Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Friday, October 27, 2017
Law of nature vs. law of society in 'Scarlet letter'
Assignment Paper 10
American Literature
Ajit A. Kaliya
M.A. Sem. 3
Roll No.1
Enrollment No. 2069108420170013
Batch: 2016-18
Email- kaliyaajitbhai@gmail.com
Department Of English, MKBU
Department Of English, MKBU
'Scarlet letter' is a famous novel by
Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is a novel about a woman who has committed adultery and
how she punished by society. How she struggles in society. There is depiction
of nature also. What is nature's law? Does for nature also Hester's crime was
punishable? How do characters feel while they are society and when far away
from society in nature? We can find in novel that both are different. Mother Nature
is different from human nature. The things which are natural become crime in
society. All laws, rules and customs are made by humans. And it changes with
time. So, nature vs. Society becomes important theme in the 'Scarlet letter'
After custom house episode, when main character Hester' story begins we see that one woman is brought to the scaffold among the crowd. She was there for punishment. There is child in her hands. The crime was she had relationship with other man and now a child. No one knows who the father of the child was. This was unforgivable crime for the society. And people hate who have relationship without marriage. It is crime for society and not for nature. Desire of body is natural thing and Hester may have this vision and that's why even after people's hatred she lives with dignity. Society contrasts with nature. Society has laws, nature has no laws. Society binds, nature frees. Society punishes, nature forgives. Society gives stress, nature relives it.
This contrast is made clear from the very
first page, when the narrator contrasts the black flower of the prison that
punishes sin with the red rose bush that he imagines forgives those sentenced
to die. The theme of nature continues with the forest outside Boston. Which is
described as an unchristianized, lawless region. In the dark forest would,
passionate and persecuted people like Hester, Pearl, Mistress Hibbins and the
Indians can escape from the strict, repressive morality of puritan society. In society, is also the only place where
Hester can reunite with Dimmesdale when Hester moves to the outskirts of
Boston, the narrator says she would have fit in the forest. Hester's choice to
live on the border of society and nature represents her internal conflict. She
can't thrive entire within the constraints of Puritanism, but because of her
attachment to society and to Dimmesdale, she also can't flee. (litcharts.com)
Thus here writer praises nature by saying
it unchristianized and lawless region. It accepts all without any discrimination.
With the use of Hester Prynne and her
daughter Pearl Hawthorn successfully proves that a relationship with nature,
which embodies purity and freedom, can draw one’s mind away from the corruption
and enslavement of a cruel society. Hester Prynne the main character of The
Scarlet Letter is plagued with the adulteress “A” throughout the novel. Her
Puritan society shuns, scorns, and talks negatively about her behind her back and
to her face. Aware of society’s lack of acceptance of her sin Hester looks to
nature for her own sense of security and freedom. “She had wandered without
rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast and as intricate as the
untamed Forrest…Her intellect and heart had their home as it were in desert places
where it roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods.” The forest for
Hester was freedom from the “A” that society damned upon her. In the forest she
had the ability to take off the “A” and be her natural self. Chapter 18 states,
“She undid her clasp that fastened the scarlet letter and taking it from her bosom
through it among the withered leaves.” After taking off the letter in her place
of freedom she was clean of society’s evil eye against her. “O exquisite
relief! She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom. (123HelpMe.com)
In the forest natural laws are supreme and
so Hester and Dimmesdale commit their adultery there, black man makes his home
and Mistress Hibbins practice her witchcraft. These things are abandoned by
society. (studymoose.com) Hester and Dimmesdale
meets in jungle and there they decide to leave Boston. Hester who even never
removed 'A' in house removed her A for the first time. It symbolizes that in
nature there is no crime and no punishment. She was criminal on society, not in
jungle.
Pearl also can be considered as representing nature. She has not yet aware about society's laws. For her meaning of A is different. Meanings, rules, morality all are different from person to person. So natural laws are universal laws. When left alone on the beach, pearl pelts small birds with pebbles for amusement. However when she injures one she grieves to have done harm to a little being that was as wild as sea breeze. Pearl learns an important lesson about right and wrong by using nature and her own conscience. The remorse she feels leaves a lasting impression far more powerful than punishment from authority. Nature provides clear examples for children to learn from and on which to base their morals. From society child gains vices more than morals while from nature they learn good things. By learning from nature children can use their conscience instead of the rules of authority to learn the difference between right and wrong. Left alone in the forest, pearl interacts with various animals which accept her because they all recognized a kindred wilderness in the human child. This wildness refers to pearl's natural childhood environment free from the pollution of society. (gradesaver.com)
Another symbol coming from the forest are
the Indians. They live in the forest and only periodically come under the
jurisdiction of moral laws by entering a city or town. Because of this their
actions and ideas can be interpreted to represent the position of natural law.
In the instance when they interpret the meaning of the scarlet letter during
the election day sermon their interpretation that the wearer of this
brilliantly embroidered badge must needs be a personage of high dignity among
her people, is the exact opposite of what the symbol was originally intended to
mean. The symbol for nature in this case considers the scarlet letter a boon.
In contrast, the scarlet letter was originally intended to be a punishment
having the effect of a spell, taking her out of ordinary relations with
humanity and including her in a sphere by herself. This was the original
function which the moral law dictated the letter should serve. It is human’s
nature that they ignore all the virtues and see only vices. (studymoose.com) Indians from jungle
see Hester's virtues and she becomes holy figure for them. Hester is a good
woman who helps everyone. But only because of one event of her life, everybody
started to hate her.
In the novel both mother nature and human
nature are presented. But human nature dominates Mother Nature because we have
to live in society. Who cannot bear the rule of society they want to go far
away from society and live in jungle and mountains. Hawthorne regards natural
laws by asserting the dominant position and influence of the human laws. By
noticing when and how Hawthorne offers the truth to the reader such as when
Hester lied to Pearl in the forest setting or when Chillingworth's character is
revealed under the scrutiny of heavenly light, the human laws are dominant.
Even the chief symbol of the book, the Scarlet letter has a meaning imposed
solely by the human laws. In all of these instances the human laws prove that
they are stronger and more pervasive than the natural laws. (studymoose.com) Some questions arise
that does for nature also adultery is crime? In the novel when Dimmesdale,
Hester and Pearl were standing on scaffold on one night, they see a meteor
falling down and it created ‘A’ shape in the sky. Does it mean nature also
wants to say that they have committed adultery. Other thing is about ‘A’ on
Dimmesdale’s chest. Nobody know from where the letter came? Had it carved by
him or was it naturally came out as punishment of his sin. But in the end of
the novel when Hester comes back she had still wear the ‘A’ but now no one hate
her. By charitable work she gets respect and after death she is buried next to
Dimmesdale. It is showed that whatever Hester had done was not wrong and
virtues should be praised in the society.
Works Cited
123HelpMe.com. Nature vs. Society
in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter . 27 October 2017
<http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=84866>.
gradesaver.com.
Law of nature versus man in scarlet letter. 27 October 2017 <http://www.gradesaver.com/the-scarlet-letter/essays/law-of-nature-versus-man-in-the-scarlet-letter>.
litcharts.com.
Nature theme analysis. 27 October 2017
<https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-scarlet-letter/themes/nature>.
studymoose.com.
moral law vs natural law in scarlet letter. 13 July 2016. 27 October
2017
<https://studymoose.com/moral-law-vs-natural-law-in-the-scarlet-letter-essay>.
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Dependency complex, inferiority complex and superiority complex
Assignment Paper 11
Post-colonial literature
Ajit A. Kaliya
M.A. Sem. 3
Roll No.1
Enrollment No. 2069108420170013
Batch: 2016-18
Email- kaliyaajitbhai@gmail.com
Department Of English, MKBU
Department Of English, MKBU
Introduction
Frantz Fanon is one of the major figures
in post colonial literature. His book black skin white mask is famous among
post colonial literary critics and provides many important theories and
position of black people in white world, their mentality, their behavior etc.
In 4th chapter he talks about dependency complex, inferiority complex and
superiority complex.
Mannoni, a French psychoanalyst, wanted
to understand the mind of the native and the white colonial based on his
experience and study of Madagascar under French rule in the 1930s and 1940s. Himself
a white colonial, he wrote a book about it, “The Psychology of Colonization” (1950).
Frantz Fanon, himself a native spends this chapter tearing it to pieces. (abagond)
Dependency complex
Most natives are content to put whites
above them and be dependent on them because it fulfills a deep need in their
hearts, one that was there long before whites showed up. Mannoni calls this
dependency complex. (abagond)
So it is about black people's dependence
upon white people. White people rule the world because black people are dependent
on white people. Even today also white countries rule the world. Eastern
countries are very much dependenton them. Weapons, nuclear bombs, most of the products are controlled by Western world. Any country cannot make nuclear weapons without Western countries permission. So in many ways black people are dependent on white people. Even after freedom all countries are dependent upon Western world. It is mentality of black people that they cannot do anything without white people. In Robinson Crusoe Friday himself accepts Crusoe as his master.
What becomes of the exceptional cases of
which M. Mannoni tells us? Quite simply, they are the instances in which the
educated Negro suddenly discovers that he is rejected by a civilization which he
has none the less assimilated. So that the conclusion would come to this: To
the extent to which M. Mannoni’s real typical Malagasy takes on “dependent
behavior,” all is for the best; if, however, he forgets his place, if he takes
it into his head to be the equal of the European, then the said European is
indignant and casts out the upstart—who, in such circumstance, in this “exceptional
case,” pays for his own rejection of dependence with an inferiority complex. Earlier,
we uncovered in certain of M. Mannoni’s statements a mistake that is at the
very least dangerous. In effect, he leaves the Malagasy no choice saves between
inferiority and dependence. These two solutions excepted, there is no
salvation. “When he [the Malagasy] has
succeeded in forming such relations [of dependence] with his superiors, his
inferiority no longer troubles him: everything is all right. When he fails to
establish them, when his feeling of insecurity is not assuaged in this way, he suffers
a crisis.” The primary concern of M. Mannon was to criticize the methods
hitherto employed by the various ethnographers who had turned their attention
to primitive peoples. But we see the criticism that must be made of his own work.
After having sealed the Malagasy into his own customs, after having evolved a unilateral analysis of his
view of the world, after having described the Malagasy within a closed circle,
after having noted that the Malagasy has a dependency relation toward his
ancestors—a strong tribal characteristic—M. Mannoni, in defiance of all
objectivity, applies his conclusions to a bilateral totality—deliberately
ignoring the fact that, since Galliéni,18 the Malagasy has ceased to exist. (Fanon)
Inferiority complex
Inferiority complex is the feeling of
consider yourself less important than others. Mannoni says that native black
people suffer from inferiority complex. They are unhappy because of they have
not as much importance as white people and so they want to be equal to white.
There are reasons behind this complex of
black people. In chapter black man and language Fanon says that who speak
perfect French they are considered good while who sidewall Creole they do not.
White people feel ashamed of their children speak it. Fanon found out
first-hand: in France white people talk down to you if you are black. Either
they speak in fake pidgin French – “Why you left big savanna?” – Or they would
act too familiar, calling you old fellow and so on. French doctors, for
example, would talk to their white patients with impersonal respect but to
blacks and Arabs like they were their old friend or something. (abagond)
This is an example of how even language
is the factor for inferiority complex of black people. In India we see in
history that his untouchability was there. There is inferiority complex in
lower caste people. They do not get education, they do not get good job, they
do not get reputation in society, they insulted in many ways. Same ways in
ruling white countries black people are insulted and white people see them
differently. These all factors are reason behind feeling of inferiority. Only
because of their skin color they become inferior. And it become their mentality
that they are inferior to white and the way of white live, eat, wear behave
that becomes right way and other start to imitate them.
Do inferiority complex is major issue
even today also. Eastern people imitate Western people and consider those
countries better.
Prospero complex (superiority complex)
As black people suffer from inferiority
complex, white people suffer from Prospero complex. Just like the Prospero in
Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, they want to lord it over the natives. The
colonies draw those whites who cannot accept others as they are, who do not
want to have to take other men seriously but instead want to lord it over them.
(abagond)
White people believe themselves superior
and believe their way is better. Rudyard Kipling's sentence it is white man's
burden to civilize the world is the best example of superiority complex.
Shakespeare's theme is the drama of the
renunciation of power and domination, which are symbolized by magic, a borrowed
power which must be rendered up. Man must learn to accept himself as he is and
to accept others as they are, even if they happen to be called Caliban. This is
the only wise course, but the path towards wisdom is long and infinitely
painful for Prospero. There is no doubting the nature of Prospero's magical
power, for at his side we find his obedient daughter -- and magic is the
child's image of paternal omnipotence. Whenever his absolute authority is
threatened, and however slights the threat, Prospero -- our aspirant to wisdom
-- always becomes impatient and almost neurotically touchy. The essence of the
problem is revealed at the outset; Prospero lays down his magic garment and
prepares to tell Miranda the story of his life. In other words, he tries to
treat Miranda as an equal; but he fails. He begins with 'Obey and be
attentive,' and the recital is punctuated with other orders of the same kind,
all absurd and quite unwarranted; later in the play he even goes so far as to
threaten Miranda with his hatred. It is the same with Ariel; Prospero has
promised him his liberty, but fails to give it to him . . . This again means
that Prospero has the absolute authority of the father. Caliban is the unruly
and incorrigible son who is disowned. Prospero says he was 'got by the devil
himself.' At the same time he is the useful slave who is ruthlessly exploited.
But Caliban does not complain of begin exploited; he complains rather of being
betrayed . . . . Caliban has fallen prey to the resentment which succeeds the
breakdown of dependence. Prospero seeks to justify himself: did Caliban not
attempt to violate the honor of his child? After such an offense, what hope is
there? There is no logic in this argument. Prospero could have removed Caliban
to a safe distance or he could have continued to civilize and correct him. But
the argument: you tried to violate Miranda, therefore you shall chop wood,
belongs to a non-rational mode of thinking. In spite of the various forms this
attitude may take (it includes, for instance, working for the father-in-law, a
common practice in patriarchal communities), it is primarily a justification of
hatred on grounds of sexual guilt, and it is at the root of colonial racialism.
What the colonial in common with Prospero
lacks, is an awareness of the world of others, a world in which others have to
be respected. . . . Rejection of that world is combined with an urge to
dominate, an urge which is infantile in origin and which social adaptation has
failed to discipline. The reason the colonial himself gives for his flight --
whether he says it was the desire to travel, or the desire to escape from the
cradle or from the 'ancient parapets', or whether he says that he simply wanted
a freer life -- is of no consequence, for whatever the variant offered, the
real reason is still what I have called very loosely the colonial vocation. It
is always a question of compromising with the desire for a world without men.
As for the man who chooses a colonial career by chance and without specific
vocation, there is nevertheless every possibility that he too has a 'Prospero
complex', more fully repressed, but still ready to emerge to view in favorable
condition. (The Prosper Complex)
So by example of Prospero Mannaoni talks
about superiority complex of white people. Like Prospero they want to make
others their slave and want to rule the land.
Conclusion
So these theories of Mannon are important
to study racism and mindset of black people and white people. Fanon
psychologically analyses that and gives further information. This type of
complexes does not only feel between white people and black people but poor-each,
and between castes also those complexes are there.
Works Cited
abagond. Fanon: The So-Called Dependency Complex of
the Colonized. 26 February 2010. 26 October 2017
<https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/fanon-the-so-called-dependency-complex-of-the-colonized/>.
Fanon, Frantz. Black skin, white masks. Trans.
Charles Lam Markmann. United Kingdom: Pluto Press, 1986.
The Prosper Complex. 26 October 2017
<https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/engl2080/208.scholia12.html>.
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Thursday, October 26, 2017
Listening skill, speaking skill, reading skill, writing skill
Assignment Paper 12
English language teaching 1
Ajit A. Kaliya
M.A. Sem. 3
Roll No.1
Enrollment No. 2069108420170013
Batch: 2016-18
Email- kaliyaajitbhai@gmail.com
Department Of English, MKBU
Department Of English, MKBU
In any language there are four basic
skills. Listening skill, speaking skill, reading skill and writing skill.
Purpose of language is to communicate. For communication listening and speaking
skill is necessary while reading and writing skills are additional functions of
language. The natural sequence of learning language is listening, speaking,
reading, and writing. When learning another language the sequence changes to
reading, writing, listening and speaking. When learner knows all these four
skills then language is known.
1) Listening Skill
The skill comes at first place when
learning language is listening skill. When a child comes into the world, they
cannot read, write or speak they can only listen. Any native language is acquired
by listening. So listening skill is most important in learning language.
The term listening is used in language
teaching to refer to a complex process that allows us to understand spoken
language. Listening, the most widely used language skill, is often used in
conjunction with the other skills of speaking, reading and writing. Listening
is not only a skill area in language performance, but is also a critical means
of acquiring a second language (L2). Listening is the channel in which we
process language in real time - employing pacing, units of encoding and pausing
that are unique to spoken language. (Nunan and Carter)
Background
Listening in language teaching has
undergone several important influences, as the result of developments in
anthropology, education, linguistics, sociology, and even global politics. From
the time foreign languages were formally taught until the late nineteenth
century, language learning was presented primarily in a written mode, with the
role of descriptive grammars, bilingual dictionaries and 'problem sentences'
for correct translation occupying the central role. Listening began to assume
an important role in language teaching during the late-nineteenth-century
Reform Movement, when linguists sought to elaborate a psychological theory of
child language acquisition and apply it to the teaching of foreign languages.
Resulting from this movement, the spoken language became the definitive source
for and means of foreign language learning. Accuracy of perception and clarity of
auditory memory became focal language learning skills. This focus on speech was
given a boost in the 1930s and 1940s when anthropologists began to study and
describe the world's spoken languages. Influenced by this anthropological
movement, Bloomfield declared that 'one learns to understand and speak a
language primarily by hearing and imitating native speakers' (Bloomfield 1942).
In the 1940s American applied linguists formalized this 'oral approach' into
the audio-lingual method with an emphasis on intensive oral-aural drills and
extensive use of the language laboratory. The underlying assumption of the
method was that learners could be 'trained' through intensive, structured and
graded input to change their hearing 'habits'.
(Nunan and Carter)
Listening in SLA
In second language acquisition (SLA)
research, it is the 'linguistic environment' that serves as the stage for SLA.
This environment - the speakers of the target language and their speech to the
L2 learners - provides linguistic input in the form of listening opportunities
embedded in social and academic situations. In order to acquire the language,
learners must come to understand the language in these situations. This
accessibility is made possible in part through accommodations made by native speakers
to make language comprehension possible and in part through strategies the
learner enacts to make the speech comprehensible. (Nunan and Carter)
Practice
For learning language continuous
listening is required. There are many ways to practice listening. Now there are
audio tapes, Television available which can be good source for listening
practice.
Here are key recommendations that have
been made by language educators concerning the teaching of listening.
Morley (1984) offers an array of examples
of selective listening materials, using authentic information and
information-focused activities (e.g. notional-informational listening practice,
situation-functional listening practice, discrimination-oriented practice,
sound-spelling listening practice).
• Ur (1984) emphasizes the importance of
having listening instruction resemble 'real-life listening' in which the
listener has built a sense of purpose and expectation for listening and in
which there is a necessity for a listener response.
• Anderson and Lynch (1988) provide
helpful means for grading input types and organizing tasks to maximize learner
interaction.
• Underwood (1989) describes listening
activities in terms of three phases: pre-, while- and post- listening
activities. She demonstrates the utility of using 'authentic' conversations
• Nunan (1995c) provides a compendium of
recipes for exercises for listening classes, organized in four parts:
developing cognitive strategies (listening for the main idea, listening for
details, predicting), developing listening with other skills, listening to
authentic material and using technology. (Nunan and Carter)
2) Speaking skill
Speaking is the main function of the
language. Languages are for speaking. In natural process of language learning,
speaking comes to second place. Through listening children imitates the
utterance. Slowly they know the meaning of the words. Gestures also plays very
important role in understanding meaning of the language.
Speaking in a second language (L2) involves
the development of a particular type of communication skill. Oral language,
because of its circumstances of production, tends to differ from written
language in its typical grammatical, lexical and discourse patterns. In
addition, some of the processing skills needed in speaking differ from those
involved in reading and writing. (Nunan and
Carter)
Background
Disabling as a branch of teaching emerged
for last two decades. Earlier there was not much importance of spoken
discourse. There are three reasons for this.
First is traditional grammar translation
method of language teaching. Teachers just teach grammatical rules and
translate the words in native language. There is no scope for learner to speak
language.
The second is technology: only since the
mid-1970s has tape-recording been sufficiently cheap and practical to enable
the widespread study of talk - whether native speaker talk (Carter and McCarthy
1997: 7) or learner talk - and use of tape recorders in the language classroom.
Due to the difficulty of studying talk, it was easier for teachers,
methodologists, applied linguists and linguists to focus on written language
than spoken language (for nearly 20 years the TESOL convention has run annual
colloquia on the teaching of reading and writing, but not on speaking or
listening).
The third reason for its peculiar
development might be termed 'exploitation': most approaches to language
teaching other than grammar-translation (the direct method, the audio-lingual
approach) as well as more marginal approaches (such as the Silent Way,
Community Language Learning and Suggestopedia) exploited oral communication
centrally as part of their methodology: not as a discourse skill in its own
right, but rather as a special medium for providing language input, memorization
practice and habit-formation. (Nunan and Carter)
Characteristics of speech
Levelt (1989) proposed that speech
production involves four major processes: conceptualization, formulation,
articulation and self-monitoring
Conceptualization is concerned with
planning the message content. It draws on background knowledge, knowledge about
the topic, about the speech situation and on knowledge of patterns of
discourse. The conceptualize includes a 'monitor', which checks everything that
occurs in the interaction to ensure that the communication goes to plan. This
enables speakers to self-correct for expression, grammar and pronunciation.
After conceptualization, the formulator
finds the words and phrases to express the meanings, sequencing them and
putting in appropriate grammatical markers (such as inflections, auxiliaries,
articles). It also prepares the sound patterns of the words to be used: LI
errors of pronunciation very commonly involve switching sounds between words
that are separated from each other; such switches suggest that the
pronunciation of words must be prepared in batches prior to pronunciation.
The third process is articulation. This
involves the motor control of the articulatory organs; in English: the lips,
tongue, teeth, alveolar palate, velum, glottis, mouth cavity and breath.
Self-monitoring is concerned with
language users being able to identify and self-correct mistakes. (Nunan and
Carter)
Practice
• A range of different types of
interaction need practicing.
• The conditions of oral tasks need to
differ from those for written skills.
• Improvised speech needs practice, but
around some content familiarity.
• Overt oral editing skills need to be
encouraged, including the use of communication strategies.
• Oral language processing requires
integration of accuracy, complexity and fluency.
• For learners' oral abilities to
develop, courses need to vary the emphasis on fluency, accuracy and complexity. (Nunan and Carter)
3) Reading skill
In second language learning teaching can
improve vocabulary. Like listening it can also helps learner to get natural
structure of sentences.
Focus on the uses of reading
A number of scholars have wished to
locate discussion of reading within the wider framework of literacy practices,
as specific to particular sociocultural environments. This emphasis is of
relevance to teachers whose learners come to English language literacy with
diverse experience of literacy in a first or other language. Some will be
highly literate in a first literacy; others may be acquiring literacy through
the medium of English. In either case it is important to see reading and
writing as part of language behavior beyond the learning of specific skills or
strategies. Street (1984) introduces a dichotomy between an autonomous model of
literacy which sees reading and writing as the learning of skills which are
supposedly universally implicated in literacy instruction, and a view of
literacy which is called 'ideological' and by which reading and writing practices
have currency and prestige, not because of any inherent value but because of
social and historical factors particular to the cultural setting. (Nunan and Carter)
Product: focus on text
In some accounts of reading, priority is
given to the text and parts of texts with varying attention paid to form alone
or the relationship between form and meaning. At the same time, particular
reader skills may be identified as linked to the focus on specific textual
features. One such skill is phonemic awareness, as evidenced by sensitivity to
the sound constituents of words, allowing the learner reader to map the letters
in words onto an equivalence of sound. The teaching approach promoting this
skill is called phonics. Traditionally seen as alternative to phonics
approaches in the teaching of initial reading are look-and-say or whole-word
methods where learners are encouraged to acquire a sight vocabulary, largely
through memorizing. (Nunan and Carter)
Process: focus on reader
Process accounts of reading take the
reader rather than the text as a point of departure. They are sometimes termed
top-down, on the grounds that they give greater emphasis to the kinds of
background knowledge and values which the reader brings to reading. The nature
of this knowledge can be characterized as a 'schema', or mental model, allowing
a reader to relate new, text-based knowledge to existing world knowledge. In
the 1980s and 1990s the role of the reader shifted. In early accounts of
reading the reader was seen as passive: reading, along with listening, was
referred to as a 'passive skill'. There was then a shift in emphasis from a
passive, acquiescent reader to an active one. Thus, the reader was typically
described as 'extracting' meaning from a text. More recently the ground has
shifted again to talk of reading as 'interactive' rather than simply 'active'.
Readers are seen as negotiating meaning; meaning is partial within the text and
writers' intentions may not be privileged over readers' interpretations. (Nunan and
Carter)
READING AS A SOCIAL PROCESS: CRITICAL READING
More recently there has been interest in
reading as a social, critical process (Wallace 1992a; Baynham 1995). This
strand of enquiry pays greater attention to social and ideological factors
which mediate in readers' access to text. Critical reading is concerned less
with the individual author's communicative intent than with ideological effect:
the claim is that readers need not accept the words on the page as given, but
that a range of interpretations are legitimate, providing that textual warrants
are offered. L2 readers, in particular, may bring different kinds of cultural
and ideological assumptions to bear on L2 texts, thereby offering, it is argued,
fruitful challenges to mainstream or conventional readings. (Nunan and
Carter)
4) Writing skill
Writing is last skill of language
learning. Teaching English second language (L2) writing differs from teaching
other language skills in two ways. First, even as late as the 1970s, L2 writing
was not viewed as a language skill to be taught to learners. Instead, it was
used as a support skill in language learning to, for example, practice
handwriting, write answers to grammar and reading exercises, and write dictation.
In fact, while graduate programmes in TESOL regularly offered courses in other
skill areas, virtually no coursework was available in teaching L2 writing.
Second, as the theory and practice of L2 composition teaching gradually
developed, it followed the path of US native English speaker (NES) composition
theory. Only recently has English L2 composition theory and pedagogy begun to
offer English first language (LI) researchers and teachers insights and
pedagogical practices. (Nunan and Carter)
Background
In the 1970s many English L2 language
programme writing classes were, in reality, grammar courses. Students copied
sentences or short pieces of discourse, making discrete changes in person or
tense. The teaching philosophy grew directly out of the audio-lingual method:
students were taught incrementally, error was prevented and accuracy was
expected to arise out of practice with structures. In the early 1980s, as
teachers became more aware of current practices in NES composition, there was a
shift from strictly controlled writing to guided writing: writing was limited
to structuring sentences, often in direct answers to questions, or by combining
sentences - the result of which looked like a short piece of discourse. (Nunan and Carter)
Writing strategies in TESOL
• re-writing from different viewpoints
• shifting registers to explore changing
communicative effects
• writing predictions and completions to
texts as part of a process of detailed text study
• Cross-genre writing (e.g. from poetry
to prose and vice versa). (Nunan and Carter)
Practice
As ESL research and practices have
developed, many techniques and methods have proved successful in English L2
writing classrooms:
• Careful needs analysis to plan
curriculums (Reid 2000);
• Co-operative and group work (including
collaborative writing) that strengthen the community of the class and offer
writers authentic audiences;
• Integration of language skills in class
activities;
• learning style and strategy training to
help students learn how to learn (Reid 1998); and
• The use of relevant, authentic
materials and tasks. (Nunan and Carter)
Conclusion
All four skills together make the
language. In language learning they are interdependent. One skill helps to
learn other skill. So, it is necessary to having good control of all four
skills for acquiring good language.
Works Cited
Nunan, David and Ronald Carter. Full text of
"The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other
Languages". 26 October 2017
<https://archive.org/stream/ilhem_20150321_1654/[David_Nunan,_Ronald_Carter]_The_Cambridge_guide_t_djvu.txt>.
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