Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Spring 2006

Week 12 - Kasper. (2000). Chapter 6, pp. 107-121 & Kasper. (2000). Chapter 7, pp. 122-134 - Answers

1. Why are short stories seen as a useful bridge to content? (Kas6)

The basic idea underlying short stories as a bridge to content is that they allow learners to personalize some of the content and deal with issues in a way that is less formal. In a substantial way, the use of a well-selected short story will allow students to create more personal links with the content material that is sure to come. Content topics are introduced in a different way - a way which connects them to the world more concretely. So, in effect the use of short stories is a way of not only activating, but more importantly building, schema which will allow students to better understand the content when it does come.

Obviously short stories are chosen as opposed to longer novels or the like due to their relative brevity. And despite Kasper`s extremely bright attitude caution must still be taken. In looking at other content-based materials for younger learners in particular, most strikingly CALLA, we were told that literature might not be the best type of content to start with because it is hard for lower level learners to process due its length and authenticity (it might make use of vocabulary items and structural units that students are not familiar with and therefore not able to process). Kasper reports no problems like this and, in fact, suggests authenticity as one of the main reasons for using short stories. This may very well because she is working with older students on a university campus in the US. We need to remain somewhat cautious about the ideas, or at least the suggestions for the stories she gives because they might just be too hard for our students. Kasper does not discuss any ways of making these texts more comprehensible other than through the use of prereading activities, nor does she discuss possible problems with reading such texts or limitations in doing so.

2. What are some of the different types of activities that can be used with short stories to make them effective tools for learning language ? (Kas6)

In a very familiar way Kasper advocates developing and using three basic types of activities to be used for short stories. These can be divided up based on their sequence of use in relation to the story itself. The first of these are prereading activities. The purpose of these prereading activities is primarily to activate schema not only directly related to the short story itself but to the content as well. It is hoped that these prereading activities not only help the students to better understand the short story that they are about to read but also work to link the short story or what will appear in the short story to a specific content area, such as psychology. In these prereading activities the main focus is on activating content knowledge through vocabulary development as well as practicing skills like writing and error correction.

The activities that are to be done during the reading are of several types. First a rather simple reading comprehension exercise is given to determine if there have been any basic problems with reading the text. Next the students need to do some writing activities designed to get the students to personalize the experiences they have read about in the short story (this writing is obviously not very formal or technical). Then they do more specific work on vocabulary and other issues related to specific forms. This form practice is intended to get students used to some of the forms they might be expected to encounter in more formal texts on content and as such functions as an important bridge or scaffolding mechanism for later more content-based readings.

The post-reading, or what Kasper calls consolidating, activities revolve around using film and/or audio tapes to heighten the entire experience for the learners. The idea is that the students need to be exposed to different forms of language, both spoken and written. The tricky part here is to find a video or audio tape (a video is better) which is related to the content area you are trying to teach, but it should be simple enough.

Once the teacher has gone through the three main steps in relation to the short story reading, including the consolidation step including video, then she is ready to introduce th students to some basic content materials. Again, like the video materials the content materials need to be rather simple and should be able to be connected to the short story the students read. The most important aspect of all this is that all the different elements of the entire plan need to be related.

3. How can audiovisual information be linked to print and why should it be? (Kas6)

One of the main advantages of film, aside from the ones mentioned below, is that it allows students a different way of processing information. Students in Human Learning and Cognition are certainly familiar with the idea that the more different modes are used for the encoding of information the better to information is stored and the higher the likelihood that it will be easily retrievable. Based on this simple argument, film is, therefore, an invaluable resource in the classroom and particularly in the CBI class. Film, the right film, will enable students to better understand certain concepts. Likewise skills related to spoken and not exclusively written language will be enhanced. Teachers can develop speaking and listening activities that will go with the film that is being used. Vocabulary and concepts can be contextualized in a multitude of ways and be, thus, better learned as well as stored.

4. What are some of the main reasons for wanting to use film in the CBI classroom? (Kas7)

Obviously, film is a medium that can be very useful in the classroom. We know that a classroom is probably the worst environment for students to be learning about language. Classrooms are way too restrictive, teachers are often way too limited in what they can do in the classroom. Classrooms, in a very true sense, are not authentic in the least. Using film is one way of bringing more authentic material and input into the classroom. We also know that the vast majority of learners are visual as well as auditory and what classrooms often fail to do is to provide enough meaningful visual input for students. There are systematic benefits of film in general, but in CBI film can play an even larger role. We know that one of the major concerns of CBI is content. This content is often very abstract and difficult to understand, even for intelligent university level students, because it is intended for study in school, a decontextualized environment. The abstract nature of the content often makes it difficult for students to associate the content into a pre-existing cognitive structure. Film is a great way of trying to form links between abstract topics of content and the real world as represented by pre-existing cognitive structures in the minds of the learners. In this way films can act like a bridge or really series of bridges between content and reality. Students, in particular non-native speakers, in trying to deal with content that is even difficult for native speakers can derive a great benefit by making this link. Turning the abstract into concrete is often what films do best. One example would be if you are teaching law to a bunch of potential or even practicing lawyers. In this case there is a wealth of films or TV shows which focus around law practices and courtrooms. This will give the students great exposure to how lawyers in the English speaking world actually use language and can often be much more entertaining and motivating then simply going through very dry books and other print resources.

5. What are some of the pitfalls or variables in using film in the classroom? (Kas7)

The great pitfall of using film in the classroom is that the teacher might not really know how to use the film effectively. The teacher might simply play a film in its entirety without stopping it and allowing students to really figure out what's going on. There's not very much value in this. The teacher needs to know how to work the film, and draw the students attention to certain elements in the film. Otherwise it will be a vacuous, although entertaining, activity. Different fields of course will have to be dealt with in different ways. Longer films will be to be trimmed, or only certain sections will need to be shown. Short documentaries might be shown in their entirety, but the student should be given something to do while watching the film besides just watching the film. Their attention must be drawn to specific elements in the film.