imagined worlds; as well as improving lilerary competencethrough the awareness of lilerary conventions and procedures such as

. fi rst-person narrative

. intertextuality

. self-reference within a text (book)

. spatial and temporal elemenls of the story.

2. Developing reading strategies. Two examples used clues from the text and theillustrations in the book to understand it better, and established a dialogue withthe text. The logical-mathematical intelligence was probably dominant here.

3. Llsing critical thinking involved various mental activities by the pupils: compar-ing, drawing conclusions, making predictions, considering different possibilities, clas-

sifliing (e.g. listing things we open), summarising, using a diagram, understandinginformation presented \n differenL media (illustration, language: written vs. sPo-

ken, diagrams). In addition to logical-mathematical intelligence, which was domi-nant in this task, as well, linguistic and spatial intelligences were also active.

4. Establishing a connection with personal experience; gefring involved through, forinstance, bringing personal toys, taking part in dramatising the story, etc. Thisaspect ofthe workshop relied particula rly on intrapersonal and interpersonal intel-ligences.

5. Promoting creative reading through filling in the gaps, finding the story "be-hind" the book, interpreting the illustrations, imagining, re-creating lhe story withnew details. Combined intelligences were required in this task.

6. Doing something. Il had two aspects: (1) physical activity, which, of course, en'gaged bodily-kinesthetic intelligence in the first place, and (2) mental activi! likepaying attention, noticing details, thinking in general, getting involved, which amongothers, stressed the intrapersonal intelligence as important.7. Learning English was necessarily achieved through answering questions, practis-ing using prepositions of movement vs. position (into vs. in), using already ac'quired vocabulary in new situations, or expanding personal vocabulary, learningsome spelling as well as, on the whole, through involving all the four basic skills(listening, speaking, reading, writing). The linguistic intelligence was dominant inthis task.

8. Discovering delight in books may even be the most important point, and needsno further explanation.

In conclusion, it is important to point out that one of iuhe most important meth-odological principles throughout the workshop was to respect the children's ideasand accept their solutions. The children were directed by the author, but only to a

certain extent.They were not learning literary conventions, they were experiencingthem and thinking about them in the way they could. Nothing the children said ordid was considered to be a mistake, but a valuable contribution to the mutual task:to feel free, interested, competent, to enjoy the books and to have fun.

SMTL|ANA N^nANdc KovA.

REFERENCES

Christison, Mary Ann 1998. Applying Multiple Intelligen ces Theory. English Teaching Forum 36(2),Apr-)un 1998:2-13.

Ellis, G. and Brewster, J. L99J.. The Storytelling Handbook for Primary Teachers. Penguin.

Gard,ner, Howard 1983. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New york Basic Books,Inc., Publishers.

Machura, Ludmila 1995. Using literature in language teaching.In Teaching English to Children: FromPractice to Principle by Chr. Brumfit, J. Moon and R. Tongue (eds): 57-80. tongman.

Maris, Ron 1983. My Book. Julia Mac Rae Books (1985: Picture Puffins).Maris, Ron L984. Are you there, Bear? (1986: Picture Puffins).Nara.nii.i Kovaa,.Smiljana. 1999. Ojeeja knji. evnost u nastavi stranogjezika. Strani jezik u osnovnoj

ikoliby Y.Yrhovac (ed.): 257-r71. Zagieb: Naprijed.Kovad, Gordana 1999. Sto se sve mo. e s Jako gladnom gusjenicom. Strani jezik u osnovnoj ikoli by Y.

Vrhovac (ed.): ?7 2-773. Zagreb: Naprijed.tlSnik, Jadranka 1999. Kr€ativno5iu do knji.evnog djela: nastavno iskustvo. Stranijezik u osnovnoj

ikoli by Y. Vrhovac (ed.): 273-288. Zagieb: Naprilid.

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