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13SECTION 3
TEACHING LITERATURE, TEACHING METHODS
Natalia Maltseva Saratov State University
"Dear Reader": on Students’Feedback
“I read their books and grasped this..
David Constantine
В статье дается обзор студенческих работ по трем произведениям современных английских писателей.
Tradition has it that teachers use students’ feedback to improve their teaching. With this purpose in mind, students of the 4th and 5th year were asked to comment on the books they read as part of their semester Individual reading programme. It means that they didn’t have any class discussions and skipped all the traditional language/text analyses routine like run-down of the book's major characters or a summary of the plot, and had to deal with related issues on their own. The books chosen were established books from the ORF project, {Magpie by Jill Dawson, About a Boy by Nick Hornby, and Nice Work by David Lodge), and therefore supplied with the books of Commentaries, which the students could use if they wished. At the end of the semester the participants had to submit essays on their impressions on the style and the language of the novel and whatever difficulties they encountered. I thought it better to present their opinions in the form of quotations, and I didn’t always specify the book as it is in fact more often recognizable than not.
Besides the trivial observation that some people did a more careful job than the others, one can detect certain patterns in the feedback received, and it is these that are of special interest. My report will leave out usual practical recommendations like definite teacher’s
techniques or exercises, and it doesn't aim to be exhaustive. Rather I propose this “collective reader portrayal” in the spirit of professional discussion and discovery, and hope that it may provide useful insight into students’ performance as linguists-to-be, and, well, presumably profound readers.
First, the students were asked to enlarge upon their vision of Britain and the British culture, and whether it was affected by the book in any way. Most of the students reported that the books didn’t change their general outlook on Britain, but added some new aspects to their apprehension:
*From my previous experience I only have quite general view on the western type of culture. And all in the book correlates with this view. *On the whole it only strengthened my beliefs about Britain. I think all the characters are the ordinary people, who have their own problems, interests, convictions. This book only proves that person’s behanour doesn’t depend on his or her nationality. As to British culture, I aidn’t notice the great differences between my perception of British culture and described facts in the book.
*/ already had that particular opinion about Britain and its culture, but the atmosphere of person’s little everyday world makes the impression more vivid, thanks to the abundance of details in the ncvel that are quite striking. It just gave me a deeper and more authentic insight into Britain and the Britons.
*In fact, the Russian and the British have a lot f in common: they we strong words, their ideas are similar, situations and problems an similar.
The new and unexpected aspects of the British culture were mostly connected with social issues:
*l've learned some interesting facts about Britain, like their educational system, or about the problems and ambience in the time of Margaret Thatcher, like strikes, feminism.
*Before reading the book I already knew about the class system in the UK, about the fact that there are differences between classes and some prejudices and stereotypes connected with them. But I did not expect that not that long ago, at the close of the twentieth century,
(here was such a bilious estranging attitude of members of different
classes to each other, not of such extent.
*Earlier I knew only a beautiful and luxurious life of Britain. The book has shown us the other side, the side of poverty, and contrast between poverty and luxury.
*My earlier idea of poverty in England was shaped mostly by grim descriptions from Dickens. In nowadays England the workhouses and gruel gave way to council flats and cheep fast-food. But the “concept” of being poor has not changed at all - the downtrodden character still has to steal - only she “shoplifts ”, not “pinches ”!
For most students Britain *has always been the country which exists on the pages of textbooks or on the TV screen, and sure enough we must be ready for plenty of stereotypes. Stereotyping is known to be present in any form of cultures contact, and the teachers of literature and language are mostly well-prepared to meet them in students’ feedback. But what you probably can’t expect is the students’ stereotypes to coincide with your own. Some comments are quite surprising, if not appalling.
* As Britain is known as a country of open-hearted and friendly people, it was very strange and sad to realize that the real situation is
different.
*1 always thought that Britain is the land of traditions. But this book changed my view. I realized that the British are quite informal in their private life. As I see it from the book, they are ordinary people with ordinary problems.
*The main heroes are not typically British.
*1 can’t believe that London is a dirty city as it’s never been considered as such.
*1 was stricken with the deeply bureaucratic and cold-hearted system
of psychological support in Great Britain.
There are opinions that are mutually exclusive:
*It’s a well-known fact that there is a very complicated situation related to immigrants in Britain, especially Pakistani people. Practically unconcealed anger and hatred towards them are expressed everywhere, even at schools and kindergartens.
*1 have never known that there are so many immigrants in Britain. So, it was new for me. I also did not know that the problem of racism occurs in Britain. I thought that Great Britain is a very friendly country with valid laws.
Generalizations - just or unjust - seem to be inevitable, but one can see the danger of reinforcing new stereotypes while trying to eliminate the old.
Difficulties experienced by the students can be classified into linguistic, cultural-linguistic, and psychological.
In general, many students find the language of the books (even Magpie, the “easiest” of the tree) challenging:
*the language is very complicated, it was a challenge reading this book. There are a lot of words which I have to look up in the dictionary.
Most of the difficulties are connected with vocabulary/realities, like:
*set phrases borrowedfrom French and Latin
*a lot of specific vocabulary, especially technical words, and that's why it was challenging from linguistic point of view; ...enormous number of special terms, esp. technological and engineering Colloquialisms *slang words
*names of all these organizations, agencies, some trade marks etc. technical vocabulary. At first I could hardly imagine all the scenes with descriptions of machines and the factory in general.
*British educational system - it's hard to find proper equivalents in our culture, because our educational systems are rather different. *outdated realities. For example Vic’s family has got a VCR. We use DVD-players, VCRs are disappearing. So I had to think a little before I understood that this thing is luxury and it is there to show Vic’s prosperity.
This last one is curious. One can’t help wondering how the student would get the idea of prosperity in a nineteenth century novel?
Unfortunately, this is not the only remark indicating a naive reader -sometimes ruefully naive.
The students’ comments showed, unfortunately, how unsophisticated many of them are in the art of reading books in general. As a result things to be appreciated appeared under “Difficulties” category. This is surprising, because the language students are supposed to have studied at least the basics of Stylistics and Text analysis.
*... First of all - the plot. It seemed rather boring at the beginning.
*/ was surprised when I was faced with taboo words in the text.
*The book was overburden with details.
*The most difficult thing about the book were long and complex descriptions.
* ...nonobservance of time characteristic. Recollections from the past are mixed with the present and that is why it is difficult to switch over from one action to another.
*...the name of the book because I cannot see the connection between the title and its content. Maybe there’s some kind of an implication that I’m not able to get (on Magpie).
* ...the way the chapters are named. I think it all looks a bit childish. In my opinion there was no need or point in giving these titles (on Magpie).
When it comes to literature, there is always a problem of justifying one’s opinion. What makes the teacher's opinion more valid than the student's? It trying to acknowledge that what X writes is more appropriate than what Y writes, the teacher should be ready to come up with the arguments. This is a well-known method of documenting how these feelings arise, describing certain elements within the text that spark those feelings in us.
In writing about literature, there is room, indeed, for a great deal of subjectivity, but there is a difference between sophisticated reading and immediate emotional response. What is more, this response on the part of a student is often based on a misreading or a clear-cut mistake: *But I think the thing that really caught my interest is shadowing. I’ve never thought that this idea is suitable for British business relations.
*Once Lily consulted with a psychologist and he did not advise her anything definite. And that is why I did not understand why the author included the psychologist in the book! Just to write a few pages about nothing?
*/ did not find any global problems in the book. The author just names a few problems, for example, racism and the problem of fathers and sons...
One more indication of an “untutored” student is his/her inability to stay “uninvolved” when it comes to characters and their motifs. Emotional response is considered a part of the reading experience, but the students seem to treat characters not as literary fiction, but as real people, and consequently can not appreciate the mastery of the writing. They inevitably confuse judging the writing with judging the characters and miss the aesthetic point:
*...But for example relations between the man and the woman who are described in the book are not acceptable to me. For me such relations are much free.
*As I don’t accept love triangles and never justify them, so the main line of the plot was impossible for acceptance. I felt controversial emotions: Vic and Robyn embittered me; Majorie was an object of pity. Their behaviour wasn 7 adequate, and that’s why this situation became more and more difficult and unacceptable.
*...And the third problem, that provoked incomprehension, was Vic’s behaviour, when he fell in love with Robyn. He comported himself as an enamoured schoolboy. He seemed me very annoying, and I don’t understand the reasons of such behaviour, if he was given to understand that there was nothing serious between Robyn and him. And his thoughts about divorce seemed me even more strange, his world-view, especially for marriage, was quite outdated and a bit controversial, because at the beginning of the book he believed that a wife was not a car, it was impossible to change her (a wife I mean). And then we saw another man with absolutely different opinion about marriage. I can’t understand how people could change so quickly, so it was difficult to accept it.
*From the psychological point of view I can not understand Robin’s behaviour because she dumps Vic so abruptly. It also seems a bit strange to me that Philip Swallow agreed to pay half of the price of Robin’s journey to Frankfurt taking into consideration their financial problems.
*Also I did not really get what kind of woman Robyn’s character is. Her ideas, life philosophy, internal feelings were not very clear to me sometimes. She is an unusual woman with her own mysteries *Concerning psychological point, I must say that I felt real disgust when I realized the cowardice of Alan.
* I can’t see why Josh doesn’t divorce Daphine: they clearly don’t need each other. It seems that the only thing that made them stay together was their son Neville.
Whether in negative or in positive resonance, the students could hardly avoid using language that is simplistically judgmental:
*I’ve read this book in one gulp and couldn ’t stop.
*It was fantastic from the linguistic point of view.
*...And what I do not like is the main character.
* Actually I did not like the book at all. This book is the book just to read and forget.
To be fair I should say there were also many “tutored” readers who could appreciate a good book:
*...the detailed descriptions of everything. They help to understand and feel keenly the atmosphere of the book, minute psychological portraits allow characters to come out in one's true colours.
*... the way how deftly the author had described the characters, how subtly he had drawn us all niceties of their souls, for example, on the one hand Vic Wilcox was a good, strict director, who exactly knew his business, on the other - a man, who loved listening to sentimental songs.
* ...epigraphs. They are brilliant, they are so suitable to each chapter of the book, that reading them you immediately understand about what will be this chapter. They really made me excited, the other very pleasant fact that the epigraphs are the words of very famous classical writers and they find a place in contemporary editions.
*The descriptions of the city are double-edged sword, because sometimes it was quite boring to read, but on the other hand it revealed an atmosphere of the situations and helped to penetrate the very heart of the setting.
*I’m fond of writing down quotes from the book I’ve read, so I have many diaries for this purpose. I suppose this book was full of memorable quotes
*As a student studying linguistics I like parts where Robyn explains to Vic some basics of semantics and semiotics
*But there is one specific part that sank into my mind most of all, because in it I’ve found my own tangled thoughts pat pretty much logically into words. - a conversation between Robyn and Charles on the importance (or non-importance?) of linguistics and its place in modern society: ‘But doesn ’t it worry you at all? ’ That most people don’t give a... damn about the things that matter most to us? ’
Needless to say, writing about literature demands special skills. Hopefully, our students’ ability to say what they like about the object at hand - whether it's a book or a painting or a concert - will become more subtle and convincing over the years since their first book review.
Still the main educational challenge, to my mind, can be attributed to general literary/informational scene of nowadays. With the abundance of amateur self-published writers we are about to get much more of amateur readers before long. It looks as though “fearful, defensive or otherwise fragile students” are in minority; Collective Reader sounds assertive and somewhat under-educated.
Arguably, what we have to do (without being straightforwardly authoritative) is to make our students see the advantages of accomplished reading.
